unwanted son
According to the official version, Hussein was born on April 28, 1937. But researchers believe that this date is not true, and the present time of his birth is not known. The elder brother of the future dictator died of cancer at the age of 12.
Saddam's mother was pregnant at the time. Because of the loss, she became depressed, tried to terminate the pregnancy and lay hands on herself. But the future dictator still came into the world. But the mother did not want to see the newborn child, so his maternal uncle took him to be raised. In fact, he saved Saddam's life. A relative raised Hussein harshly, was very demanding of him, constantly instilled the idea of becoming a new Saladin - a powerful medieval ruler of the Middle East, a thunderstorm of the crusaders.
Family ties
Saddam's first wife was his cousin, Sajid's cousin. From her, the dictator had five children: the sons of Uday and Kusey, as well as the daughters of Ragad, Rana and Khalu. However, they were engaged when Saddam was still five years old, and Sajida was barely seven. The couple got married in Cairo, and Saddam personally planted a bush of elite white roses, which he named after his wife.
The second marriage was very scandalous and received wide publicity even outside of Iraq. In 1988, Hussein, already president, met the wife of the president of Iraq Airways. Saddam urged his husband to divorce. He seemed to agree, but the cousin of the dictator Adnan Khairallah, who at that time held the post of Minister of Defense, began to object to the marriage. Soon he died in a plane crash under mysterious circumstances. Many believe that Saddam had a hand in his death.
"Golden" dictator
Hussein was one of the richest men in the Middle East. He had a truly royal hobby - the construction of luxurious palaces. According to official figures, the dictator had 28 residences and villas, but eyewitnesses say that there were much more - 80, or even 100.
So, the palace "Makar-et-Tartar" ("Green Palace") was built on the shores of Lake Tartar in 1993, its total area is 6.5 square kilometers. More than 50 million dollars were spent on its construction from the treasury. The residence was striking in its splendor: it had 45 bedrooms, and a picturesque view of the lake opened from the southern windows. In addition, the "Green Palace" had underground bunkers and even underground laboratories. It is noteworthy that the dictator did not spend the night in the same palace for more than two days.
There were rumors that the dictator had mountains of treasures, some of which he managed to hide after being overthrown in 2003. There is a version that one of the planes with a huge amount of cash that belonged to Saddam is standing at one of the Moscow airports. However, so far, allegedly, no one has dared to come for wealth.
Difficult child
Saddam's eldest son, Uday, gave his father a lot of trouble. In Iraq and beyond, there were constant rumors about his sexual adventures. Once he offered to have fun with the wife of the Danish ambassador. Such unbridled behavior of the offspring greatly angered the dictator, who summoned his son to him and severely beat him with a cane. After that, the "golden boy" moved around in a wheelchair for a month, with one of his broken legs never fully healed, for which he received the nickname "lame".
faith and blood
One of the mosques houses the Koran, which was written with the blood of Hussein. The holy book was demonstrated to the public in 2000. For the manufacture of special ink, 27 liters of blood, which the dictator donated, were used. However, experts are sure that this is an unrealistic figure for one person at a time.
After the overthrow of Saddam, religious leaders could not decide what to do with this Koran. On the one hand, it is a sacred book, which is forbidden to be destroyed. On the other hand, it is forbidden to write the Koran with blood; this act was immediately condemned by Muslims in many countries.
"Superior Personality"
Almost 300,000 people went missing during the years of Hussein's rule, according to Human Rights Watch. CIA psychologist Gerald Post assessed Saddam's personality as follows: not paranoid and not crazy, but an extremely dangerous person, a pronounced narcissist, devoid of a sense of compassion for others. During the reign of Hussein, 17 ministers were sentenced to death, he executed two of his own sons-in-law. At the same time, after 1990, the former ruler of Iraq did not leave the country. Perhaps he was afraid of attempts on his life.
The fall
Saddam's government fell on April 17, 2003, when the remnants of the elite Medina Division surrendered under pressure from the Americans and their allies. The interventionists established control over the entire country on May 1, and then began to look for representatives of the now former Iraqi leadership. In the end, the dictator himself was caught. He was arrested on 13 December 2003 in the basement of a village house near the village of Ad-Daur.
Very thin, dirty and overgrown, he was not at all like the powerful dictator he had been only six months ago. As Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the US military forces in Iraq, noted, Saddam gave the impression of a man who was tired of life and resigned to his fate.
Imprisonment and execution
Saddam was kept in prison along with the rest of the prisoners. He was placed in a tiny four square meter solitary cell. The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq did not have access to the media, he spent his time reading books, writing poetry and praying. Occasionally he was taken out for a walk in the prison yard, where he organized his own mini-garden. True, only weeds grew in it, nevertheless, Saddam carefully looked after them.
Sergeant Robert Ellis recalled that the deposed dictator often remembered his dead daughter and hardly mentioned the sons of Uday and Kusey, who were killed by the Americans. True, once he mentioned that he really lacks them.
Saddam was often interrogated. To make him more accommodating, he was shown video footage of jubilant Iraqis toppling statues of their former leader. According to eyewitnesses, this brought suffering to Hussein, his face turned red, his eyes filled with anger, and his voice changed. According to some reports, Saddam was tortured, but there is no evidence of this.
The deposed dictator was executed early in the morning on December 30, 2006, a few minutes before the start of Eid al-Adha (Day of Sacrifice). The time was chosen so that the moment of execution did not coincide with the beginning of the holiday according to the Shiite calendar. However, according to Sunni, it has already begun.
