A Select Few Confront Their Tormentor

Washington Post ^ | 12/15/03 | Rajiv Chandrasekaran

[saquin]

BAGHDAD, Dec. 14 -- Early Sunday morning, after his bushy beard had been shaved off and he had caught some sleep on an Army cot, Saddam Hussein received his first Iraqi visitors.

They were four senior Iraqi political figures, invited by American officials to the high-security detention center in Baghdad for the purpose of confirming Hussein's identity with their own eyes.

[...]

"It was surreal," said Mowaffak Rubaie, a Shiite Muslim member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council who fled the country in 1979 after being arrested and tortured by Hussein's secret police.

[...]

"We asked him, 'What if we give you to the Iraqi people?' " Rubaie recalled. "He said, 'To those demagogues?' Can you believe it? He called the Iraqi people demagogues."

That prompted one of the four to ask Hussein how he planned to "face God on doomsday?"

"I will face him with a calm heart," Hussein responded, according to Rubaie.

As he left the room, Rubaie said he could not resist taking one parting shot. "I told him, 'Damn you!' " Rubaie said. " 'The Iraqis will send you to hell.' "

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

["We asked him, 'What if we give you to the Iraqi people?' " Rubaie recalled. "He said, 'To those demagogues?' Can you believe it? He called the Iraqi people demagogues." ]

Seems to me Hitlery would answer the same way.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[potlatch]

I guess some people are so evil that they have no concept of right and wrong. How else do you explain it?

[3catsanadog]

I bet the SOB won't be so cocky when the interrogaters walk in to see him with a set of jumper cables.

[SkyPilot]

In another thread, Saddam is quoted (while refusing water):

"Bondage. If I drink that water, I must go to the bathroom. How can I go to the bathroom while my people are in bondage?"

[Agnes Heep]

As he left the room, Rubaie said he could not resist taking one parting shot. "I told him, 'Damn you!' " Rubaie said. " 'The Iraqis will send you to hell.' "

But will the devil want him? That's a lot of competition.

[texasflower]

I don't understand the "chest or foot" remark that outraged the Iraqi Council member.

Will someone explain this one to me?

[FreedomSurge]

It had to do with a pun Saddam made. The clerc that was murdered was named Sadr or chest. Saddam punned Sadr's name somehow with a word that means foot in his answer.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

I don't understand the "chest or foot" remark that outraged the Iraqi Council member.

Will someone explain this one to me?

Not sure this is quite accurate, but I'll take a shot at it.

Rubaie said he asked the first question of Hussein: Why had he ordered the killing of two prominent Shiite clerics in the 1990s, Mohammed Bakr Sadr and Mohammed Sadiq Sadr?

Hussein responded with a callous joke, playing off the word "sadr," which means chest in Arabic, Rubaie said.

"He said, 'The chest or the foot?' " Rubaie recalled.

"It was blasphemous," the council member said. "It was outrageous and immoral."

OK, first of all, we're dealing with respected religious figures here, whom these folks probably felt about rather as many Americans might feel towards Billy Graham, except that religion no longer predominates in our culture to quite the extent that it does in theirs.

The names of the clerics meant "chest" (just like we have names that are also words in English, like Brown, Bush, etc.)

Obviously things to do with the foot are considered the ultimate in offensive. Remember the Iraqis beating Saddam's statues with their shoes? That was considered the most vile insult possible. Someone can help me out here, but I believe it has to do with what one is historically (and even now) likely to step in, in that part of the world, if you're not careful.

Now he took these two respected religious figures and murdered them. Begin to see why his crude joke was considered more than crude -- downright "blasphemous, outrageous and immoral?"

[Ophiucus]

I guess some people are so evil that they have no concept of right and wrong.

Gee...just like Bill and Hitlery.

It's the good old sociopathic personality disorder. One attribute is an lack of judgement or acknowledgement of right and wrong in their own actions.

