Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 412 - Saddam Hussein

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Taking a look into the life of the former dictator of Iraq today, which will of course lead us into at least summarizing the first and second Persian Gulf Wars. How bad of a guy was Saddam? And was the US justified in invading Iraq to take him down?  Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/smgt5ba3rjAMerch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.

During his rule, Saddam Hussein was known to his people, the people of Iraq, by many different names. The Anointed One, Glorious Leader, Direct Descendant of the Prophet, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, Field Marshal of the Armies, Doctor of Iraq's Laws, Great-Uncle to all of Iraq's peoples, and more. In public, Saddam wore a general's uniform, decorated with all kinds of medals and gold epaulettes, even though he never actually technically served in Iraq's armed forces. In his private life, he enjoyed living in his many opulent homes and palaces, so many palaces, each with their own swimming pool, a sign of wealth and success in a desert country like Iraq. Fresh food would be flown in from out of the country just for him, twice a

week. He ate lobster, shrimp, all sorts of fish, made sure to get plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, and dairy products as well. He could be generous when it suited him. Saddam developed a reputation for liking expensive goods, such as his diamond-coated Rolex wristwatch, and he sent copies of them to his friends around the world. To his ally, Kenneth Kainda, a Zambian politician, Saddam once sent a Boeing 747 loaded full of presents, rugs, televisions, all sorts of stuff. In his free time, he was a lover of literature, of Hemingway's The Old Man in the Sea, for example.

He enjoyed movies about intrigue, The Day of the Jackal, The Conversation, Enemy of the States, and The Godfather were some of his favorites. A six-hour movie about his life was made, edited by Terrence Young, best known for directing three James Bond films. He portrayed himself as something between a man and a god, someone who had risen from the turmoil

of 20th century Iraqi politics to bring the country into a new age of prosperity. But in the US and elsewhere in the West, he was primarily known as the butcher of Baghdad. US news coverage, especially in the early 2000s, painted a picture of the Iraqi president as a bloodthirsty madman. And there is plenty of evidence to back up the bloodthirsty label. From his ascendancy to the presidency in 1979 and even before, Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party he belonged to used murder, so much torture, execution, arbitrary arrest,

unlawful detention, enforced disappearances, and various other forms of repression and violence to control the population. While he was gorging on shrimp and lobster, he created two wars that led to over a million deaths. He murdered, imprisoned, and tortured Kurdish Iraqis to the extent that some considered it a genocide, or at least an attempted one. His forces conducted several full-scale massacres against Iraqi citizens. His regime was, in general, one of severe repression.

For just one example, police checkpoints on Iraq's roads and highways prevented ordinary citizens from traveling across their own country without government permission. And before traveling, if given permission, an Iraqi citizen had to post collateral in case he didn't come back. Not a sign that you're living in a great place. Despite this many still would leave and just not return. In total in November of 2004 Human Rights Watch estimated that 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis were killed or disappeared by the regime of Saddam Hussein. were killed or disappeared by the regime of Saddam Hussein. The bloodthirsty label well deserved, and he was extremely repressive. But to categorize Saddam as a madman might be kind of reductive.

Indeed, the reason the West seemed to categorize Saddam as a madman wasn't just his brutal tactics at home, but his treatment of the international community, waging two aggressive wars, first against Iran before launching into an invasion of Kuwait. When Saddam was driven out of Kuwait by a coalition of forces led by the U.S., he refused to cooperate with UN sanctions, including weapons inspections, that were deemed an appropriate consequence by the international community. Saddam seemed to be willing to take on the world, including the world's superpower, the U.S., as if he could actually win. And for this incredibly poor calculation, he was labeled a madman.

But Saddam cut his teeth in very different circumstances, or in very different circumstances, and politicians over here in the West do. Coming of age during a time in which Iraq's monarchy was rapidly failing, Saddam would become a member of the Ba'athist party, which launched multiple coups against the government by making allies and breaking them just as swiftly before finally attaining full power. For Saddam, the political sphere was one in which might makes right. A hostile environment in which everyone's main concern should not be moral leadership, but self-preservation. To Saddam, the ultimate goal of staying alive and in power justified any and all means. Plots lurked around every corner. Nobody was trustworthy. Everybody was an actual or perceived enemy. One in that environment must remain constantly on high

alert, making others cower so they do not attack, always ready to kill before being killed. Maybe he was less of a madman and more of a ruthless opponent. One who wouldn't hesitate to send as many bodies into the fray as he could to achieve his ultimate goal. Making Iraq the biggest power in the Middle East and the largest Arab stronghold in the world. And that goal made him more terrifying than a madman. Even so, there have been plenty of brutal dictators throughout history and plenty of dictators that have vied for power and not been removed from power by the US, as Saddam would be in April of 2003. So why Saddam? Why was his brutality, his madness, so touted in the Western presses? by the US and Saddam would be in April of 2003. So why Saddam?

Why was his brutality, his madness, so touted in the Western presses? Why did the US spend so much money, recent estimates say around a trillion dollars, to have Saddam removed from power? What was it about him? What was it about Iraq? Saddam Hussein? Madman? Dictator?

Unfair target? Fair target? All of the above. Today on a historical, desperate, would we be talking about him today if his nation of Iraq did not have so much black gold beneath its surface? Addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you to the cult of the curious. I'm Dan Cummins, suck nasty, Italy's least favorite tourist. Still the newest member of the Galactic Federation of Light team and still John Lennon's Starship co-pilot, which is pretty fucking awesome.

Still a button pusher. This one last week. Buttons like that? Oh man. They're a dead giveaway that you're listening to Time Suck. No announcements today. How about that? Let's just jump into a historical topic that feels a lot like a true crime topic in moments. I'm sure most of you listening today, unless you're around 25 years old or younger, really not that into modern history, remember the Iraq War and also the Gulf War that preceded it. Or at least have studied and or talked about them or maybe watched a YouTube or TikTok video that referenced in some part or one of both of these wars.

If you're old enough, you might even remember seeing news coverage of Saddam on the nascent internet or on the nightly news or in the newspapers in real time. I remember listening to Tom Brokaw talk on NBC Nightly News about the Gulf War and being either excited or nervous that I might get drafted depending on the day. Mostly nervous. And I remember reading about the subsequent Iraq War in the newspaper and watching reports on either Fox or CNN. You may recall seeing yellow ribbons wrapped around trees and commemoration of those fallen in battle. You might have even known someone who went to Iraq or even have been that person yourself. But how much do you really truly know about Saddam Hussein?

For many of us, his name conjures up the image of a brutal dictator with a twinkle in his eye, a cigar in his mouth, and honestly, one hell of a fucking mustache. The dude gave Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck runs for their mustache money. Many of us also remember that son of a bitch celebrating the atrocity of September 11, 2001, and seeming to be a guy dead set on pushing the world ever closer to the brink of nuclear disaster. But as always, people are generally much more complicated than media outlets make them out to be, or are even able to portray them in little sound bites of a few minutes or less. For example, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was kind of known for religious tolerance

as different religious minorities coexisted peacefully under his reign. Saddam once said, Iraqis have religious freedom, whether they are Muslims, Christians, or Sabians, Mandians. And the last group often expressed that after Saddam's downfall, Mandians faced severe persecution and constant kidnappings. The Sabians of Iraq, mostly called Mandions,

a small religious sect of people who considered John the Baptist, not Jesus or Muhammad, to be the last and most important prophet. There are only 60 to 100,000 members in the world. Most of them around 20,000 living in Sweden currently. But prior to the US invasion of Iraq, Iraq alone had about 60 to 70,000 members. Those numbers have dwindled down to just a few thousand today thanks to Islamic extremism

pushing them out. Also Ayesid Saddam was kind of religiously tolerant because he was not known for being tolerant at all to Jewish people. You may have noticed he did not add Jews when he listed out who had religious freedom in Iraq. Back in 1940 there were approximately 150,000 Jewish people living in Iraq but then following the brutal Farhood Polgram in Baghdad in June of 1941, which left more than a hundred Jewish people dead, many more raped and or beaten, and dozens of properties looted and homes destroyed, and

the formation of Israel that followed seven years later in 1948, there were only about 6,000 Iraqi Jews living in Iraq as of 1951. And there were only an estimated 2 or 3,000 by the time Saddam became president. And by the time he was executed, thanks to his hatred of the Jewish people, there were literally less than 10. And just one remaining synagogue in Baghdad that catered to them. Sometimes and barely. So Saddam was, you know, not tolerant to members of all faiths.

And he definitely wasn't tolerant towards all ethnicities. Dude fucking hated Western Europeans and he hated the Kurds. He committed something approximating to genocide. The Anfal campaign in 1988 was a deliberate move to wipe out Kurdish villages that have long considered themselves somewhat independent from Iraq. Death tolls estimates range from 50,000 to nearly 200,000. Many if not most of them civilians. Many of the dead being women and children.

A lot of chemical weapons attacks in those fatalities. Another example of complexity, Saddam would continually bathe the international community with threats of violence. Threats that seemed quite possible if as the international community came to a suspect, Saddam was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction or WMDs. But Saddam would also claim that he was never anything but unfairly targeted by Western

powers who wanted to capitalize on Iraq's natural resources, read oil, and protect its allies. Allies who ensured access to similar resources. And again by resources I mean of, sweet, sweet black gold, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. And regarding that claim, he may have been kind of right. Not that he wasn't a power-hungry warmonger, but the U.S. definitely had long been interested in Iraq's oil fields.

George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, said that in Bush's first two National Security Council meetings, as in his very first two as president, he discussed invading Iraq with Iraq's oil fields being the primary motivation. Yep, the Texas oil man wanted that oil for his oil drilling and selling buddies. And is anyone really surprised? Paul was given briefing materials entitled Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq, which envisioned dividing up Iraq's oil wealth for American corporations. O'Neill, who served nearly two years in Bush's cabinet, was asked to resign by the White House in December of 2002 over differences he had with the president's tax cuts.

Then he went on to be the main source for The Price of Loyalty, George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Susskind. Also, a Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001 was titled Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts, and included a map of potential areas for exploration in Iraq. And there are, of course, many more documents, from private sector leaders to politicians to think tank writers, that discuss the possibility of the U. the US having access to Iraqi oil.

Both George W. Bush and his VP, Dick Cheney, were formerly CEOs of oil and oil-related corporations such as Arbusto, Harkin Energy, Spectrum 7, and Halliburton. You couldn't have a worse or more obvious, glaring conflict of interest here. The two politicians who could start a war with Iraq also were two men who stood to gain millions and millions of dollars off of that war. Hello, war profiteering. Holy shit, that definitely happened. Halliburton gained 39 and a half billion dollars in federal contracts related to the Iraq War. And Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton right before he became VP from 1995 until 2000 and was then a VP of America from 2001 to 2009. Halliburton stock price traded between 18 and 20 bucks in January of 2000. In January of 2007 a few years into the

Iraq War it was trading between 28 and 30 bucks. Cheney had 1 million 160 thousand shares at that time at the time he left the company, which translated to between 21 and 23 million dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand. And then seven years later those stocks were worth between 33 and 35 million dollars. And I'm sure he made money in other ways off of the war and so did Bush because you know their connections too and investments in again numerous oil companies. General John Abizade, the United States Central Commander or Central Command Commander excuse me from 2003 to 2007, even said the following of the Iraq War. First of all I think it's really important to understand the dynamics that are going on in

the Middle East and of course it's about oil. It's very much about oil and we can't really deny that and what he said there was already, I would argue, obvious to most people around the world. Was Saddam a bad guy? Oh, fuck yes. Yes. Was he the main reason we fought in the Iraq War? No. Oil was the main reason for the second war. To me, this is extremely obvious. If the Iraq War was truly fought because America is some kind of altruistic, white, shiny knight motivated primarily to stop innocent civilians from being killed by a brutal regime, why was nothing done about the Rwandan genocide, for example? In the spring and summer of 1994, while the Iraq war was being fought, approximately 800,000

Tutsi ethnic minorities were slaughtered en masse by a regime comprised of the Hutu ethnic group. An estimated 250,000 Tutsi women raped over just a three month period in 1994. 250,000. US did nothing to stop it. Why is that? Guessing the fact that Rwanda was not producing

a shit ton of fucking oil was a huge factor. Still many have denied that oil was the primary motive for toppling Saddam's regime. In 2002, responding to a question about coveting oil fields, George W. Bush said, Those are the wrong impressions. I have a deep desire for peace. That's what I have a desire for, and freedom for the Iraqi people. See, I don't like a system where people are repressed through torture and murder in order to keep a dictator in place. That troubles me deeply.

And so the Iraqi people must hear this loud and clear that this country never has any intention to conquer anybody. Come on. I mean, yeah, we're not trying to conquer anybody, but that wasn't mostly about freedom. It was mostly about oil, which I actually do understand. Why, let's take a motion and any sense of fairness out of this, because the world does not run on fairness,

and just talk about cold hard reality. The history of the world has largely been a fight for limited resources. Wars aren't often started because someone's being naughty and someone else decides enough is enough. Wars are often started because someone has something valuable that someone else wants, someone who's willing to go fuck and take it. Oil is a limited and very important resource. And it was even more important back during the Iraq war when things like mass-produced electric cars were still in their infancy. We are a massive oil-based economy with a lot

of oil-based war machines. And we're home to some of the world's biggest oil corporations. Corporations with powerful government ties. We truly do need oil to keep our economy running. And if you can stabilize oil production in an area and also overthrow a ruthless dictator via war, is that war necessarily a bad thing? Also, just because you are not toppling other ruthless regimes tormenting people who don't have anything of industrial or military value to your nation, that doesn't mean that your war is inherently unjust. I think, and maybe I'm wrong, that what most people get annoyed by or find unjust when it comes to the US invasion of Iraq isn't the fact that the war was fought primarily over oil. I think it's the fact that the US

government pretended it wasn't. It's the deception, the lying about the true motivation, the nature of the conflict that is the most upsetting. At least to me. Right? Tell us the truth. Tell us that this guy is a ruthless motherfucker who kills his own people frequently and horribly. Tell us that this guy is a ruthless motherfucker who kills his own people frequently and horribly. Tell us that he tortures people in ways that would make a medieval inquisitor squeamish. But also tell us on top of all that, that his nation has vast quantities of the oil we want and need, and that he has a history of invading other oil-rich nations, and he will keep trying, if left unchecked, to take over the entire Middle East, which would really

fuck over our economy and also could have disastrous military consequences for us down the road if he decided to do all that and then not only refused to sell us oil but also sell it to our historical enemies like Russia, while Russia maybe allows Iraq to develop a nuclear weapons program in exchange for that sweet sweet black gold. Tell us what the real concerns are. Tell us that yeah, the war is important for everyone who drives a fucking car, or goes flying in a plane, or accesses goods that are brought to them via a gas-powered engine in an 18-wheeler plane, ship, etc. which is fucking everyone. And this will also make U.S.

oil corporations and their shareholders, which include our most powerful politicians, filthy rich. Or more rich, since they're already filthy rich. Tell us what we're really doing and stop treating us like we're dumb kids who think the good guys are 100% noble and selfless and the bad guys are 100% evil and ruthless and that the Iraqi war was a war of liberation. But maybe that wouldn't work. Maybe too many of us do think like children and a policy of honesty would be political suicide, right? People don't like the truth a lot of the times. Do you ever think about that?

That deparifies Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men that when it comes to wars like the Iraq War, we collectively can't handle the truth. If we truly want our politicians to be brutally honest, I think we need to have a society comfortable with uncomfortable truths. Just some stuff to keep in mind when thinking about why we deposed Saddam. While our intentions might not have been as noble as our leaders sometimes declared, that doesn't mean it was the wrong choice to overthrow Saddam's regime. After being reminded of how brutal that motherfucker was while going over a lot of the details of his life this week,

I am glad that we did overthrow him. overthrow him. So how are we gonna tackle all the information in today's episode? First I'll share a brief history of Iraq before diving into Saddam Hussein's life and the political upheavals that would help put him on the map and then the shrewd maneuverings that would help bring him to the premier palace of power in Iraq before he met or premier place so many palaces on my brain premier place of power in Iraq before he met his downfall also quick note on pronunciations holy shit there were about a hundred names a hundred thousand names I'd never encountered before in this suck small Iraqi towns lots of minor government officials I spent most of a

full day working on finding videos of someone, just anyone, saying these names, and I think I got most of them, but not all of them. So if you're like, I don't think that's how you say that, well, you are probably right. Here we go. In ancient times, Iraq was known as Mesopotamia,

a name that means the land between the two rivers, sometimes termed the cradle of civilization by historians. The Sumerian culture flourished here beginning around 4500 BCE or perhaps even earlier. They were the first recorded people to cultivate land and use calendars as well as develop a written language. Over many centuries, the Sumerians fought countless invading enemies whose attacks did take their toll on Sumerian civilization and culture. Fortunately, King Hammurabi of Babylon was able to salvage some of this civilization in 1700 BCE and the region became known as Babylonia. After Hammurabi's death, the land fell under Assyrian rule for about two centuries. It was then restored to its former legendary glory under King

Nebuchadnezzar II, who built the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Various invaders conquered the land after Nebuchadnezzar's death, including Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE and the Macedonian Emperor Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. Then the armies of the Persian Empire overran Babylonia in the 2nd century CE. Muslim Arabs would capture it next. Then Mongol invaders from Asia would murder the Caliph, the leader of Islam, in the 13th century CE. Baghdad stood at the center of a contest for supremacy in the region that would last another 400 years until the Turks conquered the region and added it to the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.