2003.
However, Uday became famous all over the world not as a journalist or an Olympian, but as a sadist and a psychopath. The Western media, especially before the anti-Iraq campaigns, were always full of publications about the cruelest massacres committed by Uday. According to eyewitnesses, Uday Hussein had a passion for torture, gambling, weapons and women, he easily fell into anger, and many, according to eyewitnesses, paid with their lives for daring to contradict him.
Many sources claim that Uday was the real Don Juan. There is no doubt that part of his turbulent life is an exaggeration. But there is a fact that in the 80s he filmed girls in nightclubs in Baghdad, after which he took them to his mansion. Those who resisted had to deal with his bodyguards who used force. According to some reports, in 1979, at the age of 15, he took part in the massacre of members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Iraq, after which many of his powers were transferred personally to Saddam Hussein.
The wedding of Uday and his wife (cousin) Saji. The marriage was unsuccessful. Due to the cruelty and beatings of Udeya, Saja was forced to return to her parents.
Saddam Hussein's son is also known to have visited his many mistresses in a tank. The eldest son of the president, although he remained unpunished, was occasionally punished by his father. One day, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered that his son Uday be punished with stick blows. The president's son was subjected to such a severe punishment "for obscene offers to foreign women" to stay with him. It is noteworthy that the beatings were inflicted on the legs of Uday, who, after the assassination attempt on him, moved for a long time in a wheelchair. Because of this, diplomats among themselves called the son of the President of Iraq "Lame". Saddam was pissed off when Uday, after swimming in the pool of Baghdad's best hotel, the Rashid, invited the wife of the Danish charge d'affaires to spend the night together. The most scandalous case occurred in Baghdad with the Italian model Barbara Di Palma back in April 2002. She was invited to Iraq for a cultural event - to participate in a fashion show, but Saddam's son began to molest her and her girlfriend, persuading them to have sex. The fashion model's interpreter was intimidated by Hussein's son's entourage and claimed that they would be in serious trouble if they did not sleep with Udey. In all hotels in Baghdad, Uday's henchmen were always on duty, picking up women for him. Often there were pop stars among them. One noteworthy detail: all of Uday's "close friends" (both tourists and pop stars) invariably left him, gifted with the same luxurious silver bracelets.
After the overthrow of Hussein's regime, a secret women's prison was found in Baghdad, which belonged to the eldest son of the former Iraqi president. Girls were imprisoned in it, who opposed Udey in his harassment. 11 female prisoners were rescued from prison - four died in custody from hunger and thirst. Uday lived in the presidential palace in Baghdad. Nearby was another house for his harem. American soldiers found mountains of pornographic photos downloaded from the Internet in these houses, and all the walls were hung with paintings depicting naked women. Among them were even photographs of the president's daughters Jenna and Barbara Bush taken in the gym. In the black book - hundreds of female names. There were also photographs of senior classes, which confirms the suspicion that Uday ordered the kidnapping of girls to satisfy his needs. At the same time, the soldiers found Cuban cigars with his name on the packaging in the palace, a large amount of alcoholic beverages, a gold-plated Kalashnikov assault rifle, six suitcases with heroin worth 625 thousand pounds (about a million dollars), expensive watches and photos of other women in gyms.
In March 2001, as a result of a "universal and fair" vote, Uday was elected a member of the Iraqi parliament by a majority of 99.9%. In the future, he expected to receive the post of speaker, which would give him the right to participate in meetings of the highest authority in the country - the Revolutionary Command Council. However, by order of Saddam, Udey was not allowed to go any further. Yes, and he was allowed to take a seat in parliament on the condition that Uday would not try to push his brother Kusei into the background. Uday tried to strengthen his position in the state security by removing Kusey's people from there. His influential newspaper "Babil" began to publish exposing materials about "corruption in the organs." The eldest son of Saddam even managed to achieve a number of changes in their leadership. However, he failed to turn the tide in his favor. The eldest son of Saddam tried to gain a foothold in politics and take a special place in it. In February 2002, Uday was awarded the title of professor of political science at Baghdad's Saddam University for a 300-page doctoral thesis on international relations in the 21st century. In this work, Uday predicted the imminent collapse of the United States.
Uday Hussein was obsessed with gold jewelry and precious stones. So, once he bought a diamond worth 450 thousand dollars in Saudi Arabia, which he liked on one of the sites. And one of the Arab singers, who visited Baghdad with concerts, said that Uday wore gold lining with diamonds on his nails.
Uday Hussein is also known as a great collector. Thus, the eldest son of the former leader of Iraq over the past 12 years has imported 1.5 thousand cars into the country for himself. He has amassed one of the most unusual collections of prestige cars in the world. Uday owned 18 Rolls-Royces, including Corniches, Silver Wraiths, Silver Spirits and Silver Shadows - each costing up to £250,000 in today's prices. Also in the collection were 3 Bentleys, at least 22 Mercedes-Benzes, 3 Jaguars, a Lamborghini Diablo VT worth over £180,000, 4 Bugatti, 3 Aston Martins, 4 Cadillacs, several Ferraris (including the 348 Barchetta), half a dozen Porsches, Lotus Esprit, Maclaren, Maserati, dozens of Dodges and Toyotas, as well as the Mini Cooper and Land Rover Discovery that Uday used while hunting. In January 2001, Uday brought a convertible Bentley Azure from Jordan that cost over £230,000. Some of Uday's cars were heavily modified. For example, one of the Mercedes had 150 changes, and one of the Rolls-Royce was redesigned to look like a Mercedes from the back. Interiors of two Mercedes were painted with war scenes. The other car could quickly change color to confuse the chase. Some cars, including a Rolls-Royce, were stolen in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion. Uday sent them by ferry to Baghdad. He was forced to hide many of his cars in secret garages and warehouses because his father disapproved of such spending. One day, after a family row in October 1995, Saddam ordered the destruction of 50 Uday cars that were in an underground parking lot in the presidential palace in Baghdad.
