COLUMN ONE : Iraq’s Teflon Dictator : Despite crippling sanctions and high-level defections, Saddam Hussein is a shoo-in in this weekend’s referendum. The troubles seem only to solidify his grip.

In this sprawling capital of 5 million, only a handful of aides know where Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will rest his head tonight. Fear of assassination keeps him on the move, out of public sight.

His policies have brought international sanctions and deep suffering to many of his people. He is out of touch with reality, according to one of his chief aides, a son-in-law who defected two months ago.

Yet, in one of the paradoxes that flourish like date palms on the Tigris River, Hussein remains as firmly in power as at any other time in his 27 years of autocratic rule, according to Iraqi officials, diplomats and even opponents here.

He is making an international spectacle of that lock-grip on power this Sunday by staging an unprecedented referendum on his rule--a yes-or-no vote on a new seven-year term.

Of course, no one doubts that he will win.

Some here genuinely support him. Others fear retaliation from the secret police.

But many also see a yes vote as a way to show a unified front to the United States, which they blame for the economic sanctions that have made life here miserable for millions.

“You Americans with your sanctions have put pressure on us and cornered us,” said Amal Khedary, a Baghdad antique dealer. “We have no choice. That’s why people like me are going to vote yes for Saddam. We are a proud people, no matter how awful the situation is.”

Fear of instability also drives her.

“If he goes,” she said, “you never know what will happen, because Iraqis can be a very violent people. That’s why he is irreplaceable.”

What most Iraqis want, added a Baghdad teacher, “is a government that is not a puppet of the United States but not hostile either. To vote no would be a complete surrender to the United States, and people won’t do it.”

By most standards, Hussein has been bad news for his country.

He led it into a long, bloody war with Iran, then defied the world by invading Kuwait in 1990, suffering a humiliating defeat by the U.S.-led alliance that would have driven most dictators from power.

His refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors led to the sanctions, which have bitten hard.

Though Iraqis sit atop the world’s second-largest reserves of oil and natural gas, few in this country of 18 million can afford a bottle of aspirin.

But Hussein, though isolated from the world, has survived remarkably unscathed in Iraq.

His regime puts the blame for sanctions on a vindictive American government and contends that the recent defector was a corrupt thief. And many here are inclined to believe.

“The people are obedient,” a senior European diplomat in Baghdad explained. “Life tells them to be obedient, and they still don’t know they can act any other way.”

After all, the diplomat added, “Saddam is still the father of this country. Why? Simply because he is in the office. That’s the way it is here.”

Just two months ago, on Aug. 8, Hussein seemed to be in deep political trouble at home when two of his sons-in-law defected with their families.

The key defector was Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Majid, head of the country’s military industrialization organization and an aide so trusted that he was allowed to carry his pistol into meetings with the leader.

In a move widely seen as damage control, Iraq released 100 boxes of documents to U.N. weapons inspectors, showing what had long been suspected--that Iraq had a major biological and chemical weapons industry at the time of the Gulf War.

At the time, France and Russia had been pushing the United Nations to ease sanctions against Iraq. But those countries were shocked by the voluminous proof that Iraq had baldly lied to U.N. inspectors, and the possibility of removing U.N. sanctions any time soon now seems remote.

Many in the West believed that the defections were the beginning of the end for Hussein, destroying his authority at home, exposing deep divisions in his family-based rule and opening him to a coup d’etat. But the defections seem to have only solidified his grip.

One reason is that Majid was not well liked in Iraq. Although considered an able manager, his power derived entirely from his father-in-law.

Iraqi officials now contend that Majid used his vaunted position and wide international travel to stash away millions of dollars. Though Majid denies those charges, most foreign diplomats believe that his departure was more likely linked to a dispute over money than any real difference with Hussein over politics.

“Saddam learned a big lesson after that defection,” said Mashoor Haditheh, a retired Jordanian army general with close ties to Hussein. “He now knows that he cannot rely entirely on a family regime.”

