GROUNDING PHOENIX
(Saddam Hussein's Continuing Threat to the International Community)

The more optimistic pundits believed that Iraq's militant intent was in
terminal decline after the Gulf war of 1991. Regrettably, Saddam Hussein

has not dropped off the radar screen as intended; on the contrary, he
has proven to have the same political resistance, self-sustainment,
recalcitrance and perverseness of a certain recent US president. He is
like the Phoenix rising from the ashes of the Gulf War. Saddam's
continuing menace reflects a failure to recognize the dangers, both
contained and potential, and is only proof of a long series of
analytical misjudgments concerning Saddam. This paper will try to
evaluate his reasoning, objectives and the risk he presents to the
international community, and suggest a means to deal with him in this
strategically significant region.

PROFILE OF VIOLENCE

The strategic intentions and possibilities of this irrational,
aggressive despot are hard to ascertain because one can hardly relate to

him on a logical basis; mirror imaging just won't work in his case. He
has distinct illusions of grandeur, comparing himself with
Nebuchardrezzar II of Babylon, a historical figure he especially
idolizes and who subjugated Israel. Throughout his leadership he has
lived a very isolated life, surrounded by his family and a covey of "yes

men", who are there to protect him from what he does not want to hear or

see. His unworldly vision is legendary, his schizophrenic tendencies
well recorded and his military miscues are notorious. He is very
superstitious, believing in omens, prophecies, legends, demons and
apparitions. He is devoid of sensibilities and compassion; the only
emotion he displays is anger. His thuggish style is manifested in his
general brutality and his barbaric ways. He personally enjoys torturing
his victims and indulges in fiendish rapes and homosexual practices. His

education never went further than fourth grade and he is suspicious of
anybody with a higher education.

But, he is extremely wily and survives on wit and brutal instincts.
Saddam may be insane but he is far from stupid. The literal translation
of Saddam is "He who shocks", which happens to be most fitting,
considering his vile behavior. He rules by sheer cruelty, killing,
torturing, jailing his subjects without pity and often without reason;
just to keep his citizens off balance, terrorized, and totally
subjugated. He is well protected and as well informed, with the total
numbers of police and militia far exceeding the size of his army. He has

70,000 troops assigned to leadership protection, not counting the
Republican Guards, and his total aggregate of staff in agencies with
other intelligence and security functions is another 30,000. His
security forces are made up of: 1. Secret Service (Mukhabarat), 2.
Special Security Organization (Amn al-Khass), 3. Military Intelligence
(Istikhbarat), 4. Signal intelligence or Project 858 (al-Hadi), 5. The
Republican Guard. The degree of surveillance, both electronic and human,

imposed on his people can only be grasped when you know that hidden
cameras and electronic bugs are secreted all over, and that one out of
three Iraqis are watching and informing on the others. The al-Had
monitoring stations can intercept and locate clandestine radio
transmitters within 30 seconds of the commencement of transmission.
International direct dialing has been banned since 1995, with all calls
being routed through an operator-assisted exchange so they could be
monitored. With so many informers permeating the society, it is no
wonder that an uprising is doomed before it starts.

PARTY OF VIOLENCE

When Saddam bullied his way to power in 1956, this vicious issue of the
rustic Tikriti clan joined the Baath or "renewal" Party, made up of
nationalists and socialists. The insular and sectarian Baath Party
invents its enemies. Its ideology is based on the fiction that the
outside world is naturally hostile and is a constant danger to Iraq;
consequently, the only way to preserve and protect the party (the state)

is through ideological unity, multi-levels of organization and brute
force.  The Iraqi State is grounded in a triangle of violence, fear, and

complicity surrounding the power center. Violence generates the fear
that creates the complicity that establishes and sustains the power. All

decisions radiate down from Saddam and nobody questions Saddam's
authority. In short, it's a paranoid rat's nest of cruelty and
contradictions.

PROVOKED INTO VIOLENCE

To try and understand Saddam's reasoning it might help to examine why he

ever decided to attack Kuwait; reviewing his tactics during the ensuing
Gulf War also might assist in divining his future actions.

After the barbarous war with Iran ended in a draw (a war the majority of

Arab States profited from) Saddam owed some $40 billion to Kuwait and
the other Gulf Sheikdoms. Instead of showing gratitude for Iraq's
defense of Sunni Arabs against Persian Shi'ites, they demanded immediate

repayment of their war loans. To make matters worse, Iraq found out that

Kuwait had been taking advantage of Iraq's distraction over their war
with Iran by siphoning off oil on the Iraqi side of the Rumaila oil
fields. Additionally, the Arab nations he was indebted to were forcing
down the price of oil by pumping far beyond their quotas, making it far
more difficult for Iraq to earn the money to pay back their loans. After

getting conflicting signals from Washington, coupled with an ambivalent
reply on the US attitude relating to his dispute with Kuwait from US
Ambassador April Glaspie; Saddam, enraged, financially desperate and
isolated, struck out at Kuwait, soon bringing "Desert Storm" down upon
him.