After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Baghdad police found 360 cars in Uday's personal underground garage. Some of them were destroyed or damaged during the bombing of Baghdad, the rest were stolen during the pogroms and looting that began after the fall of Baghdad. Several cars were returned. The Baghdad police held an auction selling the cars of Saddam's eldest son.
It is alleged that Udey killed his delinquent bodyguards with his own hands right in front of his father. In addition, on his account the murder of his wife (one of three). He used the building of the Olympic Committee to torture athletes. Iraqi athletes who fled to the West told human rights organizations that when a team lost, Uday "prescribed" clubbing to the players, dunked them in filth, ordered people to be thrown off bridges, forced them to crawl on hot asphalt and kick concrete walls. As soon as the Iraqi national team played an unsuccessful match, it was impossible for her to avoid several days of torture. During the match, Uday took notes detailing how each individual player should be subjected to torture. At the end of the duel, the offenders (often it was the whole team) were sent to the basement of the Olympic Committee building, where long days of bullying awaited them. According to the evidence collected, more than 50 athletes were tortured to death in Iraq in the years before the fall of Baghdad, and the son of the Iraqi president was involved in almost all of the deaths. An investigation by the International Olympic Committee did not then prove the authenticity of these accusations, however, when Saddam Hussein's regime fell, American soldiers found many instruments of torture for athletes, including medieval ones, as well as special prisons for delinquent athletes.
"Fedayeen Saddam" - volunteer militia. Translated from Arabic, “fedayin” means “self-sacrificing”. According to various estimates, the number of Fedayeen in Iraq ranged from 18,000 to 40,000. In 1995, this organization was created by Uday, who became its commander in chief. He paid them the equivalent of $100 per month (civil servants received $3), provided them with land, free medical care, and additional food rations. Uday's idea to create an elite personal army from this militia failed: in September 1996, a scandal erupted - Saddam Hussein suddenly found out that high-tech military equipment and heavy equipment were strangely flowing from the Republican Guard to the fedayeen. For some time, Saddam removed Uday from the leadership of the Fedayeen, handing over their rule to his youngest son, but soon the elder Hussein regained leadership in Fedayeen Saddam.
Fedayeen fulfilled all the whims of their commander: all over the country they caught beautiful girls for him, cut out the tongues of opponents of the regime and intimidated the population. In 1998, in the Shiite city of Karbala, black-robed Fedayeen, wearing face-covering knitted black helmets, rounded up people whom they suspected of a failed assassination attempt on Izzat Ibrahim, Hussein's deputy on the Revolutionary Command Council. Hundreds of people were thrown into prison and tortured. This armed formation took an active part in the executions of prostitutes, led by Uday Hussein. The end of Fedayeen Saddam came with the death of Uday and the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Before the start of the war on March 18, George W. Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein demanding that he resign and leave the country with his sons. In response to this, Uday said on television that in fact the proposal should sound completely different: that President Bush should "resign." The son of the president of Iraq called the figure of the American president "unstable" and advised him to leave the White House. Otherwise, "the bloodiest battle" will be prepared for the American troops in Iraq. Uday Hussein warned the United States that an attack on Iraq would expand the scope of the war that some Islamic countries are waging against the United States. According to Uday, " the wives and mothers of those who attack us will weep and there will be no end to their tears ... They will lose faith that there is at least one safe place for them - both in Iraq and in the rest of the world". The next day, Arab media reported that Saddam Hussein had his eldest son arrested and sent under guard to the Tartar presidential complex. The reason for the arrest was a secret attempt by Uday Hussein to negotiate with the Jordanians about the flight to Amman. On March 31, for the first time since the start of the war, the world saw a meeting of the military command, which was chaired by Saddam Hussein. Udey and his younger brother Kusei took part in it. A week later, on April 6, Iraqi television aired the live Uday video for the last time. After the overthrow of the Saddam regime, Uday disappeared with his father, brother and a number of other political figures in Iraq. For him, as well as for many hiding, the hunt began.
The house of Uday and Qusay Hussein in Mosul, destroyed by the US military
The official reaction of the Arab countries to the death of Hussein's sons was very restrained. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi commented on the news: it would be enough just to surround Uday and Kusey, capture them and submit the case to the court", since such a cruel destruction of them" simply unacceptable in today's civilized society».
They say that nature rests on the children of not only geniuses, but also rulers. There are many examples of this in history. But it seems that she especially rests on the children of tyrants, who from an early age believe that everything in this world is allowed to them.
The eldest son of the long-term Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - Uday Saddam Hussein at-Tikriti - was a real "anfan terribl" ("terrible child"). Although, most likely, his ruthlessness, penchant for sadism and many other vices developed under the influence of his father.
