Before Baghdad burns

Then you have the right wing in Congress -- and in the press somewhat -- saying, "America's got to be strong. We don't have to put up with anybody." Then of course, you've got the Christian right, which is fanning a lot of this. To them, any questioning of Israeli political policy is questioning biblical Israel. They believe that the Jews must control Jerusalem before you can have the Second Coming of Christ. Then you've got George W. Bush who has this cowboy mentality, where you've got the white hats and the black hats, without grasping the complexity of all this.

What about the Iraqi National Congress? The Americans who support an invasion often hold them up as the solution to who'll run Iraq once Saddam Hussein is gone.

The INC deserves credit for its diversity. They've got members from almost every group. But the only thing they can all agree upon is that they hate Saddam Hussein. You can't get the INC to go beyond the fact that they're going to have a "democracy," and right out of the box a democracy cannot work. You cannot have one man, one vote. You present that to the Sunnis, and to them that means their annihilation at the hands of the Shia. You have to figure out a very complex political system that tries to address the communal rivalries so that you give people an opportunity to be fairly represented but not be able to just run over the rival groups.

One justification for this possible U.S. invasion is the assertion that Saddam Hussein is mixed up with al-Qaida and other Islamist terrorists. How likely does that seem to you?

I always hesitate to use the word "logic" in relation to Saddam Hussein, but the only thing Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden share is hatred of the U.S. Now, that's a powerful emotion, but if you look at it in terms of Saddam Hussein's political ambitions, what he really wants -- he wants to be celebrated in the Arab world as the new Saladin who's striding across the landscape from Egypt to Riyadh. Well, the thing about that is that if he'd been involved in Sept. 11 or the activities of any of these militant Islamic groups, other than maybe just feeding a little bit on the edges, and then come out after Sept. 11 and proclaimed that he was even a little bit responsible for it, the U.S. would have hit him and he would have been gone.

But even bin Laden didn't do that. Whoever did that would be immediately obliterated.

Right. However, if Saddam Hussein had been involved and then stayed quiet, well, who gets all the credit? Bin Laden does. And they are rivals for the same constituency, the Arab street. He'd really be shooting himself in the foot to be big-time promoting Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is important because he's a charismatic figure, and Saddam Hussein sees himself as a charismatic figure.

He doesn't have admirers scattered all over the Muslim world like bin Laden does, though.

No. His arena is the Arab world. He doesn't have any interest in the Islamic world because he has a certain fear of Islam himself because he's a secularist. Logically, there's no reason Saddam Hussein would be involved with Osama bin Laden, but you have to be careful when you're talking about logic and Saddam Hussein.

Would he be involved in some other kind of terrorism?

I would think he'd be interested in hitting an American aircraft carrier if he could do it, something like the U.S.S. Cole bombing.

To harass the U.S. about being in the Gulf?

To pull the lion's tail. What he seems to be concentrating on is not so much directing things at the U.S. but playing into the Palestinian situation right now, encouraging any strike they can make at Israel, paying the families of suicide bombers. He can support that and get credit for it. That is really to address his core audience, the non-elite Arabs.

Then there's the question of who is Saddam Hussein's designated heir. The story of his family -- the deadly infighting, the wayward eldest son -- it's like the Borgias. Is there really someone being groomed as his successor?

It's impossible to know what really goes on in the inner circle. All we can do is speculate. He's got two sons: Uday is the older one and Qusay is the younger one. You'd expect the succession to go to the older one. Uday, though, is a loose cannon. He's been involved in one ridiculous episode after another and it makes you wonder what his mental status is. The scuttlebutt is that he killed his father's valet for arranging a meeting between Saddam Hussein and the woman who became his second wife.

Saddam Hussein has three wives now, right?

We think. Pretty sure that there are three, but there might be more.

Uday did this out of devotion to his mother, Saddam Hussein's first wife?

Right. I don't want to use the word "evil" because I'm so tired of that word, but Uday seems to have almost a psychopathic personality. He's been accused of taking people who offend him up in a military helicopter out over the desert and pushing them out the door. He's poorly educated and doesn't seem to be real smart.

And he's quite a drinker, by all reports.

Oh, yes! Now Qusay is the younger son and more like his father. He's very intelligent, he's savvy. He works hard and doesn't seem to have done any of these strange things Uday has done. It seems that Saddam Hussein is grooming Qusay to take over for him. Now the question is ...

How's that going to go over with Uday?

Yes. Is he going to just step aside or is he going to use his media empire, which his father gave him, to fight back? He's got a newspaper and some radio stations and he's always issuing statements about the government. He does have a voice. Now if Qusay were to take over after Saddam Hussein's death and he has the military, he could shut Uday down. There are all these rivalries that go on. Supposedly the man who was Saddam Hussein's wife's brother and the son of his mentor was assassinated because he was getting a following that was seen as posing a threat to Saddam.

Next Page: Does Saddam have lymphoma?

• View blog reactions