Inside Saddam's World
The U.S. likes to portray Iraq's regime as shaky. But TIME's reporting inside Iraq suggests Saddam isn't losing his grip

The mad hatter might feel at home in the Wonderland of Iraq. The day is already growing hot as lines of ramshackle buses jam the normally empty highway to Tikrit, the rural hometown of Saddam Hussein. It's April 28, Saddam's 65th birthday. Crowds of military men, sheiks in flowing robes and farmers in shabby pants spill onto the expansive parade ground Saddam has built for special occasions like this.

As the guest of honor arrives, groups of schoolgirls, including a unit clad in the black face masks of suicide-bomber trainees, perform dances dedicated to Saddam's "pulse of life." Then an interminable line of marchers files through, maybe 10,000 strong, singing "Happy year to you, President Saddam Hussein, who brought victory to us."

Trouble is, the man standing high above on that imposing podium is not Saddam Hussein. It's Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Saddam intimate foreigners have dubbed "Chemical Ali" for his role overseeing the 1988 poison-gas attacks that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds.

Saddam is nowhere in sight for his Tikrit party or for any of the other parades and cake cuttings orchestrated across Iraq during the six-day birthday celebration. More than ever, he is an invisible ruler, his authority wielded from the shadows, where he hides from potential assassins. The birthday parties were intended to deliver a message to any Iraqi citizen feeling restive, to any foreign government contemplating his overthrow. The all-powerful puppet master can make his whole nation sing his praises as a blunt reminder: I am still here. It won't be easy to get rid of me.

The Bush Administration hopes the hollowness of that birthday scene is a symbol of the true state of the archenemy's regime: brittle and rotting from within, held together only by force and bribery. The White House has concluded that Saddam poses a clear and present danger that must be eliminated. "He is a dangerous man possessing the world's most dangerous weapons," President Bush has said. "It is incumbent upon freedom-loving nations to hold him accountable, which is precisely what the United States of America will do."

Beyond Bush's advisers, objective monitors too are convinced that Saddam possesses hidden chemical and biological weapons and is working feverishly to build a still elusive nuclear bomb. He's a serial aggressor. September 11 probably opened Saddam's eyes to powerful and unorthodox methods of attack. Terrorists want weapons of mass destruction, and he has them. "The lesson of 9/11 for us," says a senior State Department official, "is you can't wait around."

As Bush repeatedly telegraphs his intention to finish Saddam, the Iraqi leader is not exactly sitting on his hands. "He's not so naive as to ignore the seriousness of this threat," says Wamidh Nadhmi, a Baghdad political scientist in contact with the regime. "He knows it would be very difficult for Bush to retreat from his declared intent."

SADDAM'S IRAQ

For Saddam, the Gulf War was not a defeat but a victory: though he was evicted from Kuwait, he remained in power. In the decade since the war, Saddam has endured strict economic sanctions and has evaded U.N. inspections designed to eliminate his weapons of mass destruction.

For years, Saddam ruthlessly milked the suffering of the Iraqi people to erode the global determination on maintaining the U.N. sanctions. Now he has shifted gears to meet a different objective: to keep those same long-suffering Iraqis from rebelling against him. So the taps have opened: more of the money from his legal oil sales and illicit oil smuggling, once reserved for the purpose of bribing regime loyalists, is now being spread around to the populace.

Saddam appears to be preparing for war. Officials of the Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C.), the London-based, U.S.-funded, main Iraqi-opposition group, and Kurdish intelligence sources say that for the past two months, government agencies have been conducting preparatory exercises, sending top officials to designated safe locations, for example, and protecting official archives. The sources claim that the commanders of the army have been reshuffled and that various military units have been moved around the country. The I.N.C. says its sources report that military factories are being dismantled so that key components can be hidden from bombing.

Like his hero Stalin, Saddam sees weapons of mass destruction as the great equalizers that give him the global position he craves. A nuke plus a long-range missile make you a world power. Deadly spores and poisonous gases make you a feared one. These are the crown jewels of his regime. He sacrificed the well-being of the Iraqi people and billions of dollars in oil revenues to keep the unconventional weapons he had before the Gulf War and to engage in an open-ended process of acquiring new ones.

Of course, blatantly using weapons of mass destruction against his greatest enemies, the U.S. and Israel, would expose him to a nuclear reprisal that would almost surely end his rule. But if he could punish either country and survive, he might do it. He might also risk supplying terrorists with his deadliest weapons if he saw a way it might enhance his power.

Meanwhile, Saddam is working hard to undercut international support for a U.S. attack on him by deploying his diplomatic weapons. His offer of $25,000 to the family of every suicide bomber and every Palestinian family made homeless by the Israeli assault on the Jenin Refugee Camp has won wide admiration at home and in the larger Arab world. He has burnished his reputation as the one Arab leader who says no to Washington and stands up against Israel.

While others would find the situation desperate, Saddam has always managed to make his way through. If the U.S. indeed attacks, his key strategy will be to weather the assault, hoping that the world will turn against the Americans before they succeed in taking him down. Until that day comes, if it comes, Saddam will rule on from the shadows that protect him from a lifetime's worth of enemies. For him, every birthday that passes is another glorious victory. —TIME, May 13, 2002

Questions

1. What does Saddam's birthday party in Tikrit reveal about Iraq?

2. How is Saddam seeking to undercut support for a U.S. attack on him?