| SADDAM HUSSEIN & HIS CLAN - ARAB NATIONALISM IN ONE FAMILY |
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| Hussein Kamel Majid, calling for the overthrow of his father-in-law Saddam Hussein, at a press conference in Jordan in 1995. |
The story of Hussein Kamel Majid and his brother Saddam Kamel is almost beyond belief. These two men, more steeped in the blood of the Baathist regime than anyone except Saddam and Udai Hussein, were the pampered boys Saddam took into the bosom of his family by marrying off his two daughters to them.
Hussein Kamel occupied a key position in Iraq's military machine, becoming Minister of Military Industries in his mid-30s and had distinguished himself in Baathist terms by brutality during the occupation of Kuwait. His brother Saddam Kamel was head of Saddam Hussein's presidential bodyguard.
The two were also cousins of Saddam's before they married his daughters.
In August 1995, they surprised the world by fleeing to Jordan where they spoke of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. In the worst of all possible insults to Iraqi clan sensibilities, they took with them their wives, Saddam's two daughters, and their children - Saddam's grand children.
Baghdad was shocked. It later emerged that they were afraid for their lives because Udai, Saddam's elder son, wanted to remove them from Saddam's circle. It was the biggest blow Saddam had suffered at the hands of his own people.
But the Kamel brothers flabberghasted the world six months later when they decided to return to Iraq, having been given assurances that Saddam would pardon them. It beggared belief that anyone who had betrayed and humiliated Saddam in front of the world should willingly put themselves in his power again.
In February 1996, they returned from Jordan to Iraq. As soon as they crossed the border, the two men were separated from their wives and children and sped away towards Baghdad in a well-armed motorcade.
Sure enough, a few days later it was announced that their own relatives had killed them in a shoot-out, outraged at their shaming of the family's reputation. The killers were also - conveniently - killed themselves.
Why did they do it? The belief in Saddam's mercy in such a situation was one of the most fascinating intersections between politics and psychology seen anywhere in the world in recent years. These men had killed with their own hand, deceived, embezzled and consigned men to torture in the name of the Baathist regime. They should have known the score.
Those who spoke to them during the six month stay say Hussein Majid showed increasing signs of moroseness and depression. Groomed in Saddam's elite forces since his teens, he had fled to Jordan confidently expecting to become the centre of an opposition movement which would replace Saddam and rule in his place.
Instead, the Iraqi opposition shunned him because of his past record as Saddam's henchman. His host King Hussein came to differ with him over how to act over the future of Iraq and then - ever so subtly - isolated him by assigning a small out of the way palace to him in the middle of the Jordanian countryside. Hussein and Saddam Kamel quickly came to be living in a gilded cage where they were little more than exhibits of the impending doom of Saddam's regime and worth nothing in their own right.
Plus, neither had any grip on reality outside the Machiavellian world of Baghdad. Hussein Kamel cut a confused figure at the press conferences he gave, parroting phrases about democracy and freedom while showing little real understanding of what they mean.
"We will continue our work, we would like to call on the officers of the Iraqi army, the officers of the Republican Guard, the officers of the Special Guard, to the civil servants of the Iraqi state and to all the Iraqi society to be ready for this important change which will make Iraq a modern state dealing with international community in realism and with the Arab community in spirit of interaction," was about as close as he could get to specifics when describing his plan of action.
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