IRAQ: Arrest Embarrasses Saddam’s Tribe

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ferry Biedermann

OUJA, near Tikrit, Dec 17 2003 (IPS) - Sheik Mahmoud Nidda who heads Saddam Hussein’s Al Nasseri tribe has reasons to be upset.
      U.S. forces make his life difficult because he is a relative of the deposed leader. And now, Saddam himself is no longer a source of pride and prestige. He has become reason for embarrassment.

Sheik Mahmoud Nidda who heads Saddam Hussein’s Al Nasseri tribe has reasons to be upset.

U.S. forces make his life difficult because he is a relative of the deposed leader. And now, Saddam himself is no longer a source of pride and prestige. He has become reason for embarrassment.

“We are a tribe of brave men,” the Sheik, 60, asserts in his large reception hall in Ouja, the village near Tikrit where Saddam was born. “Saddam should have fought. He should have killed a couple of American soldiers and then he should have let them kill him, just like his sons Uday and Qusay did.”

In Iraq, as indeed in the wider Arab world, people are shocked by the meek surrender of the feared former leader. “Maybe the people who took him his food drugged him,” the Sheik speculates. But he acknowledges he is disappointed.

To Sheik Mahmoud that kind of surrender is a personal affront. It may also have repercussions for his tribe. When the deposed dictator stands trial, the role his family played may come out.

But the connection was a mixed blessing, he says. Many people think tensions arose within the tribe from its closeness to Saddam.

One instance is the feud involving Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel who was killed after he returned to Iraq.

The Sheik does not want to dwell on those dark passages in the history of the tribe. But he does say things were not all rosy.

“Saddam Hussein took young men from the tribe and used them in his personal security,” he says. “That did not mean a lot of money or power but it does mean that we are hated by many people in the country.”

The Al Nasseri tribe is said to have more than 350,000 young men, making it a powerful group. Ouja has a population of some 25,000.

The Sheik says he is a monarchist, rather than a Baath member like Saddam Hussein. He emphasises his political differences with the arrested leader.

In the early nineties he was forced out of his position, and Saddam appointed someone else head of the tribe, he says. “He is now dead. He was killed two months ago.” The Sheik does not elaborate.

Despite such differences, he says no one from his own tribe would have betrayed Saddam.

“In Iraq family ties are more important than political differences,” he says. The Sheik points out that Saddam was caught in Durra village just south of Ouja. “We did not even know where he was.”

Many people in Ouja still support Saddam, but the Sheik hopes violence will now end. “Saddam Hussein has been arrested, why should people fight on for him?”

Even so, U.S. forces have maintained a close watch on Ouja. A month ago they ringed the village with barbed wire. Visitors need permission to enter, and everybody is checked on arrival and departure.

This has meant that the Sheik’s large reception hall is mostly empty these days. “I have farms, and people would come to me with their problems or just to report. Now that is impossible.”

Sheik Mahmoud believes the U.S. forces did this to search for Saddam. But just days after the arrest, the ring is tighter than ever.

“If Saddam Hussein had ever put barbed wire around this village, we would have fought him,” the Sheik says angrily.

At the Salah-Eddin governorate building in nearby Tikrit, Major Derek Jordan says the troops have reason to be wary of Ouja. “We had some demonstrations there since the arrest of Saddam Hussein,” he says.

Maj. Jordan, an officer with the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion was surprised by the adverse reactions after news of the arrest. “I had expected much more of a celebratory mood,” he says.

The Iraqis are not used to their newfound freedom to express opinions peacefully, he says.

Remarkably, both the major and the Sheik have very similar evaluations of the effect that the capture of Saddam Hussein will have.

“It is a first step towards building a free and prosperous Iraq,” says the major.

The Sheik too is hopeful of better times to come. “We have to leave the past behind and work for a better future. Saddam Hussein is no longer important.”