11 - 17 January 2001
Issue No.516
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 11 - 17 January 2001 Issue No.516 |
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Never say die
As Iraqi officials tell it, reports that surfaced last week about President Saddam Hussein's illness were merely "lies and fabrications" made up by the opposition groups in exile, and just another example of a disinformation campaign by Iraq's "enemies."
Questions about Saddam's health were raised after he presided last Sunday over the biggest military parade in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, which drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
In a statement issued in Damascus, the representative of the biggest Shi'ite opposition group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Bayan Jabr, said Saddam suffered a stroke during or shortly after the parade and was taken to a hospital which is part of the presidential palace in Baghdad. Jabr said the 63-year-old Iraqi leader was under intensive care in Ibn Sina hospital and a team of Iraqi doctors was immediately called to treat him. He said tight security was imposed on areas near the presidential complex and on other key government buildings in Baghdad. The London-based and Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper said Iraqi sources in Switzerland confirmed the report about Saddam's poor health and that he was actually taken to the hospital.
As reports about Saddam's fatal illness circulated, many world and Middle East capitals put their foreign intelligence on full alert and asked their Iraq watchers to double-check the rumours before Saddam's death took them by surprise. Iraqi embassies also received calls from reporters trying to confirm the story or seeking a reaction from Iraqi officials.
To deny reports on his deteriorating health, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein met with a group of Egyptian actors visiting Baghdad
(photo: Reuters)
In Baghdad, an Iraqi government spokesman summoned reporters to his office to scoff at the opposition's report, which he described as ridiculous. "These press reports are stupid and do not even merit a response," said Salam Khatab Al-Nasiri, head of the External Information Department at Iraq's Information Ministry. He also cited the president's appearance at that parade as proof of his good health, -- although the stroke is alleged to have occurred later. Al-Nasiri said that Saddam fired more than 140 bullets into the air with a rifle which he held in one hand.
On Wednesday, Saddam himself appeared on state-run television chairing a meeting of his cabinet. A day later he was shown chatting to a group of entertainers led by Egyptian actor Mohamed Sobhi and Syrian actress Raghda. On Saturday he again appeared on television delivering a speech marking Iraq's army day. In all these appearances Saddam looked fit and well, showing no signs of illness and sometimes smoking a cigar, and even vigorously lashing out at Iraq's enemies, especially the United States and Israel.
Jabr later insisted in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly that Saddam was "seriously ill" and at least one of his television appearances "could have been doctored using old video footage of the president while his army day speech was prerecorded."
Rumours about Saddam's ill health, however, are not new. In September 2000, Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the Iraqi leader was stricken with cancer. The paper said French, German and Swiss doctors were called to treat him with chemotherapy and Iraq imported equipment to outfit a private hospital in one of his palaces.
Of course it is impossible to confirm Saddam's true state of health because such information is closely guarded. Whether or not there was any truth in it, the stroke rumour, like the cancer report before it, did nothing to weaken Saddam's resolve. Indeed, the Iraqi leader is still thumbing his nose at the United States and its allies in the area. Among his latest actions of defiance have been Iraq's stopping of oil exports under a UN-sponsored oil-for-food deal; challenging the US-imposed no-fly zones; continuing attempts to break its political isolation and keeping up his rhetoric against Israel.
Yet, if the reports about Saddam's ill health did a service to those behind the rumour mill, it was the media coverage which outplayed what Saddam was hoping for when he staged his biggest ever army parade, designed to display his military might. Instead of news and pictures of an invincible Saddam standing for five hours in chilly weather firing from a rifle held in one hand, the world media carried stories about a sick Saddam suffering from possibly serious illness.
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