PBS Frontline interview with author Said K. Aburish

Said K. Aburish

A journalist and author of numerous books, including the latest, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge, he also was a consultant for this FRONTLINE report. For several years he worked closely with Saddam's government in posts which gave him the chance for unusually close access to Saddam Hussein himself. Beginning in the mid-seventies, he was a go-between for Western arms manufacturers doing business with Iraq, and he was part of Saddam's secret plan to acquire chemical weapons and an atomic bomb.

Aburish describes Saddam as:

· methodical, organized, a planner

· a fan of Stalin

· from a poor family

· intelligent but uneducated

· not a military man

· not ideological or particularly religious - a believer in the supremacy of the nation-state

· hardworking - capable of working an 18-hour day endlessly

· distrusting of those outside his family

· determined to modernize Iraq and make it a model for Arab countries -- and willing to be ruthless to carry out his plans

· enamored with technology

· willing to use chemical weapons if he knows he is going down

Aburish gives the following timeline for Saddam Hussein's career:

· became a gunman for the Ba'ath Party and participated in the assassination attempt on Iraq's strong man, General Kassem in 1959

· went into exile in Cairo then returned in 1963 when the Ba'ath took power and began to organize the party and reduce the power of the military; served as Vice President

· started a program to acquire unconventional weapons in 1974

· removed President Ahmed Hassan Bakr and became president in 1979; then went to war with Iran

· invaded Kuwait in 1991 because he believed the country was being used to overthrow him (their increases in oil production were driving the price of oil down and thus Iraq was losing money)

Aburish claims U.S. involvement with Iraq and Saddam Hussein to have been:

· substantial involvement in the coup against Kassem in 1963 - the CIA and the Ba'ath Party shared information and worked together after the coup to eliminate leftists and communists who threatened the Ba'ath Party's power

· along with other Western governments, gave unconventional weapons technology to Saddam Hussein in the 1970s

· supported Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1979 and supplied Saddam throughout the war

· began to criticize Saddam's human rights policies after the end of the Iran-Iraq War

· responded to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1991 by defending Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War but did not support rebels who attempted to remove Saddam after the war

· withheld support from the Kurds and others who opposed Saddam in 1995

· supported containment and sanctions throughout the 1990s

· bombed Iraq after Saddam asked U.N. weapons inspectors to leave in 1998 (Operation Desert Fox); led continual air strikes against Iraq in 1999