Quiet son the heir-apparent

By ALISTAIR LYON in Dubai

Qusay Saddam Hussein, the ruthless younger son of the Iraqi leader, is widely seen as his father's heir-apparent.

Saddam placed Qusay in charge of the Baghdad-Tikrit area, the Government's power base, after dividing Iraq into four military districts to confront a United States-led invasion.

A rapid accumulation of power has catapulted Qusay ahead of his elder brother Uday, who had been tipped as successor until he was badly wounded in an assassination attempt in 1996.

Saddam decreed no new role for Uday when he put Iraq on a war footing last week, but both sons are close to the centre of a web of clan networks that their father has used to control the country for more than three decades.

Qusay, born in 1966, has kept a lower profile than the more flamboyant Uday, who retains influence through ownership of media outlets, among other roles.

After the 1996 shooting, which left Uday on crutches for three years, Qusay took command of key parts of the Iraqi military and feared security apparatus.

He controls the elite Republican Guards, the intelligence services and a special force providing security for Saddam, making him arguably the second-most powerful man in Iraq.

Qusay regularly appears at his father's side in most official functions shown on television.

Always wearing a civilian suit, he respectfully bows and kisses the hand of Saddam whenever he meets him in front of the cameras.

In leadership or military meetings, Qusay says little but listens intently to Saddam's every word, taking notes.

Like his father, Qusay has been ruthless in dealing with opponents, diplomats say. He is said to have put down political disturbances in 1998 and sent dissidents to their deaths.

Qusay's prospects of succeeding his father were for a time clouded by apparent rivalry with his brother.

In August 1999, Iraq's most influential newspaper, Babel, owned by Uday, ridiculed a press report that Saddam had granted Qusay wide powers that would let him act as President in an emergency.

"Follies and silly things by ignorant enemies," Babel said of the report, which it claimed had been issued by enemies of Iraq.

Like Uday, Qusay is wanted by a British-based and US-financed campaign called Indict that seeks to bring Iraqi officials to justice for alleged crimes committed during the crisis over Iraq's 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait.

Both men had a privileged upbringing in Baghdad marked by parental tolerance of wayward behaviour, academic sloth and protection by fleets of bodyguards.

"Uday was loud and vulgar while Qusay was quiet and calculating," the mother of a classmate was quoted as saying in Palestinian author Said Aburish's biography Saddam Hussein - The Politics of Revenge.

"In reality, the boys were no different from the relations of other Middle East dictators," Aburish's book goes on to say.

"Their lack of proper upbringing is another testimony that even in Ba'athist Iraq, ideology was only skin-deep and family connections have always taken precedence."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq