I am not sure which forum this belongs to, and so I request the mods to feel free to move at will.
This question has been bugging me for a while now. I reaaly wonder why Saddam Hussein continued to stay in his country even after the US declared war on Iraq and the defeat of his military was certain? He was the dictator of the country and being that, and for as long as he had been, of an oil rich nation with full control of its wealth, I find it difficult to believe that he had not taken adequate measures to ensure his future survival in economic terms. It is inconceivable that he did not make himself wealthy both within the country and stashing away wealth outside. As a person who was foxy and clever enough to remain a head of a state for so long, he definitely could not have suffered delusions of managing of winning the war. With all the money at his disposal he could undoubtedly have managed to find people in the world that would have accepted to offer him asylum in secret. Why then did he and his sons not escape well before the US army landed? Why did he choose to continue to stay in Iraq, living in squalid conditions and sleeping in spider holes instead of disappearing like so many of the Nazis did after WWII or other dictators like Idi Amin did? Why did he not use his money to buy his way out and lose himself in this world? What did he expect by not escaping?
You’re the head of a nation. The United States, weilder of the mightiest army and the most powerful economy on the planet, has just leveled Iraq to get Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein approaches you at the height of the conflict and requests sanctuary. What’s your answer?
Just what it was - “get your hands up, dirtbag!”
Ummm … can I use a lifeline, Regis?
His options were limited because he has previously pissed off many of his neighbours, including Iran (he’d made war with them) and Saudi Arabia (they didn’t like him invading Kuwait). He may have been calculting that there would be continued resistance to American occupation (he would have been right there), and that he could lead that resistance (which would have been more doubtful).
I suspect that he also thought of himself as a patriot, who had done his best to run a country that for various reasons, including ethnic and religioius divisions, would be very hard to run.
Change that to ‘who was brutal and ruthless’, and it makes more sense.
One of his major problems is one that many dictators can end up facing - all his advisors would have been telling him what they thought he would want to hear (remember Comical Ali on the roof of that hotel?), rather than an accurate assessment of the peril he faced.
I am not suggesting a publicly declared asylum offer by any country. What I mean is he could have “lost” himself in the crowd, changed his identity, got himself smuggled into some far off south american country or any other remote island nation, or whatever. I can agree that no country would have possible offered him “publicized” asylum. But couldn’t he have managed it secretely? Just a few million dollars to any of the human trafficking gangs that exist all over the world would have got him a safe haven in some corner of the world. At least he would have lived. And I also do not think that he did not, or does not have loyalists and people who support him in other countries. If ObL can manage to survive, he too could have. We are talking just about survival, the likelihood of which would have been far more had he managed to buy his way out.
You’re assuming that Saddam was a rational human being like all of us Dopers.
He was an egomaniac, and so suspicious of every other person on earth except his immediate family and tribe that he probably didnt use simple logic. He could have escaped to a life of anonymity (like Nazis who fled to Argentina, living and dying in secret). But he couldnt have escaped to a foreign country and lived the flamboyent life he loved.
He also probably had no access to real information about his country and army. He was known to pull a pistol during a cabinet meeting, take an army general out to the hallway, shoot him, and then go back into the meeting and tell the other generals to “Carry on”, explaining how everything was working according to plan.So he may have actually thought that his army could beat the USA. Remember “bagdad Bob” , (the information minister), told us in real time that the Americans were retreating in total defeat.Telling outright lies was apparently a perfectly normal routine for high-ranking officials.
And he wasnt “foxy and clever”–he was just cruel and intimidating.So people obeyed him.He believed he was invincible, because everyone told him so. He may have honestly believed that he could go hide in his tribal home in Tikrit for 2 weeks, and then return to his palace balcony and wave to the masses of adoring citizens.
I am sorry but I would not buy that argument. The information provided by the “staff” over the media is primarily for the consumption of the public and the lower ranks of the military.
It is also indeed very interesting to note the image of Saddam in the west, especially in the US. I come from the east and trust me when I say this, Saddam was not considered as evil as it is made out in the west. Just goes to prove how an appropriate concoction of media and politcs can really make such a vast difference in perceptions.
At the time he was on the run, he had one of the most publicized faces in the world. You’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone in Iraq or the surrounding nations who didn’t know what he looked like. And I’m sure that there were a lot of people in the area who would have been happy to turn him in, either out of animosity, or a desire to collect the price on his head.
I’m sure that’s right, but I wonder how much of it he had access to at that point. Banks were out; his accounts were frozen and, in any event, it would have been pretty hard for him to stroll into a bank and conduct business without being arrested.
He apparently had large amounts of cash stashed in various places, but they may have been hard to get to given his limited mobility, and he can’t carry that much currency on his person. Driving a truckload of cash around is probably not an option.
Given enough time, he might have been able to pull something off, but I suspect it would have been more difficult than you’re thinking.
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[li]Why didn’t he just skip out, and live off Swiss bank accounts? WAG: pride.[/li]
[li]Did he get lied to? Example: some of the WMD program info our Intelligence received turned out to be bogus reports from Saddam’s scientific groups to Saddam, telling him some programs he’d ordered were successful. Some weren’t. Some had the funding diverted by the bureaucrats (what nerve…!) Sorry but I can’t supply a cite.[/li]
[li]How was he caught? A speculation found on the Internet and widely discussed in the Moslem world was that he got caught by Iraqis [in Fallujah/ While headed out of the country/ While trying to command insurgents/ Etc], sold to the Americans, plopped into the spider hole and drugged, and the Americans told where to look.[/li]
So the OP answer might have been a Yes, except his plans went wrong.
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My WAG answer would be pride and chaos.
What I’ve read is that he was caught by the Kurds in northern Iraq, while presumably trying to flee into Syria. Saddam hates the Kurds, and they hate him, so they gladly sold him to the US. Then they drugged him, and arranged for him to be “discovered” by US forces.