Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Saddam Hussein's Inner Circle

Aired March 18, 2003 - 13:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: ... born in '64, 38 years old, is said to take part in the killings of his two brothers in law in 1996. That in and of itself is fairly telling. But what else do we know about him?

KENNETH POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, in all honesty, Miles, what you just described, taking part among the killings of Hussein Kamul (ph), have been probably among the mildest of Uday's acts over the last 20 or so years. Uday is constantly referred to as a psychopath. He is a sadist in the clinical definition. He gets sexual gratification from inflicting extreme pain on others. He is infamous for raping any number of women and even a few men inside of Iraq. And the story that have come out are that in almost every occasion, the person being raped is also beaten, horribly tortured in other way, oftentimes killed as a result of it.

Uday is possibly the only person in Iraq who is hated more than Saddam Hussein himself.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. I want to talk more about him and his relative stature, compared to his brother in just a moment.

But first, let's introduce our audience to Qusay, the younger brother, 36 years old, who appears to be the heir apparent. That's kind of unusual. You would think the first born would be the heir apparent. In this case, born in 1966. He is said to be first in line.

What's interesting about him is he has direct -- his hands on the levers of power in important power structures, the special Republican Guard. Why is he the one that is sort of in charge here?

POLLACK: Well, Miles, we know less about Qusay. He is much quieter than his older brother. Uday is extremely flamboyant. And when he kills people, he tends to do it in the public eye, or has often done it in the public eye. Qusay is also a cold-blood killer, but he is much quieter about it. People describe him as being ruthless, but calculating. He has got that side of his father's personality. He's also very dependable. It's very clear his father feels he can trust Qusay, because Qusay calculates things before he does them, he doesn't take these wild actions.

Uday, on the other hand, is a wild man, and even his father can't control Uday's behavior, whereas Qusay is very careful, very meticulous, and as a result, Saddam has given increasingly greater power to Qusay to the point now where he's the heir apparent, probably the second most powerful man in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: Uday was shot not too long ago. What was that about?

POLLACK: No one really knows where Uday was shot. Believe me there are any number of reasons why. There are thousands of brothers, and husbands and fathers in Iraq who would like to kill Uday for what he has done to their wives, sisters, daughters, et cetera.

But there's also the rumor out there that the group that did try to kill Uday really wanted to kill Saddam, but they felt the security around Saddam was so tight that they couldn't possibly get to him, whereas Uday had bad habits, in terms of he would oftentimes just outstrip his security. He loves to go racing around Baghdad in sports cars, driving at 90 miles per hour in a way his security couldn't keep up with him. And as a result, that made him vulnerable.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, let's talk about some of the other people in the inner circle. President Bush very specific in Saddam Hussein and his two sons, but there are a couple of other players that we should pay attention to here as we give you this chart, showing who is closest to Saddam Hussein. Of course the two brothers that we just mentioned, but there's this other person. We told you about him a few days ago as we celebrated a rather unhappy anniversary. That's the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds in the north of Iraq. Ali Hassan Al Majid, "Chemical Ali," he is known as. Tell me about him and why he is important as well.

POLLACK: Well, Ali Hassan is one of Saddam Hussein's cousins. He is a close relative, and he is one of Saddam's hatchet men. He has no particular skills, no particular training, except he is willing to do whatever it takes to do whatever it is that Saddam wants. He is utterly brutal, he is utterly ruthless, and Saddam has typically put him in charge of operations where he knew what was required was simply to massacre enormous numbers of people. Ali Hassan was the man he put in charge of what was called the On-Fall (ph) campaign, which was the campaign to pacify the Kurds in 1988, which resulted in the death of as many as 200,000 Kurds. He's also the man that Saddam turned to after the outbreak of the Shia Revolt after the Gulf War in 1991. It was Ali Hassan, who drove with the Republican Guard into southern Iraq and massacred about 50,000 Shia there to put down that revolt.

O'BRIEN: There's one on there. We don't have too much time, but I want to make sure we get this in. Abid Hammid Humud, who is Saddam's personal secretary. We don't have picture of him. That's in and of itself kind of telling. Why is he significant? And I want to have you close out by saying, should these people have been mentioned as well by the president, do you believe?

POLLACK: Abid Hammid Humud is important, because if Qusay is Saddam's right hand, Abid is his left. He is the gatekeeper, he controls access to Saddam, he is in charge of Saddam's innermost bodyguards, and he is responsible for running much of Iraq's day-to- day affairs, the administration of the country.

I think there's no question, if you are talking about getting rid of the top-level Iraqi leadership, it's not enough to get rid of Saddam and his two sons; you've also got to get rid of Ali Hassan and Abid Hammid these others.

