|
CounterPunch
November
13, 2002
Patrick Cockburn
on Saddam
Interview by TONY JONES
(Transcript
of an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Company's Lateline.)
TONY JONES: Patrick Cockburn, analysts
were quite divided on which way the Parliament would go.
Did you expect this result?
PATRICK COCKBURN, AUTHOR: It's not very
surprising.
It's a rubberstamp Parliament.
Saddam will want to portray himself as
a moderate and while he'll like to have in the background the
voice of the Iraqi people showing intransigence towards the US,
so it's a bit of theatre and it's not very surprising theatre
either.
TONY JONES: It's no more complicated
than that?
 The Parliament simply is a rubberstamp is it,
because they certainly were expressing their views strongly enough.
PATRICK COCKBURN: Oh, yes.
Always bear in mind that ordinary Iraqis
may not like Saddam, but they don't like the US either.
They blame the US and its allies for
sanctions which has ruined Iraq, ruined the economy.
Many of them have had to leave the country.
So there's a deep feeling of resentment
about what's happening to them.
You talk to Iraqis privately, they always
say, "We're the victims, but there's very little we can
do about it."
So people in the Parliament expressing
anger at what's been done to them in the past and what is likely
to happen to them in the future are expressing very real emotions.
But the final decision will be taken
by Saddam himself.
TONY JONES: There was one possible signal
that a backdown may occur.
Saddam's eldest son, Uday, urged the
Parliament to vote in favour of the UN resolution.
What did you make of that?
PATRICK COCKBURN: It shows the way Saddam
is thinking himself, that he doesn't have any choice but to go
along with the UN on this one.
And Uday wouldn't have done anything
without his father's agreement.
So that's a very direct pointer to which
way Saddam is thinking.
What he really wants to do is draw this
out as long as possible.
He knows he can't stand off an invasion
but, if he can delay and delay and delay, maybe eventually things
will get better for him.
TONY JONES: Incidentally, does Uday have
any influence at all in Baghdad these days?
He was heavily out of favour with his
father come years ago -- indeed, some speculated his father was
behind the failed assassination attempt on him.
PATRICK COCKBURN: It seems to have crossed
Uday's mind that his father might have been behind it, but I
really don't think so.
I think there were other people behind
that assassination.
And if his father wanted Uday out of
the way, he wouldn't have to employ assassins to get rid of him.
But Uday remains in the inner circle.
He isn't the heir apparent he used to
be but he was badly wounded in this assassination attempt.
He has a terrible personal reputation
for violence, murders and sexual escapades.
But he's still one of the inner circle
around Saddam.
TONY JONES: The first UN deadline at
least is this Friday and, as you say, Saddam Hussein tends to
use up every deadline more or less until the last minute, delaying
and delaying.
Do you suspect in this case he's actually
going to come forth as something of a peace-maker and, ultimately,
agree to the UN demands, at least at this first level?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Oh, yes, I think he's
got no choice on this one and he knows it.
All members of the Security Council voted
for this.
He'll have to go along with this.
But he'll do so expressing regret, saying
it's an invasion of Iraqi sovereignty.
But I really don't think he's got any
choice on this one, and he knows it.
TONY JONES: Is that absolutely certain?,
I mean, there must be some degree of uncertainty, given his strong
statements over such a long period of time, that he could just
in the end turn around and say,
"My hands are tied.
"The Parliament has said the UN
resolution is unacceptable and I'm not going to accept it."
PATRICK COCKBURN: I suppose there's a
slim possibility.
Saddam has made extraordinary miscalculations
in the past when he invaded Iran in 1980 and invaded Kuwait in
1990 and didn't withdraw.
I suppose you could say he's made these
mistakes before and he might make it again.
In the long-term, Washington seems to
be counting on him making a mistake.
The fact that Uday wrote this letter,
the fact that he doesn't have any alternative, the fact that
all the Arab states are urging him to accept this, I think he
will go along with it.
TONY JONES: I was wondering whether he
might try the brinkmanship he's tried in the past, see if he
can draw out big differences in the Security Council by quibbling
at the edges, by saying, "There's certain things I can and
can't do, my Parliament has pointed that out."
Put the onus back into the Security Council.
PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, he might try that.
But this is a far more dangerous game
than it was earlier in the '90s when he could make concessions
and then after a bit say, "No, there can't be an inspection
of this or that," or putting forward obstacles.
He knows that the US is looking for exactly
that, some moment when he won't go along with it, and that might
be the trigger for an invasion.
And that, above all, is what he wants
to avoid.
TONY JONES: The invasion, of course,
can't begin without a protracted period of bombing.