Turkish rule continued unchallenged until the very end of the 17th century. Turkish rule continued unchallenged until the very end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire then became a German ally going into World War I and when the Germans lost and the Ottoman Empire found itself on the wrong side, its territories were scooped up and redivided amongst European powers. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Allies made Iraq a territory encompassing the three former Ottoman provinces of Muzul, Baghdad and al-Bazra a Class A mandate. Under the mandate system and territory that had formerly been held by Germany or the Ottoman Empire was now placed under the supervision of the League of Nations and the

responsibility for directly administering this particular mandate fell to Britain and Britain was keenly and the responsibility for directly administering this particular mandate fell to Britain and Britain was keenly interested in this area's oil fields. And of course they were. So much fucking money. For most of the past century and a half the world's industries have been powered mostly by black gold. Interestingly a categorization of Class A was given to Iraq which meant that the area was expected to achieve independence in just a few years. Between 1919 and 1932 Iraq was shaped into a kingdom and placed under the rule of Amir Faisal, a man who actually was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and who grew up in Constantinople in present-day Turkey. When he was given

Iraq essentially by the British most people in Iraq had never heard of him before. Although the monarch was first elected in 1921, full independence was not achieved until 1932 when the British mandate was officially terminated but the British kept close tabs on Iraq. Iraq joined the League of Nations in October of 1932 as an independent sovereign state, but some would argue still kind of a puppet state of Britain. And on Faisal's death in 1933, his son King Ghazi I succeeded him. Things seemed to be going pretty well, but it wouldn't last long. And this was the circumstances into which Saddam Hussein was born. And since today's Time Suck timeline begins with Saddam's birth, let's just jump into

it. those boots soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. It was during a period of newly won independence in Iraqi nationalism but ever-present regional instability that Saddam Hussein was born on April 28th 1937 in a mud hut belonging to his maternal uncle. As we covered up top the first independent ruler of Iraq Amir Faisal had died in 1933, was succeeded by his son King Ghazi the first, and the monarchy seemed to be doing pretty well. Saddam meanwhile, far from being royalty. His family were landless peasants who lived in the mud hut village of Al-Uja on the outskirts of Tikrit,

of Al Ujah on the outskirts of Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad. It was a destitute place, no running water, no paved roads, no electricity, mud brick houses, and appalling health conditions that made survival a demanding task. Diseases such as malaria, bedzl, a non-venereal form of syphilis, hookworm, tuberculosis, and trachoma were rampant and one in three babies would

die before the age of one. Basil by the way is fucking horrific. You can catch this ruthless bacterial disease by simply sharing silverware or a drink with somebody so you probably have it. And you'll develop these slimy, bloody, mucous lesions in and around your mouth. Then you'll have these nasty bloody blisters break out all over your body. The bones in your legs will get infected in the late stages of this disease. Skin ulcers might break out in your armpits, on or around your rectum, and on your genitals.

Yeah, bloody pus-filled ulcers on your butthole, on your pee hole, maybe on your sex hole. If you don't have those right now, you probably will soon if you've ever shared a spoon or a soda with anybody. Luckily for you, you dirty fucking dick ulcer having lepr leper. It is treatable with penicillin and other antibiotics today but it was not treatable when Saddam was a child and it would eventually kill you after grotesquely and painfully disfiguring you. So that's fun. Saddam obviously would survive and avoid these illnesses. In accordance with Arab customs Saddam's second name Hussein is actually his father's first name. His father's full name was Hussein Al-Majid. His father disappeared from the

scene when Saddam was just a few months old according to some sources. Later the official version would have it that he died but that is unclear. At least one source, the revolutionary turned butcher, evolution of evil documentary, says that Saddam's father and an elder brother both died months before his birth and that Saddam's mother thought this elder brother both died months before his birth and that Saddam's mother thought this was some kind of bad omen and she blamed her unborn child that she was carrying, thinking that she had Satan in her belly, and she thought about aborting Saddam.

Too bad she didn't, because it stopped him before it ever started. The name Saddam means the one who confronts and he would certainly live up to that billing. As a child though, Saddam would frequently be the one who wass and he would certainly live up to that billing. As a child though Saddam would frequently be the one who was confronted Often by other boys who mocked him for not having a dad and Saddam had few friends This is an angry little kid He did suppose you have a horse that he loved dearly so much so that when the horse died Saddam will claim that his hand was Somehow mysteriously paralyzed for a week Never never heard of that one didn't know there was a hand paralysis horse connection

Not quite sure how a paralyzed hand can be connected to a heartache. Sounds like maybe he just beat off too much. Blame some carpal tunnel or something on the horse. After a few years, Faddam living with an uncle, Faddam's mother married a man named Hassan Ibrahim, nicknamed Hassan the Liar. And she took him back. That's a tough nickname. That's a tough stepdad, Hassan the Liar. Daddy really enjoyed being known as Hasan the liar. Better than like Hasan the boy beater, which he could have also been known as. Once young Saddam moved in with him, Hasan abused his stepson physically and verbally, beating him with an asphalt covered stick. He would send Saddam out to steal for him and prevent him from getting an education. An asphalt covered stick.

Who thinks, you know what, this stick is just not doing the trick. I need something heavier to beat this boy with. A baseball bat would be nice, but none of the local stores sell baseball bats. So I guess I'll just have to dip the stick in some hot tar, put a little weight on it so I can really swing for the fences on his ass. This abuse would teach Saddam the basis of the philosophy that would shape his political career. Survival of the fittest. The world was unfair, full of pain and suffering, and you had to be strong. Not necessarily a good person if you wanted to succeed. You could be the person beaten with the fucking stick, or you could be the guy holding the stick and beating somebody else. 1947, at the age of 10, Saddam left to live in Baghdad with the uncle who raised him for the first few years of his life, who was Kerala Tulfa, a devout Sunni Muslim and Nazi sympathizer

who would later become governor of Baghdad. Kerala was an Iraqi army officer and passionate Iraqi nationalist, opposed to any foreign interference in Iraq, and saw the monarchy as being far too close with the British still, the people who put the monarchy in power When Saddam came to live with him, he had just been released from prison For attempting to lead an uprising against the monarchy. He was born into a revolutionary family a popular pamphlet He wrote carried the title Three whom God should not have created Persians Jews and flies

God damn, that's some hardcore shit. It's not just belief, but put into print. And apparently it was well received. Kerala defined Persians, aka Iranians, as animals God created in the shape of humans. Jews in his view were a mixture of the dirt and leftovers of diverse people, while flies, who were the least appalling of the three creatures, were triathlon creatures whom we do not understand God's purpose in creating. I do get the fly hatred actually. But they do literally eat shit which is kind of nice so they do have a purpose amongst other things. Kerala became Saddam's hero and somebody who

would finally give him an education. Doesn't sound like he should be teaching anybody but okay. Saddam desperately needed some education at 10 years old he still didn't even know how to spell his own name He's dumb as a fucking rock or just ignorant Kerala would become his mentor and shepherd him to the rest of his childhood along with Kerala's son Adnan Who's just three years older than Saddam and became his best friend? Adam would later become the Minister of Defense under Saddam that same year

1947 Iraq entered the arena of international politics. And before we talk about it, how about today's first two mid-show sponsor breaks? Thanks for listening to those ads. If you don't want to hear them anymore, get the entire catalog ad free and more by signing up to be a spacer on Patreon for five bucks a month. And now let's return to 1947 when the new nation of Iraq tosses its hat into the international political ring for the very first time. Iraq bitterly objected to the UN's decision to partition Palestine between Arab and Jewish

settlers. Most Iraqis wanted all of the Middle East to be Arab, to be Muslim, not to be Jewish. When hostilities broke out after five Arab nations invaded territory in the former Palestinian mandate immediately following the announcement of the independence of the state of Israel on May 14th, 1948. Iraq sent several hundred recruits to fight for Palestinian sovereignty. But the Iraqis had arrived at the Palestinian front poorly equipped and poorly trained. And the humiliations they suffered in the battlefield reflected badly on the country's monarchy. Got their asses fucking whooped and quickly retreated.

The war also had a negative impact on the Iraqi economy as the government had allocated 40% of available funds for the army and for Palestinian refugees. Then to the nation's economy, excuse me, then though the nation's economy had steadily gotten better in the early 1950s, starting in 1955, the monarchy committed several foreign policy blunders that would lead to its undoing. The government announced that Iraq was joining the British-supported mutual defense pact with Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. And this Baghdad pact constituted a direct challenge to Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser. Nasser was a handsome, eloquent Egyptian nationalist, expertly using the newly opened Suez Canal, which he had

nationalized to make Egypt the most influential nation in the region. And now Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey were coming to challenge that. In response to this pact, Nasser launched a heated media campaign that challenged the legitimacy of the Iraqi monarchy. He called on the Iraqi officer corps to overthrow their British lapdogs. Why do they want the Iraqis to form a pact with their enemies like the Persians? And many Iraqi officers, they did want to overthrow the monarchy rather than align with Iran, a nation viewed as an enemy by many Iraqis again, but they would not immediately strike, however. Also in 1955, Saddam graduates

elementary school at the age of 18. You know what better late than never. I bet he fucking dominated his ppe class This went full billy madison on kids half his age Half his size on the dodgeball court. I'm pretty sure he never played dodgeball, but let's pretend he did Because it's funny to picture 18 year old saddam just fucking lighten up 10 and 12 year olds. Just throwing some heat Following his graduation saddam would enroll in high school in baghdad Where he'll soon be voted most likely to brighten your day, best laugh, class clown, and one half of the cutest couple along with his boyfriend Akbar Abdullah. I have no idea what his classmates actually thought of him.

Guessing they were afraid of him. He was fucking huge. In 1958, King Hussein of Jordan proposed a union of Arab monarchies to counter Egypt's aspirations to being the Middle East's biggest player. Great Britain, the US, supported King Hussein's plan, which made many Iraqis think that these Western overlords put the plan together, which made them not like it. Despite protests in the streets of Baghdad and other major cities, Iraq's leadership joined, giving the people the impression that the monarchy would do anything to preserve itself, even if it meant bowing down to Western

powers and becoming their oil puppet. And for many who were already not loving the monarchy, this was the last straw. So at dawn on the morning of July 14th, 1958, Iraqi officers from the 19th Brigade easily overthrew the government. The revolution met virtually zero opposition. King Faisal II, King Hussein of Jordan's cousin, actually, maybe should have tried fighting back a bit because he was shot and killed trying to sneak out of the palace. His body was dragged by a raging mob through the streets as were the bodies of many others in the royal family. Another mob attacked the British Embassy and destroyed most of it.

King Faisal II only 23 when he died. Such a shame. Seems like he could have been a solid ruler. During his brief reign he technically became king at the age of just three, but didn't actually rule until he was 18. He initiated large-scale plans for the modernization of Greater Baghdad. He wanted to improve and develop infrastructure and housing, provide essential public buildings, reform the building industries, train future Iraqi architects to not rely on Western help. He successfully negotiated with the British-controlled Iraq Petroleum Company in 1952 for an equitable share of oil rights and a substantial increase in Iraq's revenue. Then he created the semi-autonomous development board, which consisted of six members, including a foreign advisor with the goal of improving living conditions and construction

around the nation. And after various negotiations, the board received a percentage of the annual oil revenue. And in 1955, it established a six-year plan with a larger budget, a quarter of which would be assigned to public buildings. So who knows how much better Iraq could have been if he had not been killed. Also who killed him? The Baathists, an influential political organization. Involved in the coup was the Baath Party, an anti-British group that had been secretly working throughout the 1950s to which Saddam's uncle had belonged for a number of years.

The Ba'ath party are, in my opinion, Muslim zealots. Ba'athism calls for the unification of the Arab world into a single state theocracy, essentially. Its motto, unity, liberty, socialism, refers to Arab unity and freedom from non-Arab control and interference. Which sounds fucking terrible considering the Arab world is notoriously misogynistic, homophobic, and insanely restrictive and punitive compared to most of the West. Male same-sex activity still illegal and punishable by imprisonment in Iraq, punishable by death in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Article 41 of the Iraqi Penal Code currently grants men the right to discipline not just their children, but their wives. And the line between discipline and violence is, as you might imagine, pretty much invisible. In addition, there are no domestic violence laws making it almost impossible for victims to file complaints with police. And honor killings are committed by men when they think a female family member has violated social or religious norms by doing something as silly as just like, I don't know, having sex with somebody, making out with somebody who's not Muslim. That remains widespread in Iraq.

And I can go on and on about how terrible a lot of the governments of the Arab world are compared to the West when it comes to basic human rights and freedoms. Let us please do our best. Try very hard to be the opposite of that intolerance. Saddam joined the Ba'ath party when he was 19 or 20, putting him squarely in the middle of all this when he was now 21. But he was disappointed. He'd actually wanted to be higher up in the bath party by this time. A handful of bath high school students entered the Baghdad Military Academy where they persuaded several classmates

to join the party. And in 1957, the Academy ejected Saddam, a devastating blow to his self-esteem. He wasn't a good book learner, especially since he wanted to emulate his uncle. He instead would become a party thug now, inciting high school classmates into forming gangs that would beat the shit out of political opponents and innocent passers-by. Saddam was gaining a reputation for being especially violent already. And now wanting to find a way to increase his standing in the Ba'ath party, he decides to volunteer. But not like at a homeless shelter, or no-kill animal shelter or something like that.

No, Saddam didn't have it any. He volunteered any place that would promote something like kindness and benevolence. Saddam volunteered for a murderous quasi-military operation in 1959. Some sources say he was recruited, rather than volunteering, after gaining his reputation as a, quote, violent street thug. The assignment was to assassinate Iraq's newly empowered prime minister, General Abdul al-Karim Qasem. But why?

Hadn't Qasem worked with the Ba'athist during the coup? Yes, but the 1958 revolution had actually been a disappointment to the Ba'athists. They'd hoped that the new republican government would favor nationalist Arab agendas, especially a union with Egypt. Instead, non-Baathist military officers dominated the government, did not support Arab unity or other core Baathist principles. Some younger members of the party, including Saddam, felt very betrayed, became convinced that the new Iraqi prime minister must be eliminated. So on October 7, 1959, Saddam and a group of gunmen tried to assassinate him. Rushing up to a car carrying Qasem, Saddam and his fellow assassins shouted political slogans while firing through the car windows.

Incredibly, Qasem survived. Saddam was shot in the leg in the attack and with the help of fellow party members, he fled to Damascus and then to Syria nearly overnight, turning from a minor party member into one of the country's most wanted men in the process. This assassination attempt would become a major part of his legend later. The way he'd tell it, he'd dug a bullet out of his leg with a knife and then fled on a horse,

on a fucking horseback, arrived in domestic with a bloody knife held between his teeth. Get the fuck out of here, it was literally impossible for him to cover that distance in that time. In reality for starters, Saddam was not the primary assassin by any means, he was only there to provide backup for the assassins and some sources say that he fucked up on the assassination plan and started firing a little early, dooming the mission, getting many of his fellow party members killed when they were caught and then executed by

Qasem's government. Also Saddam and his fellow assassins barely got away. I love this. The guy who was supposed to be their getaway driver fucked up. Instead of waiting in his getaway car, he was in a nearby cafe playing backgammon when the, you know, gunfire ran out or rang out, which is again hilarious to me. Like how much of this guy loved playing backgammon? Like I didn't know it was possible to care that much about backgammon. That dude was addicted. He was a getaway driver during an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister and he was like Okay, I'll play. I'll play. But just one game. Then I have to get back to my car Ten games later. All right. This is my last game. I really need to go check on Southend. Here's lots of gunfire. For real now

Just one more game In domestic Saddam was warmly received after exiled Bath Party member, by other exiled Bath Party members there. Then in the spring of 1960, Saddam flew to Cairo, capital of Egypt, and the center of Arab nationalism at the time. A wanted man again for his role in the assassination he had gone into hiding, or assassination attempt.

In Egypt, he finishes high school at the age of 24, and enrolls in law school, which he will never finish. I mean, at his rate of learning, it probably would have taken him to about the age of 24 and enrolls in law school which he will never finish. I mean at his rate of learning it probably would have taken him to about the age of 70 to get his law degree. Again not a solid book learner, book learner. Almost something a guy maybe not fit to run for run a government. He becomes active in Cairo's regional bath party headquarters, quickly rises up to the ranks. He was ruthless, committed the cause very good at fighting which probably helped him rise faster than being book smart He also became engaged to his first cousin Sashida a school teacher and his uncle Karala's daughter whom he'd been friends with since childhood Why am I not surprised? He was a cousin fucker

We've actually covered so many cousin fuckers over the course of time sucks catalog I'm kind of bummed that I never even considered trying to fuck one of my hot cousins growing up. I just didn't know it was an option. Meanwhile back in Iraq, the Ibad party was underground again, waiting to commit another assassination attempt. They would succeed in February of 1963, executing Qasem and seizing power with somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 people perishing in the struggle. Qasem was shot in the head, then his corpse was degraded on national television.

Also, most prominent CIA scholars think that the CIA 100% helped Saddam and his Ba'athist buddies with the coup, thinking the Ba'athists would be friendlier to the U.S. than the previous regime. I.E. give us your oil motherfuckers! These VHs are thirsty as shit! These jets don't run on coal! A relative of Saddam's, General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, now became prime minister. However, the party's hold on power was shaky. The organization was small, leadership was inexperienced, and it was not well represented

in the officer corps or in the army at large. And within nine months of taking power, all Ba'athists are expelled from the government in November of 1963. And how did that happen? Well, maybe because the Ba'athists were fucking savage and just freaked out other Iraqis. Evidence later revealed that in the brief time the Ba'athists had been in power, they had tortured so many people. And Saddam returned from his exile, undoubtedly one of their primary torturers.

Instruments of torture were found in the cellars of the Palace of the End. Royal Palace turned to tension and interrogation center by the baths, including electric wires with pinchers, pointed iron stakes on which prisoners were made to sit, and a machine which still bore traces of chopped off fingers. Small heaps of bloody clothing were scattered about, and there were pools on the floor and stains over the wall, according to preeminent modern Iraq historian Hannah Batatou. It does not sound like a very fun palace. After the party is kicked out of the government, Saddam is put in charge of the Ba'ath party's paramilitary arm

and instructed to plan for another takeover the following year. Try and get it right this time. The plan was for him to enter the presidential palace as the head of a commando team during a cabinet meeting and just machine gun everyone there to death. Pretty straightforward. Before finding out how this coup worked or did not work, time for a quick little detour now. Uday Hussein, Saddam's elder son who will later gain a reputation for being more of a psychopath than his dad, born on June 18th, 1964, Uday would not have a conventional childhood. Of course not, Saddam's dad.

