Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Révue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
TIME
AUGUST
4,2003
By ROMESH
RATNESAR
ere
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An informanfs tip leads U.S.
forces to the Hussein .brothers.
Now the focus is on Saddam
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CLOSURE U.S. soldiers watch as a missile
hits the mansion housing the brothers; the
corpses, right, lie in a makeshift morgue
UDAY AND QUSAY HUSSEIN HATED
. each other. \Vhen they were boys,
.Dday would .torture his younger
brother; .going so far as to stab
. him in the thighand break his
ribs and to try to blind him with a
burning cigarette stub. Over the course of
four decades they would become, apart
from their father Saddam, the most feared
men in Iraq-responsible for untold numbers
of maimings, jailings and murders
and, in the case of Uday, rapes as well.
The brothers never outgrew their mutual
.contempt. Qusay 10athed.Uday's drunken
rampages and reprobate lifestyle; Uday
railed to friends that Qusay, Saddam's
chosen heir, conSpired to marginalize him
after a 1996 assassination .attempt left him
crippled:
Thus it was somewhat of a surprise that
the antipathetic brothers were ultimately
found together, holed up in a mansion on a
busy thoroughfare in a suburb of the northern
city of Mosul. In the end, they went
down together, engaging U.S. forces in a
four-hour battle before both were taken
out of the house dead, provoking celebrations
in lraq and relief in Washington. The
removal of two aces from the Pentagon's
deck of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis provided
a much-needed boost to a White House
reeling from growing public suspicions
that it stretched its case for the war, which
has claimed more American lives than did
the first Gulf War. U.S. commanders hope
the brothers' demise will decaIJitate the
leadership of the guerrilla resistance that
has tormented U.S. forces since the beginning
of the summer and thereby deliver
the enemy amortal blow. The U.S. believes
'the Fedayeen Saddam militia, which Uday
controlled during the war, is behind many
of the attacks on American troops. At the
same time, U.S. officialshope ordinary
Iraqis will be encouraged to cooperate
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