Despite Rumors, Iraq Is Still Under Saddam Hussein’s Thumb : Dictatorship: In a nation awash with plots and counterplots, he has forged a singular place for himself.

The ultimate rumor blew through Jordan on Sunday with the force of credibility: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was dead.

His voice had not been heard over Baghdad Radio since last Tuesday, the third day of the ground war, nor had he been seen in public.

His army in the south was crushed. Retreating columns had brought chaos to the streets of Basra, the southern Iraqi city where scenes of revolt were reported.

But, as Sunday progressed, the word from Baghdad Radio and state-run newspapers projected the image of a far different Iraq. Through the propaganda veil, there was only the picture of order, control and the seeds of postwar reconstruction.

The lights would go on Sunday night throughout Baghdad for the first time since the allied air war knocked out its power grid two months ago, Iraq’s radio broadcasts told its people and the world. The rest of Iraq would have full power within the week--the result of a meeting Saturday night between Saddam Hussein and three of his top officials, Baghdad Radio said.

Iraqi television was back on the air on Saturday and schools will open within the week. In the interests of public safety, the ruling Revolutionary Command Council prohibited celebratory firing of rifles after many Baghdad residents were hit by falling bullets on the day the war ceased.

And then there was the coup de grace : a 45-second videotape of smiling Hussein meeting his aides. It was released on Sunday by authorities in Baghdad.

The message was clear.

Someone is running Iraq and that someone is Saddam Hussein.

No one had evidence to the contrary.

Against the backdrop of death rumors, possible insurrection, a disputed report Friday that the Iraqi strongman was seeking asylum in Algeria, an Indian newspaper’s story Sunday that he had twice unsuccessfully sought a haven in India and Moscow’s announcement that he would be unwelcome there if he were to flee, Hussein appears to have proved once again his vaunted status among history’s most durable dictators.

His once-powerful military has been outmanned and outmaneuvered into disarray. His entire nation has been bombed back to the 19th Century. But most Middle East analysts believe that much of Sunday’s Baghdad Radio broadcast is true: In short, Hussein very much remains the undisputed, as-yet unchallenged leader of his war-ravaged nation.

Can he survive for weeks or months more after the greatest defeat an independent Iraq has ever suffered? If anyone can, it will be Hussein and his ruthless system of control and manipulation, experts say. “Saddam is some kind of artist in surviving,” said a Western military analyst who was based in Baghdad until last October.

Hussein’s durability is built on blood allegiances; he wields a vast array of the tools of dictatorship.

His longevity, in a nation awash with plots and counterplots, has long been forged out of his singular place at the tip of a self-built pyramid of power. Just beneath him is a tight ruling clan whose survival depends on that of its chief. Then there are multiple layers of Draconian secret police, followed by a cushion of support from the fiercely loyal, well-armed street troops of Hussein’s Baath Socialist Party. Finally, in these times of testing, there lies a popular base of Iraqi nationalism. Many Iraqis have despised foreign interference since their days of poverty under colonial rule and may actually covet the strength of Hussein.

“What many people don’t understand about Saddam is that he never did need his army to stay in power,” the military analyst said. “All this talk of a military coup in Iraq is largely just wishful thinking.

“True, the army is very much destroyed now and some commanders may blame Saddam,” the analyst added. “But all senior officers in the Iraqi military were selected and approved by the Baath Party. And now, the party is the only real system remaining. I don’t see how the army, or the Iraqi people for that matter, can take control now or in the near future.”

The only possible push for an immediate change at the top would have to come from within the ruling party, added Arab analysts in the region who are well-versed in Hussein’s system of control.

“Saddam is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Mahmoud Sharif, editor of Jordan’s influential daily newspaper, Al-Dastour. “You have a party here which is pervasive in every walk of life. I am not excluding, of course, that the party itself will find it necessary to change him.”

Hussein’s eight-man Revolutionary Command Council is the power center least likely to threaten him. All the council members are close to Hussein, several with blood ties or drawn from his hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

“Any blood on Hussein’s hands is on theirs as well,” a Western diplomat in Baghdad said before the war started. If Hussein were threatened, they would face the same fate.

Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yassin Ramadan, for example, is considered Hussein’s confidant and shares his reputation for brutality. A well-traveled story recounts Ramadan’s words to officials of the Ministry of Industry, which he took over in 1972. He told them: “I don’t know anything about industry. All I know is, anyone who doesn’t work hard will be executed.”

At an Amman press conference last October, Ramadan did little to enhance his image. Questioned by reporters on credible accounts that Iraqi secret police had tortured and executed Kuwaiti resistance fighters, Ramadan warned the press against traveling to Kuwait to investigate the charges, saying: “You have no business in Kuwait, and we will cut off the leg of anybody who should enter Kuwait illegally.”

But even blood ties do not assure survival in the ruling circle. As Hussein’s only personal biographer, Faoud Matar phrased it, “The other fundamental aspect of President Saddam’s rule is his theory of reward and punishment.”

In 1989, Adnan Khairallah--Hussein’s cousin, brother-in-law, fellow Tikriti and defense minister--fell afoul of the president. He subsequently died when his helicopter fell from the skies. Only a few in Baghdad believe that his death was an accident.

Such executions have been commonplace throughout the ranks of Hussein’s armed forces during his 12 years as president. Several analysts now expect Hussein to use those precedents again to help justify his failed thrust in Kuwait.

“A purge of top military commanders would be most expected now, especially with all the reports of chaos and unrest in various parts of the country,” the Western military analyst said. “Saddam can eliminate any commanders opposed to him by blaming them for the postwar unrest while still claiming victory in Kuwait during his public pronouncements.” High-level executions would also deter returning rank-and-file soldiers from telling their accounts of defeat at the hands of the allies.

On the other hand, those strategists expect “rewards” for some from Hussein in the coming days. They said that Hussein’s secret police, the Mukhabarat, which has agents on virtually every block of every Iraqi town, have by now informed him of simmering dissent. The analysts predict that Hussein will make a string of public moves toward democracy and reform, at least on the surface.

“The most probable thing is Saddam, at least openly, makes a show of giving up some of his power, perhaps trying to build up other ruling council members or bringing (political outsiders) into the ruling circle,” the analyst said. “This would be his way of showing regret, an effort to quell any anger in the north and south, and open the door for outside economic aid to rebuild. And the propaganda will dress it up as revolutionary reform.”

Clearly, Hussein’s tightly controlled propaganda machine has consistently allowed him to make even the most incredible seem plausible in the eyes of his people. Despite their widespread, unspoken abhorrence for Hussein’s adventure in Kuwait, his people maintain their deep, traditional respect for strength and power, especially when wrapped in Iraqi nationalism.

“Saddam’s own people internally are going to cling to him as much as possible in this time,” said Abdullah Toukan, a top adviser to Jordan’s King Hussein who has spent most of his life traveling in and out of neighboring Iraq.

After days of declarations by Baghdad Radio, asserting that Iraq has fallen victim to an “American-Zionist conspiracy” in Kuwait, “the Iraqis are absolutely convinced now that the West is out to destroy them,” he said. “It’s become a matter of national pride.

“As far as Saddam Hussein himself is concerned,” he added, “the attitude of the people is probably more along the lines of ‘That’s our affair, and we’ll deal with it when we’re ready--not when you outsiders want us to.’ ”

According to Toukan and other analysts, there was a similar reaction within Iraq to last Friday’s report in the respected French daily, Le Monde, that Hussein had contacted Algerian authorities seeking political asylum in Algiers.

“The West just doesn’t seem to understand that this guy is not just another (Panamanian dictator Manuel) Noriega,” said one Arab analyst who knows Hussein personally. “Here you’ve got a country with culture and history thousands of years old, an ancient system that helped create a leader like Saddam Hussein.”

Asked whether he believed that Hussein would flee into exile if his battered nation deteriorated further into chaos and poverty, the analyst added, “Absolutely not. The trouble is, this man came up the hard way, and he’ll go down the hard way.”