Rumored to have played with disarmed grenades as an infant, he and his younger brother by two years, Kousse would witness executions, many, many executions and torture sessions, leading up to executions carried out by their father directly or on his orders beginning at a very young age and that might not lead to you having like the most respect for human life as you get older maybe not the best way to produce a well-adjusted adult as a kid who day was reportedly driven to school by a chauffeur and a Mercedes-Benz surrounded by servants constantly so spoiled I began studies at Baghdad Medical College, but only stayed for three days. Wasn't feeling it.

Then he moved to the College of Engineering, obtained a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Baghdad that he very likely did not earn. It was just given because he was Saddam's son. Some have asserted that Uday's papers were written by others in exchange for money and gifts. I believe it. And also, no professors would ever give him a low score out of fear of being tortured and or killed. One of his classmates

would later say about Uday he was really smart, probably smarter than his father, but he was crazy. And this person is right, we'll return to him later and he is fucking nuts. Back to 1964. On September 4th, 1964, the day before the, let's just waltz on into the presidential palace and machine gun the shit out of everyone coup, uh, was to take place. The police uncovered the plot and now go to arrest Saddam. Refusing to flee a second time, he actually announced on the radio that he's still in Baghdad and defying capture. Well then he does get caught.

And he's in prison in October of 1964. During the 18 months he will spend in prison, Saddam will be physically tortured. And I will bet my life that he did not forget who tortured him and when he came into power later if he was able to find any of those torturers, oh I bet they paid dearly. While in prison Saddam was allowed to receive visits from his wife and tucked inside, cousin, cousin wife, tucked inside the clothes of his 6 months old son, Uday, were messages from fellow Bath Party members. And perhaps that's how he managed to do

what comes next. In July of 1966, while being escorted by guards to court, he has permission to use the bathroom in a restaurant, then escapes to the back door. His comrades happily welcome him back and provide shelter for him. And why, how are these guards not like walking him to the bathroom? Anyway, now the Bathists were going to attempt one more violent takeover of the government, and Saddam will again play a key role. But before that, let's zoom out again quickly. Yet another major conflict will hit the area in 1967. In June of that year, the Israeli army attacks three Arab countries simultaneously, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, and what will be called the Six-Day War. Within six days, the Israelis take control of the Sinai Peninsula, Syria's Golan Heights and the West Bank in Jordan.

Iraq sent troops to fight Israel, but once again just as in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the Iraqis were trounced and forced to retreat. But this would actually work out for the Ba'ath party. While the defeat was certainly embarrassing for the Ba'athists, it also led many Iraqi citizens to become disillusioned with the current regime. Certainly embarrassing for the Baathists, it also led many Iraqi citizens to become disillusioned with the current regime. Led by Colonel Abdul Araf, who had won power in the 1963 struggle between his faction and the Baathist military officers. Araf was both commander-in-chief of the armed forces and president of the republic, so the defeat rested squarely on his shoulders. Moreover, Araf had never called for popular elections and was completely dependent on military support to stay in power. When the Ba'ath party persuaded four key officers that they could expect no honor continuing to support his regime and promised that they would hold important positions in a new government, stages set for another coup.

The Ba'ath party accepted this arrangement as a means to achieve power. In private, the Ba'athists intended to dump their military co-conspirators at the earliest possible convenience for the party had little confidence in their loyalty. So what's going on with Saddam at this time? Well he has decided to take a little break from political life and he's gotten really good at cross-stitch. And he's also working on his embroidery skills.

He's making these super cool jean jackets with big embroidered floral patterns featuring lots of bright primary colors and often corporate a lot of hearts and pixies in them. Everyone wanted one. Pretty fucking sick. No, after Saddam's escape from prison he had been elected a member of the Ba'ath party's national command. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr who had previously been Iraq's prime minister in the first Ba'ath takeover was elected secretary general of the party. Saddam would serve as his deputy and run the Baghdad branch. And on the morning of July 17th, 1968, Saddam rises at 2 30 a.m. to get an early start on a potentially bloody day. He begins by bringing out all the weapons he has hid

in the house. His wife, Sushida, his cousin wife, she helped as did his fucking nephew son. That's not how it works. I guess it wouldn't be nephew son as his fucking son. I don't know if first cousin wants to remove something like that. Uday, who's a toddler running around son. That's not how it works. I guess it wouldn't be nephew son. As his fucking son. I don't know, first cousin once removed something like that. Uday, who's a toddler running around the room picking up grenades, handing them to his dad like they're toys. No wonder that kid became a psychopath. Saddam and fellow co-conspirators then met up at Al-Bakr's house. Al-Bakr led the way in a white Mercedes. Saddam and the others followed in a truck. The dude who was obsessed with backgammon, not the getaway driver this time, strongly assumed he was murdered. During the ride Saddam changed into a

lieutenant's uniform when they reached the gates of the presidential palace. Their military allies dutifully made sure it was open for them. A few minutes later, Arif was awakened and informed that the army had just revolted against him. That's a tough way to start your day. He immediately surrendered agreed to leave the country. The coup was successful real quick. The first act of the new regime was to establish the Revolutionary Council or Command Council, the RCC, which assumed supreme authority of Iraq now. And the RCC elected al-Bakr president of the republic.

Saddam was named head of security. And almost immediately a struggle for power arose between the Ba'ath party members and their military allies that had helped them. On the surface, the tensions seemed to be about expanding socialism, another key tenet of the Ba'ath party's objectives, and foreign policy. But in fact, the real issue was which of the two groups was to control the regime. Saddam will help settle this argument in the fashion he'll become known for. On July 30th, 1968, the leader of the military allies, a man named An Naif, was invited to lunch at the presidential palace.

After the meal, Saddam entered with a group of armed officers and told An Naif he was under arrest. It was agreed that An Naif's life would be spared if he left the country and he was sent to Morocco to be an ambassador. Ten years later, 1978, he'll be murdered by Iraqi secret police. Another former military ally, Ad-Dawd, who was then on a mission to Jordan, was instructed to remain there forever. Ba'ath Party now firmly in control and Saddam himself is put in charge of the RCC as a deputy chairman.

But the party is facing a wide range of problems, ethnic and religious tensions, the stagnant condition of the economy, the inefficiency and corruption of the government, and lack of political unity among Iraq's three main socio-political groups. The Shiite Muslim Arabs, the Sunni Muslim Arabs, and the ethnic Kurds. Let me summarize real quick how these three groups differ. Kurds like vanilla ice cream. Sunnis like chocolate. Shiites, they'll shut their brains out if they touch anything dairy, so they settle for orange sherbet.

For real now. Kurds are typically Sunni Muslims but are not Arab. They're ethnically distinct from Arabs, Persians, and Turkic peoples. They speak a language called Kurdish. They speak a few languages actually but that's the primary one. It's related to Persian and more similar to English and Greek than Arabic. The Kurds are the largest stateless group of people in the world. Despite not having a country where they are in the majority, there are over 30 million Kurds. There are an estimated 5.6 to 8.4 million Kurds living inside Iraq's boundaries today, primarily in Iraqi Kurdistan, an area of the country

where they are often left to somewhat govern themselves, while still officially being Iraqi citizens. A semi-autonomous state inside a state. Sunni and Shia are the two main branches of Islam and they share many core beliefs and practices. The main difference between the two branches is their contradicting beliefs on succession after the Prophet Muhammad died. Sunni leaders called caliphs are elected through voting while Shiite leaders or imams are direct descendants of Muhammad. And these three groups traditionally do not get along very well. Unity seemed unlikely between these three groups given that all three mistrusted one

another and occasionally the Kurds would burst into open revolt. All this would have to be surmounted if Iraq was going to challenge Egypt and Syria for the position of most influential country in the Arab world, which was a Ba'ath party goal. To move its agenda forward, the Ba'ath regime in the style of countless dictatorships before and after it, launched a political campaign that harped on themes of disloyalty. Who isn't loyal enough to the new, improved Iraq?

Those people. Those people not waving the flag with enough enthusiasm. Those who are not praising Ba'ath objectives with an efferver, they're the fucking enemy and they must be eliminated. The government is now on the lookout for what it called harmful pre-revolutionary values and practices. These included exploitation, social inequities, religious loyalties, apathy, lack of civil spirit, all things described in official statements as the traditional ways. The new lifestyle would embrace nationalism.

Oh, fucking sweet nationalism. Collectivism, participation, selflessness, love of labor and civic responsibility. Less than two months after the Ba'ath party took control, an opportunity arose to demonstrate how these so-called traitors would be handled. A coalition of pro-Egyptians, Arab supporters and conservatives from the military now attempt another coup. And al-Bakr and Saddam punish them between 1968 and 1973. Saddam in charge of security services is now tasked with preventing another coup and he's put in charge of a shitload of torture. He is given carte blanche to do whatever he wants for the good of God and country.

Nothing's off-limits. Pulling out teeth, pulling out fingernails, mutilation of all shapes and forms. Saddam was perfect for this role. Numerous biographers have talked about how incredibly sadistic he was. One called him more sadistic than Hitler. He truly seemed to take great pleasure in hurting others. Their pain seemed to amuse him. The place where Saddam oversaw his torture was called the Palace of Doom. Sounds absolutely fucking terrible. Sounds worse than the palace at the end. And it was. This palace was a true hell on earth. Saddam will claim over the next decade to perfect 107 different methods of torture. Very specific number. He clearly took his torture very seriously and was quite proud of himself. At the Palace of Doom, which sounds

like a supervillain headquarters, he would do shit like crucify men by nailing their hands to the wall. He would hang men from hooks in the ceiling. He would attach a heavy weight to their testicles. He would take a hammer to somebody's hands or feet just smashing one finger or toe at a time. People were tied to the ceiling or the wall and whipped. He would repeatedly half drown prisoners. An especially popular Palace of Doom go-to was to put out lit cigarettes on prisoners'

eyeballs. I'm guessing that hurts a little bit and bit and probably not real good for your vision. Gwyn Roberts, a reporter for the London-based Independent, described her experience visiting one of Saddam's torture centers in Northern Iraq years later, writing, In one cell, pieces of human flesh, earlobes, were nailed to the wall. Blood was splattered across the ceiling. A large metal fan hung from the ceiling, and my guide told me that prisoners were attached to the fan and beaten with clubs as they twirled. They were just straight up turning dudes into fucking human pinatas.

Prisoners were dipped in acid, or acid was dripped onto various parts of their body. Electric drills were used to drill holes wherever you can imagine a hole being drilled in a body. Eyes were gouged out with all kinds of various instruments. Prisoners would have their wives brought in, just straight up raped in front of them. Or they would be raped in front of their wives, or both. Prisoners were starved, beaten with all manner of weapons. Bones were broken, limbs were amputated. They were burned with blow torches or hot irons.

Had all sorts of shit shoved up their asses. High voltage wires would be placed on their genitals for electrocution. They would be branded like cattle. Children would be brought in in front of their parents and tortured with scorpions or bees or both. Some sources even say that children were sometimes raped in front of their parents. Tongues would be nailed to wooden boards. Boiling water would be poured directly into somebody's asshole.

Burning chemicals would be sprayed into victims' eyes and mouths. Women and girls would have their fucking breasts cut off with carving knives. Women's genitals would be mutilated with various sharp instruments and or burned in all sorts of horrible ways. Men would have their penises and or testicles cut off

or otherwise mutilated with carving knives, acid, boiling water or fire, but no one would touch the taint. Taint would be strictly off limits, always. Saddam had a real fucking hard on for taints. I don't know about that. Seriously though, if you can think of any way to really just hurt somebody, very likely Saddam did that to somebody or ordered his men to do that to someone at the Palace of Doom. Ah fucking crazy. US has certainly done some evil shit and I'm sure some CIA agents or other intelligence operatives

or people working on our behalf are doing some fucked up shit, you know, supposedly in line with national security interests right now. But this? This is another level. Widespread government-sanctioned diabolical torture. Not since slavery was legal has the U.S. gone that evil. This was not happening in 1850, it was happening in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and so many other incredible artists were performing at Woodstock to a massive crowd of around 400,000 young half-naked hippies fucked up on weed or psychedelics or both and having free love and bitching about the Vietnam War, motherfuckers are getting their nuts and tits chopped and burnt off in Iraq.

Through a series of sham trials, torture sessions, executions, assassinations, and intimidations, the Ba'ath Party ruthlessly eliminated any group or person suspected of challenging their rule. Saddam does so well in his role of suppressing dissidents, people are terrified of this sadist, that he at the age of 31 is appointed vice president. And before moving further, time for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thank you for listening to those sponsors. And now let us return to the summer of 1970 to reconnect with Saddam's political assent. The Baathists cemented their rule by formally issuing a

provisional constitution in July of 1970. This document granted the party dominated RCC extensive powers and declared that new RCC members must belong to the party's regional command, the top policymaking and executive body of the Baathist organization. In other words, no one who wasn't already deeply involved in the party would be allowed to join the top ranks. Anyone who wasn't already deeply involved in the party would be allowed to join the top ranks. In 1972, Al-Bakr nationalizes Iraq's oil industry, given his regime fistfuls of cash. State then uses a lot of this money to modernize Iraq's infrastructure, which makes the party more popular with the people.

In addition, the Ma'ath ruling group is bound by close family and tribal ties. By 1977, Sunni Arabs from Saddam's de facto hometown of Tikrit dominate the party. However, only two men, Saddam and al-Bakr, really ran the party. Al-Bakr, who had been a leader with Arab nationalist causes for more than a decade, brought the party its popularity. Even more important, he could count on support from the army. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, was a ruthless and cunning politician whose specialty was behind-the-scenes work. He was adept at outmaneuvering and at times killing if necessary political opponents. Beginning in the mid-1970s, however, al-Bakr was beset by illness and a series of family

tragedies. And he increasingly turned over power to Saddam, a man he was very likely already afraid of. And at this point, Saddam's biggest political problems are the Kurds. Unlike most of the other religious and ethnic groups in Iraq, the Kurds remained fiercely independent. Their leader, Mustafa Barzani, maintained 15,000 Kurdish troops who were officially part of the Iraqi frontier force called the Peshmerga, meaning those who face death. That's a fucking pretty dope name. It's a great like album name. Good band name. The Pershmurga

actually still around today. They number around 150,000 currently and I certainly would not want to fuck with them. Back in the early 70s in Baghdad the Baathists were deeply uncomfortable with a small ethnic army operating within their borders and the legal status of the Kurdish territory remained unresolved. The region again still semi-autonomous, technically part of Iraq but also they do their own thing. And it's been that way for the most part since Iraq became a sovereign state. Saddam tried offering the well-armed Kurds the most comprehensive autonomy plan ever proposed to them, but the Kurds denied it, and guerrilla attacks by Kurdish forces continued

to erupt in the region without warning. And that pissed Saddam the fuck off. In 1974, Saddam's patience with the Kurds wore out. In March of that year, he attempted to have Barzani and his son assassinated. Following that attempt in the Kurdish territory, full-scale fighting breaks out. When the Soviet Union agreed to side with Iraq over the Kurdish question, the Baathists seemed to have Barzani and his men cut off. But then the Shah of Iran, alarmed at growing Soviet influence in the region, promised military

aid to the Kurds, with the full backing of the United States as well. This also pisses Saddam the fuck off. When Iraqi forces reached the gorgeous Kurdish city of Rawandis and threatened to block the major Kurdish artery to Iran, the Shah delivered a steady flow of military supplies to the rebels. Using anti-tank missiles and artillery obtained from Iran, as well as military aid from Syria and Israel, the Kurds inflicted heavy losses on Iraqi forces. To avoid further defeat, Saddam Hussein now seeks an agreement with the Shah in the North

African city of Algiers, capital of Algeria. On March 6, 1975, Saddam signs an agreement with the Iranian Shah, recognizing a number of Iranian boundary claims. In return, the Shah agrees to stop providing assistance to the Kurds. Saddam signs, but inwardly, he's seething. The Kurds have found allies in the US and the Iranians, both non-Arabs, both his enemies.

The sabotaged Saddam's vision of winning the admiration throughout the Arab world, and he decides that the Kurds are gonna fucking pay. Almost immediately after the signing of the Algiers Agreement, Iraqi forces go on the offensive and defeat the surprised Peshmerga. They were like, didn't we just fucking settle this? And they're ineffective now without Iranian support.

Now under a new amnesty plan, about 70% of the Peshmerga surrender to the Iraqis. All the others remain in the hills in the region of Kurdistan to continue to fight, their little region of that semi-autonomous area. And about 30,000 cross the border and head into Iran. Now in Saddam's mind while the Kurds have been punished another guilty party remains. Iran that hasn't been punished yet. So he wants to punish them but it's going to have to wait. For now Saddam focuses on consolidating his power at home. Not the party's power but his own personal power and it works. The party committees, the intelligence mechanisms and even ministers who formerly reported to al-Bakr were reporting to Saddam instead by 1977. Again, remember he's been

fighting illnesses, family problems. Saddam is also bad-mouthing Al-Bakr, sowing discord amongst his supporters, preparing to take over. He starts claiming that people both in the government and outside it are creating plots against him, which will open the door for him to purge anyone who thinks he considers a threat. And then on July 16, 1979, President Al-Bakr resigns. And Saddam Hussein, at only 42 years old, officially replaces him as President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Ba'ath Party Regional Command, Chairman of the RCC, and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

Now he will essentially be a dictator until he has to go into hiding after the u.s. Fucking obliterates his army decades later According to some sources president al-bakr's resignation was not one he wanted to give or even expected to give just the day before Hours before he was to give a speech to the people of Iraq a planned speech Saddam made him an offer He could not refuse you can resign or you can die And the general took that offer because he knows Saddam does not fuck around with threats and then he will spend the rest of his life under house arrest which probably sucked but was better than you know the alternative like having you know his wife raped in front of him or I don't know somebody taking a blowtorch to his

balls. Six days later July 22nd Saddam calls a special meeting now of senior Bath Party members which he records on video. No one is told what the agenda of this meeting is going to be. Everybody's nervous. Saddam opens the meeting saying that something very sad and tragic has happened. He claims he's uncovered a conspiracy against him. He then introduces the man he claims is the plot's ringleader, Muhi Abdul Hussein Moshadi, secretary to President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

And Mashadi admits on video to what Saddam says he has done. Starts mentioning names of other people in the room as his alleged co-conspirators, even though they did not do this. Why would he say this stuff? Well, because Mashadi had been told shortly before the meeting that his life will be spared if he plays this part. Ten men that he names are now quickly removed from the very tense meeting full of nothing but puckered buttholes outside of Saddam's which is probably so relaxed it was gaping by a security team led by

Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Takriti and then another ten men are removed then another ten and so on. Saddam calmly watches over this whole spectacle enjoying the terror on the faces of so many men who have no idea if they're going to be dragged out of the room next. He just confidently puffs on a Cuban cigar given to him by his good buddy, fellow psychopath, Fidel Castro. Sixty-six men in total are arrested, and when the purge is over, the remaining members in the room, they will stand up and break into a fake cheer of, Long live Saddam. Just so nervous. Long live Saddam. I love him so much. I love him. 21, including Mahdi Abdul Hussein Mashadi, will be executed a few weeks later by a firing

squad. 21 of those 66 men taken out of the room. The message is clear. There is a new sheriff in town. And if you dare defy him in any way, if you just fucking look the wrong way at him, if you just don't express enough loyalty for him, you're gonna die. Iraq now in practice truly is a dictatorship. Saddam plasters the wall of Baghdad with 20 foot high posters of himself. Ominously, he has already seen to it that the party has built its own special branch to the military.

