This is probably more of a General Question, but since everything related to the Iraq War turns into an argument anyway, I’m putting it here in Great Debates.
We’ve had lots of arguments about WMD. We know that there were none, etc. But I’m curious about some more minor things we were told about Saddam, and how true that is. Before the Iraq War, here’s a few things people knew about Saddam:
He had many doubles, who were surgically altered to look exactly like him. Everyone took this very seriously. For example during the early days of the invasion, after Saddam made a surprise appearence in Baghdad, in many newscasts I heard the musing that perhaps it was just a double. To me, this whole thing seemed ridiculous, but I’m no expert in Iraq, so I just shut my mouth.
Saddam wrote a copy of the Koran in his own blood. Even if Saddam was so religious, is this even possible? That’s a lot of blood.
Saddam shredded people in a giant paper shredder. This obviously sounded a bit stupid, but it was never really debated, so it became common wisdom. I don’t think anyone has ever found this giant paper shredded, although I just might have missed it.
So, are these three things as erroneous as I thought? If I’m wrong I’d love to know it. But if I’m right, then why did people believe such silly things? And what other anti-Saddam innuendo has been discredited?
It’s now archived, but there was a great article called ‘Tales of the Tyrant’ in the May 2002 issue of THE ATLANTIC. It said that 1 and 2 were true; the doubles weren’t that numerous but they filled in for him at low-priority events. Since you were not allowed to ask the dictator any questions or get close to him at all (he even had his pool water tested to make sure he wasn’t being poisoned) a guy smiling and waving from far away was good enough.
The Koran wasn’t all his blood; a few ounces were added once a month or so for a few years to be mixed in with some regular ink. It was on display at the huge new mosque, the one with the minarets that looked like missiles, IIRC.
3 I’m not sure of. Wouldn’t put it past him, but I don’t think there’s hard evidence for it. There’s plenty of proven methods of torture out there already.
Very interesting guys. Thanks for the replies. In summary, 1 and 2 are likely true to some degree. He may have had doubles, but still no evidence yet that they were surgically altered to look like him. Someone else, it seems, wrote a Koran using some of Saddam’s blood. No giant paper shredder, though.