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Hussein already has taken steps to add non-family members to his circle of advisers.

Three Cabinet ministers, including Majid, have been replaced by people from Hussein’s Arab Baath Socialist Party.

And it is said the Iraqi strongman has even reined in his troublesome, ambitious son Uday, keeping him occupied with duties as chairman of the local Olympic Committee.

“I don’t think Saddam will collapse,” Haditheh said. “He is stronger than before. Although he has enemies in the Gulf and the United States, he doesn’t have many at home. The country has always supported him.”

The Iraqi government hopes to prove that support with the referendum Sunday.

At best, it is a bizarre experiment in democracy. Or, as one senior Iraqi official put it, “a sort of democratic event.”

To many in the West, it is a joke, a transparent attempt to legitimize Hussein’s rule.

But to others, even including some of his detractors, it is a small, hopeful sign of a crack in the totalitarian front. It certainly is the first time the government has ever asked the people’s opinion about anything.

A Baghdad teacher who does not like the Iraqi leader observed of the scheduled vote: “It might be a serious beginning for something new in Iraq. If he [Hussein] doesn’t take political reform seriously pretty soon, he will destroy himself and his country.”

About 1,000 foreign dignitaries and friends of Iraq have traveled here to witness the referendum, joined by 600 journalists.

Government officials are telling the foreigners, but not their own people, that they expect the referendum to lead to new parliamentary elections and, eventually, a transfer of power from the Revolutionary Command Council to Parliament.

Salah Mukhtar, editor of the government-owned daily newspaper Jumhuriyah, said: “This is just a step on a wider course. We are ready to restore the process of democracy in Iraq.”

The referendum, Mukhtar admitted, “is not democracy itself.”

But, he added, “because the United States wants to ignite a civil war in Iraq, we must resist. We can’t get out of this crisis without guaranteeing that Saddam Hussein stays in power.”

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The run-up to the vote has borne little resemblance to any kind of political campaign.

Hussein himself has not appeared in public; even on television, his rare speeches are usually read by others. No government official has outlined a plan for the future of the country. And no one has had the courage to speak openly for a no vote.

Instead, all across this, one of the world’s oldest centers of civilization, signs proclaim: “Yes, yes for Saddam. Yes, yes for democracy.”

Most of the signs are in English rather than Arabic and clearly seem directed at foreign visitors.

High on the facade of the Melia Monsoor Hotel, a crude collection of lights spell out, in English: “Say Yes to Saddam Hussein.” Inside the hotel, though, many of the rooms do not have light bulbs.

Meantime, losing the referendum is a notion that the government does not even bother to contemplate.

Asked what would happen if Hussein lost, a senior official laughed.

“I will not answer hypothetical questions,” he said.

At a school named Billad Shudaa, or School of the Martyr, a group of Hussein’s Cabinet ministers showed up this week, in green uniforms, to remember the dozens of children killed there by an Iranian rocket in 1987.

Children, some carrying orange tree branches, serenaded the dignitaries as they viewed hundreds of photographs of Hussein kissing and patting youngsters.

“Amaan, amaan, Saddam,” the children sang. (“Yes, Yes, Saddam.”) “All our people are for Mr. Saddam Hussein. All of Iraq says Saddam Hussein is leader of our country.”

Saif Haza, a cute 4-year-old boy with a black bow tie pinned to his white shirt, was ushered to a microphone.

“I challenge the sanctions,” he said, to applause from the audience. “All of us children are with Saddam Hussein. He is guarding our frontiers.”

Latif Sayid Jassim, Iraqi minister of social affairs, told the gathering that the United States was using sanctions to hurt children.

He blamed the shortage of medicine, food and even pencils on Iraq’s enemies and praised Hussein.

The sanctions have been debilitating, though not fatal, to Iraqis.

The measures ban most Iraqi oil sales and prohibit the country, long dependent on imports, from bringing in anything other than food, medicine and strictly humanitarian goods.