50,000 soldiers who answer directly and only to him. Saddam has total power, but also another big problem to deal with. Shiite Muslims this time. Saddam and total power but also another big problem to deal with. Shiite Muslims this time. Saddam and his loyalists are Sunni Muslim but the majority of Iraqis are Shiite. And just months earlier the Shiite Muslim religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pulled off a coup in Iran. Now he is calling on Iraq's Shiites to overthrow Saddam. So Saddam now begins to put a plan together to invade, take over, and destroy Iran, a country we know he already despises. But first Saddam sets out to consolidate his position at home by strengthening the economy. He pursues a state-sponsored industrial modernization program that ties an increasing number of Iraqis to the Basque controlled government, and his economic policies are actually largely successful. They lead to a wider distribution of wealth,

greater social mobility, increased access to education and health care, to a more equitable redistribution of land that some of his predecessors were able to pull off. Chief among his economic reforms are ones related to oil. The previous January, when the fundamentalist forces of the Ayatollah Khomeini brought down the Shah of Iran, Iranian oil production dried up. Iraq now became one of the biggest oil suppliers in the world, and this made the West, wouldn't you know it, increasingly supportive of his regime. We like oil.

We love it. We need it. Give us the oil, mother! Let us rub it on our skin and feel its dark power. In the US, the Dhamma at this time was largely seen as a stabilizer in a region that was volatile, not as a sadistic and ruthless torturer. Although Saddam was strongly pro-Arab his modernization programs, his stress on law and order, his taste for tailored western style suits created this image of a modern

Middle Easterner viewed favorably by many in the West. But Saddam, he did not like the West back. He fucking hated the West. Real aimdam did not like the West back. Fucking hated the West. Real aim is still to push Iraq to the forefront of the Arab world. And he'd already made several important Arab allies in the mid to late 70s. He'd improved relations with Iran, which no longer mattered. But he'd also improved relations with Saudi Arabia, some smaller Gulf sheikdoms, and the

Sultan of Oman. The biggest boost to Saddam's quest for regional power, however, came from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signing the Camp David Accords with Israel in November of 1978. If Egypt was prepared to make peace with Israel, then there was an opportunity for new leadership in the Arab world. Saddam eagerly stepped into the role, making as many allies as he could from countries Egypt had effectively broken off with. Meanwhile, he made less diplomatic maneuverings at home with his own people.

Saddam knew about the dangers of dissent keenly. After all, he'd been one of the monarchy's biggest dissenters. And within the Iraqi government, Saddam now ousted his opponents. Real and perceived, he murders dozens of other government officials, dozens more suspected of disloyalty. In July of 1979, the same month he officially came into power, he launched his bloodiest purge yet, executing hundreds of party officials, military associates, torturing others, many of whom were close friends of his, or at least thought they were. And soon his mind turns now to making Iranians pay for

their support of the Kurds. Saddam now prepares to invade Iran in 1980, and in doing so he will launch an eight-year war that will end in a stalemate and leave over a million people needlessly dead. The two countries had engaged in border clashes for decades. In 1979, an old dispute about the Shat al Arab, or Shat al Arab, excuse me, waterway, a river about 120 miles in length that is the border between Iran and Iraq near the Persian Gulf, flares up again. Iraq claimed that the channel up to the Iranian shore was its territory, while Iran insisted

that the middle of the waterway was the official border between the two nations according to a 1975 treaty. That's like a little disagreement. The Iraqis? Well, I guess it's not because if the Iraqis are saying that they own it all the way to the other shore, that means the Iranians can't even use the waterway. The Iraqis, especially the Ba'ath leadership, regard the 1975 treaty as merely a truce, not a final settlement.

Saddam tears up the treaty in public, a big insult to Iran, and the Ba'ath is prepared to go to war. At this point, Saddam has every reason to be confident that he can kick the shit out of Iran. The Iranian armed forces, according to Iraqi intelligence estimates, used spare parts to keep their outdated American-made equipment running, and their armies were led by religious mullahs with little military experience. Baghdad, on the other hand, possessed highly trained forces with modern weaponry now.

The only uncertainty was the fighting ability of the Iranian Air Force, equipped with sophisticated American-made aircraft left over from Shah of Iran's American-supported regime. To take care of that problem, Iraq decides to launch a massive, unexpected airstrike on Iranian air bases to start the war. On September 22, 1980, formations of Iraqi, Russian-made MiG-23s and MiG-21s attack Iran's air bases near Tehran, as well as bases in eight other Iranian cities. Just like the Iraqis planned, Iranian defenses are caught by surprise. Saddam thought the war would be won in just a matter of days, with very little loss of

Iraqi life. But he massively miscalculated. Iran had ten, or excuse me, had three times the population, three times the land areas well that Iraq did. Over the next two years, an estimated 100,000 Iraqi soldiers will die. Thousands more will be permanently injured or rot away in Iranian POW camps. The initial Iraqi raids largely failed because Iranian jets were protected in specially strengthened hangars that saves our asses. Iranian Air Force, a lot stronger than Iraq expected. With hours of being attacked, Iranian F-4 Phantoms now take off from the same bases

that were just bombed, successfully attacking strategic important targets close to major Iraqi cities. And they return home with very few losses. As the air war continues, Iraq orders six of its infantry divisions over the border into Iran where they drive as far as five miles inland and occupy 850 square miles of Iranian territory. Iraq's blitz-like assaults scatter and demoralize the Iranian forces and the international community again believes Iraq will win

the war. But the Iranians reject a settlement offer and hold the line against a militarily superior Iraqi force. Refusing to accept defeat, they slowly begin a series of successful counterattacks in January of 1981. Thousands of fanatical, besieged, Popular Mobilization Army or People's Army volunteers charge forward, many of them unarmed and ready to die. More on this unique force in a bit. The recapture of Abadan, Iran's first major victory, comes in September of 1981. In March of 1982, Iran launches its operation,

Undeniable Victory, which marks a major turning point in the war. Iran broke through Iraq's impenetrable lines, split Iraq's forces, and forced them to retreat. Things are now going very poorly for Iraq. In late June of 1982, Iraq states its willingness to negotiate a settlement of the war and to withdraw its forces from Iran. But Iranian leader Khomeini insists there can be no peace until Saddam is removed from power. Now at a cabinet meeting, Saddam asks his ministers to candidly give their advice, and the Minister

of Health suggests that Saddam should just temporarily step down, but not really, but like pretend to step down, then just resume the presidency after the peace has been established. Saddam reportedly thanked him for his candor and then had him immediately arrested and taken out of the room. His wife will plead for her husband's safe return that night and the next day she will get his return but he is not safe. Saddam's men returned her husband's dead body to her in a black canvas bag where he had literally been chopped into pieces. Fucking ruthless. Tortured and killed for giving sage advice to Saddam. In July of 1982, Iran launches Operation Ramadan on Iraqi territory near Basra. It will be one of the biggest land battles anywhere in the world since the

end of World War II. Untrained combatants, some as young as nine years old, now ran through Iraqi minefields and fortifications to clear safe paths for Iranian tanks. Thousands died, many of them children. Iranian suicide bombers are attacking Iraq with fanatical zeal. These are the Basij, these zealots, whom I mentioned a few moments ago, or just like little kids, fucking tricked into, you know, thinking that they're zealous. You know, this is a voluntary paramilitary organization. Hundreds of thousands of young soldiers were eager to martyr themselves on behalf of their faith and loyalty to Ayatollah Khomeini,

thinking they'll be rewarded in heaven for their sacrifice. That month also coincided with the most serious attempt to assassinate Saddam. They almost fucking got him. But they didn't. July 11th, 1982, the presidential party was traveling through a mixed Shiite-Sunni village about 45 miles northeast of Baghdad. Suddenly, it was surrounded by Shiite villagers and their little motorcade was held up for several hours before the army arrived. Subsequent reports revealed that a number of Saddam's bodyguards and some of the villagers were killed. But they fucked up not making sure they killed Saddam before the army got there. Now as punishment, the Ba'ath government deports the villagers to Iran, the ones who

they did not torture and kill, and destroyed their houses. Near the end of 1982, Iraq receives new Soviet equipment now. The ground war entered another phase, preparing a Soviet-style three-line defense that relied on obstacles, minefields, and fortified positions. And I believe I said Iraq, I meant to say Iran. Wrong letter at the end there. February 6, 1983, Iran launches the first of three major human-wave offensives along the frontier.

Using 200,000—oh, you know what, scratch what I said earlier, I was getting caught up in the weeds in this. I did write it down correctly. Iraq received Soviet equipment, not Iran. Okay, I feel better now. February 6, 1983, Iran launches the first of three major human-wave offensives along the frontier. Using 200,000 last-reserved trained soldiers, Iran attacks about 185 miles southeast of

Baghdad. Backed by air, armor, and artillery support, Iran's 6th Division thrust breaks through. Iraq now responds with massive air attacks. More than 6,000 Iranians are killed just that day, while achieving only gains of a few hundred yards. In April of 1983, Iraqi tank and infantry divisions stop repeated Iranian attacks. Casualty is very high again, and by the end of 1983 an estimated 120,000 Iranians and 60,000 Iraqis have been killed. Then except for predictable attacks on important religious or historical anniversaries, the Iran-Iraq war winds down into a stalemate by the mid-1980s. But that didn't mean that the battlefield was not

still horrific. In March of 1984, for example, Iran again resorted to a human wave of suicide soldiers to cut through minefields. An East European journalist reported seeing thousands, literally thousands of Iranian children roped together in groups of about 20 a piece to prevent them from running away while they marched across these minefields. Holy shit, I'm glad I was not born in Iraq or Iran. Those poor kids. What a bunch of crazy lies they were sold. An Iraqi officer who refused to mow down legions of charging and unarmed Iranian teens and younger kids who survived a sprint to the minefield was hauled up before Saddam himself.

And with onlookers watching, Saddam pulled out a revolver and shot him in the head. No dissent will be tolerated. Within a four-week period between February and March 1984, the Iraqis reportedly killed 40,000 Iranians, lose 9,000 of their own men, numbers not satisfactory to Saddam. To tilt the odds of victory further in his favor, he now orders the use of chemical weapons, mustard gas, Tabin nerve gas, a weapon developed by the Nazis, and possibly sarin gas. Despite repeated Iraqi denials between May of 1981 and March of 1984, Iran will charge that Iraq used chemical weapons some 40 times. Thousands and thousands of Iranians, many of them civilians, would essentially drown on land,

unable to breathe thanks to their Arabian poison. Kurdish refugee camps in Iran primarily targeted to punish them for aiding the enemy with these chemical attacks. At the time the West turned a blind eye to these attacks, Saddam calculated correctly that the West just wouldn't care about dead Iranians. Also, the U.S. is secretly selling arms to both Iraq and Iran in this war. Pretty fucked up, especially since Iran was under an arms embargo following 53 American diplomats and citizens being held hostage in Iran in 1979, beginning in 1979, and held for 444 days. So some more war profiteering here. That shady shit will be made known to the American public and the world

in the Iran- in the Iran-Contra affair. Now let's check back in with Saddam's Golden Child. What's Baby Boy up to? What's that little pecker with that little cutie up to these days? Also in 1984, Uday graduates from university. For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, Luigi pizza pie. At college he refined his favorite activity, partying. And hoo boy, did Uday know how to party? Probably a little different than you do, I hope. According to a friend, whoever earned Uday's

friendship had to drink a cocktail named the Uday Saddam Hussein, which was a huge mixture of whiskey, brandy, vodka, cognac, and beer. The perfect drink if you like to vomit a lot. The cocktail would be served in a massive so-called cup of friendship, in this big goblet, and the new friend would have to drink it all and hope their heart did not stop beating from alcohol poisoning. Uday had actual employees whose job it was to force people to drink this shit. He would force singers at his super fun parties and other entertainers to drink cocktails that were 90% alcohol that sometimes included drugs.

I'm guessing roofies, largely involved. The guard would line up all the entertainment staff against the wall, give them 10 minutes to pound it. Ah, yay, fun party. Woohoo! Those who did not finish their drink were punished in one of three ways. Excuse me, I don't know why I added not finish their drink were punished in one of three ways. Excuse me, not one. I don't know why I added one of. They were punished in all three ways.

They would have their hair and eyebrows shaved off. They would be savagely beaten. They would have their feet, like the bottoms of their feet, the soles of their feet, whipped and then forced to walk the fuck on out of the party on their bloody little piggies. For he's a jolly good fellow! Typically this shit was done in front of Uday for his amusement. If the bodyguards refused to dish out punishments, or if they refused to say who was drinking correctly who wasn't, they would receive the punishment. His bodyguards, some of whom survived the upcoming wars, alleged that they tortured people this way twice a week, amounting to at least 100 people a year. And some of the people they tortured did reportedly die from the torture.

Ismael Hussein, who worked as a singer at one of Uday's parties, or some of his parties, described it this way, like the atmosphere. He said, he'd get drunk and dance. He was a good dancer, too. Later, he'd bring out the machine guns and start shooting them off. He'd point the guns right over my head, and the bullets would spray all over the place. I would sing right to the flying bullets. I couldn't hear the music anymore. His friends are all terrified of him because he can have them imprisoned or killed. I saw him once get angry with one of his friends. He kicked the man in the ass so hard that his boot flew off.

The man then ran over and retrieved the boot, then tried to put it back on Uday's foot, with Uday cursing him all the while. For he's a jolly good fellow! But it wasn't all fun and games. For Uday, he was expected to work too sort of not really After graduation Saddam appointed him chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the Iraq Football Association Uday also ran a food processing business called super chicken where he did nothing But reportedly earned millions of dollars and he was in charge of an ice cream company called the way where he didn't do shit Made a bunch of money with the Olympic Committee was his favorite. Do you want to guess why? Yeah that's right more torture for he's a jolly good fellow that everyone can deny.

Raeed Ahmed an Iraqi weightlifter who escaped after his event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta said during training he would watch all the athletes closely and put pressure on the coaches to push the athletes even more. If he was not happy with the results he would have coaches and athletes put in his private prison in the Olympic Committee building. The punishment was Uday's private prison where they tortured people. Some athletes, including the best ones, started quitting the sport once Uday took over the committee. I always managed to not be punished. I made sure not to promise anything. There was a strong possibility of always being beaten, but when I won, Uday would be very happy. I think I said Ra'eed earlier, it's Ra'eed.

Ra'eed's wife would be evacuated from their house a day before his escape in Atlanta to a haven in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, Kurdistan, and then she'll get out of the country in 1998. And now that couple does live in Dearborn, Michigan with their five healthy kids. So hail Nimrod for a happy ending in this story. Moud Ibrahim Hamid, assistant coach to the national football team, said that Uday rewarded players financially for winning and threatened them with imprisonment if they lost. His discipline was administered by jailers known as teachers in a closed section of a detention facility for athletes and journalists in Radwania Palace, an 18 square kilometer complex decorated

with marble, luxury furniture, and monuments dedicated to Saddam. So many palaces. During his nearly 24 years in power, Saddam Hussein, his regime, built nearly a hundred palaces slash residences across the country as an expression of his and his family's authority and opulence, wealth. He's provided housing for not just Saddam, but for Ba'ath party officials he liked at the moment, their families, and Saddam's numerous mistresses. Also, a lot of people were brutally tortured and killed in a lot of these palaces. You can't forget that. Speaking of torture, Uday also tortured his body double, Latif Yahya.

He would become Uday's body double in September of 1987. At the age of 23, he was summoned from the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War Latif Yahya. He would become Uday's body double in September of 1987. At the age of 23, he was summoned from the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War to the presidential palace where he discovered that Uday remembered that classmates had remarked on the resemblance between the two when they went to school together. Latif was informed that he was to become Uday's body double to make public appearances as Uday whenever a dangerous situation was expected. What a fun job. Well, Latif had already seen enough of war to know that he was a pacifist who did not as Uday whenever a dangerous situation was expected. What a fun job.

Well, Latif had already seen enough of war to know that he was a pacifist, who did not support this regime, so initially he refused to take the job and was subsequently put in prison, solitary confinement, where he was very lucky not to have been tortured and killed. After having some time to think during his imprisonment, Latif now agreed to be Uday's body double. Oh yeah, no, that's fucking great. No, I'd love to. Can't wait. Favorite job ever. He was trained for six months to imitate Uday's body double. Oh yeah, no, that's fucking great. No, I'd love to. Can't wait. Favorite job ever.

