Uday Hussein: worse than a psychopath 3, December 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iraq.Tags: CIA, Iraq, Latif Yahia, Saddam Hussein, Torture, Uday Hussein
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This link leads to an excerpt of an interview with a former army body double of Uday Hussein, one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. Latif Yahia, the solider in question, describes Uday as far worse than a psychopath, for example, turning a beautiful woman into little more than a ‘barely breathing hunk of meat’.
I am sure and believe 100% that Uday Hussein was a vicious and sadistic killer. However, I am not overly sure how much I believe this man’s testimony. Firstly, it is obviously in his best financial interest to make the stories as gory and over the top as possible. The worse the stories, the more sensationalist media (and the BBC…) will be interested in interviewing him and, perhaps, the better his book sales. Secondly, he claims that he escaped Iraq with the help from the CIA. This is either a part of the first reason, the CIA being quite a buzz-word for editors, or it could be suggested that he must make his stories interesting and gruesome for them too: he needs to prove worthy after they expended so much energy and money getting him out. Thirdly, Yahia just comes across, to me at least, as not totally believable. This isn’t based on too much, just a gut reaction when watching the clip. Feel free to comment if you feel I’m being unfair…
The Gulf blog 
Hi, I seem to be the first to make a comment on your blog, but yet you have three votes.. anyway, I have a few issues with your comments. Firstly, you acknowledge that Uday was a sadist and capable of “turning a beautiful woman into a barely breathing lump of meat” but just seem to doubt the source on a “gut feeling”, have you ever heard of Latif Yahia before you saw this clip, and actually i would like to ask at this juncture whether or not you watched the full interview? Since 1991 when Mr Yahia fled Iraq he opened the world’s eyes to the brutality and corruption of the Hussein Regime. Only since the fall of Saddam in 2003 has it come to light that all of what he wrote in his first book in 1994, I Was Saddam’s son a German language issue, about red cells and torture practices in the Olympic Committe building, a building run and governed by Uday himself. You assert that Mr. Yahia is in it for the money, that he makes his stories more gruesome to be attractive to the media, have you ever wondered to yourself what exactly this man witnessed in his life in Iraq and possibly afterwards? Do you think that the brutality the was prevalent in Iraq was in some way avoided by the man who was Uday’s double? On another note, the intelligence services around the world do not deny that Mr. Yahia held the position of Fidai or body double to Uday Saddam Hussein, in fact they acknowledge it. From all accounts including the programme from which the topic for this article is derived Mr. Yahia donates his royalties to charity, which if you had viewed the programme in full you would have understood.
So, if I may, do watch the whole programme, not just the soundbite, it makes for a more intelligent and comprehensive blog.
If you do decide to do some homework you may like to look at his youtube ,facebook or his website http://www.latifyahia.com.
Regards.
Alex Rasman
Mid-eastern Expert
London
Thanks for the comment.
You do not have to comment to rate the article.
No, I had not previously heard of Yahia (not that it matters) and no I have not seen the whole interview (which does matter).
This missive is 226 words long. It is not remotely meant to be comprehensive but a quick blog posting on an interesting topic. It is simply meant to highlight a personal feeling of mine which I go out of my way to make clear is an unsubstantiated ‘gut feeling’, as I put it, on the clip in question.
If I do decide to do some research on this topic, I will look at his youtube, facebook and website, but I will also look for other sources. For it would hardly be a scholarly piece of research were I only to examine what he had to say.
Overall, I firmly believe that Uday was as disgusting a person as they come. I firmly believe that Yahia viewed numerous horrible things in his time in Iraq. The extent of this, however, I do not know, and neither does anybody else. I find it difficult to get away from the fact that it would be unquestionably, unequivocally and logically wholly in his best interest to exaggerate some stories from time to time and to make his testimony as gruesome as possible to garner either money or notoriety (say to promote a book or to spread the good word about the Husseins) or to get out of Iraq in the first place. Such behavior if – if – it took place is neither wrong nor lamentable, but wholly understandable and a natural human reaction.
loool people low it chill its all history now
apparently you should not comment on someone unless you do the full research. Next time you will know.
One sentence, you know nothing about his history or history itself.
Just got a chance to see The Devil’s Double, great movie! As the first of it’s kind I think that they did well, being Iraqi myself ( I left in the early 90’s) I find it quite accurate, I can tell it wasn’t actually filmed in Baghdad but then who really wants to go there! For so long I’ve listened to critics here in the US saying the movie is too flashy or over the top but I lived in Baghdad during that time, believe me we were more O.T.T than that! Iraq in the ’80’s had everything you could want, night clubs, bars, the best hotels in the world, Sheraton, Le Meridien etc, think of Dubai now, that was Baghdad then. Anyway, I was an officer in a special unit in the palace. So I saw a lot of stuff, it was an open secret that Uday had a double, just like President Saddam Hussein. It makes me laugh when there’s controversy after 20 years about whether Latif Yahia’s story is true or not, I wonder who they’re asking for an opinion, some guy who left Iraq when he was three and has never been to the middle-east let alone Iraq! Or worse still the men who Uday used to call ‘friends’, it’s of no importance really, Iraq as we knew it is gone, President Saddam is dead. Watch and enjoy, historically accurate or not it’s one hell of a ride! Oh yeah, if you’ve ever watched any interview of the real Latif Yahia, that’s what Uday sounded like, not as squeaky as they make him out to be in the movie. To capture Uday’s brutality they would have had to dial it up a notch or twelve, I had the displeasure of seeing him in action in reality. We had a job to do, pretending we weren’t there. Does it glorify Uday, I don’t know, I think that’s for each person to decide. Am I proud of Latif Yahia for bringing his story to the world, absolutely. Because for each person that tries to rubbish him there are twenty Iraqis who will defend him, he stood up against the regime and in the end he’s the winner.