The Contestants in the Sandbox -- Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti

Saddam Hussein has always gotten my vote as being the toughest dude on the planet. Even if that impression has been marred recently, not by the fact and the manner of his capture but by realizing that much of the time he wore some bulletproof underwear otherwise known as American policy, I still can't think of anyone tougher. Only Fidel Castro, having outlasted many American Presidents who tried to "do" something about him, comes close, and he's not that close, because neither his successful campaign in the Sierra Maestra mountains nor the Bay of Pigs was even remotely in the same league as the large-scale and deadly shootouts with much larger countries that Saddam Hussein brought on -- and survived.

Saddam even outdid the baddest blockboy in perfecting the mother of all swaggers to go with his toughness. It is an unfortunate consequence of his being consigned to the company only of his inquisitors that we're not likely to see that swagger again, along with his hand thing: extending one hand straight out with the fingers slightly curved and perpendicular to the ground, which was so much like the Japanese gesture that says -- though of course they would never say it -- Get out of the way. I'm coming through! To which Saddam added: It's good that you all recognize that I'm The Man. Keep it that way.


(AP Photo of a poster)

By comparison, you may remember that for most of his presidency Bush the elder had to fight off widespread perceptions of himself as being a wimp, just as Bush the younger has to keep shrugging off his image of being an habitual slacker and evader. That explains why, like the 90-pound weakling allying himself with the worst tough in the school, both generations of Bushes have associated themselves with Saddam. The 1980's Republican team of which the elder Bush was an important member supported him in his tangle with Iran, and both Bushes took their turns tangling with Saddam, ostensibly over oil, but also as if drinking his blood might possibly have the side effect of passing over to them some measure of his toughness.

The people who are holding Saddam claim to be gathering evidence for trying him. The question that screams out at us is: how much evidence do they need? Like any legitimate tough guy, Saddam didn't exactly operate in secrecy, and that is probably why his captors and detractors, having awarded him weapons of mass destruction, can't accept the fact that those implements can't be found.

If in 1979 you noted on TV the faces of the youths storming through the public squares in Teheran after they grabbed the American embassy and took its occupants hostages, you might have decided, as I did, that those Iranians were a bunch of certified bad-asses and were not to be taken lightly.

Compared to Iran, Iraq, its next door neighbor, is a small country. Iran has nearly three times as many people and more than three times as much territory. In fact, though some people don't want to think so, Iraq is a small country, period. Yet, in 1980, just one year after he officially became Iraq's leader and during that U.S.-Iran hostage crisis, when he could count on U.S. appreciation of his action, Saddam Hussein attacked Iran, and he is even rumored to have actually won the bruising war that resulted, though most of us would scratch our heads trying to remember exactly what he gained. A "waterway" or something? Nevertheless that war recalled at times the trench horrors of World War 1, complete with the futility, and it lasted eight long years, during which both sides but particularly the Iraqis were charged with killing thousands, mostly Kurds, by using poison gas.


(From the Wikipedia free encyclopedia)

Scarcely was that bloodbath over when Saddam set out on the war road once again by calling himself reclaiming Iraq's "lost province," Kuwait, a small sheikhdom sitting on top of a big pool of oil next door. Some say that he was tricked by the Bush Administration into thinking that nothing would be done about it, but this man never needed much. I think it was his mother's fault. She was the one who named him. In Arabic "Saddam" means "one who confronts."

The elder Bush lost his wimp image by pushing Saddam out of Kuwait, but the image resurrected itself when Bush declined to drive on to Baghdad and stopped short at the Iraqi border. With that reprieve Saddam, completely unchastened, proceeded to ruthlessly cut down the Shia rebellion while giving the Kurds evil looks, and in so doing he tied down Bush 1 and later Clinton to the double millstones of no-fly zones and an embargo, because they were unable to figure out anything more decisive and less bloody, and that continued through a whole decade.

Instead of trying the simpler and more merciful expedient of ending the embargo after he came into power, Bush 2 heeded the siren call of a second and more extensive attack on Saddam, which, he was told, would clean up the whole situation quickly and for good. "And, oh yeah, you get the oil."

Knowing full well that he would be hit again, Saddam nevertheless didn't fly into hysterics. His Information Minister did, but he didn't. Saddam just floated from place to place -- he wasn't worried about Buddy Bush, but he did have to think about eager CIA assassination teams -- and he waited, in effect saying to Bush, "Do it."

The many contentious forces that have clawed at Iraq's fabric for the best part of a century are still there in full array and as ravenous as ever. Saddam's solution had been to use an iron fist. Now, while being relentlessly questioned on his actions in the past, especially the ones involving oppression and bloodshed, Saddam can calmly sit wherever he's being detained and watch the invaders flailing about while thinking, Ok. What is your answer?

Saddam Hussein has seen many people die, and at his orders. If he fears his own execution at all, it can only be that it will come before he witnesses that answer, while being unhelpful in giving answers of his own, except the big one that he gave throughout his rule. Far from feeling humiliated by having been hunted down and hauled up from a hole in the ground, my guess is that he is being tough and unapologetic to the end, and I can't think of anything more futile and ridiculous than the idea of "interrogating" him. What can they possibly expect?