Echoes of a Strongman in Baghdad Today

By ROD NORDLANDJULY 14, 2014

BAGHDAD — The ghost of Saddam Hussein still hangs over Iraq like a cloud stalking a sunny day; it doesn’t always cover the sun, but it never quite goes away.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s slide into strongman territory in the years since American troops left has been well documented. His government and security forces have harassed Sunni Arabs with baseless arrests, or by keeping them in jail beyond their mandated terms. And for Sunni militants caught by the security forces, summary execution has become increasingly common.

Even as his Shiite-dominated government has been condemned for abusing Sunnis, however, its foundation in a parliamentary democracy has mostly held up; at no point has it sunk into the outright dictatorship that Mr. Hussein and his Sunni-dominated Baath Party commanded for so many years as it oppressed Shiites and Kurds.

But in recent weeks, as the government has come under relentless pressure from Sunni jihadis who are carving off territory across Iraq, it has become much easier to detect echoes of Mr. Hussein’s legacy in how Mr. Maliki has acted.

Iraq’s Embattled Leader

Elected in 2006 as a compromise candidate, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki now heads a shaky Shiite-led government in a fractured country facing a mortal threat from Sunni insurgents.

From an educated middle-class Shiite background. Active in sectarian politics since the early 1970s, when he joined the mainly Shiite Islamic Dawa Party.

In 1978 he fled to Syria, returning in 2002, just before the American-led invasion.

Was deputy chairman of the commission that purged members of Saddam Hussein's party from public life, earning the enmity of many Sunnis.

Worked to win over Sunni tribal leaders and campaigned against sectarianism in 2007-9.

Built and maintained ties with Iran, where he spent time while in exile.

Split with former allies and formed his own political coalition in 2010.

Did not reach agreement with the United States to retain American troops in the country.

Has come under growing criticism for amassing personal power and favoring Shiite interests.
Government news conferences, increasingly rare, have for the most part dispensed with allowing journalists to ask questions; officials usually just stand up, give a televised statement, and leave.

Iraqiya, the state television station, broadcasts dramatic music over footage of attacks on fighters aligned with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and airs hourlong programs of dancers in native costumes shouting patriotic slogans and waving guns in the air — all straight out of the playbook for Al Shabab TV, the youth-oriented television channel that was run by Mr. Hussein’s son Uday.

Iraqi officials, never terribly accessible in the best of times, have truly gone to ground now. “I have no comment,” one Maliki adviser said recently, “and that’s off the record.” It was a verbatim echo from the 1990s, when Mr. Hussein’s regime was the most closed and repressive in the world, with the possible exception of North Korea.

It has not yet gotten to the point where visitors to Iraq are constantly escorted by government minders, but it is getting close — particularly in Sunni areas. A New York Times colleague was interviewing a Sunni sheikh in his office recently when an Iraqi police captain came to his side and began answering questions on the sheikh’s behalf.

In Mr. Hussein’s day, the government suppressed fax machines — they were licensed, regulated and monitored as potential instruments for disseminating dissent. When email arrived in the ’90s, it was flat-out banned for most people.

Now, the Iraqi government, smarting under a social media onslaught from the insurgents, simply pulled the plug on Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Instagram, YouTube and the like for most of June.

Perhaps the strongest resonance from the past is the rebirth of tactics used by Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi government spokesman who publicly declared the Americans defeated outside of Baghdad in April 2003. At the time, they had already blasted their way into his information ministry.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
The current analogue of Comical Ali, as the American military dubbed Mr. Sahhaf, is Gen. Qassim Atta, who is now the official military spokesman for Mr. Maliki.

General Atta began his career as a military press officer in Mr. Hussein’s regime. Where Mr. Hussein had many titles, including “The Lion of Baghdad,” General Atta has come to be known by one: “The Liar of Baghdad.”

That may have something to do with his regular news briefings, where he repeatedly has declared victory over the jihadis at places confirmed as having fallen to them by everyone else, even local Iraqi officials. One recent example was the fall of the Trebil and Al Waleed border crossings between western Anbar Province, Syria and Jordan. General Atta declared on June 24 that they had not fallen, which they had, and on June 25 he said they had been retaken, which they had not.

Col. Qassim Atia, an aide to General Atta, asked about the derision directed at his boss, said it was just the result of propaganda efforts by Iraq’s enemies. “Of course we are in a war, and we are expecting them to use everything against us,” he said.

What to make of this déjà vu? Part of it may have to do with an admiration for Mr. Hussein among many Iraqis, even some of his enemies. You can hear it in the widely used term “Little Saddam,” which people apply to their bosses, not always negatively.

Even more telling is the all-purpose execration, common among Shiites at least, “Kharab Saddam!” That could be roughly translated as “Sad-damn it,” which is not exactly deifying the dead dictator, but sort of demonizing him in a socially useful way.

“We had a very strong government back then,” said Khaleel Ziyad, a taxi driver. “Saddam’s regime was far better than the current conditions.” Mr. Ziyad, 36, is a Sunni, but some Shiites now say similar things.

Reza Saji, 76, is a Shiite Kurd who lost everything during Mr. Hussein’s rule; his business was seized and he was forcibly expelled to Iran. “For all that happened to me, I was one in a thousand, and the other 999 were happy, living a peaceful life in an orderly country,” he said. “But now there is no one happy, with bombs exploding and all their problems.”

There are concrete manifestations of that nostalgia as well. Memorial observations in Ouja, Mr. Hussein’s birth and burial place, started to become so popular that the Maliki government banned them in recent years. In Babil, one of Mr. Hussein’s former palaces was doing a booming business renting out suites with gold-plated bath fixtures for honeymooning couples.

Saddam watches, which bear his likeness and are a symbol of the dictator’s kitschy grandiosity, have become an expensive collector’s item now. Once taken out of Iraq by the handful by American troops in need of cheap souvenirs and an easy laugh, original ones now sell for as much as $700 apiece.

Comparisons between that time and this can only go so far. There will almost surely never be a Maliki watch, for instance. And the prime minister prefers sober suits over Mr. Hussein’s flashy variety of uniforms, robes and turbans, with swords, shotguns and assault rifles as accessories. Whatever Mr. Maliki’s faults, sartorial vainglory has not been one of them.

More important, Mr. Maliki’s government is trying to defend itself against a ruthless opponent, ISIS, that is bent on stoking a wider war. This time the West is on the Iraqi government’s side, hoping to help stop just that. And even General Atta has a long way to go to match Comical Ali’s efforts on the eve of Mr. Hussein’s fall.

Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]