He was trained for six months to imitate Uday's speech patterns and manners. He even underwent cosmetic surgery, had cosmetic dental work done to make their appearances even more similar. And not surprisingly, he will claim to have witnessed some horrific shit. According to Latif, one day Uday raped some little Palestinian girl, age not listed, but she sounds very young, who he saw selling flowers in the Al Rasheed Hotel. Just felt like raping some kid, so he did. Later, he raped and then murdered a little deaf girl he saw on the street in Nineveh.

Uday also ordered the kidnapping of Ilam Ali Al-Hasami, a beauty pageant winner, after she rejected his advances. Uday and his bodyguards subsequently held her captive and raped her for fucking weeks. Also spread the rumor that she was a prostitute, leading to her being honor killed by her dad once she was finally released. What a great righteous father. What a fine patriarch. I hope that motherfucker was tortured and killed by Saddam's regime later. Fuck him and fuck whatever beliefs led to him murdering his daughter for having the audacity

to be kidnapped and gang raped for weeks. When the father later confronted Uday, Uday ordered Latif to shoot him. Rather than acquiesce, Latif claimed he instead refused and attempted to commit suicide. On another occasion, Uday attacked a newlywed couple and raped the bride in Al-Madinah Hotel. She then committed suicide, just threw herself off the balcony, you know, that night. And her husband, a lieutenant, was then subsequently executed for insulting the president when he said some choice words when he was mad about his wife being raped. Pure fucking evil. Meanwhile, there's still a war going on. Back to 1985. In 1985, both sides, Iraq and Iran, tried a new strategy, intentionally

shelling civilian centers and factories. Just when by any means necessary. Then in late March of 1986, UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar formally accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Iran. The Secretary General called on Baghdad to end its violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocols on the use of chemical weapons, citing a report by four chemical warfare experts the UN had sent to Iran in February and March of 1986. Iraq attempted to deny using chemicals, but the evidence was overwhelming. Hundreds of chemically burned victims have been flown to European hospitals for treatment. Our British representative at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in July of 1986 estimated

that Iraqi chemical weapons had already killed about 10,000 Iranians. By the late 1980s, both Iran and Iraq had lost most of their ships, but supplies continued to arrive on ships owned by other countries to provide still more weapons and supplies, keep the war going. Ships would then depart with Iranian or Iraqi oil. Iraq then steps things up a notch by introducing French combat aircraft armed with high-tech Exocet missiles to attack Iran and Iran-allied ships with the goal of cutting off Iran's oil exports and forcing it to the negotiating table. Iran retaliates by attacking a Kuwaiti oil tanker near Bahrain and then a Saudi tanker in Saudi waters just five days later. The message is clear. If Iraq

continues to interfere with Iran's shipping that no Gulf state will be safe. And sure enough, oil supplies to the rest of the world plummet. Iraq and Iran would only accept a UN-sponsored moratorium or temporary ban on attacking civilians, on civilian targets like ships. But then Iraq says fuck it and resumes attacking neutral ships soon after the agreement goes into effect. In 1986-1987, Iraq steps up air raids on tankers serving Iran and Iranian oil exporting facilities, even vessels that belonged to conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf that should have been Iraq's allies. Iran escalates its attacks on shipping and response. There's more chaos in the Middle East. Many of the neutral oil ships damaged or sunk were Kuwaiti. The Kuwaiti government sought protection for its tankers from the international community in the fall of 1986.

And the Soviet Union responded first, agreeing to charter several Soviet tankers, which would fly the Soviet Union's flag to Kuwait in early 1987. The U.S. hesitated to follow suit until May 17, 1987, when an Iraqi missile attack on the USS Stark kills 37 crew members. To be clear, it was actually Iraq, not Iran, that the US is still hoping to win this conflict. The Ayatollah Khomeini had made Iran an enemy of Americans when US citizens were held hostage in the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, 1980 and 81 as I mentioned earlier. The US actually will use the Stark incident to blame Iran for escalating the war and offers to send its warships to the Gulf to escort 11 Kuwaiti tankers after

Iraq apologizes for this quote mistake. U.S. still does not want to make Iraq look bad because we want their oil. By early 1988 the Gulf was a crowded theater of military operations. At least 10 western navies and eight regional navies were patrolling the area, the site of weekly incidents in which merchant vessels were continually crippled or sunk. So many people just trying to do their jobs, just getting sunk to the bottom of the sea. Finally the war's end seemed inevitable when the Iraqis defeated the Iranians in four major battles from April to August of 1988. Also in 1988, on March 16th, the Halabja massacre occurs.

5,000 Iraqi Kurdish civilians poisoned to death by Iraq's military in another chemical weapons attack evolving mustard gas. Another 10,000 are wounded. Birth defects, miscarriages, heart attacks, cancer rates, and more will skyrocket in the following years and many of those 10,000 wounded will eventually die from you know their injuries. No other world leader had ever used chemical weapons like this against their own people before. When journalists and governments decried this atrocity Saddam blamed it on Iran. Ultimately the west again does nothing because they still want Iraq to win because they have a better oil production facilities and a government that is slightly less fucking insane than Iran. Meanwhile in Baghdad over the summer, victorious Iraqi regiments display captured Iranian weapons

amounting to more than three quarters of the Iranian weapons inventory and almost half of its artillery pieces and armored personnel carriers. It's clear that Iran cannot defeat Iraq and Iran accepts United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 leading to an August 20th, 1988 ceasefire. The Iran-Iraq war had lasted nearly eight years and had accomplished fucking nothing except getting a lot of people killed. Casualty figures are unreliable but estimates are that over a million people died, many

more were wounded, several million more made refugees. The Iraqis suffered an estimated 375,000 casualties, another 60,000 taken prisoner by the Iranians. Iran's losses may have included more than a million people killed and or maimed. War claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives, injured more than 500,000. And again, estimates kind of all over the place. Saddam in classic dictator style claims himself the victor despite his nation being left in ruins and gaining literally zero Iranian territory. He commissions the building of his own Arc de Triomphe in the heart of Baghdad called the Hands of Victory. This big monument

complete with helmets of dead Iranian soldiers, he declares himself the new Nebuchadnezzar and rebuilds the ancient city of Babylon. Every tenth brick says, Babylon was rebuilt in the days of Saddam Hussein. What a leader! What a champion! What a jolly good fellow! He begins putting his name and likeness everywhere in Iraq. So many posters and statues. His face is painted all over the nation. Every year on his birthday, he now commissions a new statue of himself. He has the airport named Saddam International Airport. Roads all over the country are named Saddam Hussein the airport name Saddam International Airport, roads all over the country are named Saddam Hussein, everything is Saddam. I saw this docu-series, this documentary,

just like video of just like you know somebody driving down the street in Baghdad and his face is fucking everywhere like to a cartoonish degree. Despite seeming like he's a king of the world, his war with Iran has put his nation into enormous debt and Saddam now owes a lot of money to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait owes him a estimated 40 billion dollars at least 10 billion to Kuwait specifically Tabby has no intention of paying Despite not really defeating Iran Saddam's military machine numbering more than a million men with extensive with an extensive arsenal of chemical weapons long-range Scud missiles in a large Air Force arsenal of chemical weapons, long-range Scud missiles and a large air force, emerges as the most powerful and battle-hardened armed force in the Persian Gulf region. And Saddam has not lost sight of his main goal, right? Making Iraq into a war machine, the most dominant force in the area,

becoming the most powerful Arab state in the world, an Arab state that he would like to enlarge by taking over other Arab states. And to build a war machine capable of that type of domination, he'll need not only more men and more equipment, but more cash and oil. Guess what? Kuwait has both. Let's learn a little bit about Kuwait now. Like Iraq, it was once a British mandate. Britain's colonial rule of Kuwait ended far later than Iraq's in 1961, when the new country

declared its independence. Iraq immediately wanted to attack Kuwait, arguing that prior to World War I it belonged to Iraq under the Ottoman Empire. The Empire had indeed exercised a weak sovereignty over Kuwait in the late 19th century, but the British began protecting the area in 1899. When the Iraqis threatened to attack Kuwait in 1961, British troops and aircraft rushed to Kuwait to defend it. A Saudi-led force of 3,000 from the League of Arab States which supported Kuwait against Iraqi pressure also stepped in and soon replaced the British. In addition to help resolve the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, Iraq received a large compensation payment. With that Iraq finally reluctantly recognized Kuwait's

independence but that agreement was short-lived. It feels like every agreement with Iraq is short-lived. When the Ba'ath Party returned to power again in Iraq in 1968, Iraq insisted that Boubayan and Warba Islands at the mouth of the Shat al-Arab waterway belonged to Iraq. Controlling the islands would give Iraq a highly desirable passage to the Persian Gulf. In 1973, Iraq amassed troops at the border near the Shat al-Arab. In 1975, Saddam tried another approach. He proposed that Kuwait lease half of the Gulf Islands under its jurisdiction, including

Bubeyan, the largest island, and surrender Warba Island to Iraq. Kuwaitis were outraged, rejected the proposal. In May of 1981, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates banded together in the Gulf Cooperation Council to protect their interests and, if necessary, defend themselves. Wealthy and oil-rich but lacking significant military forces, they feared being plundered by Iraq. Saddam continued to put pressure on Kuwait into the 80s, wanting to build a naval base

on Boubian Island. He also began accusing Kuwait of illegally siphoning off oil from the Ar-Maila field, one of the world's largest oil pools, which Iraq and Kuwait did share. But before we get into the big event, let's check in with our old pal, our old buddy, the magnificent and magnanimous Oude Hussein again. What the fuck has that jolly old psychopath been up to? What merriment has he been gently spreading? What has he been doing to this music? Just running around having a fucking grand old time making people laugh, dicking people, you know, telling jokes, shooting them, burning their nuts off, that kind of stuff. Although his status as Saddam's elder son made Saddam's, made him,

excuse me, Saddam's prospective successor, Uday fell out of favor with his father. Why? Well, because he's crazy. Even crazier than Saddam. And check this out. In October of 1988, at a party in honor of Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian president, Hasne Mubarak, Uday just murders his father's personal valet and food taster, Kamal Hana Jadjio. And he does this in front of a bunch of people. Before a bunch of horrified guests, a drunk Ude bludgens Jujyo and repeatedly stabs him with an electric carving knife. Just fucking straight up murders him in the middle of the party. Ha! Classic Ude! Ah, what a wild card! He's just jogging around! God, this don't have a set the fucking humor! I'm just carving up this turkey, you guys!

He's a turkey! And I carved him! Don't you fucking get it? Uh, why did he do this? Other than being insane. Well, he did this because Jujio had recently introduced Saddam to a younger woman, Samira Shabandar, who became Saddam's second wife in 1986. Uday considered his father's relationship with Shabandar an insult to his mother and decided to do something drastic about it. Well then his punishment for the murder and

being a naughty boy who refuses to go peepee in the potty. Saddam briefly imprisons Uday and burns some of his car collection. Once released, Uday is sent to Switzerland now to act as the assistant to the Iraqi ambassador there. So a lowly appointment intended to shame him. He was expelled by the Swiss though less than two years later, 1990, because he kept getting arrested for fighting. Sounds like him. He's a monster and he's a mess. Cannot wait for him to die in this timeline. All right, back to big geopolitical events now. August 2nd, 1990, the Iraqi army invades and occupies Kuwait. Saddam's most colossal miscalculation. While this enemy is not very powerful, this enemy has very powerful friends. A force of about 120,000 Iraqi soldiers and approximately 2,000 tanks and other armored vehicles meet little resistance. The Kuwaiti army

was not on the alert and it really wasn't much of an army. Troops at their post could not mount an effective defense. Some aircraft operating from southern Kuwait attacked Iraqi armored columns before the airbase was overrun, then sought refuge in Saudi Arabia. Of the 20,000 Kuwaiti troops, many were killed or captured, although up to 7,000 escaped into Saudi Arabia, along with about 40 tanks. Having completed the occupation of Kuwait quickly, the Iraqi army, or excuse me, Iraqi armored and mechanized divisions and the elite Republican Guard now advanced south toward Kuwait's border with Saudi Arabia. Intelligence sources indicated that the Iraqis were positioning themselves for a subsequent drive into the Saudi oil fields and shipping terminals, possibly continuing towards the

other Gulf states. Just fucking take it all over. In other words, Saddam is making a bid to control about a third of the world's oil production at this time. August 2nd, in the first of a series of resolutions condemning Iraq, the United Nations Security Council now calls for Iraq's unconditional and immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. Also, on August 2, President Bush issues Executive Order 12722, blocking Iraqi government property and prohibiting transactions with Iraq.

Under this embargo, all Iraqi assets are frozen and private financial transactions and trade with Iraq are prohibited. If you have a lot of oil and you want to continue to be the friend of the U.S., you can't fuck over another friend of the U.S. who also has a lot of oil. All direct U.S. exports and U.S. exports by third-party countries to Iraq are prohibited, except for certain informational materials and donations of articles needed to relieve human suffering like food, clothing, medicine, so on. The sanctions banned ordinary items like agricultural pesticides, children's bicycles, erasers randomly. That'll teach them. They can be so frustrated when they can't erase shit. Flowers, soap, pencils. Can't

prohibit erasers if you can only have pencils, textbooks, shampoo, toilet paper, other items. And all of this sounds like maybe a fairly appropriate response, right? I mean, if you have a megalomaniacal dictator in the Middle East trying to make himself the biggest power in the region, the US is going to want to do something about it, right? Except it's more complicated than that. Over the summer, some US personnel had actually implied to Saddam, depending on how you look at it, that it was fine for him to invade Kuwait.

April Glaspy, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, had met with Saddam in late July to talk about Saddam's sights on Kuwait, during which she had said, We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. Glassby will later be accused of having given tacit approval for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that Saddam may have not invaded if he understood that by invading Kuwait he would have effectively opened the door to war with the U.S.

Journalist and future U.N. director of communications, Edward Mortimer, wrote in the New York Book Review in November of 1990, or New York Review of Books, it seems likely that Saddam Hussein went ahead with the invasion because he believed the U.S. would not react with anything more than verbal condemnation. That was an inference he could well have drawn from his meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspy. So pretty big fuck up on the United States part there. Regardless, on August 6, 1990, the United Nations formally voted to enforce an international

embargo which included forbidding member nations from purchasing Iraqi oil, a potentially hurtful blow to their economies. The UN also gave Saddam Hussein until January 15th to withdraw from Kuwait. Saddam did not. As you would imagine, love that. In response, Saddam defiantly proclaimed Kuwait as Iraq's 19th province. He ignored United Nations directives to retreat from Kuwait, proclaiming that the great, the jewel, and the mother of battles has begun. This delusional egomaniac, ready to take over the world, even though he can't even take

over Iran. He's gone full, he's gone full He-Man. There we go. All of a sudden it felt right to push that button. I have the power! I'm the greatest dictator in the world! August 7th, 1990, the Pentagon of Washington, D.C. begins deploying troops. Next day, President Bush orders armed forces to Saudi Arabia, their purpose, to protect the Saudi Arabians from any Iraqi attack. Iraq responds by declaring that male hostages will be used as human shields at strategic Iraqi sites to deter military attacks at these locations.

That's fucking cool. That sounds like Saddam. August 22nd, 1990, Bush calls up reserves us calls up reservists. Iraq then announced that it would withdraw from Kuwait if it was allowed to retain those islands of Boubayan and Warba. The offer not accepted. Over the next few months, a coalition force of more than 600,000 ground, sea, and air force personnel are deployed to defend Saudi Arabia and drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait. Called Operation Desert Shield, command of the force will be divided between several leaders.

The Commander in Chief of the US Central Command, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, head of the United States, British, and French units. Fucking Stormin' Norman, baby! The bear! His Saudi counterpart, Lieutenant General Khalid bin Sultan Al Saud, commanded units from 24 non-Western countries, including troops from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, and other Gulf states. Fuck, Stampede and Khalid, the muskrat! I have no idea if he had nicknames. In addition to 20,000 Saudi troops and 7,000 Kuwaiti troops, an estimated 3,000 personnel

from the other states of the Gulf Corporation Council, joined the land forces wing in the coalition offensive. In the meantime, however, Saddam prepared to play another card, environmental terrorism. On October 26, 1990, the London Financial Times carried an interview with a senior engineer of the Kuwait Oil Company. He warned that Iraq had mined 300 of the 1,000 oil wells in Kuwait. If they exploded and burned, the effects could be disastrous. The Bush administration, concerned about such a scenario, convened several top-secret studies.

The studies concluded that smoke from burning oil rigs would have little effect on weapons. On the other hand, estimates about the damage to the world's climate and the environment varied. The local impact was predicted to be potentially dangerous. Hospitals could be flooded with thousands of people suffering respiratory problems. Black rain could damage crops and drinking water. And over the long term global warming due to the increase of carbon monoxide is another possibility. Quickly seizing the oil fields would be critical. In December, U.S. troops are vaccinated in anticipation of biological warfare. How scary is that? Then everyone held their breath for that January 15th deadline.

And when the clock struck midnight local time at the end of the day on January 15th, Iraq had still not pulled out of Kuwait. And so Operation Desert Shield now officially becomes Operation Desert Storm. Mere minutes after the deadline passed on the night of January 16th, 1991, B-52 bombers took off from the US carrying conventionally armed air-launched cruise missiles. It would take them 11 hours to reach Baghdad. Meanwhile, on board the warships of an international armada in the Persian Gulf region, pilots and flight crews prepared for the biggest air strike since World War II. On US warships, sailors prepared Tomahawk land attack missiles, T-Lamps, for their first combat launch. Shortly after midnight, several dozens streaked away into the darkness, heading for Baghdad,

carrying explosive warheads weighing approximately 1,000 pounds. An hour later, while the T-Lams were still in flight, helicopters attacked early warning radar sites in southern Iraq. Stealth fighters had already passed over these sites and route to attack targets in western Iraq and Baghdad. The helicopters, cruise missiles, F-15E Eagle fighters, and British GR-1 Tornado fighter bombers tore gaps in Iraqi radar coverage for the smaller aircraft which were following. At about 3 a.m. local time, 7 p.m. Eastern time, on January 17, the huge air armada, led by a fighter sweep of F-15s and F-14s, moved north from

staging areas in Saudi Arabia towards Iraq. They took off in pairs, disappearing as they gained altitude. The aircraft were heavily loaded with bombs and underwinged fuel tanks for the long trip north. They were also armed with cannon and air-to-air missiles for self-defense. Shortly before dawn, Baghdad residents heard explosions and saw the first flashes of light. CNN news presenters rushed out onto the balcony of their Baghdad Hotel to broadcast live the start of the Persian Gulf War or Operation Desert Storm. And I remember

watching some of that footage. I think I watched it live. So intense. Those missiles were striking real close to the hotel. What followed was a devastating and sustained aerial bombardment involving cruise missiles launched from US warships and US, British, and Saudi Arabian fighter planes, bombers, and helicopters. More than a thousand sorties were flown in the first 24 hours alone of Desert Storm. The main targets were military, but Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, also heavily hit. Over the following days, all over the world, TV audiences able to watch the war unfold on their screens.