Recent U.N. figures indicate a sharp increase in malnutrition among children.

About 30% of the children in the country are malnourished, and malnutrition-related disease has increased from 433 cases in 1990 to 20,544 so far this year.

Children born with dangerously low weights have gone up from fewer than 5% in 1990 to 22% this year.

The United Nations has appealed to donors for $186 million to help meet Iraq’s humanitarian needs but so far has only managed to garner $50 million in pledges.

The United States is among those countries refusing to participate.

“How long can Iraq survive?” asked Mohammed Zejjari, the U.N. coordinator for humanitarian aid in Iraq. “It’s anybody’s guess. But they have developed coping mechanisms.”

A system of ration cards, which provide about half of an average person’s food requirements, has helped ease the sanctions’ effects. But medicine has become so expensive that few can afford it. Inflation is rampant; the value of the dinar against the dollar is plunging, and the middle class has been nearly destroyed.

But the worsening situation has not, as many in the West hoped, led to widespread discontent with Hussein.

Rather, it has increased Iraqi anger toward the United States.

“If the United States could prevent air from reaching Iraq, they would have done it,” one top official in the ruling party said ruefully.

Many here are proud of Hussein’s post-Gulf War rebuilding program; the nation has completed almost all of its major reconstruction.

Earlier this year, the last of the bombed bridges over the Tigris River was reopened; the hundreds of flowers painted on the span for the opening ceremony are still visible.

To be sure, few Iraqis would be courageous--or foolish--enough to attempt to vote no or even boycott Sunday’s election.

Ruling party youth have gone door-to-door throughout the capital, handing out registration cards and subtly reminding residents that the government knows who they are.

Some Iraqis worry that refusing to vote could cost them their only lifeline, the food ration cards.

But even without intimidation, Hussein’s opponents say, the Iraqi leader would probably win at least 50% of the country’s vote, largely because so many remember his achievements, from rebuilding the country after the war to, early in his tenure, helping the poor in the countryside buy land and homes.

The difficulty facing Hussein’s opponents, both inside and outside the country, is the dearth of palatable options to the Iraqi leader.

U.S. diplomats who watch Iraq see no end to sanctions as long as Hussein is in power, but they can identify no democratic alternatives. Many Iraqis are convinced that, if Hussein were ousted, his replacement would be worse.

No one knows for sure what Hussein is trying to do in Iraq these days. Even top party officials do not meet him regularly. Foreign diplomats who have been stationed in Baghdad for years have never seen him. But many analysts here see some signs that Hussein is sensitive to criticism of his regime and is edging toward a slightly more open society.

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In recent months, for example, Hussein has quietly removed roadblocks in Baghdad and released hundreds of political prisoners. People are speaking more freely, though carefully, diplomats say.

Wamid Nadmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University, was surprised a few days ago when Iraqi television asked him to appear and discuss the referendum. Known to be a proponent of democracy, Nadmi was worried, but he decided to speak his mind.

“The president was elected more than 15 years ago, so why a referendum now?” he asked in the interview, broadcast in its entirety. “We should dissolve the Revolutionary Command Council, and the whole Cabinet should be elected.”

Mild though it was, such public disagreement with Hussein remains rare.

In a recent “debate” among intellectuals on one government television station, for example, all the participants agreed that Iraq was more democratic than the United States.

Iraqi officials admit that the referendum is unlikely to be applauded by the West or lead to a lifting of sanctions.

But they hope that it helps to restore Hussein’s international credibility, especially among countries predisposed to friendly relations with Iraq.

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While the defections of Majid and the others put Hussein on the defensive abroad, they won him plenty of sympathy in Iraq.

Senior government officials say he was also genuinely astonished that Majid, the son-in-law that the president treated as his own son, turned out to be a traitor. He was said to have wept in the days after the defections, anguished over the loss of two of his daughters.

“This man is a father first,” a businesswoman in Baghdad said. “And when I heard about the defection, I just felt sorry for him. And for his wife too. These were their daughters.”