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'Saddam never used doubles'
12/05/2004 20:25 - (SA)
Oslo - Contrary to widespread belief, Saddam Hussein did not use look-alikes to fool his enemies, the former Iraqi dictator's physician claimed on Wednesday.
Ala Bashir, author of a book published in Norway and including titbits about his most famous patient, whom he describes as "gentle", said he would have known if Saddam had employed doubles.
"No one has ever approached me to do surgery for anyone to help to make a double for Saddam Hussein. I definitely would have been an obvious choice. I have not seen anyone who had such an operation" Bashir said.
Western governments and media have repeatedly asserted that Saddam often used look-alikes, most recently during a crowd-hugging public appearance last year in Baghdad, as American troops were closing in on the capital.
Bashir, a plastic surgeon, was a member of the Iraqi leader's medical team for 20 years, during which he found that the dictator, ruthless towards his enemies, could also be perfectly nice.
"He is very nice, very gentle and very polite when he is talking to people. But he is very hard with people who opposed (him)" Bashir said, always using the present tense when talking about his former master.
The 64-year-old doctor said he did a face job on Saddam only once, in February 1991, after a car accident. Saddam had been riding in his car during a blackout in Baghdad during the first Gulf War, suffering several cuts to his face and a near-sectioning of a finger.
Saddam called on Bashir, who is also a renowned artist, to join his medical team because he "was very fond of my art" he said.
Bashir, who clearly had his employer's full confidence, was cautious when asked about Western views of Saddam, who he said did not deserve to be so firmly placed in what George W Bush has called the "Axis of Evil".
"There's a lot of exaggeration" he said. "I don't think it is right to accuse somebody without giving him the chance to defend himself. The facts have got many faces, just like the pyramids".
"To change the regime was right, but the way it has been changed was wrong", he added.
But in his book, published Wednesday in Norway under the title "Saddam's Confidant", Bashir admits that even the privileged members of the regime, like his own family, were not safe.
In the early 1980s, three of Bashir's cousins were put in prison "and never returned", most likely having been executed.
More recently, a fourth cousin, a former Baath party member who turned regime critic, was sentenced to death, saved only by the fall of the regime.
The book also tells how the leader's son, Uday, once killed a servant with a cane and took pot-shots at a bodyguard.
"He just wanted to play with his gun. I think he was mad".
The world was fooled into thinking that Saddam had a tight grip on his government, Bashir said.
"He positioned himself on top of all power, the party, the government. That's why everybody looked at him as almighty. But in reality his grip on power became weaker and weaker" he said.
- AFP
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