They say that Saddam Hussein taught his son to be tough in a very original way. Allegedly, he forced four-year-old Uday to watch videos of torture. This broke the boy's psyche. He lost some line between good and evil, becoming a complete sadist in his teens. True, in this case, the proverb worked: "The apple does not fall far from the tree." When Saddam Hussein took over Iraq in 1979, the first thing he did was to arrest two dozen former associates of the Ba'ath party leaders. In order to morally crush them and force them to confess to treason, on the orders of Saddam, their children were placed in neighboring cells, who were tortured, and the girls were also raped. Former comrades-in-arms confessed to everything and were publicly executed on the square. They say that 15-year-old Uday took a direct part in the torture of party functionaries.
Uday Hussein felt early on that he was the crown prince, to whom the laws were not written. He easily fell into anger, and many paid with their lives for daring to contradict him. From the age of 16, he became a frequenter of nightclubs in Baghdad, where each time he chose a new girl, whom he took away to him. Those of them who resisted, his bodyguards, without ceremony, pushed into the car.
Over time, he got bored of filming girls in clubs, and his bodyguards began to select beauties for their lustful master. They kidnapped pretty “girls right from the streets and brought Udea to the palace. The eldest son of Saddam first raped them, and then branded them with a horseshoe, leaving the brand U - the first letter of his name. The marriage of the women he raped did not matter to him. One day, right on the street, Uday ordered a young woman who was walking with her husband, a captain in the Iraqi army, to get into his car. She refused. Then Uday ordered the bodyguards to seize the woman. The husband, who tried to resist this, was immediately severely beaten. His wife was raped and killed, and the unfortunate captain was sentenced to death, allegedly for "treason against Saddam."
The savagery of the eldest son alarmed the President of Iraq. When Uday graduated from an engineering college in 1984, his father found him a place where the son's violent temper seemed to be less noticeable - he appointed him chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, as well as head of the Iraqi Football Association. But Uday turned the athletes into slaves. For example, when the Iraqi football team lost, its players were flogged and dipped in filth. During a match, coaches and team leaders usually write down mistakes in a notebook that need to be worked on, and Uday writes down what punishment to subject to this or that football player after the final whistle. He ordered players to be thrown off the bridge, forced to crawl on hot asphalt and kick concrete walls. Sometimes he even sent the whole team to the basement of the building of the Olympic Committee, where they were waiting for long days of various tortures and bullying. He is said to have tortured over fifty Iraqi athletes to death.
Uday also kept journalists in a black body, since he was the owner of a daily newspaper and a youth television channel. For misprints in the newspaper and slips of the tongue on the air, they were beaten with iron bars on their legs. And they say that he fed two novice journalists to lions from his personal zoo.
Gradually, Uday became not only more and more cruel, but also more and more greedy. He got hooked on collecting exclusive jewelry and cars. Uday obtained money for expensive purchases through financial abuse and outright fraud. In 1985, he bought a large batch of cheap cattle for meat in India. But when the animals were brought to Iraq, it turned out that they were all sick. The cattle had to be slaughtered and burned. Another would have burned out on this deal. And Uday was pretty rich, because he achieved solid compensation from the state. In 1988, he generally made more than twenty million dollars in a single transaction, forcing the Central Bank of Iraq to sell him the currency at the official rate, and then driving it at exorbitant prices on the black market. But he had so many needs that even the money from frauds was not enough to satisfy them. And then he imposed a tribute on all Iraqi exporters. For each ton of dates and a large box of cigarettes, $25 went into his pocket.
Saddam Hussein has long been irritated by the cheeky behavior of his eldest son. But the last straw that overflowed the president's patience was another wild trick of Uday: during an official reception, in front of foreign diplomats, he beat the president's valet to death with a cane. Saddam wanted to isolate his unruly son in prison, but his wife called King Hussein ibn Talal of Jordan and asked her to intercede for her son in front of her husband. The king flew to Baghdad and persuaded Saddam to spare Uday. Nevertheless, the Iraqi president removed the firstborn from sight, sending him to Switzerland as an assistant to the Iraqi ambassador. But in Geneva, instead of working, Uday engaged in fraud and extortion until the Swiss authorities asked him to leave the country. When he returned to his homeland, his father's anger subsided, but he had already made a bet on his youngest son Kusey, who was entrusted with the leadership of the special services and the Revolutionary Guard of Iraq.
Udey was offended, and in 1995 he actually created his own guard - armed formations called "Fedayin Saddam", numbering several tens of thousands of people. Translated from Arabic, "fedayeen" means "self-sacrificing." But I did not want to sacrifice myself to the voluntary militia. Its members lived - did not grieve. And for the sake of entertainment, they caught beauties for their lustful leader, cut out the tongues of unarmed opponents of the regime and intimidated the population. They showed particular zeal when, at the beginning of the 21st century, a campaign against "licentiousness" began in Iraq. Ironically, this campaign was led by the most promiscuous man in Iraq - Uday. On his instructions, the country began to behead women accused of prostitution. On the sly, the fedayeen caught the wives and daughters of the opposition as prostitutes, raped them, and sent the records to their families.
Uday's atrocities were put to rest by the coalition forces that invaded Iraq in 2003. Neither the Iraqi army, nor the secret services, nor the Revolutionary Guards, nor the fedayeen wanted to die for Hussein, and even more so for his sons. A few weeks later, Baghdad was taken by parts of the allies. Uday tried to tie the guards to him with fear. He executed several officers whom he suspected of leaking information to the Americans about the whereabouts of him and his family. The sons of Hussein did not have the ability to lead the resistance. They simply hid in the mansion of Sheikh Nawwaf Zeidan in Mosul, where they sat out in comfortable conditions. A Kurd gave their location to the US government for $30 million. American soldiers from the Delta Unit fired rockets at the villa. During the shelling, Udey and Kusey were killed.