Pictures of missiles launching and fighters taking off are broadcast daily. Within a few weeks, coalition air forces had systematically destroyed electric power plants, water treatment facilities, telephone and radio exchanges, food processing, storage and distribution facilities, transportation systems, and even civilian factories. One of the most publicized of these incidents was the bombing of an infant milk factory that the US said was a military factory. So that one not a good look. Saddam sees on the emotionally charged event inviting tours of foreign journalists to see the destruction. He also tried to do everything he could to advance his troops regardless of the cost of life or environment.

On January 22, Iraq had begun oil tank fires in Kuwait in hopes of camouflaging troop movements. The number of burning oil wells would increase day after day until coalition troops seized those oil fields. In another gambit of environmental terrorism, Iraq deliberately dumped thousands of barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf on January 25 in an attempt to foul Saudi Arabia's desalinization plant. There's just some dirty fighting. And the environmental and death toll continues.

February 13th, what became known as the Amiriya bombing shook the US-led alliance and brought home the human cost of Desert Storm. A US stealth bomber dropped two laser-guided bombs on what allies mistakenly pinpointed as an important command and control bunker. Allied forces were unaware, according to official claims, that hundreds of women and children had been routinely hiding in the bunker since the start of Desert Storm. The pilots intended to drop the 1800-pound bombs into the ventilation shafts of the shelter, but one missed, exploded nearby, and blocked the only escape route.

The second then plunged into the bunker, exploded in the middle of the largest room on the upper floor, and the effect was terrible. 314 people are believed to have died, 130 of them children. Yeah, just fucking awful. Scenes of badly burned bodies being pulled out of the mangled shelter and distraught relatives waiting outside shocked the world. The bombing was quickly exploited by the Iraqi authorities, who allowed Western TV crews to report the event uncensored. Tensions continued to mount when Baghdad television displayed American pilots now as prisoners of war, Iraqi authorities, who allowed Western TV crews to report the event uncensored. Tensions continued to mount when Baghdad Television displayed American pilots now as prisoners of war, but that was a miscalculation.

Saddam fucked up there. Instead of encouraging the anti-war movement in the U.S., as he had hoped, broadcasting pictures of injured U.S. pilots seemed to harden American resolve. He further shocked the American public by attacking Israel with Scud missiles. The Bush administration quickly persuaded Israel not to retaliate out of fear it would dissolve the Arab alliance against Iraq. And those airstrikes wouldn't be needed. A ground assault was coming. A multinational command of troops would attempt to cut the links between Iraqi forces in Kuwait

and their bases in Iraq. And they would succeed big time. General Swartz got fucking Stormin' Norman! The Jackal, the Bear, the Muskrat, no he's just the Bear, would only need a hundred hours to roll over Saddam's million-man army. On February 26th, Saddam announced that Iraqi troops were now withdrawing from Kuwait, shit not going as planned. Iraqi troops, although in strong positions, surrendered or streamed to the north en masse. Units of Joint Forces command east, a coalition of brigades from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain,

and Qatar advance up the coastal road, capturing the city of Kuwait on the third day of the offensive after light fighting and the surrender of thousands of Iraqi soldiers. In the two weeks that followed, thousands more Iraqi soldiers will surrender to American and other UN forces. Most are exhausted and eager to lay down their arms. Early on in the conflict, President Bush decided that US troops would not invade Iraq and capture Baghdad. A decision many policymakers have since questioned. A three-day ground offensive campaign ended on February 27th when President Bush declared victory. In his secret office where

he'd been working during the 42-day war, Saddam called in one of his generals during the final days of the conflict to hear his assessment of Iraq's performance Saddam asked him. What is your evaluation general? And the answer was I think this is the biggest defeat in military history It's fucking ballsy Saddam's uh goes how can you say that and Then he says this one this is bigger than the defeat at quorum shahr one of the worst Iraqi losses in the war with Iran They cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives Saddam said nothing for a moment, then replied,

That's your opinion. According to his longtime mistress, he wept when his forces were driven out of Kuwait. Apparently that guy wasn't killed for saying all that stuff. Nevertheless, abruptly March 3, 1991, Iraq agrees to all terms set up by the U.N. U.S. Marines counted 22,308 Iraqi prisoners of war. On April 11th, the U.N. Security Council announces that Desert Storm is over. But Saddam maintains he was the victor. Victory. I did it. I won, you guys. I fucking won.

I can't believe it. I defeated America all by myself. I got him. I can't believe it! I defeated America all by myself! I got him! He really did claim victory and he cited his survival as proof that Iraq had won the war. They couldn't get him, right? Because they're not strong enough. Americans too fucking weak. They'd never take Baghdad. In the wake of the conflict some elements of Sharia law, Islam's legal system are reintroduced and the phrase some elements of Sharia law, Islam's legal system are reintroduced, and the phrase, Allah, Allahu Akbar, meaning God is great. And Saddam's handwriting is added to the national flag. Celebration. They did it, you guys. Saddam also commissioned the production of a blood Quran written using 27 liters of his own blood. Thank God for saving him from various

dangers and conspiracies. That's cool. This is not what worried the international community, though. Despite the war's end, there were still many unanswered questions. And the biggest one was what is the true extent of Saddam's strength? Why was he not overthrown from within the government despite policies that had led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? Did his military arsenal include chemical, biological, maybe even nuclear weapons? In April of 1991, as a condition for lifting economic sanctions, the UN Security Council

sought to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, biological, chemical or otherwise missiles with a range of more than 100 miles – by establishing the UN Special Commission on Iraq, UNSCOM. UNSCOM would also have the responsibility of ongoing monitoring and verification to prevent Iraq from reacquiring banned weapons from other countries. Iraq formally agreed to allowing UNSCOM inspection teams inside its borders and two months later, the first contingent arrived. But almost immediately, Iraq made it difficult.

They dug in their heels. Only three weeks into inspections, an UNSCOM team attempted to intercept Iraqi vehicles carrying nuclear-related equipment. And Iraqi personnel fired warning shots in the air to prevent inspectors from approaching the vehicle, which is just like a little bit sus. Although the equipment was later seized and destroyed under international supervision, the warning shots fired were symbolic. Saddam's government would just not cooperate.

A new contest had begun, one for the weapons. And now any hope that Saddam Hussein was a dependable world leader completely dissolve. His power grab for the riches of Kuwait, coupled with his extravagant waste of human life and military resources during both the Iran, Iraq, and Persian Gulf Wars alarmed the international community. Moreover, he continued to insist that everything was all going according to plan in the face of an environmentally human and economic disaster for his country President Bush encouraged the Iraqi people to revolt and Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims repressed by Bathys Sunni majority in the government

Embraced Bush's encouragement and did just that However, when Kurds and Shiites rose up in late 1991 the US failed to support them with military assistance, which is pretty fucked up In 1991, the US failed to support them with military assistance, which is pretty fucked up. 1991 alone, Saddam killed at least an estimated 60,000 Shiite young men, his own people. Iraqi troops crushed the southern Shiite uprising by strafing the marshlands where they live with their helicopter gunships and shelling villages. Kurdish refugees would flee to Iran and Turkey. Roughly 2 million Kurds will end up fleeing to refugee camps. To protect Shiites from further attack, President Bush announces the creation of a no-fly zone

on August 26, 1992. Allied warplanes patrol the region, preparing to shoot down any Iraqi aircraft found in the zone. Though the measure was meant to last for only a few months, Britain and the U.S. would still be enforcing it nearly a decade later in mid-2003. In response, Iraq concentrated a considerable number of combat aircraft at the 32nd parallel and announced it would counterattack if threatened. Meanwhile, the 1992 U.S. presidential election is coming up. Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, who will defeat the incumbent George H.W. Bush and independent Ross Perot, said he agreed with the no-fly zone and upon winning the election demonstrated his commitment to keeping Saddam in check by

pounding the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service with 23 Tomahawk missiles June 26 1993. What provoked the attack was the discovery of an Iraqi plot to assassinate President George HW Bush during his visit to Kuwait the previous April. The 175 pound car bomb was supposed to go off by remote control when Bush visited Kuwait University. If that failed, an assassin wearing a bomb belt was supposed to move near Bush and blow them both up. But obviously that never happened. By November of 1994, it looked as if the combination of military retaliation and UN economic sanctions against Iraq was working. On November 10, Iraq recognized the sovereignty of Kuwait and accepted the border between

the two nations drawn up in 1993 by a UN commission. Would this be enough to lift the ongoing sanctions against Iraq? On April 14, 1995, the UN Security Council passed a resolution allowing the partial resumption of Iraq's oil exports to buy food and medicine, later called the Oil for Food Program. Under the program, Iraq was allowed to sell oil at market prices under contracts approved by the UN, with the revenue going into a UN escrow account. These funds, a maximum of $10.5 billion a year, would then be used to import food, medicine, other humanitarian supplies through contracts approved by a UN committee made up

of representatives of Security Council countries. Reluctantly, Iraq officially accepted the following month that only some of the sanctions would be lifted. But then in late summer of 1995, the Iraqi leader decided against the UN's course of action. Of course, nobody puts Saddam Baby to corner. On August 31st, 1995, Saddam defies US warnings, sends 30,000 soldiers in three armored columns into a northern Kurdish stronghold overrunning

the city of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. Beautiful, an ancient city that was originally written about by the Sumerians. A government spokesperson announced Iraqi forces will withdraw once new authorities had been installed in Erbil. With Iraq's swift assault on the Kurds, Saddam blatantly disobeyed the U.S. for the first time since 1991. Iraq claimed it invaded at the invitation of Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, who had been feuding for control with his rival, Jalal Talabani, whose group had recently received

help from Iran. Iraq warned the U.S. to keep out of the Kurdish north, vowing to turn the area into another Vietnam if Washington intervened. Oh, also in August of 1995. Remember how Uday is a complete fucking psychopath? Well, he does some crazy fucked up shit again. I kind of love talking about this guy. The Hussein family had all been called to dinner to discuss the worsting economic and security situation in Iraq.

But the discussion erupted into a shouting match in which Watban Ibrahim al-Takriti, Saddam's half-brother, who was relieved of his job as interior minister on May 22nd, urged President Hussein to curtail Uday's authority. Apparently since birth, Uday's upper jaw extended forward an abnormally large amount and made it difficult for him to speak clearly and during his impassioned speech, Watban imitated Uday's mannerisms, made fun of his speech impediment. Pretty ballsy. Argument got vicious.

Vicious enough, Saddam Hussein asked his son to leave the dinner, so he must have said crazy shit too. And then when Wattbon returned home, he and his bodyguards were confronted by armed members of Uday's staff who attempted to arrest them. Shooting then broke out and left at least six people dead and Wattbon seriously injured when he got shot. Unclear if Uday participated directly, but some sources say he did. At the very least, he set this attack in motion. Uday's own newspaper, Babel, reported the following

day that his half-uncle was wounded in an accidental shooting during the celebration. Some sources allege that Saddam then ordered Uday to ask his uncle to now shoot him in the same way that Uday had shot Wattbon, but Wattbon refused to do so. Instead Saddam has a luxury garage of Uday's cars burned down. For fuck's sake. Back to the war. September 3rd, 1995, U.S. warships fire a volley of 27 cruise missiles against air defenses in southern Iraq, followed up with a second round of 17 missiles the next day. Saddam responds angrily, urging his Air Force and any aircraft gunners to attack US and allied planes in the no-fly zone. Meanwhile,

Saddam was still resisting any attempt for the UN to monitor Iraq's weapons. Every few months, reports by Swedish diplomat Rolf Akius, who led the UN investigations, spoke of gaps and inconsistencies, incorrect information, continual deliberate attempts to mislead unscombed teams. Periodically Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz would counter by asserting that Iraq was complying with the inspections, but they weren't. As the investigations proceeded, UN inspectors accounted for most of Iraq's Firmament nuclear and missile capacity, but they still knew little about Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons, and almost nothing about his ability to wage biological warfare.

Resources for chemical weapons which kill through exposure to poisons like toxic gas are not hard for specialists to detect. But biological weapons spread death through infectious disease, and these deadly organisms are inexpensive to make with simple equipment, and they can be very hard to detect. A factory that supposedly just makes yeast for bread could just as easily be growing the bacteria for anthrax. Backing up a little now, this was a concern UN biologists had in mind for instance when they visited the Al Hakem protein plant southwest of Baghdad in June of 1994. The UNSCOM team concluded that the Al Hakem plant was making anthrax,

one of nature's deadliest organisms, given that they found 34 tons of a powder called growth medium, which is essential for producing protein but also for producing biological weapons. The inspectors would end up blowing up this plant. When team leader Akiyas questioned Iraqis about what they were planning to do with such large quantities of anthrax, the reply was that the decision was to make it. How to use it? Well, that would be decided later. What about nukes? Could a recently defeated country somehow get the resources to make nuclear weapons? Soon the international community would think yes. In 1995 Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamal al-Majid defected from Iraq to Jordan, probably because of psychopath Uday. Some versions of the insane

dinner party story I told earlier say that a drunk Uday went to Hussain's house where party was being held and punched him a fight broke out. Hussain got his ass kicked and that led to Wattbonk getting shot. Hussain Kamal Al-Majid decided after this party it was time to get the fuck out of Dodge before Uday retaliated. His brother Saddam Kamal Hassan Al-Majid along with both of their families went with him. Sadly both men, their wives, and their fucking families like kids and everything will be murdered when they return to Iraq in 1996. So Uday did retaliate strongly.

But once in Jordan, Hussein Kamal told officials Iraq had obtained enriched uranium used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons from France and Russia. Days after Hussein Kamal's announcement, even bigger revelations surfaced from a bizarre episode. Boxes of secret Iraqi documents turned up in a Baghdad chicken farm. Until then, the Iraqi government had insisted it had no documents relating to weapons of mass destruction because there was no such programs. But the so-called chicken farm stash, old chicken papers, old chicken deets, chicken

records, the poultry something, was a collection of memoranda memoranda stating the opposite. So all of this looks very suspicious Also in 1995 Saddam holds a sham election. Of course he does in the 1995 referendum. I Love this conducted on October 15th. He received check this out 99.96 percent of the vote. Holy shit. And 99.47% of the population came out to vote. Everyone fucking wanted this guy to be president. They love him so much. Ah, what a great dude. This reminds me of Putin's elections. Just so legitimate. Oh, what a great dude. This reminds me of Putin's elections. Just so legitimate. He'll do this again in 2002

when he officially receives 100% of the approval votes. And there's a, this, and this time there's 100% turnout. Literally everyone who could vote, voted. And every single one of them voted for him. Oh boy. December of 1996.

Backing up a little bit. Some good news. Uday sustains permanent injuries during an assassination attempt while he's driving his Porsche on the evening of December 12th. Struck somewhere between 7 and 17 struck by somewhere between 7 and 17 bullets while driving in Baghdad where he went every Thursday to pick up a girl. Uday initially believed to be paralyzed. I can't believe he survived at all. He did recover, but will be left with a noticeable limp. Despite repeated operations, two bullets will remain lodged in his spine. Could not be removed due to the location. In the wake of Uday's subsequent disability, Saddam now gives his little brother, Kusay,

increasing responsibility and authority, and will finally designate him as his heir apparent. Uday, I'm sure, was furious. Probably consoled himself by raping a kid or torturing and murdering their parents or something. November 2nd 1997 the Iraqi government warns the US to halt its U-2 reconnaissance flights over the country or Iraq will use anti aircraft weapons that will not work to protect their airspace and the US in response doesn't give a fuck. Two weeks later Iraq expels six members of the UN inspection team. Then at the end of November Iraq has agreed to allow the Americans to return to the inspection team. But then in December

inspections are ground to a halt again. Meanwhile Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries fire on British and American planes patrolling the no-fly zone. The jets destroyed the batteries and then with air-to-ground missiles. So that wasn't a good call. They're like, ah, enough of you guys! We're gonna fucking shoot you guys! And then they shot at him and then immediately got just destroyed. April 28th, 1998, Saddam's 61st birthday. Ground breaks on the construction of the Mother of All Battles mosque in Baghdad. Designed to commemorate former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's self-proclaimed victory in the Gulf War. I fucking love it. Ah, that he did not win.

