Adel Darwish: Saddam may play the Godfather to outfox the UN

Mr Deputy charmed us with generous measures of whisky and his analysis of the new mafia film

During Desert Storm in 1991, there were few predicting that Saddam Hussein, would outlast the Western coalition leaders. Saddam, however, didn't bet on keeping Kuwait but on holding on to power, which he has successfully done ever since.

Today, the Americans have plans to deal with two scenarios: unseating Saddam, as President Bush wishes; and a long-term nation-building process after the expected war.

UN Security Council Resolution 1441 has left more than enough room for an accident or provocation to trigger a war and enable President Bush to achieve his desired regime change. And even if the Iraqis avoided any provocation, many in Washington believe that the very process of inspection might so destabilise the regime as to bring about its collapse. But it would be a grave error to underestimate Saddam's ability to survive the coming storm.

In designing their strategy, did America's planners accurately assess Saddam's cunning or did they accept the caricature of him as an irrational psychopath? The CIA employed the psychiatrist Dr Jerrold Post to spend years studying "the inside of Saddam's head". Dr Post never talked to his "subject" once; yet he convinced his employers that Saddam's violent childhood – his mother's fault really! – would compel him to hold on to his war toys at any cost, thus triggering a war.

Administration officials who served President Bush's father expected Iraq to deploy the same tactics as he did at the time of the Gulf War. At the end of a nine-hour meeting in Geneva in January 1991, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, refused to carry a letter from Secretary of State James Baker warning Saddam to pull out of Kuwait or face a destructive war because "the tone of its content was insulting", as Mr Aziz explained.

Last week Saddam surprised them by accepting a resolution far more humiliating than the 1991 letter. It would be a mistake to expect him to repeat the tactics he has used to cheat UN inspectors.

The Iraqi leader, as I have known him over three decades, is a chameleon. Once his familiar tactics become risky, he swiftly changes them. He opted for the obscurity of exile in 1959-63, living on handouts from Colonel Nasser's intelligence service, when staying in Iraq seemed risky – a move that set his political career back by 10 years. Despite playing a leading role in the 1968 coup, he remained in the shadows for 11 years until it was safe to pounce on power, which he did in 1979, ruthlessly liquidating half the party members including many comrades in arms.

Like Stalin, Saddam is a charmer. He is a cold tactician, cunning and very calm. He wears an expressionless face of a professional poker player during the most disturbing, emotionally unnerving events.

In 1975 in Baghdad, "Mr Deputy", as Saddam was known then, charmed three Western journalists he invited to his table. During a chilling account of his Kurdistan campaign, Mr Deputy entertained us with generous measures of whisky and his analysis of the new mafia film The Godfather. His obsession with the central character and the storyline – on which he later modelled many of his own moves – is a key to his tactics and manoeuvres .

Some deals the Godfather made, he said, "might seem humiliating concessions, but they were calculated tactics that enabled him to laugh last and laugh louder". On another occasion, six years later, Saddam sought the views of visiting writers on The Long Days, a personally promoted film about his life that showed him making concessions, escaping and hiding as heroic deeds. The historic goal was to survive as "a Godfather, without whom the Iraqi family would disintegrate".

Four days after invading Kuwait, Saddam offered President Bush "all the oil he needs" at one third of market price for life if he would make a deal. There is little prospect of a deal this time round, but a Saddam who is fully compliant with the inspection teams' requirement could try to charm the world. Contrary to Dr Post's assessment, Saddam will give up his war toys. There is a realistic possibility that Hans Blix will, genuinely, report in February that he has found nothing suspicious.

The consequences of this outcome could be far more dangerous to America and her regional allies than a war with a long occupation of Iraq. Once Saddam had complied with all UN demands, the pressure to lift the sanctions would come from the four corners of the earth. Saddam might come out defanged and humiliated but still very much in control of Iraq.

Saddam the Godfather neither forgets nor forgives. Once sanctions are lifted, greater oil wealth would turn him into a formidable regional economic power waiting for another chance to settle scores. Last month computer hacks discovered electronic mail sent by company executives from Russia, Europe and even Texas to Saddam's mailbox. Offering their services, they sought his help in joining a trade fair held in Baghdad. This indicates a belief in the world business community that the regime of the Godfather may very well survive the coming storm.

The writer is co-author of 'Unholy Babylon: the secret history of Saddam's war'