And, as we've seen in the past, there
are usually occasions during that process when it's possible
for concessions to be made for him to go again to the UN and
say, "OK, I'm going to change my mind now."
It may be unlikely from your opinion
that that is a path he could follow, isn't it?
PATRICK COCKBURN: It's possible he might
think like that.
But it would be very unwise for him to
do it because once the invasion starts, then I don't think it
can be thrown into reverse.
Once the bombing starts, once troops
start appearing, foreign troops start appearing in Iraq, I don't
think it will be reversible.
So it would be very unwise if he did
anything except go along with everything that the UN wants it
to do at the moment.
TONY JONES: One common assessment that
you read about Saddam Hussein is that he's most dangerous when
backed into a corner.
He's now as far back into a corner as
you can get virtually, isn't he?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, he's got very
little room to manoeuvre and he wants people to feel that he
may lash out at the last moment.
And this is perfectly possible that he
will.
But Iraq is not a strong country.
And one of the things that is noticeable
about Iraq is that Saddam wants to present himself as the great
and powerful leader of a powerful country and those abroad who
want to demonise him - that he's like Stalin or Hitler.
Iraq is a poor country. The villages
are made of mud brick.
There aren't the resources to stand against
the US and the rest of the world.
TONY JONES: You've written yourself that
Saddam has an exaggerated view of his own role in history.
Is it just possible that he might have
cast himself in the role of the great Arab martyr, that he may
actually be prepared to go all the way this time and to die for
it?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Yeah, that a very interesting
question, and it's one that lots of his neighbours and Iraqis
are wondering, whether there's going to be a final episode that
he pictures himself as dying in the ruins of Baghdad.
Of course for the 5 million people who
live in Baghdad that's real bad news.
But I don't know.
I mean, he probably will fight it out
to the end.
But it, the government, might begin to
disintegrate and this is what the US wants, they want to see
if they can fragment the army, ferment mutinies once the invasion
has started.
And once the bombing has started, and
they've made it very clear that they're going to start with the
palaces, target the inner security apparatus, not the bridges
and power stations, but for the elements of the regime that are
most important to Saddam.
TONY JONES: What is your assessment,
then, of what's going to happen?
We now have several deadlines to pass.
We have the one at the end of this week
and one in 30 days time in which the demands are greater and
then we have a further deadline once the weapons inspectors are
in place.
What do you think is going to happen
through this process?
Do you think inevitably this is going
to end with war?
PATRICK COCKBURN: I think it's extremely
likely.
I don't quite want to use the word 'inevitable'
because now the US has the support of the Security Council, it
will be more difficult for the US, with the total support of
the Security Council, to suddenly take unilateral action.
But there's such a powerful faction in
Washington that wants to go to war anyway that's waiting for
Saddam to make a mistake or something that can be be portrayed
as not going along with what the Security Council as decreed.
It's very difficult to see Saddam being
there in a year's time.
TONY JONES: One final question. We saw
in the last Gulf War that, with some exceptions, his troops were
not really prepared to fight for him -- at least most of his
troops.
What do you think will happen this time?
PATRICK COCKBURN: I think at the inner
core, people around him might fight.
The army, as a whole, will probably fragment,
there probably will be mutinies.
It may look like Afghanistan at moments,
senior commanders may go over to the other side, declare a neutrality
and also probably there's some very heavy money going around,
as there was in Afghanistan, to persuade them not to fight.
But in Iraq, Saddam is an expert at stopping
military coups, that's the one thing he really knows about.
If you're an army commander somewhere
in Iraq and you get your timing of your mutiny just 10 minutes
wrong, you might end up at the end of a rope, whatever happens
to Saddam in the long-term.
So there will be a lot of nervous army
officers wondering which way to jump, when to jump and what their
fate is going to be.
Yesterday's
Features
William Hughes
Three
Strikes Laws
Only the Poor Need Apply
Anthony Gancarski
Rest
in Peace, Jackass!
Ahmad Faruqui
What
Have the Elections Wrought?
Maria Tomchick
A Half-Million
in Florence
Where Was the US Press?
Joanne Mariner
Ashcroft's Narco-Terror War
Qais S. Saleh
A Horseless
Rider, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Imported Bigotry
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Judges
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- The Shafts of Death: Bush, Coal Mines, and Death
in the Tunnels;
- Speak Memory!: Carter and the Draft;
- Daniel Pipes' World: Smearing Pro-Arab Academics;
- Ashcroft's Gays: the War on Free Speech;
- Saddam's Amnesty: Could It Happen Here?
- Criminalizing Dissent: a history and preview;
- Iraq 1987: When the Going Was Good;
- Egypt in Turmoil: an Anthropologist's Account;
- Green and Grounded: Profiled at the Gate.
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|