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Iraqi leadership rollcall
24/03/2003 15:58 - (SA)
Dubai - Given as dead or wounded by the all-powerful US and British intelligence services, the political leaders of Iraq, with Saddam Hussein at their helm, are stubbornly refusing to lie down.
They appeared to be firmly in charge of the state apparatus on Monday, the fifth day of the war, despite air raids to "decapitate" them and a ferocious pounding of government infrastructure.
The Iraqi president himself delivered a rallying speech at midday, praising the bravery of soldiers and proving through references to continuing battles that he was at least alive in the opening days of the campaign, even if the show was pre-recorded.
It was his fifth television appearance to reassure his long-suffering people since the pre-emptive US strikes on Thursday which set off reports that elements of the leadership had been eliminated.
Nothing, of course can, be proved definitively, but the carefully constructed analysis of Western experts, who stress Saddam's talents for deception and note he has survived more coup bids than anyone, has been made to look at best optimistic.
He has certainly out-foxed the Central Intelligence Agency so far.
Close scrutiny of Thursday's television show after hopes were raised that the opening air strikes had been successful, led to the reluctant conclusion that it was indeed Saddam and not any of a number of suspected doubles.
The Iraqi authorities also insisted that none of the presidental family had been hurt, although the cruise missiles had been intended for them. Leadership rollcall But claims Saddam has been injured have not gone away, supported in part by that fact that all the recent television footage has him seated, never standing.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that telephone intercepts since Thursday confirmed he had been seriously wounded.
Anonymous officials were quoted saying neighbours of the building targeted on Thursday gossiped on the telephone about the president being taken away in an ambulance.
US media have quoted a variety of sources stating that several of the top Iraqi leadership had been killed in the raids, including the regime number two Ezzat Ibrahim, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Ali Hassan Al-Majid, a senior party figure. Saddam's sons Qussay and Uday have also been listed among the alleged casualties.
Ibrahim and Ramadan turned up Sunday night, the latter in person at a news conference to condemn the United Nation's failure to resist Washington's headlong rush to war. Ibrahim appeared on television.
Qussay Saddam Hussein, entrusted with the key tasks of defending Baghdad, has been seen at two of the three televised meetings alongside his father.
Besides commanding the elite Republican Guard, Iraq's best trained and equipped force, the discreet Qussay is also in charge of the security of the top leadership.
Missing on the rollcall, however, is the president's turbulent elder son, Uday, who leads a virtual private army called Saddam's Fedayeen. The volunteers won strong praise from the "great leader" on Monday.
The feared Uday has not been sighted in public or appeared on television since before the war began, although his cherished daily newspaper Babel continues to publish.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, another key figure whose fate is said to be uncertain, seldom appears in public anyway and has been put in charge of defending southern Iraq.
Majid is bettern known as "Chemical Ali" for using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988 to deadly effect.
Aziz rumour defied The relative quietness of Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, who has in the past so often presented Iraq's case to the world, led to a volley of pre-war reports that he had either defected in Kurdistan or been caught and killed trying to do so.
But he strolled out the next day, a big Cuban cigar to hand, to defy the rumour mill yet again.
In the middle of the war, Iraq despatched Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to Damascus and Cairo to rally Arab support.
And Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf has assumed the role of government spokesperson dishing out verbal tongue lashings morning and night.
US and British politicians are branded "filthy criminals" and worse.
- AFX
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