The Rules of Their Exile

By Bobby Ghosh

Why did Saddam Hussein's daughters suddenly break cover last week to emerge in Amman, Jordan, and why did Jordan's King Abdullah welcome them? Jordanian sources close to the former dictator's family say Raghad and Rana Hussein had sent feelers to several Arab capitals in the weeks before their siblings Uday and Qusay were killed in Mosul, but their brothers' grisly end inspired the sisters to speed up their search for a safe haven.

Jordan, with its long and close ties to the Saddam regime, was a logical choice. But King Abdullah hesitated, sources say, first seeking U.S. approval for any exile deal. Only when he had the nod from Washington did the King offer the sisters his hospitality and protection. The terms of exile may not be in writing--one source described it as a "gentleman's agreement"--but they are nonetheless precise. The sisters are to maintain the lowest possible profile and steer clear of any activity that may be construed as political, according to a Jordanian politician. That includes talking to the media--they were permitted only two interviews, one each with an Arab outlet and a Western one.

For the sisters, Amman is the ideal place to go into exile; the majority of Jordanians worship Saddam, and are likely to give his daughters the full privileges of Arab protection. In downtown Amman, a reporter seeking public reaction to the TV interviews was admonished by a shopkeeper, "We don't talk about our guests with outsiders." The sisters and their nine children are housed in one of the King's guesthouses in the royal enclave of Dabouq but are expected eventually to move to a private home.

Having the sisters in Jordan suits the Bush Administration too. The Americans know they can rely on Abdullah's intelligence agency Mukhabarat to keep a close eye on Raghad and Rana. "It could have been worse," said a State Department official. "They could have gone to Libya or Syria, where we'd have no way of knowing what they were up to."

And for Abdullah, the deal is doubly attractive; it allows him to claim his father's mantle as a Middle East conciliator, and it mollifies the majority of his subjects who saw Abdullah's pro-U.S. stance during the Iraq war as a betrayal of an Arab hero. --By Aparisim Ghosh