This was written in
September 1997. It will be updated soon.
As has been the case since he assumed the presidency in 1979, Iraqi politics this year revolved heavily around Saddam Hussein and his family. For the second consecutive year, events hit extremely close to home. Just before the second edition of Comparative Politics went to press, SaddamÕs two brothers in law who were also former ministers who had returned from exile were assassinated, all but certainly on his orders.
This year, the assassins got even closer which some believe is a sign of the growing weakness of SaddamÕs regime. On 12 December 1996, assassins almost killed Saddam HusseinÕs more powerful ruthless son, Uday. On 8 July, Ismail Othman ( a pseudonym), the purported leader of the attempt, gave an exclusive interview to Patrick Cockburn of LondonÕs Independent newspaper. In it, he revealed that the attempt would have succeeded had Uday been driving as was his wont. Instead, he was ÒonlyÓ wounded and could well be permanently paralyzed from a bullet still lodged in his spine. Othman told Cockburn that even if his team failed in killing Uday Hussein, they had eliminated IraqÕs most hated figure from political life. It should be pointed out that while the British and American press gave CockburnÕs story considerable coverage, there is little independent verification of what he was told.
Even so, Saddam HusseinÕs hold on power has certainly been weakened some more in the last year for which the attack on Uday was but the most obvious sign. To stick with assassinations for the moment, there were also reports that his other son, Qusay, was also the subject of at least two assassination attempts.
On the assumption that there is more to politics than the leaderÕs family even in Iraq, there were wider signs of difficulties for the regime. The most important of those was the complicated uprising among the Kurds which took place in the late summer and early fall of 1996. Recall that the Kurdish opposition was split into two camps based around supporters for one or another of the leading families. They had been able to cooperate some since the Gulf War, but their loose alliance broke down and fighting broke out between them in August 1996. As a result, one of them, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), actually called on Saddam to send in forces to defeat his fellow Kurdish opponents from the Patriotiic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). By monthÕs end, 40,000 Iraqi troops had crossed the no-fly zone into northern Iraq/Kurdistan. On 3 September, the US fired 40+ cruise missiles in response at Iraqi military targets in the southern half of the country. After that, Iraqi forces withdrew from the north.
In at least one way, things did improve for Iraq. The UN (with the support of the US) certified that Iraq had met the minimal preconditions set out in the series of resolutions passed in the months before and after the Gulf War.
Iraq does remain largely isolated from international life, something its athletes discovered when they were refused visas to participate in the Arab Games in Lebanon. Sport was also in the news when Uday Hussein, soccer commissioner for the country, allegedly fired in the air over "his" players after a disastrous loss in an international qualifying match.
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