With repression, Saddam cast Iraq into a dark era

CAIRO, Egypt -- Saddam Hussein has taken an advanced and powerful nation and plunged it into a dark era of two devastating wars and 12 years of misery under U.N. sanctions.

Saddam's brinksmanship cost Iraq dearly in its 1980-88 war with Iran and the 1991 Gulf War that all but wiped out his once-formidable army. Now he faces yet another war, in which the United States aims to oust him once and for all. Even Arab governments least enthusiastic about a war quietly wish he'd go.

Saddam insists he has complied with U.N. resolutions demanding he disarm, and weapons inspectors have monitored the destruction of his stockpile of Al Samoud 2 missiles.

"We don't want war. We want peace. But not at any price," he told commanders of his elite Republican Guard in early March. "We want the peace that will safeguard our land, our sovereignty, the dignity of our people and our full rights as free people."

Saddam's nationalism and defiance of America plays well in some Arab quarters, and if any of his 22 million people are unhappy under his rule, his repression ensures that they keep their opinions to themselves. Campaigns against rebellious Kurds in the 1980s left 180,000 people missing and presumed dead. He used chemical weapons to kill 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in the north and sent tanks to quash dissent among Iraqi Shiite Muslims in the south. Repulsive stories of abuse, such as children being tortured in front of their parents, have created the image of a monstrous regime.

On television, to his people and the outside world, 65-year-old Saddam seeks to cut a father-of-the-nation figure determined to meet the U.S. challenge and more interested in building schools and hospitals than in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.

Iraqi TV viewers see him joke, laugh and relax with his military commanders. He laces his talk with Muslim prayers and is said to have a copy of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, written in ink mixed with his blood. At televised meetings with his generals he switches easily between comradely old soldier and stern disciplinarian.

"Pass on my greetings to the fighters and say hello to your families," Saddam told the commanders after a recent pep talk. "May God protect you."

His picture graces streets and offices in a hundred different guises, from field marshal brandishing a rifle to medieval Arab warrior on horseback. Yet he is rarely seen in the flesh. He moves frequently from palace to palace to throw off any assassins.

Saddam, from a peasant clan in Tikrit, a Tigris River town 75 miles north of Baghdad, conspired and killed his way to power. He cut his teeth co-engineering the coup that brought the Arab Baath Socialist Party to power in 1968. The consummate conspirator, Saddam quickly became the thug behind the new leader, Gen. Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, and the government began to purge its opponents. In 1969, more than 50 people were executed as alleged spies, among them a group of Iraqi Jews.

By July 1979, Saddam had pushed al-Bakr aside to become Iraq's undisputed leader.

With oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's, Saddam initiated ambitious social, educational and economic reforms in the 1970s. Within a decade, he raised the nation's literacy rate from 30 percent to 70 percent and Iraq became a leader in the Arab world in health and education.

Rivaling his insistence on unquestioning support is Saddam's paranoia and ruthlessness. After ousting al-Bakr, he had 22 high officials executed, joining in their firing squad.

Today Saddam trusts few people other than his sons, Qusai, his presumed heir, and Odai. Both head elite security units. Other relatives have been less fortunate. In August 1995, two of Saddam's sons-in-law, both also his cousins, defected to Jordan with their wives. Returning home in the belief they had been pardoned, both were dead in 72 hours and their wives never seen again.

In 1980, Saddam invaded Iran, his country's historic rival, expecting a swift victory. The inconclusive eight-year war impoverished Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers despite Saddam's repeated attempts to secure a cease-fire.

In 1990, driven by historical grievances, a sense of entitlement born of his war losses and his dreams of regional oil dominance, Saddam made his biggest mistake: he invaded his tiny neighbor, Kuwait. A U.S.-led coalition drove him out in 100 hours, his soldiers surrendering in disarray. He fired missiles at Israel, hoping to rally the Arab world behind him, but the strategy failed because Israel refrained from retaliating.

U.N. sanctions are meant to stay in place until all of Iraq's long-range missiles and chemical, nuclear and biological weapons are destroyed. Saddam maintains that the weapons programs are dismantled, but the world remains skeptical and the United States insists he must be ousted -- by war if all else fails.