And in Baghdad, the Americans found Uday's torture chamber for athletes and his secret women's prison - girls who dared to refuse proximity to the president's son were thrown into it. The soldiers rescued 11 barely alive sufferers from this prison and found four more who died in custody from hunger and thirst.
All the toys that Uday entertained himself with during his lifetime also fell into the hands of the allies. In his underground garage, 360 cars were found, one more beautiful and more expensive than the other. Uday's personal zoo with lions, cheetahs and bears was nationalized. A large amount of pornography, alcohol and six suitcases of heroin worth about a million dollars were scooped out of Uday's room in the palace.
Mikhail Zygar
Iraqi crisis
The news of the death of the sons of Saddam Hussein caused a storm of delight among the allies. Tony Blair, tormented by criticism, went the farthest. He called the day of their death a great day in the history of Iraq. The American president, speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House, said that "now all Iraqis know that the last regime is over and it will not return." Oil prices on world markets fell sharply, and US Treasury Secretary John Snow was quick to announce that the death of the Hussein brothers would have a positive effect on the American economy
The first information about the death of the second and third numbers in the American deck of cards and in the former Iraqi hierarchy, Kusey and Udey Hussein, appeared late on Tuesday evening. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, later claimed that the Americans had first learned where Saddam's sons were hiding the day before. On Tuesday night, an unknown resident of Mosul, a Kurd from the Jalal Talabani clan, reported that Uday and Qusay were in a villa in the al-Falah area.
The villa belonged to Nawaf Zeidan, one of Saddam Hussein's distant relatives, part of his Abu Nasser clan. Nawaf Zeidan is one of the richest men in Mosul and the sheikh of the local Sunni community. According to the Debka website, Saddam's sons visited a relative last Monday. Apparently they were trying to use Mosul as a staging post on their way to Syria. But they failed to leave the city. On Wednesday night, the Americans stormed the house. The operation lasted six hours. First, according to General Sanchez, a small detachment of soldiers from the 101st Airmobile Division approached the villa. He was met with automatic fire and grenades. Those hiding in the villa barricaded themselves inside and put up fierce resistance. Helicopters appeared over Mosul. As one of the neighbors told the Al-Jazeera TV channel, 13 rockets were fired at the villa and only after that 200 paratroopers went inside.
It is curious that during the entire six hours the American army fought with only four, and one of them was a child. They, most likely, was the 14-year-old son of Qusay Hussein Mustafa. Judging by the footage that the Al-Arabiya TV channel managed to shoot, those hiding in the villa were not preparing for defense at all: chocolates were scattered on the table, the defenders were in slippers.
"The bodies were in such a state that we could identify them," General Sanchez said. When asked how they managed to identify the sons of the ex-president of Iraq, General Sanchez replied: "Honestly, we are sure that they are Uday and Qusay" - and added that a DNA test would be carried out in the near future. Few were convinced by the general's word: Almost all Iraqis told reporters yesterday that they did not believe in the death of Saddam's sons. And then last night, the American command promised to publish photographs of the dead, and also reported that analyzes of the teeth and x-rays were carried out, which showed that the corpses from Mosul were Qusay (100%) and Uday (90%). The death of Uday, however, is also confirmed by the presence of traces from the operation carried out in 1996 after the assassination attempt.
Once the eldest son of Saddam Hussein, Uday was considered his main successor. He was the biggest media tycoon in Iraq. It was he who owned the "independent" media holding, which included the best newspaper in Iraq, "Babil" ("Babylon") and the best TV channel, "Al-Shabab" ("Youth"). Uday held many symbolic posts: the head of the union of journalists of Iraq, the National Olympic Committee, in 1999 he was elected to parliament (99.99% of voters voted for him). However, Uday became famous all over the world not as a journalist or an Olympian, but as a sadist and a psychopath. The Western media, especially before the anti-Iraq campaigns, were always full of publications about the cruelest massacres committed by Uday.
Not all of Uday's actions went unpunished. In 1988, Uday killed his father's favorite bodyguard for arranging secret meetings between the president and his mistress, beating him to death in public. For this, Saddam exiled Uday to Switzerland for a while.
Despite the fact that Udey Hussein was known all over the world for his sadistic antics, many Russians had the opportunity to recognize the dictatorial son from a completely different side. Uday was very friendly with many Russian businessmen who worked in Iraq, and actively helped companies that were involved in oil smuggling. In addition to close friendship with Russian men, Udey also had special feelings for Russian women. Saddam's son, although practically unable to walk (after the assassination attempt), was known for his love affairs. Moreover, when choosing sexual partners, he traditionally gave preference to Russian women.
He was helped to arrange his personal life by all the same Russian businessmen who supplied Udey with prostitutes from Moscow on a weekly basis. Usually it happened like this: on Mondays, two selected girls flew to Baghdad on a regular plane, striking with their beauty all the passengers of the plane. As soon as they entered the airport building, a sports car flew up to it, which took the Russians away in an unknown direction until the next Wednesday, when the same girls, having rested in the chambers of the "Baghdad prince", returned to Moscow on a return flight.
As they said in Iraq, quite often Uday's guests were not only nameless call girls, but also Russian celebrities. So, several popular "girl pop groups" came to give "special concerts" personally for Udey Hussein and left, having corrected their budget quite a lot.