One ominous fact that has now been discovered is that, as the US
prepared its offensive against Iraq, Saddam initiated a crash program to

try and produce enough fuel for one nuclear device. Planning that if the

Allies had him cornered during the military engagement, and threatened
his downfall, and was in possession of a nuclear device, he would
willingly use it against Israel; retaliation be damned! Much to his
chagrin, he eventually found out that his invasion of Kuwait inevitably
doomed his entire nuclear program aborting his crash program.

Never being one without resources, Saddam planned a desperate,
last-ditch riposte in case his army was ever on the verge of total
destruction. The primary tactic was to charge biological and chemical
payloads aboard his Scud missiles in anticipation that his regime would
be overrun. The second tactic would be to plant payloads of biological
and chemical weapons in bunkers near his southern border, at sites such
as Basra, Diqwaniyah, and Simawa, in hopes that the allied troops would
chose to blow them up out of expediency, as they swiftly advanced north
toward Baghdad, thus exposing his antagonists to the deadly fallout from

such ordnance. Likewise, in the case that the allies did not explode all

the bunkers, he would make sure it was done by the retreating Republican

Guards units. Whatever the final outcome, he wanted to be assured that
it would be hell for his invaders. And hell it was. The chemical and
biological residues eventually had just the effect planned (Gulf War
Syndrome), long after the allies knew what they had haplessly exposed
themselves to.

POWER FROM PHYSICS

After the Gulf War Saddam used smoke and mirror tactics to outsmart the
UNSCOM, who came looking for his weapons of mass destruction (WMD). One
of his obfuscating tactics: Iraq would appear to be cooperating and
complying with UNSCOM but was in fact cunningly directing the inspection

teams to their "discoveries", then denying them access; allowing time to

sanitize the sites before allowing entry. Another tactic was to plant
many distorted and false documents to mislead the inspectors; and
finally, Saddam was willing to give up some redundant material to
appease the inspectors. For example, he misled them by admitting to
possessing explosive lenses (shaped charges) as detonators made from
RDX/TNT, while in fact he had imported 300 tons of HMX, a more powerful
explosive that could be used to make lighter and more powerful lenses,
more suitable to use in a rocket. While UNSCOM did destroy many sites,
they ultimately failed to get to the heart of his WMD projects, which
remained well dispersed and concealed, and which, in due course, of
UNSCOM's withdrawal, resumed on a fast-track program.

Before the war, Saddam had over 12,000 employees working on the nuclear
bomb project plus thousands of technicians; he probably has that work
force back in service today. Their first efforts were on what is called
a "Levitation design". Briefly stated, while not a very sophisticated
design, it creates a bigger explosion per kilo because of a critical
space between the core and its surrounding components. It was an
unwieldy crude device, not suitable for air delivery.

His technicians' next model was based on the gun-type bomb of Hiroshima
repute; intelligence reports offer reason to believe they later bought
several unarmed warheads of this type from Russia. Uranium enrichment
went on in a facility west of Baghdad called al-Ubur, which contained
huge particle accelerators known as calutrons. A mysterious technician
of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission who recently defected reported
that Iraq conducted a nuclear underground test at 1030 hrs on Sept. 19,
1989 under Lake Rezzaza. The Iraqis went to great lengths to hide the
test from being seen or heard by painstakingly plugging the test hole
with sand and concrete - a method known as "decoupling" ultimately
recording only 2.7 on the Richter scale. To further hide his secret test

site, Saddam ordered a team of workers to dismantle, bury and conceal
the area; he then had them all executed. The technician claims Iraq now
has 9 weapons: 3 gun-type bombs, 3 implosion ones and 3 thermonuclear
models which are stored deep underground in a hardened bunker in the
Hemrin mountains.

How did Saddam ever manage it? With guile, a lot of money and the
assistance of other countries, such as India, Serbia, Russia and China;
supposedly, the enriched nuclear fuel was smuggled out of South Africa
via Brazil. Iraq imported much of the material under the cover of their
universities and ministries. He secretly used Jordan as a front for
importing a lot of duel use materials.  Furthermore, there is
substantial evidence gathered by Federal German Intelligence (BND) that
he is in the process of assembling a secret nuclear reactor to produce
plutonium in a desolate area known as al-Qaim.

