Hussein Projects an Air of Determination

He sat at the head of a long table in an immaculate business suit and tie, calmly puffing on a cigar -- a portrait of austere authority as he called on his generals and colonels, listened to their praise and anger, and responded to their remarks one by one.

For many people both inside and outside the country, President Saddam Hussein is Iraq, and in the televised meeting with military unit commanders last week, he betrayed no hint of emotion and no glimmer of panic about the gathering storm of a war to drive him from power.

Instead, he projected an air of determination to face whatever battles lie ahead and a willingness to accept whatever happens -- a confidence that the odds will turn and he and his rule will survive.

One Iraqi who has known no other president in his adult life said it would be against Hussein’s essence to leave power. He characterized the president’s attitude as one of “victory or death.” Said a European observer in Baghdad: “He thinks that he is an incarnation of Iraq.... He is not able to leave.”

That mind-set, in the eyes of diplomats and government officials here, is the reason that efforts to force Hussein to step down and spare the world the cost in blood, resources and stability of a U.S.-led attack are likely to fail.

Rather, Hussein looks set to marshal his diplomatic and public relations resources in coming weeks to try to slow the march to war, by receiving international envoys and making gestures aimed at bolstering public skepticism in the United States and Europe. At the same time, he has been working to bolster the loyalty of Iraqis and the larger Arab world by reminding them of perceived U.S. double standards and turning the tables on President Bush -- accusing the U.S. administration of aggression and lying.

Exile Deemed Unlikely

While Hussein is flexible and pragmatic to a point, those who have watched him for years cannot imagine him simply going off to live out his years in a foreign country. Accustomed to being in charge of himself and all around him, as he has been since 1978, he would never expose himself, these observers say, to the kind of humiliation now facing former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

“This is rubbish -- psychological warfare [and] wishful thinking by our enemies,” Uday Taie, a government spokesman here, said of reports of Arab initiatives urging Hussein to leave voluntarily.

Iraqi citizens increasingly are resigned to the inevitability of war, knowing that Hussein won’t retreat and that the Bush administration is just as unlikely to be swayed from its course.

But experts here believe that the Iraqi president thinks he has time to play other cards -- diplomatic, public relations and military -- in the standoff with Washington.

Hussein already is signaling that he will try to talk directly to the American and British publics, over the heads of Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and argue that war would cost the United States dearly in lives, prestige and image and could lead to increased terrorism.

In an interview with former British Parliament member Tony Benn that was televised Tuesday, Hussein denied having any weapons of mass destruction or connections to Al Qaeda. He claimed that Iraq is cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. He accused the United States of being influenced by Israel and motivated by a desire to control Iraq’s oil.

And, as the United States prepared to try to remove doubts at the U.N. Security Council about the importance of military action against Iraq by having Secretary of State Colin L. Powell present what Washington says is evidence of ongoing weapons violations, Baghdad sought to discredit the U.S. message ahead of time.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday suggesting that any evidence Powell presented today would be fabricated.

Sabri said Washington could use its “superiority in the techniques of espionage, fabrication, deception and misleading” to plant false evidence, and he challenged the U.S. administration to hand over proof immediately to back up its claims of ongoing weapons programs in Iraq.

Gen. Hussam Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi liaison to the weapons inspectors, repeated the charge at a news conference here Sunday night.

“The so-called evidence which will be presented by Colin Powell to the Security Council will not be really evidence. They will be fabricated space photos or aerial photos [of] some vehicles or something that could be interpreted in different ways just to create suspicions around the Iraqi declarations and the Iraqi position,” Amin said. “They are just lies and fabrications.”

Iraqi officials are also trying to keep the weapons inspection process going and to address the qualms about their country’s compliance raised by chief inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Blix told the Security Council last week that although Baghdad had opened doors for weapons inspectors, Hussein did not appear serious about disarming.

The Iraqi government invited Blix and ElBaradei to return to Baghdad this week, less than two weeks after their last visit, hinting that Iraq might be more flexible. Amin also said at the news conference Sunday that Iraq might be persuaded to allow long-sought overflights by U-2 spy planes under certain circumstances, and he said other problems raised by Blix and ElBaradei could be discussed.

A Western diplomat in Baghdad said he sees two main avenues of Iraqi diplomacy and public relations in the coming weeks.

“One line is at the United Nations -- saying, ‘We want to avoid war and want to prove to the international community that we are a victim’ ” of unreasonable U.S. and British demands.

“The other line is directed to the Arab and Iraqi public opinion, saying, ‘Well, we did our best, but nothing was possible’ ” to avoid the conflict. “ ‘So with the help of God we will win, and you, Iraqis, have to prepare yourselves for difficult moments.’ ”

Partly to prepare the public for war, the diplomat said, Hussein has been appearing regularly on television meeting with his military advisors, including his son Qusai, who is in charge of the presidential security apparatus.

Few defensive moves by the army have been evident so far, the diplomat said.

He added that he thinks most ordinary Iraqis, who have been buying guns for self-defense in recent weeks, will remain hunkered in their homes in the event of a U.S.-led attack but that the government will have thousands or even tens of thousands of regular troops and militia forces present to defend the capital.

An Iraqi source spoke of a “burned earth” policy by the government if U.S. and British forces come.

“They won’t leave the oil fields as you see them now, or the cities,” he said.

U.S. officials said late last month that invasion plans call for securing Iraq’s oil fields as quickly as possible to prevent Hussein from destroying them.

Provisions for War

In a tacit acknowledgment that people might need to stockpile food, the government already has allowed the public to take three months of the normal food ration in advance. And at a news conference last week, senior government officials said other provisions for war have begun, such as ensuring that hospitals have extra staff and supplies and that key ministries and facilities have backup electricity.

Taie, the government spokesman, said the United States is gambling when it assumes that it will be able to drive a wedge between the Iraqi government and its people.

“If the government has a fear of the population, do you think that the government would give every single household, every single family, something to defend itself with?” he asked, referring to the distribution of arms. “And we have done this.”

Hussein has never been so loved and respected by his people, Taie said, while the United States has lost prestige and respect since the Persian Gulf War. Instead of the easy victory many Americans are expecting, he said, an invasion would result in a fiasco “morally for the United States in the world.”

In the end, Hussein may be banking on the unexpected to derail a U.S.-led attack even before it begins, said one government official.

“The motto of the United States is ‘In God We Trust,’ ” he said. “But I don’t think that is right. We are the ones trusting in God.”