Having a rich selection of the best Moscow models, Uday did not shun ordinary tourists. In all the hotels in Baghdad, Uday's henchmen were always on duty, picking up women for him, and the Russians were again in high demand. Russian women visiting Baghdad were invariably invited to a party at a private club owned by Uday. From there they were invited behind the curtains, to the private apartments of the president's son. One noteworthy detail: all of Uday's "close friends" (both tourists and pop stars) invariably left him, gifted with the same luxurious silver bracelets.
Perhaps these bracelets and the millions earned by businessmen friends of Uday will remain the only souvenirs left to Russia from the sons of Saddam.
In 1996, an assassination attempt was made on Uday. According to rumors, it was organized by the angry relatives of the girls who were raped by Uday. Uday's red armored Porsche was fired upon, but only one bullet went through the keyhole. As a result of the assassination attempt, Saddam's eldest son was paralyzed and was subsequently able to walk only with a cane. The assassination attempt and illness finally crossed out Udey's chances of succession to the throne: after that, Saddam's youngest son, Kusey, became the obvious favorite.
Qusay differed from his older brother in a calmer disposition, due to which he was considered a confidant of his father and his likely successor: only he and the personal secretary of the dictator Abed Hamid Mahmoud always knew the whereabouts of Saddam for sure.
37-year-old Kusei was a member of the Central Committee of the Baath Party (his older brother did not receive such an honor), headed its military committee and was generally responsible for the power bloc in the leadership. He headed the Iraqi intelligence services, commanded his father's bodyguards and the Republican Guard - the elite units that offered the most resistance to American troops. Unlike Uday, he rarely appeared in public and did not lead an active social life, so little is known about him. However, the oppositionists claimed that he surpassed his brother in composure and cruelty. Qusay Hussein supervised the Iraqi repressive apparatus and, according to rumors, came up with an effective method of combating overcrowding in prisons - "purge" (one of the options for such a "purge" is to shoot every third person).
It is believed that it was Kusey who led the suppression of the Shiite uprisings in the south of the country in 1991, and it was he who came up with the idea of draining the swamps in the south of the country, where a special ethnic group "marsh Arabs" lived for about a thousand years - total reclamation completely destroyed this nation. On the eve of the war, all the main levers of power actually passed to Kusei - he was appointed commander of the central district of Iraq. In fact, Qusay was supposed to be responsible for the defense of Baghdad. And the Americans explained its complete absence in April by the fact that a powerful bomb hit the intelligence building, where Saddam and his sons were at that moment - deprived of leadership, the army collapsed. However, later all three came to life, and the version of their death under bombs in Baghdad was forgotten.
It turns out, only to remember again after two and a half months in Mosul.
David Blair / David Blair
Like the tragic villains of Shakespeare, Saddam's sons embodied all the worst that the country they trampled upon could boast of.
The news that Uday and Qusay said goodbye to their lives on the outskirts of Mosul, in northern Iraq, will please everyone except the henchmen of the ex-dictator's sons.
The psychopathic playboy Uday and the cold, calculating, and ruthless heir to the throne, Qusay, represented the two sides of Iraq. They were living proof of the effectiveness of their father's tyrannical policy, which combined boundless cruelty with prudent insight. It was this mixture that allowed Saddam to stay in power for more than thirty years.
Uday is directly responsible for a significant number of crimes, including the murder, torture, kidnapping and rape of children.
However, it is possible that there is even more blood on Qusay's conscience, simply because he had more power in his hands than his older, rapidly marginalized brother, whose antics surpassed even Saddam's "achievements".
Saddam's sons were born shortly before he came to power. Uday was born in 1965, Kusei in 1967, just as Saddam was trying to recover from the effects of a failed coup.
From childhood, they were well aware of the fear that their father instilled in most Iraqis. Saddam, on the other hand, saw them as his heirs, so he prepared children for the harsh realities of power.
When Saddam came to power in 1979, his offspring joined a clan of chosen representatives of the human race: they became the heirs of a tyrant who knew that they were allowed to do whatever they wanted.
Uday was the first to go off the rails. He flew out of school and began to drive around the streets of Baghdad in a white BMW.
Many sources claim that he was a real sexual predator. There is no doubt that this was not without exaggeration. However, there is no doubt that in the 80s he filmed girls in nightclubs in Baghdad, after which he took them to his mansion.
Those who resisted had to deal with his bodyguards who used force.
In 1988, Uday became the instigator of a major diplomatic scandal. During an official reception, which, in particular, was attended by the wife of Egyptian President Suzanne Mubarak (Suzanne Mubarak), he beat one of Saddam's aides to death.
Uday accused the assistant of conspiring against his father. At the time, the dictator was investigating a case in which, much to his wife's annoyance, the wife of Iraqi Airways director Samira Shahbandar was implicated.
After the public assassination, Uday's mother witnessed a more than unpleasant quarrel between Saddam and their eldest son. She called King Hussein of Jordan asking him to help reconcile the relatives.
The king immediately flew to Baghdad, where he managed to settle the conflict, mainly due to the fact that Hussein managed to convince Saddam to punish his eldest son and thus restore justice.
So Uday ended up in Geneva, where he was engaged in fraud and extortion until the Swiss authorities asked him to leave the country.
Returning to Baghdad, he started another intra-family quarrel, after which the two sons-in-law of Saddam were forced to leave Iraq. Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel fled to Jordan, where they claimed to have a secret biological weapons program in Iraq that was evading UN sanctions.
Saddam lured his sons-in-law back to Baghdad, where they found their death. Armed men broke into their house and shot Hussein and Saddam. Uday also took part in the death squad operation, perhaps to prove that he can not only create problems in the family, but also solve them.