October 31st, Halloween 1998. Iraq ends all form of cooperation with UNSCOM. By early December that year, the weariness over trying to get Iraq to comply with the terms of the UN resolution had spread to the Security Council. France, Russia, and China, three of the five permanent members of the council, voted to end economic sanctions with Iraq and to reorganize UNSCOM. Sanctions were starting to look a little harsh considering some recent reports. According to the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF report, some 500,000 Iraqi children had died

from malnutrition or lack of medical attention since sanctions were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. And that is horrific. Half a million. Although the UNICEF report took pains to spread the blame for increased mortality on economic sacrifices, the Iraqi government had made to support its war efforts. Major news outlets equated sanctions

with causing the children's death. But Britain and the US threatened to veto the move since security council measures required a unanimous vote. Now the U.S. tries something different. On the nights of December 16 to the 18th, 1998, U.S. warships fired 200 cruise missiles at Iraqi airfields, chemical plants, missile production and storage facilities, air defense systems, and surface-to-air missile sites. President Clinton indicated that at least one major aim was to punish Saddam Hussein for not fully cooperating with U weapons inspectors. Still, UNSCOM closed its center in Baghdad in

December of 1998 for lack of cooperation, only to be replaced by another virtually identical project. A year later, over Iraqis' objections, or Iraq's objections to their government, the UN Security Council created UNMOVIC on MOVIC, the United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission, to replace UNSCOM and to establish an operating reinforced ongoing monitoring and verification system, address unresolved disarmament issues, and identify additional sites to be convened or to be covered by the new monitoring system. It might now seem that all of this is the U.S. or excuse me is the

UN's fault. That if they just agreed to drop the sanctions Iraqis would not have suffered. But Saddam could have easily agreed to the sanctions for the good of his people. So now it's a big stalemate. Saddam doesn't want to look weak by giving into terms to end the sanctions. U.S. doesn't want to look weak by giving into Saddam. And millions suffer. Then, on September 11, 2001, you know what happens. Four coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001. 19 terrorists from al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex. The attacks killed 2,977 people from 93 nations, 2,753 people killed in New York, 184 people killed at the Pentagon, 40 more people killed on United Airlines Flight 93.

And Saddam expresses his approval straight away. The United States reaps the thorns that its leaders have planted in the world, he said. These thorns have not only caused the feet and hearts of certain people to bleed, but also caused the eyes of people to bleed. Those people who wept a lot over their dead. That's some weird shit to say. It didn't just fucking hurt their feet, but also their eyes and other parts of their body. By 2002, the George W. Bush administration begins to build an international coalition to support the forcible removal now of Saddam Hussein. By the end of August, after repetitions of the Administrative's resolve to remove Saddam, countries like France and Germany began to voice concerns

that the U.S. will move into action before consulting them. that the U.S. will move into action before consulting them. September 24th, British Prime Minister Tony Blair releases a dossier that estimated that Saddam would have full nuclear capability in two years if he could find the materials or procure them from someone else or five years if he had to manufacture the materials himself. It was at this point that the phrase preemptive strike started to be used. Under international law, a preemptive strike is permissible if the acting nation can demonstrate that its opponent is preparing for an attack of its own. If Saddam hated the West and would soon have nuclear capabilities, then could an immediate American attack against him be considered defensive?

To bolster this claim, the Bush administration tried to show a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, the Islamic extremist group that claimed responsibility for 9-11, which had taken place, of course, the year before. Saddam had actually expressed his support for the actions of al-Qaeda as it went over, but there was no real link between them outside of hating the U.S. and being Muslim. For some reason, however, President George W. Bush seemed to think there was from the very beginning. According to Bruce Rydell, who is in the White House on the staff of the National Security Council in September 2001, or in September 2001, Bruce was with Bush when he had his first phone call after 9-11 with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

And Bush immediately said he was planning to hit Iraq soon on this call. Blair was audibly taken aback. He pressed Bush for evidence of Iraq's connection to the 9-11 attack because Britain had no evidence of that. The CIA under George Tenet insisted in personal meetings with President Bush that there was no connection as well between al-Qaeda and Iraq. However, Vice President Dick Halliburton Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to re-examine the evidence and marginalize the CIA and Tenet. They clearly wanted someone just to tell them what they wanted to hear. There was a connection between al- Qaeda and Saddam so they could go fuck

Saddam up. Some questionable intelligence acquired by this new secret program or maybe fabricated is a better word was turned over to the vice president and presented to the American public as truth. Cheney's office leaked this intelligence to reporters where it would be reported by outlets such as the New York Times. Cheney would subsequently appear on the Sunday political television talk shows to discuss the intelligence, citing the Times to give it more credence. Still the CIA's report on Iraq's ties to terrorism noted in September of 2002 that the CIA did not have credible intelligence reporting of operational collaboration between

Iraq and al-Qaeda. However, in late September of 2002, National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice stated explicitly that there were contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time, which were rumored to have been based in chemical weapons, and that al-Qaeda prisoners had claimed that Iraqi officials had trained them in the use of chemical weapons. But was there really a connection? Probably not. There was also the broader issue of preemptive strike would set a terrible precedent for other countries who butted heads, like China and Taiwan, for example, or India and Pakistan. Would it be okay for them to start a war based on nothing more than speculation?

Saddam now announced on November 4th that Iraq would be receptive to UN-backed renewal of inspections, Jesus Christ. More inspections, provided that the UN resolution did not serve merely as an excuse for US-led military actions against Iraq. Four days later, November 8th, the UN passed a resolution, 1441, that would give Iraq one more chance. And it established a timetable. Iraq has seven days to declare cooperation and then 30 days to produce a full and

accurate declaration of all of its programs, including facilities that could be used to make weapons. Inspections were to resume within 40 days with an update to the Security Council within 60 days of that. The Iraqi parliament deliberated for four days and then rejected the resolution but then accepted it a day later. So chaotic. Finally, November 18th, the preliminary UN inspection team entered Iraq after a four-year hiatus with inspections scheduled to begin a week later. Meanwhile, the US is preparing for war. Britain and Canada both joined the cause, along with the Czech Republic, though Germany maintained its position against any use of force.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government issued statements accusing the United States, too many fucking United places here, of manipulating the UN to further its aggressive goals. Iraqi Foreign Minister Najee Sabri contended to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that there were no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Iraq and that the United States had not shown otherwise. He further claimed that holding Iraq to a standard of total accuracy in many thousands of pages, produced in haste to meet the UN deadline, was wildly unfair.

Also, it was hard to know what compliance would mean exactly once the inspectors actually reached Iraq. Where should they look? What should they look for? How cooperative would Saddam have to be in order to be deemed compliant? The inspector's first field visit took place on November 27th, and the inspectors had 60 days now to prepare that preliminary report But given that there were 700 or so sites under consideration the investigation was expected to take a full year even with total Iraqi compliance However, Iraq was expected to produce its current currently accurate full and complete declaration by December 8 2002 less than two weeks away

This is all fucked up meanwhile Saddam tries to repair his relationship with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia largely through free trade agreements and returning some of the items that Iraq had stolen from Kuwait their National Archive during the 1990 invasion imagine this was hard to you know make amends here listen yes I stole some of your stuff and like you killed a bunch of people yeah I technically tried to sell your whole country and blew up a bunch of shit but I already apologized and that was like a couple years ago come on by guns be by guns and whatnot

December 7th one of Saddam's officials announced an apology for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait calling both nations victims of the US-led Gulf War huh the speech urged Kuwaitis to join with Iraq now against infidel forces, even called for the Kuwaitis to expel occupying US troops. But that was never going to happen. Kuwait was like, get the fuck out of here, you weirdo. The effort was denounced by both the Kuwaiti government and their media. Meanwhile, the Iraqi disclosure report that was due on December 8th actually handed in

a day early. The document was huge, about 12,000 pages long with an 80 page summary and several CDs. Some portions of it were in Arabic. Any analysis of the disclosure would take weeks and almost immediately it was criticized as being a stalling tactic. The Iraqi administration rebutted that the length was due to the resolution's requirement that all dual use facilities, places that could produce food or medicine, but also maybe weapons, be described in detail. But the report made it back to the UN where it would be analyzed with Unmavik. Only a judgment of compliance would bring about the end of 12 years now of sanctions.

But the report not as complete as everyone hoped. It seemed like it was actually just a report from 10 years earlier resubmitted in a new format. They changed the font like, here you go here's a new report. It's not the same one that one was written in Times New Roman. This is written in a different font. This is not Times New Roman. This one was written in... I can't think of literally any other font. The US fucked up a lot with this search. But so did the Iraqi government. They just kept poking the bear, very big, very powerful bear.

And they keep acting like they are for sure hiding something. So either they are hiding something or they're playing a very dangerous game, acting like they're stronger than they are. December 19th, analysts reported to the UN Security Council that the Iraqi declaration definitively contained literally nothing that had not already been declared already in 1998. That same day, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell adjudged the declaration

as containing flagrant omissions that constituted a material breach and said Iraq's deceptions could make it impossible to avoid war. But was that in fact a material breach? Did the U.S. have the authority to declare that alone? And even if there was a material breach, what would happen? Would the U.N. discuss and vote on further action? Whose duty was it to decide on what a violation was? Meanwhile, Iraq fired on American and British planes in the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, but the Security Council had never expressly authorized those air patrols in the first place. Was that a violation? UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that it wasn't. France and the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said it was.

Despite the continued absence of the smoking gun that the international community had repeatedly asked the White House to provide, thousands of American and British troops are relocated to the Persian Gulf to prepare for the possibility of an invasion. At the close of 2002, military action in Iraq remains a very real possibility if not a probability. Public support for this is declining and the Bush administration's rhetoric now shifts to not to conquer but to liberate regarding this procedure. Saddam rallied his own troops on Iraq's Army Day January 6, 2003 which marked the 82nd anniversary of the formation of the Iraqi army. Perhaps with President Bush's infamous axis of evil speech in mind

that was delivered a year earlier referring to North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as rogue states that harbored finance and aid of terrorists. Saddam refers to Americans as criminals and as friends and helpers of Satan, night, and darkness. I love that he added night and darkness to Satan. Like being a friend of the devil, not enough. The Americans are friends of the devil. And another thing, they're also on top of being friends with Satan. Friends with nighttime. And that's not all. Uh-uh. No, they're friends with darkness. Specifically, they can't accompany nighttime, but not always they can show up in the day if there's like a solar eclipse

Or if you're like in a basement with no windows and the lights off for example, so that's something to think about Meanwhile UN analysts deliver the inspectors long-awaited report to the Security Council January 27th 2003 The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency within the UN dr. Muhammad el baraday el baraday Excuse me reported that although the Iraqis had been only grudgingly cooperative and still had not accounted for some chemical weapons, no evidence of nuclear activity had been found. And with a few more months of work, he could declare that Iraq had no nuclear program at all. And that was not the answer the US wanted.

Not at all. US not about to back down after all this lead up. In its annual State of the Union Address on the following day, President Bush announces, let there be no misunderstanding if Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. Once again, he uses rhetoric of liberation. Tonight, I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq. Your enemy is not surrounding your country. Your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the

day of your liberation. And another thing, I want to rub your sweet, sweet oil all over my wife's pussy and lick it off. Holy fuck, it gets my dick hard. Maybe I did that last sentence. By this time, Saddam was calling on the UN to shoulder its responsibilities to protect Iraq from this colonial administration which is blinded by its oil fever. Even so, he agreed to offer more information on Iraq's chemical and biological programs on February 9th, and the next day, allowed U-2 spy planes to enter Iraqi airspace. Nevertheless, the US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, there we go, began to push for a resolution that authorized war and he used the word days.

Even without express permission, the US continued building up its military presence in the area. Some 200,000 troops have been deployed to the region by the end of February, as well as several battleships and other key equipment, and hundreds of war planners have been moved from Florida to friendly Qatar. There was plenty to launch in invasion of Iraq Iraq which had an estimated 24,000 active troops, 19,000 tanks, 2,400 armored personnel carriers, 1,900 wheeled guns, 300 combat aircraft, and some short-range rocket systems. That sounds like a lot, but evidence showed that Iraq had never built back to its full strength after Kuwait, nor had it been able to source parts to repair faulty

equipment. But the US was already at war with Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the possibility of war with North Korea, which had stepped up its nuclear program also loomed. Now people are worried, can they fight, you know, can we fight three wars at once? The cost of war in Iraq would be enormous. Three or 400 billion was the estimate in 2003. Now we know that was even more, like more like a trillion. Money that will not be paid by oil companies and military industrial contractors that will gain

billions from a better economic relationship with Iraq. Instead, it'll be paid by the taxpayers. Would be much easier if other countries helped out. Czech Republic, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Great Britain. They'd all signed a letter supporting the invasion of Iraq. But France, Russia, Japan, China, and Britain. They'd all signed a letter supporting the invasion of Iraq. But France, Russia, Japan, China, and Germany held back, arguing that only weapons inspectors should be able to declare a point of no return. Which is fair. Does set a terrible precedent to invade a nation, any nation, based on faulty intelligence

or fabricated intelligence. Most of the Middle East, uncomfortable with the US's close relationship with Israel and supporting Westerners over Arabs in general, would not extend its support, though they did dislike Saddam's rule. Could the U.S. hope to sway some of them, like longtime ally Saudi Arabia? There was also the possibility of a line with groups working against Saddam inside Iraq. The Bush administration identified over 70 of them. Seven were categorized as Democratic and thus potential allies.

But the question still remained. Would the U.S. wait for all of their potential allies to get on the same page or just fucking go for it? We would, of course, just go for it. In the early morning hours of March 19, 2003, explosions rumble like thunder in Baghdad again. Blinding flashes of red and gold flashed against a black sky. Deafening booms shook every house in the city. U.S. stealth bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles

strike specific leadership targets in Iraq. Their target, of course, is Saddam and anyone or anything who will help, who would help him wage war. At this point, only Britain had given support to the U.S. in the form of troops, though 47 countries would eventually lend one form of support or another. The next day, March 20th,

Saddam addresses his citizens on Iraqi television. Some US officials thought Saddam was already dead, and the address was a pre-recorded message used to fool the Iraqi people into believing he was still alive. Spoiler alert, not dead. Mustache, full power. In the speech, Saddam encouraged the people of Iraq to fight back against the invaders of their sacred nation. He called on all Iraqi men and women to draw your sword and not be afraid.

Get your fucking sword out! No one will be victorious unless he is a man and a brave man. Let Iraq live, he said. Probably said that. That same day, US and British ground forces advance into southern Iraq from Kuwait. The Iraqi military resists fiercely as air attacks continue on Baghdad. By March 23rd coalition forces have seized H2 and H3 airfields in western Iraq and control parts of numerous cities.

Also on the third day of the war Iraqi forces ambush the US Army's 507th Maintenance Company killing nine soldiers, taking six hostage, including Jessica Lynch, who will become the American face of this war. On April 1, she will become the first American female POW ever to be rescued when U.S. special forces find and recover her. Hail Nimrod to that. Before she is saved, five of the captured U.S. soldiers appeared on Iraqi TV, scared and apparently abused. Once again, Saddam miscalculated.

Instead of this scaring the U.S, it increased support for the war stateside. On March 26, hurricane force winds created a sandstorm that slowed coalition movement. But high-tech all-weather equipment allowed US forces to continue to attack and decimate Iraqi units, destroying almost half of the Iraqi forces in just the first seven days of the war. That's fucking crazy. The Iraqi propaganda machine is still hard at work trying to hide this reality. The Iraqi information department kicks out propaganda assuring the Iraqi people that coalition forces are not making progress. Iraqi citizens still believe

in many parts of the country. Saddam, he's got it. He's in complete control. Meanwhile, as ground troops advance into Iraq, an unexpected blast hits a crowded marketplace in Baghdad, March 28th. More than 100 Iraqis are killed or wounded in the attack, most being women and children. Iraq blames the U.S.? U.S. said it was an Iranian missile. Then on March 30, a surprise attack near Basra inflicts a serious blow on the Iraqi army. A British commando unit of 600 fighters wages battle on an Iraqi unit. They destroy a number of tanks, capture nearly 300 Iraqi prisoners.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces near Baghdad meet a vehement Iraqi militia. But US and British units inflict relentless air attacks using F-16 falcons and A-10 Thunderbolts or Warhawks. And soon the militia collapses. As US forces make their way into Baghdad, Iraqi TV continues to claim that they're not doing that. But that propaganda won't work pretty soon because the Baghdad people can see the US military with their own eyes. On April 8th, day 20 of the war, US armored devil dog tanks cross into the Baghdad, across the city lines of Baghdad. Urban warfare commences as Iraqi guerrillas fire on coalition units.

Casualties mount as guerrilla fighters run into the streets to pick up the guns of their fallen comrades. Some fighters even send young boys to the streets to retrieve the guns for them. The next day, on April 9th, coalition forces move to unconquered areas of the city. Understanding that the U.S. was now in control of Baghdad, the Iraqi citizens begin to celebrate. People start tearing down posters, destroying fucking effigies and statues of Saddam. Many citizens remove their shoes, beat the statues with them. The mob quickly moved towards a towering statue of Saddam that stood in Baghdad's Paradise Square.

Some began beating the base with sledgehammers. Others scaled the sides, hung a heavy noosed rope around the statue's neck. At one point some Marines draped an American flag over Saddam's face. A few moments later, it's replaced with the Iraqi flag. With the help of a few Iraqis, the Marine team wraps a thick chain around Saddam's face, and a few moments later, it's replaced with the Iraqi flag. With the help of a few Iraqis, the Marine team wraps a thick chain around Saddam's neck, using a tank to begin to pull the statue down. The bronze creases at the knees, and then Saddam's outstretched arm lurches forward. One more tug, the statue snaps at the knees and crashes to the ground.

Iraqi citizens are so elated they start dancing, weeping in the streets, hugging and kissing US Armed Forces members. Very clear when you watch this footage, the people of Baghdad hated that ruthless motherfucker. April 13th now, US forces enter Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. Well, he lives in a little village near Tikrit. They expect a strong fight from the citizens. To their surprise, townspeople offer very little resistance. And just like that, the coalition declares the second Gulf War is officially over

Now it's time for us special forces to start through the vast troves of belongings and information hidden within many many palaces Saddam and his sons in Uday's for instance There was a lot to find a zoo with wild animals hundreds of luxury cars the ones his dad didn't burn Guns made out of fucking gold. Hundreds of bottles of luxury alcohol. Hundreds of Cuban cigars. At the presidential palace in Uday's dwellings, anti-depressants an email output, or an email was sent that said a virgin girl agrees to come to him.

Something about that. Another order asked for girls to be examined for STDs. In Uday's gym, special forces uncover erotic pictures of women downloaded from the internet, pictures of twin first daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush. Sure W loved that. In another house owned by Uday, more porn is found, bags of heroin, more expensive alcohol,

vintage cars, and HIV tests are recovered. Probably a lot of other shit that was found that was never catalogued but instead looted. Large numbers of antiquities were stolen both from museums and from illegal excavations at archaeological sites throughout the country. What was not found was Saddam or his sons. But on the night of July 21st US military personnel stationed in Iraq receive a tip on the whereabouts of Saddam's sons Uday and Kousse. The informant believes the men are at a house in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Immediately upon arrival, U.S. forces are met with gunfire there.

