March 4th, 2005, Los Angeles: "The eldest son of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was plotting to overthrow his father as US troops advanced on Baghdad in March 2003, the journalist Peter Arnett says.
Uday Hussein, known for his ruthlessness and flashy lifestyle, had the support of the leadership of his father's Fedayeen militia to overthrow the dictator, an article in the April issue of Playboy magazine says."
I remember reading in Vanity Fair about Saddam's sons a few months before we killed them. The stories about these two were chilling. It was they that mainly used the rape rooms where witnesses said women emerged battered and bruised. One woman who complained was covered with honey and killed by 3 starving dobermans as reported by the Middle East Quarterly. The brothers used hard drugs regularly (which probably explains where some of the food for oil money went) and especially enjoyed watching the torture of the men under Saddam who had somehow broken the rules.
"Uday ran Iraq's Olympic committee in much the same style that he applies to his personal affairs. According to several Iraqi Olympic athletes who defected between the mid-1990s and the present, athletes were "beaten and humiliated" when they lost games. Some reported being flogged, beaten and imprisoned.
According to ESPN, Uday has athletes "beaten with iron bars. Caned on the soles of their feet. Chained to walls and left to stay in contorted positions for days. Dragged on pavement until their backs are bloody, then dunked in sewage to ensure the wounds become infected. If Uday stops by a player's jail cell, he might urinate on his bowed, shaven head. Just to humiliate him." via rotten.com
Later, after our invasion, our soldiers found drugs and pornographic material in their rooms and perhaps the most bizarre and chilling items were pictures of President Bush's daughters pinned to the walls.
The VF article described Uday as sadistic, mysogynistic, violent and totally deranged. I shudder to imagine the Iraq we would have under Uday Hussein. It seems every day we are discovering things that the invasion of Iraq saved us and the region from. Evil like this is almost too hard for us to wrap our minds around it.
The article goes on to say:
"Uday had planned to announce his seizure of power the same day, but was thwarted when US jets bombed his Youth TV studios in Baghdad, Arnett says."
One less monster with power in this world. Score a big one for our boys.
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