After that, Uday's "popularity" reached such a low level that his life was in danger.
In 1996, after a night party, he ran into an ambush and was riddled with bullets. They say he was paralyzed. After two years in the hospital, Uday made his first public appearance. This time he became the owner of an amazing number of tinsel titles.
He became chairman of the Iraqi Football Association, head of the National Olympic Committee, editor of the Babel newspaper, and general secretary of the Iraqi Students' Union.
Most of the time he profited from oil smuggling and the cigarette trade. The latter type of business has become extremely profitable and attractive due to international sanctions against Iraq.
Again, there were no accusations. This time it was about Uday beating and torturing players on his football team for losing matches. These allegations were investigated by FIFA, but they were found to be unfounded. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that there was a special prison in the building of the National Olympic Committee, into which anyone who dared to cross the Udei road fell.
The pinnacle of absurdity, apparently, was reached in February of this year. Then Uday's newspaper announced that he was awarded the title of professor of political science at Baghdad's Saddam University for a 300-page doctoral thesis on international relations in the 21st century.
In this work, Uday predicted the imminent collapse of the US.
And all this is to cover up a fact that was decisive for the fate of Iraq in the 1990s. Instead of disgrace to the Udei family, his younger brother, the quiet and industrious Kusei, was appointed the new heir to the throne.
There is no information that Kusei was personally involved in the rapes or murders. His marriage, apparently, was successful.
Among other things, nature endowed Kusei with intelligence and abilities. In the late 1990s, he became Saddam's main confidant. Having received the post of chairman of the Iraqi Security Council, Qusay found himself in the very center of the political life of the country.
He was also responsible for camouflaging chemical and biological weapons and hiding them from the eyes of UN weapons inspectors.
In addressing this challenge, Qusay did a great job, thanks to which Iraq was able to hide for several years the real size of the program for the production of illegal weapons.
In 2000, Qusay was given control over the structures that Saddam trusted the most. He became the head of the Special Republican Guard and the Special Security Committee. These relatively small structures, staffed with well-trained personnel, were well funded and served as pillars of Saddam's regime.
According to American experts, today members of these organizations are responsible for most of the attacks against American soldiers.
The most important indicator of the importance that Saddam attached to his youngest son was his appointment as commander-in-chief of troops in Baghdad and the dictator's hometown of Tikrit a week before the start of the war.
Qusay was responsible not only for the defense of Baghdad, but also for the survival of the regime as a whole.
However, despite his efforts, the defense of Baghdad proved woefully ineffective, leading to the rapid collapse of the regime.
In the end, the dictator was left with two sons: with the murderer Uday, who never grew up, and Kusei, a devoted and capable assistant. Now they have left him.
Now, for the first time in his life, Saddam will have to taste real loneliness.
ALL PHOTOS
American soldiers killed "key associates" of Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq. This was reported to journalists by a representative of the US Army.
On Tuesday, the US military carried out a special operation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, during which several Iraqis were killed. Initially, a CENTCOM spokesman announced the arrest of Saddam's closest associates. According to him, "they are of great interest" to the coalition forces, Skynews reports.
The US Army later released information that four senior supporters of the former Iraqi leader had been killed in the assault.
According to some reports, Saddam Hussein's sons Qusay and Uday hid in Mosul for a long time. For a long time the Americans did not confirm or deny the information that they captured the sons of the former Iraqi dictator.
CENTCOM, having received intelligence that four high-ranking Ba'ath Party officials were hiding in Mosul, sent 200 troops there to capture them.
Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army, who took part in the special operation, said: "This morning we laid siege to one of the local buildings, surrounded it and detained several people who are of great interest to us."
Witnesses reported that as US troops approached the building - the home of one of Saddam Hussein's relatives, Sheikh Nawwaf Zeidan - they were fired upon. The Americans had to call in air support - helicopters arrived to help them, only after that the assault on the building began.
This villa, which was stormed by the Americans, received serious damage - in particular, the roof of the mansion was completely demolished by a rocket.
About 200 US military personnel fired machine guns and RPGs on the territory of the mansion for four hours, bombarded the "defenders" of the villa with grenades supported by aircraft. After the skirmish ended, a small group of soldiers entered the building and carried out four bodies.
Maj. Trey Keith, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, says "high-value Iraqis" were found dead after the firefight ended.
According to him, five Iraqis were killed during the battle, including four Baath functionaries. Another five people were injured.
Representatives of the American army initially did not specify the identity of the dead Iraqis and comment on rumors that Saddam's sons might be there.
A few hours after the end of the operation, CENTCOM issued a statement about the possible discovery by the Americans in Iraq of the sons of Saddam Hussein.
"It is highly likely that Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were in this house during the firefight. They may have died, but we cannot yet say for sure," the Central Command spokesman said.
The bodies of two people found at the scene of the shootout "very similar" to the sons of Saddam Hussein, although no final confirmation has yet been received, a US military spokesman said.
The other two bodies belong to an adult male, possibly a guard named Abdel Samad, and a 14-year-old boy. Qusay Hussein, having gone underground, never parted with his 14-year-old son. It is possible that this is his body.
A senior Bush administration official said US officials are "90 to 95 percent certain" that Saddam's sons were killed in the storming of the mansion.
The US authorities are going to conduct a DNA test to confirm their death. The Americans have DNA samples from Saddam's sons, but it will take some time to say with certainty that Uday and Qusay are dead.
