Posted on 04/06/2003 7:54:01 AM PDT by areafiftyone
As US Forces tightened their grip on Baghdad, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, along with his two sons, fled the capital three days ago for his home town of Tikrit, 175 km to the north, media reports said.
"I have been informed that once he had firm evidence that the Americans were closing in on Baghdad, he fled to his home town of Tikrit," claimed Haitham Rashid Wihaib, Saddam's former Chief of Protocol in The Mail.
The dictator who used to being ferried around in a vast fleet of heavily armoured Mercedes left by way of anonymous taxis and battered pick up trucks in a convoy which would have looked like any other group of fleeing Iraqis.
"He has taken his two sons Uday and Qusay, and a handful of key advisors still loyal to him. In Baghdad, each local commander has been told to act as he sees fit," Wihaib said.
Wihaib, who claims to have spent nearly 20 years working for Saddam, said he also got to know Saddam's doubles.
"And the Saddam Hussein we saw shaking the hands of his subjects in that extraordinary walkab out on Friday, was definitely a doppelganger, thinner than the real thing and without his rolling walk.
"This was a stunt ordered by his son Qusay in an attempt to convince the Allies that Saddam was still in Baghdad and a last ditch bid to show the Iraqi people their leader was brave and prepared to fight from the capital.
"But Saddam is not brave. He is mad and desperate and, unlike them, is readying himself for exile."
I'm not.
Bin Lauden? Who's he? I'm waiting for another mystery message from Waldo... Has he "said" anything since the war began? Guess they can only fabricate one dead man at a time.
Funny how SH knew this and Baghdad Bob didn't/doesn't. BB says our forces were "tropped" in other parts of the country.
My thought is, he ran off to Syria.
The chess analogy brings to mind another powerful curiousity. There is no Queen in this game. Imagine how much more credibility Sadaam and his regime would have if there were a Queen--or any hint of family values or stability--all Queenly virtues. In chess the Queen is the most powerful piece, who ultimately coordinates other powerful pieces for the defense of the relatively weak and slow-moving King.
In other words, if Sadaam had cultivated the values of the family and showed himself as a family-man, now his Queen would command great world-respect or at least sympathy. She would focus the world's attention on the brutality and suffering that's being caused and could play a role in a compromise. As it is, this is just a long-overdue visit by the exterminator to rid the house of filthy vermin. Let's hope the bill is not too high ultimately.
;-)
But that's just the main practical problem with the Islamic world--polygamy. If just ten percent of men have four wives, that means there are no wives for thirty percent of men. If other men have three, or two, that contributes to the shortage. Systematic rape of boys and young men by older men is rife. "Family values" are impossible because women are a commodity. No woman can be the mutual partner, the equal of her husband, because polygamy means the wives are interchangeable. The sons of worthless wives necessarily view themselves, and women, as worthless. Without true matrimony, with a huge artificial surplus of males, and with male-male rape endemic, Islamic societies are fundamentally sick--breeding grounds for damaged psyches, pathological rage, and "hyper-masculine" violence.
:-}, guess they forgot to tell Saddam.
I shouldn't be laughing, but I am.
Is there something wrong with Saddam's left arm? I'm noticing in the few videos of him I'm seeing he seldom moves it. The shoulder appears almost frozen. Throughout the on-the-street scene he lifts his right arm and fist over his head, but not his left. At the meeting tables the left arm is either hanging by his side or propped up on the table.
Anyone know if this is the result of a previous assassination attempt, an injury from our bombing, or just my imagination?
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