PRINCIPALS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLAYS

It might be helpful to examine why Saddam would want nuclear arms? If we

knew his motives it might assist in deterring his future adventures.

One dimension of nuclear arms is the structural power they offer to a
nation, they confer a certain rank, a particular status in the hierarchy

of states; they are also, of course, a commanding deterrent against
potential adversaries. In a lesser sense, they can be used as tools for
political coercion. Taking Saddam's psychological profile into
consideration, he would certainly be one to believe they provide a
measure of distinction and a means to threaten his neighbors. In short,
and in his case, nuclear weapons provide a megalomaniac a means to
pursue his ambitions. Some would argue that nuclear weapons lack
credibility as their use would ensure massive retaliation and
self-destruction. If past experience with Saddam is any guide, he
certainly does have a distinct tendency to act in what we would consider

a suicidal frame of mind, although in his own culture this could be
viewed as heroic defiance for martyrdom and the glory of Allah. There is

little doubt Saddam would use nuclear weapons and other WMD. In fact his

use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war is proof of this. The
probable destruction of himself and his country would be no more a
deterrent that it was for Adolph Hitler in his Berlin bunker. And to
secure any chance of winning, he would strike first. So it can be
reasoned that the only defense others have against such a maniacal
scheme must be a strategy of denial and preemption.

PREVENTIVE MEASURES

It has been argued that to preserve regional stability one has to simply

contain Saddam Hussein to prevent him from realizing his virulent
ambitions; that is being tried and is proving less than effective.
Saddam's own aberrant nature rules out the use of reward for cooperation

or moderation. In Saddam's view this would constitute a weakness, to be
exploited. Sanctions have proved to be fruitless at best, at worst they
ultimately strengthened his hold on power. Sanctions have weakened the
Iraqi people and given Saddam a rallying cry against the world.
Smuggling and illegal oil sales have ensured that Saddam and his top
cronies have been totally unaffected by the sanctions.

Trying to discredit or intimidate Saddam with air strikes has had no
more effect on him than his defeat in "Desert Storm"; it has only
hardened his resolve and given him a propaganda advantage, both with his

own population as well as with many sympathetic nations in the world.

Attempts to instigate a coup have failed, from lack of resolve, or his
own security measures, and would surely fail again unless fundamental
revisions in allied policy and ground rules were initiated. Typical is
the 1995 CIA plan for a coup that was aborted at the last moment by
meddling from the Clinton administration. The plan was to combine a
Kurdish uprising in the north with an attack by military opponents
against the barracks where Saddam had his residence. After such
debacles, one would be hard put to find any internal support among the
population for further coup operations in Iraq, unless the allies react
with more skill and resolve.

There have been some reliable reports circulating that Saddam is dying
of a cancer and that he has designated his youngest son, Qusay as his
successor. The scoundrel Qusay's mental problems are on par with his
father's, so the future doesn't offer much hope with that type of
leadership change, giving more substance to the argument that patience
and containment isn't enough. Clearly, organizing a palace coup, even if

successful, would only replace the dictator with a similar strong man.

There are courses of action that would be more effective. Saddam's
totalitarian regime's footing is more fragile than it appears; its base
is critically limited to a clan alliance, the Republican Guard and the
secret police. Any regime that is so restricted, alienated from the
public, and so paranoid, has no true popular support. It rules only
through terror. This is the element that could be exploited.

Tactically, Saddam needs to be truly boxed in. Protect his opposition in

the north (Kurds) and south (Shi'ites) by prohibiting his army from
moving heavy material on the ground under the No-Fly Zones and enforce
it from the air. Imposing such a restrained environment on Saddam,
besides making it more conducive to an eventual overthrow of Saddam's
regime, would serve numerous strategic purposes. Among them, the
demoralization of his own forces as their helplessness before the allies

becomes undeniable, the opposition would feel safer to organize a
popular war of liberation, their maneuvers would be concealed from
Saddam's forces (protected by allied air) and they would have more time
and expanse to mount an attack.

Saddam's continuing menacing posture today represents a clear threat to
peace and stability in this oil rich region, which translates to an
overt strategic threat to the international community. This grave menace

must be recognized, preferably by the UN Security Council, soon, and
addressed by at least the United Kingdom and the United States military
forces, if not more allies from the Gulf War coalition. Saddam's nuclear

and other WMD threats are manifest and represent a clear and present
danger toward those he openly intimidates, according them a right to
self-defense. Under such circumstances, any armed action by them, or
their allies, should be seen as legitimate and justified within the
jurisdiction of international law. The Phoenix must not achieve his
destiny.

Peter B. Martin
Valprionde, France
March-April 2001





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