A US administration official told FOXNews that "all the bodies were riddled with bullets," making preliminary identification of the corpses difficult.
The Americans received intelligence information about the whereabouts of Hussein's sons from two independent sources.
The fact that the sons of Saddam were in this house was also confirmed by the correspondent of the Arab television channel Al-Jazeera - he was informed about this by local residents.
Around 23:30 Moscow time on Tuesday CENTCOM spokesman officially confirms that Saddam Hussein's sons are dead .
"We are confident that Uday and Qusay are dead," Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said during a press conference. "We used different methods to identify the dead."
Sanchez confirmed that the military received information about the stay of Saddam's sons in a mansion in Mosul.
At the moment, US military personnel have already captured and killed 36 people from the list of 55 wanted Iraqis. The fate of Saddam is still unknown.
The Americans believe that Saddam is alive and hiding somewhere in Iraq.
For the "head" of Saddam Hussein, the United States has appointed a reward of $25 million, and $15 million for his sons.
Rumsfeld reported on the results of the operation to Bush
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reported to President George W. Bush on the results of an operation carried out today by US troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, as a result of which, according to available preliminary data, both sons of Saddam Hussein were killed. This was reported by CNN, citing its own sources in the US administration.
As a U.S. government spokesman who asked not to be named earlier told her, the U.S. authorities are fairly certain that Uday and Qusay Hussein "met with the Creator." According to him, the operation in Mosul was based on "very fresh intelligence information," ITAR-TASS reports.
Shots were heard in Baghdad in the evening
On Tuesday, after dark, shots began to be heard in different parts of Baghdad. It is not yet known what caused the shooting.
It is still difficult to determine whether there are fighting in the city between US troops and supporters of Saddam Hussein. Several small explosions and machine-gun fire were also heard in the city.
Cairo television reports that shortly after receiving information about the possible death of Saddam Hussein's sons, riots broke out in the Iraqi capital.
Uday and Qusay Hussein
Uday Hussein is listed third on the list of leaders of the collapsed Iraqi regime wanted by the US-British coalition. Until the fall of Baghdad, he commanded the Fedayina Saddam paramilitaries and was head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee.
Before the war, Uday Hussein was famous for his love of love and obscene proposals to foreign women. The most scandalous case occurred in Baghdad with the Italian model Barbara Di Palma back in April last year. She was invited to Iraq for a cultural event - to participate in a fashion show, but Saddam's son began to molest her and her girlfriend, persuading them to have sex. The models' interpreter was intimidated by Hussein's son's entourage and claimed that they would be in serious trouble if they did not sleep with Uday.
Saddam Hussein's son is also known to have visited his many mistresses in a tank. However, the husband of one of his lovers made an attempt on Uday, after which the eldest son of the Iraqi president remained partially paralyzed from the waist down. One day, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered that his son Uday be punished with stick blows. The high-ranking offspring was also subjected to such severe punishment "for obscene proposals to foreign women."
It is noteworthy that the beatings were inflicted on the legs of Uday, who, after the assassination attempt on him, moved in a wheelchair for a long time. Because of this, diplomats among themselves called the son of the President of Iraq "Lame".
Saddam was pissed off when Uday, after swimming in the pool of Baghdad's best hotel, the Rashid, invited the wife of the Danish Charge d'Affaires to spend the night together. Earlier, writes one of the Turkish newspapers, Khromoy repeatedly molested the wives of many diplomats, in connection with which rather harsh statements were often made against him.
The second, youngest, son of Saddam Hussein - bite - was considered dead for a long time. Allegedly, he died on April 8 as a result of an air raid by coalition forces on his motorcade en route to Syria. Together with Kusai Hussein, Luwei Khairallah Tulfah (his maternal uncle, who previously held a high post in counterintelligence) was killed and Barzan Hasan Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother, an adviser to the presidential office, was wounded.
Arab TV channel claims four Americans killed in special operation near Mosul
In the vicinity of Mosul in northern Iraq, a battle took place between US troops and a detachment of the Zeidan tribe, Al-Arabia reported. Armed Iraqis attempted to prevent a search of the home of one of Saddam Hussein's relatives, Sheikh Navwaf Zeidan.
According to preliminary data, there are dead and wounded on both sides. Witnesses of the incident report that up to two hundred commandos participated in the raid. Of these, at least four were killed. According to the channel, the American command received a signal that a former Iraqi dictator was hiding in this house.
Earlier, an American jeep was shot at on the highway between the cities of Balad and Ramadi, west of Baghdad. One soldier died, another was taken to the hospital.
According to a representative of the US Central Command, an armored car with soldiers was ambushed today and was fired from a grenade launcher.
Al-Jazeera TV channel reports that two US soldiers were injured in Baakuba, where their military jeep was ambushed.
Saddam is hiding in Iraq, according to the Pentagon
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is "probably alive", he is hiding in Iraqi territory in anticipation of the moment when the troops of the US-British coalition will be withdrawn from the country. This point of view was expressed live by the chief adviser to the US Secretary of Defense, Richard Perl, on the air of the Ekho Moskvy radio station today. "I'm afraid he won't wait for us to leave without finding him," he said.
Pearl declared that the Anglo-American occupation of that country would continue until "the conditions of physical security were created there, without which the formation of democratic institutions is impossible."
According to Pearl, Washington has evidence that "about 300,000 people were killed and buried in Iraq," and this circumstance alone justifies military intervention. He acknowledged that the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which, according to the countries of the anti-Iraq coalition, had Baghdad, are facing serious problems.
