Posted on 07/09/2002 10:44:14 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON, Jul 10, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Jerrold Post, a former CIA specialist on what makes foreign leaders tick, has been studying Saddam Hussein for years. It doesn't matter that Saddam has never been on Post's couch. Enough is known about Saddam, he says, to draw certain conclusions.
Saddam is not insane but "represents the most dangerous personality," says Post, who directs a political psychology program at George Washington University.
He says Saddam is narcissistic to an extreme, regards everyone as a potential enemy and is incapable of feeling remorse for the suffering of others.
Saddam, Post says, was raised from age 9 by a maternal uncle who instilled in him the dream of following in the path of Saladin and Nebuchadnezzar and other long departed radical Arab leaders. Saddam took the advice to heart.
His mindset is on the minds of Bush administration officials these days as they contemplate ways of evicting the Iraqi leader from power for his refusal to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions.
President Bush believes Saddam has the means and the motives to attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction and must be dealt with before he strikes. The timing of U.S. action is unclear.
"I'm a patient person," Bush said at a White House news conference Monday. "But I do firmly believe that the world will be safer and more peaceful if there's a regime change in that government.
"It's a stated policy of this government to have regime change. And it hasn't changed. And we'll use all tools at our disposal to do so," he said. "I'm involved in the military plan, diplomatic planning, financial planning - all aspects of - reviewing all the tools at my disposal."
Post has been studying foreign leaders for more than 35 years, 21 of them at the CIA where he became known for his psychological profiles. He founded the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior.
Before President Carter met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in September 1978, Post drew up psychological summaries of the two Mideast leaders for Carter.
Post's views on some foreign leaders:
-Cuba's Fidel Castro: "He can blame the United States for his leadership failures."
-Palestinian Yasser Arafat: "To the degree that (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has pursued his very aggressive posture toward reoccupation, that puts Arafat in his favorite position of being the underdog victim."
-North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il: "The starvation and the epidemics that are ravaging the country have to press upon him, and may be even a motivation for taking over the South and its resources."
As for Saddam, Post says he "rules by terror" and cites as an example the arrest in 1982 of his Oxford-educated minister of health, whose loyalty Saddam had questioned.
After the arrest, Post says, the minister's wife told Saddam her husband was always loyal and begged Saddam to release him to her. The next day, he obliged by returning her husband to her in a "black canvas body bag," according to Post.
The bad news for the United States is that Saddam is much more sophisticated internationally than he was during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when he had few friends, Post says.
Saddam has made peace with most of his neighbors and cultivated Russia, China and France, making it far more difficult for the United States to develop a coalition against him than it was in the post-Kuwait invasion period, Post says.
On the other hand, Saddam faces more unrest in his military, Post says, pointing to a number of coup attempts. Also, he says, three of five Iraqi clans which once supported him have been associated with coup activity.
Post sees no chance Saddam would succumb to a renewal of U.N. weapons inspections. Saddam sent envoys to Vienna last week for yet another discussion of a possible resumption of inspections, but they apparently got nowhere.
Post says Saddam will never give up his forbidden weapons because they enable him to say, "You see, we are sovereign. I can thwart the U.N. and the U.S. with impunity. We will continue and we will succeed."
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EDITOR'S NOTE - George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968.
By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
Not insane. How about a psychopath? Or perhaps pure evil?
I think I'd feel better if he was just insane.
WOW! The CIA is really going out on a limb here with this accusation... /sarcasm
Pretty sad really, since this dumb old country boy figured out Saddam and Arafat at first sight.
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