Two of Saddam Husseinâs daughters and their nine children received sanctuary Thursday in Jordan on humanitarian grounds, granted by King Abdullah II. Raghad Saddam Hussein and Rana Saddam Hussein — who had reportedly been living in humble circumstances in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, since their fatherâs ouster — arrived in the capital Amman Thursday, Information Minister Nabil al-Sharif told The Associated Press. He refused to say if they traveled through a third country.
I donât think itâs proper to use the words "humble" and "Hussein" in the same paragraph.
U.S. officials say they are closing in on Saddam, but it was not clear if his daughtersâ departure from Iraq indicated the hunt for their father was nearing an end. Word of the arrival in Jordan of two of Saddamâs five children came after his elder sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed in a July 22 firefight with U.S. troops. Some U.S. military officers in Iraq said the daughtersâ flight to Jordan was another sign that intensified sweeps are squeezing Saddam and other members of the defeated regime. ``Itâs good news. Even if itâs estranged or extended family, it shows theyâre on the move,ââ said Army Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who commands soldiers patrolling Saddamâs hometown of Tikrit.
Then again given the consideration given to women in that part of the world, it may be that theyâre just moving the herd into the barn for the night.
It was not clear whether the Americans had sought the daughters for questioning about their father. The two daughters had lived private lives and — unlike their brothers — were not believed to be wanted for crimes linked to their fatherâs brutal regime. Instead, the women were seen by some as victims of Saddam, who ordered their husbands killed in 1996. Al-Sharif said Saddamâs daughters were allowed to come to the kingdom because they had ``run out of all options.ââ The daughters had been estranged from their father for a time but were believed to have reconciled with Saddam in recent years. A brother of their late husbands, Jamal Kamel, told The Associated Press that the women ``donât know anything about where their father could be. Theyâre not interested in politics.ââ He said the women were in one of Jordanâs palaces under the kingâs protection but refused to elaborate.
Wonder if they have the room down the hall from daddy.
The whereabouts of Saddamâs wife Sajida Khairallah Telfah and his fifth and youngest child, daughter Hala, are unknown. Hala Saddam Husseinâs husband, Gen. Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti, was No. 10 on the list of 55 most-wanted former officials of the regime. He surrendered to U.S. forces on May 17, the U.S. Central Command said. Saddam had a very public affair with Samira Shahbandar, daughter of a prominent Iraqi family, who has been described as his second wife. The two are rumored to have had a son. Last month, a cousin of Saddam, Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid, had said he would try to help Raghad and Rana apply for asylum in Britain, where he lives. That prompted a statement from Prime Minister Tony Blair that Britain would not consider asylum applications from members of Saddamâs family who may have committed human rights abuses.
| Shot that down, didn't he? |
Long accustomed to extravagance, the women had been living with their nine children in a modest Baghdad home without electricity since their fatherâs ouster, the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported June 1. In the 1999 book ``Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein,ââ authors Andrew and Patrick Cockburn wrote that the sisters were ``once Saddamâs favorite children, (but they) never forgave him for the killingsââ of their husbands. ``They assumed he had orchestrated the attack .... They continued to live with their ... children in a family house in Tikrit, never going out, always wearing black, and refusing to see any member of their family apart from their mother,ââ the Cockburns wrote. But in July, Londonâs Sunday Times quoted Raghad as saying that Saddam ``is my father and I am his daughter. He was a very good father.ââ
"He was a very good father for a blood-sucking sadist! Oh, did I say that?" |
THE hunt for Saddam's missing billions was stepped up yesterday amid speculation he amassed a $57 billion fortune during his 30-year reign. Much is said to be invested through dummy corporations in Switzerland, Japan and Germany and some is hidden as cash and diamonds in numbered bank accounts in Europe and the Middle East. But Iraqi and US investigators, led by the FBI, US Treasury agents and State Department accountants, have been unable to identify the fake companies or the numbered accounts.