IHT: Where is Saddam? Could he be in Hawaii?

	Where is Saddam? Could he be in Hawaii?
	Ellen Barry Boston Globe	Thursday, June 26, 2003

BAGHDAD As far as most people here are concerned, nothing has changed. For them, Saddam Hussein is still in Belarus, or Hawaii, or in a safe house jointly operated by the CIA and the KGB, or else he has been dead since 1989 and replaced by a body double.

One joke circulating has Saddam dressed as an old woman in a body-length abaya and approaching another old woman to beg for cigarettes: "Certainly, sir," the other person says. It turns out to be Saddam's fugitive vice president.

Many Americans eagerly awaited the results of DNA tests on the remains of people killed a week ago when U.S. forces attacked a vehicle convoy near the Syrian border.

But the story of that attack has barely made a ripple among the residents of this sweltering capital. Preoccupied with a power outage that has lasted three days in some neighborhoods, about 20 Iraqis scoffed in interviews at speculation that Saddam and one or both of his two sons might have been in the convoy.

So deep is their distrust of the American authorities - and of official information in general - that many said no amount of proof would convince Iraqis that Saddam was really gone.

Indeed, many said they were not convinced that Abid Hamid Mahmoud Tikriti, the high-ranking Saddam aide captured last week, was even in custody. If he is, they asked, why don't the Americans show him on live television?

"Americans are masters of making movies," said Jamal Samarali, 40, of the Saddamiyah Al Karkh neighborhood, which was established by Saddam for favored loyalists. He added that he would not believe Saddam was dead ''even if I bury him with my own hands."

"Even then," he said, "his ghost would remain among us."

Rumors are no novelty in Baghdad, where newspapers regularly print articles, complete with front-page photographs of white-bearded Orthodox Jews, about a Zionist conspiracy to buy up the city's best real estate.

But in the case of Saddam, the credibility gap could damage U.S. efforts with its coalition partners to rebuild the country.

Pentagon officials now say that groups loyal to Saddam are behind repeated attacks on coalition troops, and Secretary of State Colin Powell has said it is crucial to convince Iraqis that their deposed leaders are never coming back.

But judging from interviews, the United States will face a formidable task in persuading ordinary Iraqis that the man who defined their world for 30 years might be dead.

In intense heat, many of them have been without electricity for several days, which has frayed nerves and stoked anger. Iraqis who can afford them rely on air-conditioners or fans to make summer tolerable.

A common belief is that Saddam made a deal with the CIA and is safely in American custody. Shaira Farak, 25, who was eating ice cream in the upscale Mansour neighborhood, says she knows young Iraqis who "think all of this is all a kind of game," perpetrated by the Americans and Saddam.

"Even we think there was no war," she said, adding that for people of her generation it was difficult to see Saddam as an ordinary mortal. "You don't think he will die, like a normal person. Even if we see it, we do not believe it."

"I think he is happily living in Hawaii," she said.

In a men's wear shop next door, 27-year-old Ziad Ibrahim said with a glint in his eye that he imagined Saddam was walking freely among the Baghdadis, evading the Americans as boldly as he did during the bombing of the city.

"He is very daring and very smart," Ibrahim said. "He has a military mind."

Another common belief, fueled by the newly published memoirs of one of Saddam's body doubles, is that the leader has been dead for several years and was replaced by one of his lookalikes.

Iraqis are emerging from decades in which all information was used as a mechanism of control. With official news sources tightly managed by a Saddam son, the Mukhabarat, or secret police, monitored and disseminated jokes and rumors using agents from its legendary Fifth Squad.

Now awash in media sources, Iraqis say that American television, accessible via satellite-dish antennas, and Iraqi newspapers are equally unreliable - although Arab satellite channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiah are somewhat more trusted.

Dia Nimnim, 32, who sells pirated CDs and DVDs from a storefront in the Karrada neighborhood, said he thought lingering doubts about Saddam's fate had contributed to resistance against American and British troops.

More and more people his age, he said, have begun to think that Americans colluded with Saddam and that the entire war was a "scenario."

"If they show him on TV, all the sabotage will stop because they will know that the leaders are caught," Nimnim said.

Several Iraqis said the only way to persuade them that Saddam was dead or in custody would be to broadcast an interview - or an execution - live.

They wondered why Mahmoud Tikriti, the highest-ranking Saddam aide to be captured, has not been displayed that way, and they said this made them doubt the Americans' word.

The subject of television, like all subjects these days, led back to the single greatest grievance in this city: electricity, or the lack of it.

"If it's live and people are there, then I would believe it," said Adel Toriq Abdullah. "But how will we see it on TV without electricity?"

Mohammed Abdullah said Americans should realize that Saddam, alive or dead, was not the point. He said his children were drinking river water and becoming sick from the heat, too.

"This country is not Saddam's country, it is our country," he said. "We don't give a damn whether he's alive or dead. We just want a normal life."

The Boston Globe

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