An ensuing shootout leaves all four people in the house dead, and among them Uday, 39 years old, and Qusay, 37. So, Hale Nimrod, also killed, were Qusay's teenage son Mustafa and a bodyguard. But not Saddam. US Special Forces scour Saddam's hometown of Tikrit for months. A tip in December 2003 suggests that Saddam was hiding in the small town of Aldor, 15 miles from Tikrit, his real hometown. Saturday, December 13th, 8pm at night, Task Force 20 launches Operation Red Dawn. The force separates into two groups, searches two locations called Wolverine One and Wolverine Two. Fucking badass names. Soldiers search a rural farmhouse,

find little to suggest Saddam was there. But knowing Saddam's reputation for tunnels and secret safe rooms, the searchers are willing to turn over a few stones. Located on the farmland was a small shack with a mud hut and a little meadow leaned to, and there they noticed a hole. The entrance was covered with dirt and bricks. Inside this eight foot deep spider hole is the strongman of Iraq Saddam Hussein. Looking like a deranged fucking hobo he says I'm Saddam Hussein I'm the president of Iraq and I'm willing to negotiate. Fucking negotiate. Get the fuck out of here! You got nothing to negotiate. His captors picked through his shaggy hair, a little dirty beard lice. They scraped his throat, checked his teeth. After a brief examination,

they lighted cigars, patted each other on the back, and wished each other a Merry Christmas. Except for Saddam. In a news conference, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, El Paul Bremer, with tears in his eyes, states, Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Bremer reports plans to put Saddam on trial, but claims that the details of such a trial had not yet been determined. But now there's another question. Who will lead Iraq? The U.S. obviously wanted a lot of say over this but religious leaders especially thought Iraq's leaders should be elected amongst the people though the U.S. doubted that a free vote and a

safe election or maybe just the election of their preferred candidate would be possible. So the U.S. sets up the Iraqi governing council placing the formerly exiled Iraqi leader Ahmad Shalabi in charge as a strong US ally. Shalabi, there we go. Just dubbed the George Washington of Iraq by American supporters, Shalabi was a CIA backed operative who very quickly fell out of favor. And US special forces will raid his private residence in Baghdad just a year after the invasion of Iraq. He later came under investigation by several US government agencies after switching his allegiances

to become an instrument of pro-Iranian influence in Iraqi politics. Just can't fucking win over there. The governing council was headed by Azadeen Saleem, longtime politician, author, educator, and Islamist theorist. He will be killed by a suicide bomber just a few weeks later. After two months of wrestling with issues, the governing council signs an interim constitution,

though, March 8, 2004. The interim constitution declares Iraq a federalist state with two official languages. A prime minister will run the country's daily affairs. A president can launch wars, but only with the approval of parliament. Despite the prospect of a new free government, violence continually erupts in cities throughout the country. Car bombings are commonplace, especially ones targeting U.S. personnel and Iraq's new politicians. In April, 105 American soldiers are killed in just 22 days.

June 30, 2004, Saddam Hussein handed over to the interim government to be tried for crimes against humanity, amongst other offenses. A few weeks later he was charged by the Iraqi Special Tribunal with crimes committed against residents of Dujayl in 1982, following a failed assassination attempt against him. Just one of so many crimes they could have convicted him of. Specific charges related to Dujayl include the murder of 148 people, torture of women and children, and the illegal arrest of 399 others. By the beginning of July, when the new interim government took office, 80% of Iraqis already wanted American soldiers to leave.

They had expected the U.S. to bring nearly instantaneous security from poverty, hunger, and violence, and that didn't happen. And then more criticism is coming. On July 9, 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee in the U.S. releases a report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. The report harshly criticizes the CIA and other American intelligence agencies for poor interpretation of information. It states that most of the major key judgments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were

either overstated or unsupported. The committee also found no clear relationship between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, one of the justifications for the war. Meanwhile, Saddam was held with more than 80 other high-level prisoners in Camp Cropper, part of an American military complex near Baghdad. Although he was allowed to exercise twice a day, he was prohibited from speaking with other detainees,

and he spent most of his time reading from his collection of books or attending to a small garden near his cell. His trial will get underway eventually, but there'll be a lot of difficulties Number one was that he contested that the court did not have the authority because he was still president of Iraq. I'm still in charge There were also repeated assassinations and assassination attempts against his lawyers Nevertheless, November 5th 2006 Saddam found guilty of crimes against humanity sentenced to death by hanging. When he hears this, he literally just laughs.

The verdict and sentencing both appealed but subsequently affirmed by Iraq's Supreme Court of Appeals. And Saddam, I guess, was shocked by that outcome. He genuinely thought he would be found innocent. Somehow he would still regain all that he had lost. Just under two months later, Saddam hanged on the first day of Eid al-Adha December 30th, 2006 despite his wish to be executed by firing squad. Execution carried out at Camp Justice in Iraqi army base in a neighborhood of northeast Baghdad at dawn and Saddam refused his last meal. A video of the execution was

recorded on a mobile phone. His captors can be heard insulting Saddam before, during, and after his death. And you know what? Fuck yeah, bro. The video leaked to electronic media, posted on the internet within hours, becoming the subject of a global controversy. It revealed Saddam's last words. May God's blessings be upon Muhammad and his household. And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies.

He recited the Shahada, an Islamic oath oath and creed one and a half times. As he was about to say, Muhammad on the second Shahada, the trap door opened and cut him off mid-sentence. Rope broke his neck, killing him instantly. It was later claimed by the head guard of the tomb where his remains lay that Saddam's body was then stabbed six times following his execution. A second unofficial video apparently showing Saddam's body on a trolley emerged several days later and sparked speculation that the execution was carried out incorrectly and Saddam had a gaping hole in his neck. The day after the execution he was buried

at his birthplace of Al-Ujah in Tikrit, two miles from his shitty sons. And with that our timeline is over. Our timeline is over. Good job soldier. You've made it back. Barely. So what happened after the Iraq war? Did anyone ever admit the true reason for invading? Or was there even just one true reason? The failure to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq caused considerable controversy, particularly in the U.S. U.S. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair defended their decision to go to war, alleging that many nations, even those opposed to war, believed that Saddam Hussein's government was actively developing weapons of mass destruction. These criticisms were strengthened with the 2005 release of the so-called Downing Street Memo written in July of 2002, in which

the former head of the British Military Intelligence wrote that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam Hussein from power. Excuse me, those criticisms were not, they were weakened, not strengthened, because this guy is saying like, nah, they kind of just, you know, decided they're going to do that and just made up some shit to make that narrative work. And then a study co-authored by the Center for Public Integrity found that in the two years after September 11, 2001, the president and top administration officials had made 935 false statements in an orchestrated public relations campaign to galvanize public opinion for the war and that the press was largely complicit in its uncritical coverage for the

reasons claimed for going to war. Of course, the 9-11 connection was not the only thing they claimed. There was also the matter of nuclear weapons, though Iraq was never proved to have them, and the evidence is controversial at best. The UN, for one, focused on the invasion of Iraq as a means to rectify human rights abuses under Saddam. Abuses that were certainly happening. But many critics have argued that human rights were never a principal justification for the war, excuse me, man, and that it became

prominent only after evidence concerning weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism became discredited. More broadly, war critics have argued that the US and Europe supported the Saddam Hussein regime during the 1980s, a period of some of the worst human rights abuses, thus casting doubt on the sincerity of claims that military intervention was for humanitarian purposes. So what do you think? It's easy to talk about one person being wrong and one person being right. Right? The fiery Middle Eastern dictator taken down by the righteous US concerned for the world's safety and the safety of Saddam's people. Or you can take Saddam's

side of things that he along with the Ba'athist Party brought some economic prosperity and stability to the country and were merely victims of Western imperialism, but we know that's not really true either. Was Saddam a bad guy? Absolutely. Routinely terrorized his own population, even mounted what many consider a genocide attempt against the Kurds. But was that why the US got involved?

Was it weapons of mass destruction? Or was it desire to conquer and divide Iraq's oil fields? Me, I think it was all about oil from the very beginning. I don't like how we lie to justify this war. That does set a bad precedent. But at the same time, I do think in the end, it was a just war because Saddam was a brutal, murderous, bloodthirsty, tyrant piece of shit. I think sometimes, you know, two seemingly opposed things, you know, like, how do I say this? I think something can be two seemingly opposed things simultaneously. I think the Iraq war, sometimes called the Second Persian Gulf War, was unjust in the sense it was fought under false pretenses, but I also think that the Iraq war was just

in the sense that it deposed a ruthless dictator. And now let's head to today's takeaways. Number one, born on April 28th, 1937 in a mud hut in the village of Al-Uja just outside Dikrit, Saddam Hussein was the leader of Iraq for more than two decades, beginning in 1979. Number two, during that time, Saddam did much to modernize Iraq. He did much to modernize Iraq's infrastructure, industry, and health care system. He raised social services, education, and farming subsidies to levels unparalleled in other Arab countries in the region. Also nationalized Iraq's oil industry just before the energy crisis of 1973, which resulted

in massive revenue for the nation. Number three, Saddam was also a ruthless dictator. Just as quickly as he'd become president by early August of 1979, hundreds of Saddam's political foes were executed. He was also eager to go to war, eager to throw his own people into the war machine regardless of the cost as he did with Iran in 1980. In 1988, after years of intense conflict that left hundreds of thousands dead on both sides, the war finally ended, but Hussein's power grabs were not over.

Looking for oil and money, he settled on Kuwait, which he would invade in 1990, kicking off the Gulf War and bringing about his eventual downfall. Number 4, Uday Hussein was a fucking maniac, a psychopath. According to his long-time body double, he was a violent, psychotic, rapist, torturer, and murderer. He would eventually fall from his father's favor after an assassination attempt left him permanently disabled and then die upon being found just a few months before Saddam. 5. New info. As a world leader, Saddam's face found itself printed on many, many things. Some approved by the man himself, others not so much. Britain and the US seized a chance to undermine Saddam's public support

during the Gulf War in 1990 by circulating anti-Saddam propaganda. On one leaflet, the text reads, wanted, the mother of all evil, in English and Arabic. The cold face of death and war, next to Saddam's photo. The US Department of Defense also developed most wanted playing cards to help forces identify members of Saddam's regime. I remember those. Saddam Hussein, the most powerful, most wanted person, appeared on the Ace of Spades. Same time, souvenirs of Saddam Hussein's rule became highly profitable. April 2003 saw a flood of Saddam-related memorabilia appear on online auction sites. Pieces of broken statues, Iraqi currency depicting his face,

even looted cutlery from his palaces, all purchased for considerable sums of money on site site eBay. Pretty funny way to make some extra money. Time Shuck, top five takeaways. Saddam Hussein has been sucked. Woo. Hoping next week's words are a little easier to say.

Thank you to all the Bad Magic Production team members for helping making Time Suck this week. Starting with Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. Thanks to Logan Keith for recording this episode, designing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com. Thank you to Sophie Evans for her kickass initial research this week. And thanks to the all-seen eyes moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page, Mod Squad, keeping Discord fun, and everyone over on the Time Suck Subreddit and Bad Magic Subreddits. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates.

Our first message from an Elvis-loving Sean Saylor thank you very much, who wrote with the subject line of Cummins law but on purpose. Dear Dan, I tuned in on this week's Time Suck episode and had to ask, are you spying on me dammit? Sorry for that. Anywho, I have to ask this because this past weekend me and my wife took my grandparents on a trip they've always been wanting to go on, but given their age it makes it hard for them to travel by themselves. So me and my wife paid for a swanky hotel and we drove from 10 hours south to the one and only Graceland.

I love you did that. My grandparents huge Elvis fans. And my grandma had to tell every worker while she held back tears of joy to be there how special the place is. And a fun fact, my grandfather was born January 8, 1945, Elvis's birth month and day, and I was born August 16, 1989, the month and day he died. Every worker thought that was absolutely fascinating. But on the way back, I saw that you did this week's topic on Elvis of all things. So I turned on the podcast, allowed my 79 year old grandparents, the pleasure of listening in.

My grandpa busted out and yelled, what the fuck? Elvis never fucked no dead chimp. After I calmed him down, told him to keep listening, he found out you were joking. He did find it hilarious, thought it was funny as hell and said, damn it, he got me good. And close is a pic of all of us out in front of the Graceland Mansion. Anyways, not sorry for the length of the email, just thought you'd get a kick out of making a 79 year old man almost pissing himself laughing and I wouldn't have changed it.

Three out of five stars, never change a thing, sincerely, Sean. Sean, that picture is adorable. So thank you for including that in the email. I love how happy you guys all look and good on you for taking your grandparents on that trip. I was able to take my grandma Betty to New Orleans early this year. She said she wanted to dance on the streets of New Orleans before she died and she did dance her little butt off right there on Frenchman Street. Danced in a little jazz

club. It was like one of my favorite things I've ever seen. Yeah, it's a very special thing. I love that you let your listen or grandparents listen to one of my episodes My grandma would have no interest in listening to any of these episodes. It would horrify her And I love that he laughed his ass off about the joke about Elvis fucking a dead ship Now an IHOP cult update from Kansas City sucker Tyler Dennis who wrote it was a subject line of IHOP KC update Greetings suck master first. I want to say I love the episode you did on of IHOPKC Update. Greetings, suck master. First, I want to say I love the episode you did on IHOPKC. They are a complicated organization and I thought you were very fair in your assessment of them as a cult incubator while just being cult adjacent themselves.

A lot of people I know are involved with them. Excuse me. And there was a major story about them that's been in the local media for months now. I thought you might be interested in it. The short of it is that the leader Mike Bickel has been accused by dozens of women of sexually abusing slash grooming them going back decades. Yep, here we go. He had this line he would use with them where he would say that the Lord told him that his wife was going to die soon and that he, Mike, would then be marrying whoever the girl he was talking to, so they should spend some time together to prepare for their upcoming sacred union or some horse shit like that.

These girls were as young as 14, and if they spoke up about this repetitive pattern of behavior and abuse, they were either discredited or asked to leave the organization. According to both victims and staff, there was never any, quote, actual sex that went on between Mike and these girls, but I got strong poop hole loop hole vibes. When talking personally to two of the victims and reading the articles published about this.

One of the worst parts about this is that the IHOP is a sort of micro economy in South Kansas City. A lot of locals here cater to IHOP members because there are so many members in the area. Now a lot of members are leaving IHOP and many of these small businesses are collapsing. Tons of people both inside and outside the organization are losing their livelihoods over this. I held off on sending this update for a while because I wanted to see where the chips would land, but it's pretty clear at this point that the allegations are true and that he's guilty of sin.

I wanted to add though that there are a lot of good people in this organization, and although many of those close to him enabled this behavior, it appears the majority of his staff legitimately had no idea this was happening. I've been around IHOP KC my whole life and Mike Bickle used to pass through the church that my parents still attend before he left to start IHOP. So I'm pretty well versed in the background. If you have any questions about the issues or just want context from someone with inside knowledge, let me know and I'll be happy to answer questions you have. Start for the length, you're welcome for the girth, a three out of five stars, etc. Keep up the great work you and your team do. Hail Nimrod, Tyler. Yeah, I am not surprised. I know just from, you know, Tyler C., the guy who was the Suck Ranger, who we still love, who worked here for a while, that, you know, he was in that organization and he had heard, you know whispers of things with Bickel for you know

Well, he was there not like really substantial things would make him want to leave But there were whispers and after he left a lot more whispers and then I heard about some of these initial allegations And yeah, that's just I'm sadly not surprised When these guys start thinking they have a direct, you know fucking pipeline to God It seems to almost always end in them fucking girls. It's just fucking, it's so, it's so sadly predictable. It's just this big ego stroke, the same kind of ego that thinks that you have the inside access to God is I guess, uh, the same kind of ego that thinks like,

you know what, I should fuck these teens. So pretty sad that that just keeps happening over and over again. And I'm glad he's being taken down. I hope he, uh, hope, you know, like legal like legal I hope he goes to fucking prison and all the stuff. And now for one more just a real quick one. A Dom Deluise update from Dom Deluise fan Ryan Foy who wrote a subject line of Justin from Dom Deluise. Coco Commandant when you mentioned Mother God said Dom Deluise spoke to her I was surprised because he's been speaking to me too so I asked him about their conversations and I

thought you'd be interested to know he said that she was full of shit sorry this email isn't longer knowledge of Nimrod Ryan PS if this is read on the podcast please shout out to my best friend Matt love that guy we met through the cold and he can eat a bag of dicks I love it yeah no thank you very much for that Ryan Mike or sorry Matt you enjoy your bag of dicks. I hope they're delicious. And yeah, I'm still thinking about the Love Has One cult as I record this and actually an email came in right before an update. I sat down to record that I will put on next week's show about some people who are part of the Facebook group with Father God. And he's just saying even crazier shit than he said when he was in the Love is One cult. Yeah, many of you have sent in some very cool updates recently

I'll try to get to a few them next week by the time I finish prepping for this recording my brain was shot Working on some of these words. Why is speaking so much harder than reading? Thank you everybody. You are the best Thank you everybody. You are the best. Well, thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death and time suck each week. Short sucks and I'm Erfuel. On the time suck and scared to death podcast feeds some weeks. And thanks again for the really fun feedback on both of those new little episodes.

Please don't torture the shit out of anybody this week unless you're really bad. And if you're positive you can get away with it. And you won't say you got the idea to do it from me. The only thing I actively encourage you to do is to keep on sucking. Okay, quick question. If you're being tortured, would the torture seem a little less brutal if this music was being played while you were being tortured? I mean, it's kind of fun. Would at least put like a little bit of a smile on your face. Like if you're having boiling water poured directly into your butthole, would it hurt a little

bit less if you were listening to this song and the torturer was making like a little booby-grappy hands? Maybe? Let me know. If you ever get tortured, at least ask them to play this song. And I hope it's good for you. I hope it helps.