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Saddam Hussein is not dead.
By Hidari, Section Iraq-Iran-Syria
From the Guardian:
'Critics say Maliki is concentrating power in his office (the office of the prime minister) and his advisers are running "a government inside a government", bypassing ministers and parliament. In his role as commander in chief, he appoints generals as heads of military units without the approval of parliament. The officers, critics say, are all loyal to him. He has created at least one intelligence service, dominated by his clan and party members, and taken two military units - the anti-terrorism unit and the Baghdad brigade - under his direct command. At the same time he has inflated the size of the ministry of national security that is run by one of his allies. Maliki, who many say was chosen because he was perceived to be weak and without a strong grassroots power base, has managed to outflank everyone: his Shia allies and foes, the Americans who wanted him removed at one time, even the Iranians.'
'In Beirut I met an Iraqi Shia cleric who settled in Syria in the 80s to escape Saddam's persecution. Maliki was the head of the Dawa party there and the two met frequently. "Unlike other opposition figures he [Maliki] didn't build wealth, he is very honest and very organised," he told me. The sheik, who spent more than 25 years involved in the opposition to Saddam, explained the conspiratorial mentality of his fellow opposition figures.
"The Dawa party in its methods and way of working is very similar to the Communist party. They don't trust anyone. They surround themselves with people they know. Maliki, like all of us, is the product of exile. They have suffered for so long in exile so now they trust no one." A senior official in the council of ministers offered a less sympathetic view of Maliki's growing monopoly on the levers of power. "Iraq is ruled by institutions that are not covered by the law or the constitution, they have their own prisons and intelligence service, working for the benefit of the government, not the state." Shifting animatedly on his chair, he counted off the elements of Maliki's security apparatus. "Constitutionally we have intelligence units in the ministry of defence and the ministry of information, but then we have the ministry of state for national security, run by Maliki's ally Sherwan al-Wa'ili. According to the constitution it should have staff of no more than According to the constitution it should have staff of no more than 26 people, now they are more than 1,000. Maliki has his own intelligence unit, and military units that work directly under his command as the commander in chief. The prime minister is running everything through his advisers and nothing happens without his approval or his office, the office of the prime minister." Any self-respecting Iraqi politician who wants to build his own power base must first establish or acquire his own intelligence service. After a couple of weeks in Baghdad talking to politicians, members of parliament and intelligence officials I came to the conclusion that Iraq has seven separate intelligence units. Or maybe eight. No one could agree on the precise number. An Iraqi journalist with links to some government officials explained. "People shouldn't blame Maliki. The security situation creates from the leader a dictator, and that's normal and logical, to surround yourself by people you trust; your friends and family, because you don't trust the others. "Maliki and the leadership of Dawa [Maliki's party] managed to obtain the loyalty of military and civilian institutions and commanders and now those officers are loyal to Dawa and moved their alliances from other parties.
"Officers, even if they are not part of Dawa, want to kiss the hand that feeds them they become part of the matrix because they are appointed by Maliki. For example, officers attached to the supreme council changed their loyalties to that of Dawa."'
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