O'BRIEN: Ken Pollack, one our analysts, with the Brookings Institution, author of "The Threatening Storm," thanks as always for being with us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired March 18, 2003 - 13:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: ... born in '64, 38 years old, is said to take part in the killings of his two brothers in law in 1996. That in and of itself is fairly telling. But what else do we know about him?

KENNETH POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, in all honesty, Miles, what you just described, taking part among the killings of Hussein Kamul (ph), have been probably among the mildest of Uday's acts over the last 20 or so years. Uday is constantly referred to as a psychopath. He is a sadist in the clinical definition. He gets sexual gratification from inflicting extreme pain on others. He is infamous for raping any number of women and even a few men inside of Iraq. And the story that have come out are that in almost every occasion, the person being raped is also beaten, horribly tortured in other way, oftentimes killed as a result of it.

Uday is possibly the only person in Iraq who is hated more than Saddam Hussein himself.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. I want to talk more about him and his relative stature, compared to his brother in just a moment.

But first, let's introduce our audience to Qusay, the younger brother, 36 years old, who appears to be the heir apparent. That's kind of unusual. You would think the first born would be the heir apparent. In this case, born in 1966. He is said to be first in line.

What's interesting about him is he has direct -- his hands on the levers of power in important power structures, the special Republican Guard. Why is he the one that is sort of in charge here?

POLLACK: Well, Miles, we know less about Qusay. He is much quieter than his older brother. Uday is extremely flamboyant. And when he kills people, he tends to do it in the public eye, or has often done it in the public eye. Qusay is also a cold-blood killer, but he is much quieter about it. People describe him as being ruthless, but calculating. He has got that side of his father's personality. He's also very dependable. It's very clear his father feels he can trust Qusay, because Qusay calculates things before he does them, he doesn't take these wild actions.

Uday, on the other hand, is a wild man, and even his father can't control Uday's behavior, whereas Qusay is very careful, very meticulous, and as a result, Saddam has given increasingly greater power to Qusay to the point now where he's the heir apparent, probably the second most powerful man in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: Uday was shot not too long ago. What was that about?

POLLACK: No one really knows where Uday was shot. Believe me there are any number of reasons why. There are thousands of brothers, and husbands and fathers in Iraq who would like to kill Uday for what he has done to their wives, sisters, daughters, et cetera.

But there's also the rumor out there that the group that did try to kill Uday really wanted to kill Saddam, but they felt the security around Saddam was so tight that they couldn't possibly get to him, whereas Uday had bad habits, in terms of he would oftentimes just outstrip his security. He loves to go racing around Baghdad in sports cars, driving at 90 miles per hour in a way his security couldn't keep up with him. And as a result, that made him vulnerable.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, let's talk about some of the other people in the inner circle. President Bush very specific in Saddam Hussein and his two sons, but there are a couple of other players that we should pay attention to here as we give you this chart, showing who is closest to Saddam Hussein. Of course the two brothers that we just mentioned, but there's this other person. We told you about him a few days ago as we celebrated a rather unhappy anniversary. That's the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds in the north of Iraq. Ali Hassan Al Majid, "Chemical Ali," he is known as. Tell me about him and why he is important as well.

POLLACK: Well, Ali Hassan is one of Saddam Hussein's cousins. He is a close relative, and he is one of Saddam's hatchet men. He has no particular skills, no particular training, except he is willing to do whatever it takes to do whatever it is that Saddam wants. He is utterly brutal, he is utterly ruthless, and Saddam has typically put him in charge of operations where he knew what was required was simply to massacre enormous numbers of people. Ali Hassan was the man he put in charge of what was called the On-Fall (ph) campaign, which was the campaign to pacify the Kurds in 1988, which resulted in the death of as many as 200,000 Kurds. He's also the man that Saddam turned to after the outbreak of the Shia Revolt after the Gulf War in 1991. It was Ali Hassan, who drove with the Republican Guard into southern Iraq and massacred about 50,000 Shia there to put down that revolt.

O'BRIEN: There's one on there. We don't have too much time, but I want to make sure we get this in. Abid Hammid Humud, who is Saddam's personal secretary. We don't have picture of him. That's in and of itself kind of telling. Why is he significant? And I want to have you close out by saying, should these people have been mentioned as well by the president, do you believe?

POLLACK: Abid Hammid Humud is important, because if Qusay is Saddam's right hand, Abid is his left. He is the gatekeeper, he controls access to Saddam, he is in charge of Saddam's innermost bodyguards, and he is responsible for running much of Iraq's day-to- day affairs, the administration of the country.

I think there's no question, if you are talking about getting rid of the top-level Iraqi leadership, it's not enough to get rid of Saddam and his two sons; you've also got to get rid of Ali Hassan and Abid Hammid these others.

O'BRIEN: Ken Pollack, one our analysts, with the Brookings Institution, author of "The Threatening Storm," thanks as always for being with us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com