BAGHDAD, Iraq, 24 June 2003 — American troops are after him, quite possibly closing in.
But in the meantime, the whereabouts of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein are the subject of intense discussion, gossip and rumor among his former citizens. Somebody says he saw him eating hummus near his home town of Tikrit. Another thinks he has been hiding in Baghdad disguised as a woman. Perhaps he’s underground. Or he’s talking to the CIA.
Where would you be if you were Saddam Hussein?
The question has renewed urgency with the capture this past week of the dictator’s personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud, in Tikrit. Most people here think that where Mahmud is, Saddam can’t be far behind. And in the Sunni crescent of the country, where the Sunni ex-president can be expected to have some loyalists, the word on the street is that he is offering $1,000 to supporters to join a rumored rebel organization, Al-Awda (The Return).
This means that — unlike several weeks ago — almost nobody interviewed in recent days thinks that the man with the moustache is dead. (Though perhaps he has shaved by now. Or grown a beard. Or dyed it blond.) And in the loyalist region north of the capital, if they have a clue where he is, they’re not talking.
“We don’t know his fate,’’ said 38-year-old Majed Alaywi in the Sunni town of Thulu’iya, where American troops rounded up two dozen suspects a week ago. “If Saddam Hussein asked us to hide him, we wouldn’t hide him, because he didn’t do anything good for Thulu’iya. He didn’t pave the streets, he didn’t connect the phones, he didn’t do anything good. Why would we hide him?’’
To skeptics, this sort of response might fall into the category of protesting too much. But it’s the sort of thing you get a lot in Sunni towns. “Some people saw him eating hummus. Some people saw him walking. Some people saw him driving a Volkswagen,’’ said 60-year-old Ibrahim Ali Hussein of the same town, wearing a blue dishdasha and white headscarf.
Hussein confesses to having liked the dictator. But, he swears: “I’m Muslim. I’m telling the truth. We haven’t seen him.’’
In Baghdad, the question is more likely to elicit nervous laughter and, sometimes, a glance over one shoulder. Then they like to see a foreign press card. But, okay, finally they’ll give it up: Saddam? More than a few are convinced that he’s in the United States. And if the dictator may not exactly be shopping on Fifth Avenue, Baghdadis believe he’s busy cutting a deal with the American government.
A surprising number think that Saddam is abroad.
“Because he is an American agent, he had a deal with the Americans to give them Iraq and save his life,’’ said Salam Mahdi Salah, a former lieutenant in the Iraqi Army. “I think he is in one of the Spanish islands.’’
“He’s probably in Russia, because Russia follows its interests and Saddam is one of those interests,’’ said Rajaa Yasin, an ophthalmologist in the capital. He agrees with Salah: “I think Saddam had a deal with the Americans to give them Iraq.’’
Several other people interviewed felt certain that Saddam is hiding in an underground redoubt in the capital, undiscovered by the Americans, protected by those close to him. Retired teacher Amal Talib begged to differ. “I’m sure he’s still in Baghdad — in a dirty house instead of a palace. He could not leave Iraq. If the Iraqis see him they will kill him.’’
The other possibility, Iraqis say, is that Saddam took refuge among the Bedouin tribes of the Iraqi desert, with whom he always felt a cultural tie. “The traditions of those people prevent them from betraying Saddam if he is a refugee there,’’ said Sinan Aziz Al-Sheikh, a law school graduate.
It may seem strange that the man whose picture adorned every major building, every checkpoint, every school and practically every shop and home in the country, could disappear. Granted, the country is large. But isn’t that what satellite photo technology is about? But such was Saddam’s success in building an image of mythic invincibility that most of those interviewed seemed prepared to believe he could rise again at any moment.
That alone can have adverse consequences. In the northern city of Kirkuk, a distraught principal of an elementary school pleaded for help from American soldiers this past week. She had erased pro-Saddam graffiti at her school and was being frightened by regime loyalists who had burned two tires in front of her house and left a note saying they were going to kill her.
Over her whitewashed paint, they had scrawled a new message: “Long live our leader, President Saddam Hussein.’’
“It’s a problem,’’ said US Army Sgt. Weldarson Robinson, one of five reservists charged with running the city of one million. “We have people spreading false propaganda that Saddam is coming back.’’
Why does he think that’s happening? “Because of the simple fact that we haven’t produced him,’’ Robinson said. “We may have to go down there with her and make a show of force.’’