EC Interview : My Uncle Saddam “1”

I wrote about Al-Hussain Arshad Yassin before , it is not usual to have in the Arab world of the ex-ruling family member blogging and surely Saddam’s family is not usual ruling family in the Arab world or in the world with all the controversy surrounds it. Al-Hussain is Saddam's nephew
First of all I think most of the Egyptian Chronicles readers know that I am not a Saddam Fan at all and God knows how much I was attacked because of him in my blog and  still I could not do anything except to respect Al-Hussain for his politeness and respect. I find him less radical than those nationalists who come and trash my blog with insults I can’t even imagine because I do not agree on their political views.
You will agree or disagree with him ,you will think that he is biased because Saddam is his uncle but either ways you will respect him. The interview is quite long and thus ,I will publish it in series insh Allah :)
Of course you can debate with Al-Hussain as much as you want through comments but please let’s be civilized in our debate. I did not edit any of Al-Hussein answers by his own request or even if he has not told I won’t change anything in his answers. I tried to cover several points , of course I am not a pro-journalist to conduct a professional interview.All what I did is I changed the arrangement of the questions. This part will cover general questions concerning that project of Powerful Iraq that fail, the recognition of Israel and the invasion of Kuwait.
Why do you think the Project of powerful Iraq Saddam wanted to achieve failed for real?? Was it a conspiracy of the west or misjudgement of Saddam or both??
Definitely a conspiracy of the west with Arab countries. He always had this dream even during the embargo till he died. He educated the party and his people on this dream he had of a powerful, modern Iraq. I also believe it’s a conspiracy theory because all through 1990 - late 2002 the Iraqi intelligence and high positioned individuals had more than 13 meetings with congress men and CIA in European and Arab countries, they always had a list of 10 points, and we always approved of 9 out of 10 and refused the 1st point and that is to recognize Israel, all negotiations failed because we refused that very point. The Baath party at the time could not possibly recognize Israel because the very purpose of the formation of the Baath party was an answer back to the Zionist regime; the Baath party was based on the concept of wiping out the Zionist regime. 
Regarding the point of recognizing Israel officially, it puzzles me because most of the Arab countries for instance like the Gulf States except for Qatar do not recognize Israel officially and still did not suffer like Iraq??
It should not puzzle you or anybody else, because as I said before, the formation of the Baath party is based on the concept of the liberation of Palestine. Other countries whether with a party governing system or a monarchy did not suffer because the formation of these governments has nothing to do with the liberation of Palestine, plus they were not a threat to Israel. Iraq was a serious threat to Israel more than Syria, the Syrians managed to manoeuvre politically avoiding any war. Because Syria is on the Israeli borders and Damascus is only 40 km from Israel, it is very easy for the Israelis to hit the capital and hurt it deeply by just using the canons from Jabil al sheikh (the sheikh mountain) that is shared between Syria and Israel. Plus the Israeli army is much stronger than the Syrian army, with high technology. it is a very good political stabilization he Syrians managed all these years avoiding any war with Israel. 
We were a serious threat to Israel because we have threatened them always, and hitting Israel with 39 Scud missiles is a serious threat. Even if there are Arab countries do not officially recognize Israel they had stayed in power and did not suffer like Iraq because they had secret relations with Israel. Why should they suffer? their relation with Israeli highly positioned people is more like a family relation, they meet on a yearly basis in Europe officially and non-officially, and even Israeli have been visiting Arab countries since the early 60's non-officially...why should they suffer? They know very well if they threatened Israel they won’t stay in power...so why should they threat and open a door of fire they don't need?   
Do you think that Saddam should have adopted more democratic system and abandoned the police state system??
We had announced in 1995 that we will welcome any defector to establish his own party in Iraq under the condition that this defector was not a spy to the west and has not participated in activities against Iraq. But we had not received only one defector Mr. Jabbar Al-Kubaisi, he was in France as a defector for 35 years, he came to Iraq and he stayed in Iraq but he was arrested by the Americans and they wanted him to take part in the so called new Iraq but he refused, at the time when he came he had met my uncle and the cabinet too. At the beginning when the Baathis ruled, there were a couple of Iraqi parties including Kurdish and the Iraqi communist parties had participated in the government, we also had Kurdish ministers and ministers from the Iraqi communist party.  
Do You think that Saddam thought about the consequences of the invasion of Kuwait?? Do you think it was correct one??
whether he reflected or not, either way he was convinced with the decision of invading Kuwait, not because of oil or money, Iraq has enough oil but because the Kuwaiti authorities had insulted the Iraqi women in public meetings and negotiations saying that they had sex with Iraqi women for 10 Kuwaiti dinars as a way to tell us that Iraqi women are cheap, and they also threatened to do that if we will not quit the negotiations. I think the only unwise thing about the invasion of Kuwait was the timing, but I am not against the invasion, he could have invaded Kuwait some time later in the 90’s but not in 1990 when we just left a war that took 8 years. Kuwait is Iraqi soil, Kuwait was given independence by British orders to the Iraqi royal family, and this is not justified to me because the Brits were colonizers and the Royal family although I am fond of them very much but they were more like British puppets. When we first invaded Kuwait, it was not our objective at first to make it the 19th province of Iraq but when members of the Kuwait royal family that were in Iraq at the time refused to take their cousin’s place to rule Kuwait, we considered it the 19th province. 
But do not you agree that the invasion of Kuwait caused in the death of innocent civilians was much worse than the insult of some Kuwaiti officials?? Why did Saddam suddenly remember that Kuwait was part of Iraq during that time?? is not this way Iran has the right to claim Bahrain in the same way or the Emirati isles "which it has been already occupying since the time of the Shah”??
Every war or invasion has its casualties of innocent and non-innocent people, it’s not like he all of a sudden remembered that Kuwait is Iraqi soil but because several Royal family members  refused to rule the country as an Emir and that is Sheikh Abdullah Al-Subah the husband of the famous Kuwaiti Poetess Mrs. Suad Al-Subah, he refused for health reasons, he had family differences with his relatives back in Kuwait and decided to live in Iraq for some time, so he refused my Uncle's offer to rule the country as Emir because he said he was ill, his health is in a very bad situation and he is a very old man not capable or ruling the country. I was never exposed to such a question but I think (my personal opinion) that after the refusal of Sheikh Abdullah; obviously the country cannot be left without a government so perhaps my uncle decided to consider it an Iraqi province returning it to its origin. and when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the invasion came with the help of Kuwaiti Bedouin tribes living at the borders, many of them have not been granted the Kuwaiti nationality nor passport and are left with no identity they call them the (Bidoon) meaning (without), many of them also consider themselves Iraqis and not Kuwaitis.
The Baath party when it came to power never ever claimed Kuwait back, it was the party before that had claimed Kuwait and that is Prime Minister Kassim, as for Bahrain...History states that 7000 years ago Bahrain was a Babylonian cemetery where they buried there Kings and royal family members. If the Shah gave up Bahrain to the Saudis and took the 3 isles...why do the Iranians claim Bahrain now? Or more exactly they hint in newspaper articles that Bahrain is Iranian soil, does it mean that whenever a person takes over power, all the agreements and laws issued by the person before him are cancelled? If it’s this way...people of the land will be confused and there will always be political struggles that are more likely to erupt a war. Don’t get me wrong, I do not dislike the Iranians...they have a very rich history, culture and customs I am very fond of, I only dislike the government.

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