Phil wrote: > Always seems to me you can understand Saddam better if you just think of > him as a Mafia Don, basing much of his chain of command on family and > personal loyalty rather than merit, and ready to use whatever power needed > to keep power. Those are my exact feelings, too, although I can see a bit of Idi Amin in him too.
What really amazed me in the documentary were his many palaces (some underground) and their splendid architecture. And while Saddam blames the US embargos for the suffering of the people in Iraq, he continues to flaunt his wealth. He once asked everyone in the country to turn over all of their gold in order to help improve the plight of his people. Some time later, he showed up in a carriage which was manufactured from the gold. bob