If you want to do something a bit fun and freaky, go through the Hare sociopathic personality checklist and see how close those two are - especially Billy-boy.

1. Glibness/superficial charm
   
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
   
3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
   
4. Pathological lying
   
5. Conning/manipulative
   
6. Lack of remorse or guilt
   
7. Shallow affect (few true emotions - can go from looking like happy to looking like sad)
   
8. Callous/lack of empathy
   
9. Parasitic lifestyle
   
10. Poor behavioural controls
    
11. Promiscuous sexual behaviour
    
12. Early behaviour problems
    
13. Lack of realistic, long-term plans
    
14. Impulsivity
    
15. Irresponsibility
    
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
    
17. Many short-term relationships
    
18. Juvenile delinquency
    
19. Revocation of conditional release (I won't do it again, really - yeah, right)
    
20. Criminal versatility
    

Narcissism is also a characteristic

0 for no, 1 for somewhat, 2 for definate - anything over 30, I believe, qualifies.

[TheConservator]

I think Saddam is now seriously off his rocker (I mean even more than before).

1. There was a report on O'Reilly tonight that the two men who were found with him had kidnapped a local doctor, and drove him blindfolded to Saddam. The doctor confirmed that Saddam was physically ok. Then, the two men told the doctor that Saddam was not talking to them, and that if the doctor did not give Saddam something to "awaken" him, the doctor would be shot. The doctor gave Saddam a large dose of adrenaline.

2. The description of the hole is pretty grim. I.e., not something Saddam would voluntarily consent to.

3. Some of the reports I read of the spider hole suggest that it was almost completely walled in--to keep him in??

4. It seems confirmed that Saddam had no communications equipment, etc. in the hole with him, and did not appear to be taking any significant role in leading the continuing opposition to the American presence in Iraq. He was "out of it."

5. Although armed, Saddam did not resist at all when captured.

6. Surprisingly, Saddam is now reported to be talkative, albeit uncooperative. Indeed, some of the things he has been quoted as saying are quite bizarre--like the water remark quoted above.

Speculation--Something (maybe the bombing on the opening night of the war??) caused him to become significantly loopier than he originally was. That is why he disappeared shortly after the war started. And why the Baathist's had the Saddam double do that speech at the beginning of the war. And why the Iraqi war machine seemed so totally uncoordinated. And why Uday and Qusay were found (and killed) together but without Saddam.

[texasflower]

Thanks to all of you. I had tried, but just couldn't understand what in world that was supposed to mean. It's such a great thing to have such a ready source of information on FR!!

[Sabertooth]

That is why he disappeared shortly after the war started. And why the Baathist's had the Saddam double do that speech at the beginning of the war.

The televised speech was not a double, though it may have been prerecorded.

[TheConservator]

No, there was a speech with a double early on--like the day after the initial strike. Then there were some later-broadcast speeches (almost certainly pre-recorded).

[Sabertooth]

The first speech after the initial strike was not a double.

I've posted these pics at three different resolutions. In each version from broadcast speech, there are highlights at the corners of Saddam's chin, and a shadow between them. It's obscured by the higher angle of the lighting and the graininess of the pic.

More importantly, note the assymetricalities in his lower lip, the creases from the corners of his mouth, and the sunken regions along the jaw, above his jowls, between the chin and cheeks. They are the same in the broadcast and the known picture of Hussein.

The jowl creases are also the same.

Look especially at the angular crease under the left corner of Hussein's mouth in both pics.

It's a match.

[kcvl]

Saddam said that he had to get Sadr off of his chest. Saddam's attempt at a joke.(not very funny)

[Yossarian]

But will the devil want him? That's a lot of competition.

Will the devil want him? That's a silly question - if you watched the South Park movie, you'd know that they're lovers. (Though the devil feels like he isn't appreciated for just how special he is.....)

[potlatch]

lack of judgement or acknowledgement of right and wrong in their own actions.

[Ophiucus]

lol....ummmm.....ok then....