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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

Clues From Saddam's Daughters?

Aired August 1, 2003 - 07:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Saddam's two eldest daughters have found refuge in Jordan. The Jordanian government says it offered them a haven as a humanitarian gesture. Neither was sought by the U.S. military.
So, what are the chances that they'll have anything significant to say about their father's whereabouts?

Joining us this morning from Washington, D.C., CNN analyst Ken Pollack of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.

Good morning to you, Ken. Nice to see you, as always. Thanks for joining us.

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's first and foremost begin with this tape. As we've just heard from Rym, it's sort of a new spin, not only energizing supporters, but also saying, I will return to power. What do you think the impact of that and those words really is?

POLLACK: Well, Saddam is clearly feeling the heat. He has not had a very good July. His family seems to be collapsing on him. U.S. forces are making real inroads into the numbers of his personnel who seem to be out there still. And I think that this is Saddam's effort to try to convince Iraqis that he is not out. He is a little bit on the ropes at the moment, but he's going to come back, and they shouldn't assume that he's gone forever and out of their lives.

He needs to continue to convince his supporters that there is hope that he will come back. He needs to continue to convince the rest of the Iraqi people, the vast majority of the Iraqi people, to continue to fear him and not collaborate actively with the United States.

O'BRIEN: Two of Saddam Hussein's three daughters have sought refuge and been given refuge in Jordan, and military authorities have previously said they didn't think the women could really add anything. Do you think they need to talk to them? Or do you think they can glean any information from them?

POLLACK: Well, my guess is that the U.S. will want to talk to the two oldest daughters, because it's possible that they will have some information. But chances are, they're not going to have a lot. They didn't have a lot to do with their father, especially since he had their husbands killed back in 1996. They were not known to be traveling with him now, so they probably don't have a whole lot of information about his whereabouts and his movements and his operating behavior today.

But the defection to Jordan is actually still important, and it gets back to this issue of the audio tape that Saddam just released. It's important to remember that Saddam is an Arab tribal father, and in Arab tribal society, the behavior of daughters, the behavior of women, is very important to the honor of the men in the family. The fact that his two daughters defected to the king of Jordan is another tremendous blow to Saddam's honor. And he and other Iraqis are going to see that as more signs that his support network is collapsing around him.

O'BRIEN: The women have had, I think fair to say, a bizarre relationship with their father. He had their husbands killed back in 1995 in odd circumstances. Describe a little for us the background on that, Ken.

POLLACK: Sure. Well, what happened was that in August 1995, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, who was also the head of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, decided that things were getting a little bit too hot in Baghdad. He was fighting with Saddam's oldest son, Uday, and he decided to flee. And he took with him his brother, his oldest brother, Saddam Kamal, who was one of Saddam's bodyguards, and their two wives, who just happened to be Saddam's two oldest daughters.

They all fled to Jordan. They sat in Jordan for about six months, until the rest of the world decided that Hussein Kamal was a thug and an idiot, and didn't want to have anything to do with him, at which point in time Saddam called him up and said basically, if you come back home, all will be forgiven.

In an act of incredibly poor judgment, Hussein Kamal took Saddam up on the offer, even though apparently everyone else, including the two girls, were telling him don't do it, you can't trust Saddam's word. Nevertheless, he went back, and two days after returning to Baghdad, Uday and Qusay led a raid by the other members of Saddam's family on the complex where they were all staying, and killed the two sons-in-law, the two husbands of these women, and their father.

O'BRIEN: How have the women been living since 1995? Some have said under virtual house arrest. Is that accurate?

POLLACK: Yes, our understanding is that they were very much estranged from their father. They were not very happy about the deaths of their husbands. They were deeply estranged from their father. They were kept in places where they had some degree of freedom and were allowed to live a nice life, but they certainly weren't given any freedom. And it seems that Saddam was very concerned that they would flee the country.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, Ken Pollack joining us this morning. Thanks, Ken. Nice to see you, as always.

POLLACK: Good to see you, Soledad.

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