Saddam and the Future

Throughout many severe crises, Saddam Hussein has demonstrated a great capacity to survive. In addition to terror, he effectively used propaganda to promote a cult of the "Glorious Leader." Many people in the Arab world admired him for standing up to the West. Nevertheless, during the summer of 1995, he had some difficulty in putting down an Iraqi army revolt, and two of his sons-in-law defected to Jordan.

In October, 1995, Saddam was re-elected to a new seven-year term as president by a 99.96 percent vote in a nationwide referendum. After his sons-in-law returned to Iraq in 1996, they were soon killed in a gun battle with members of Saddam's own clan.

On December 16, 1996, Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, was seriously wounded by a would-be assassin in Baghdad. Although he survived, the injury caused him to be replaced as his father's apparent successor by his youngest brother, Qusay. In 2001, Qusay Hussein became a member of the Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Baath Party and a deputy commander of the military branch of the party. These events seemed to consolidate the hold on power of Saddam Hussein's family and to make it increasingly probable that the clan could not be pushed out without outside intervention.

Meanwhile, Saddam's regime and Western leaders remained unable to agree on terms necessary to end the trade embargo against Iraq. U. N. reports of 1995 stated that the embargo had caused more than 750,000 children to suffer from malnourish-ment, with 4,500 dying each month. In 1996 Iraq accepted the U. N. terms for inspections in exchange for increased oil sales as

Well as for food and medical supplies. However, this agreement did not last very long.

Saddam Hussein repeatedly placed unacceptable conditions on UNSCOM inspectors, backing down only when the United States prepared for renewed military strikes. Russia and other countries wanted to make compromises, but most Western leaders feared that Saddam was secretly planning for new aggression. A solid majority within the U. N. Security Council agreed that the embargo would not be lifted until the international inspectors could certify that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam Hussein's grip on power within Iraq appeared unshakable at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He was able to make his position even more secure by improving Iraq's relations with several of its neighbors. Although relations with Iran continued to be tense, in 2001 Iraq hosted a visit from Syrian prime minister Mustafa Mero, and reestablished air and rail transportation with Syria. Iraq also bettered its relations and reopened rail transportation with Turkey in that year.

Despite Saddam Hussein's ruthless wiliness, the enmity of the United States posed a serious threat to his regime. International sanctions against Iraq had gradually weakened in the late 1990's, but in the early twenty-first century events brought intensified American attention to Iraq. On September 11, 2001, Muslim terrorists with the al-Qaeda network based in Afghanistan hijacked American passenger planes and flew these into the Pentagon and the New York World Trade Center, destroying the center's towers and killing thousands of civilians.

U. S. government officials maintained that before the terrorist attacks, there had been meetings between high-level members of al-Qaeda and representatives of the Iraqi government. However, no evidence was found to indicate that Iraq was directly involved in the terrorist attack of September, 2001. Nevertheless, the wanton destruction and killing provoked a new willingness by the United States to engage in military action. Saddam had long been seen as a villain by American leaders and he contributed to this view when he did not condemn the attacks and offered no condolences to the United States or to its public. When the United States

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And the British invaded Afghanistan to aid the opposition to the ruling Afghan regime, Saddam condemned the American action and called on Muslim nations throughout the world to make war on the United States.

Saddam's hostility, his refusal to allow U. N. weapons inspectors back into his country until all sanctions were dropped, and Iraq's efforts to shoot down surveillance planes flying over the country all combined to convince American leaders that Saddam's rule had to be ended. In 2001, U. S. secretary of state Colin Powell indicated that after the United States had finished in Afghanistan, it would move on to Iraq. Throughout 2002, U. S. president George W. Bush argued that Iraq's efforts to develop biological and nuclear weapons warranted intervention and, in the wake of the September, 2001, attacks on the United States, President Bush appeared to have substantial support from the U. S. Congress on this issue. The American public seemed to support the president's position, as well. A New York Times/CBS News poll taken in September, 2002, reported that 68 percent of Americans approved of U. S. military action against Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. British prime minister Tony Blair strongly supported Bush's position on Iraq and, together with the U. S. president, sought the support of the United Nations and of individual nations in endorsing an attack on Iraq.

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan warned the United States against taking military action alone on Iraq, maintaining that military intervention would require the approval and participation of the United Nations. This was difficult to achieve, however, because France and Russia, both of whom had veto power in the United Nations, were opposed to invasion. In mid-September, 2002, Saddam Hussein made it still more difficult to achieve an agreement on intervention when he offered to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into his country. The situation became even more complicated on October 1,2002, when the Iraqi government announced that it was preparing to let inspectors return and that it would allow them unannounced into secret sites. The chief of the U. N. weapons commission, Hans Blix, said that he felt that this indicated a new openness. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair opposed any U. N. resolution on Iraq that did not provide for an immediate military response if Iraq did not comply completely, and both of these leaders said that it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein.

With some U. N. members hoping that a U. S. invasion of Iraq could be avoided if new inspections were conducted, on November 8, the U. N. Security Council approved Resolution 1441, saying that Iraq must disarm and accept inspectors to prove that Iraq has disarmed, or face serious consequences. The Iraqi government put up a show of defiance, and its parliament voted to reject the U. N. resolution; however, the threat of a U. S. attack finally forced Saddam Hussein to give in. The return of U. N. weapons inspectors to Iraq was tense, and the Iraqi government maintained that the real purpose of the inspectors' visits was to create excuses for a U. S. invasion.

Throughout early 2003, U. S. president George W. Bush's administration sought international and domestic support for military intervention in Iraq. However, by March it was clear that there would be no agreement in the United Nations on the matter. The French, Russian, and German foreign ministers issued a declaration stating that their governments would not permit a U. N. resolution authorizing military action. Meanwhile, Turkey's decision not to permit ground troops to use its territory to invade Iraq complicated things, and British prime minister Tony Blair faced political challenges because of his support for war. Nevertheless, on March 18, President Bush declared that Iraq would face an invasion if Saddam Hussein did not step down in forty-eight hours.

American and British planes had been making desultory air attacks on Iraq for some months, but war did not begin in earnest until March 20 (Iraqi time), when U. S. forces launched air strikes on Baghdad. Coalition paratroopers began dropping into northern Iraq in the last week in March, but Turkey's limited cooperation meant that the main coalition forces had to invade from the south. Coalition troops initially encountered light resistance there until they assaulted Nasiriya and the port city of Basra. Coalition expectations of a Shiite Muslim revolt against Hussein in the south were frustrated. By April, as British and American forces encircled Baghdad, the outcome of the conflict remained uncertain, and signs of serious guerrilla resistance raised fears that even if the invasion succeeded, the occupation that followed would be difficult.

Thomas T. Lewis Updated by the Editors