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introduction
Saddam Hussein was a world-renowned legend, known as the world's last hero. He single-handedly developed Iraq's military power to the forefront of the world, which once made the United States fearful, fearing that Saddam Hussein would eventually become the next Hitler and retaliate against the United States.
Under the pretext of starting the Iraq war, the United States formally executed 69-year-old Saddam Hussein on Iraqi territory in 2006. However, after that, there was still a lot of information that Saddam Hussein had as many as 6 stand-ins, and it was only one of Saddam's stand-ins who was executed by the United States.
(Saddam Hussein)
This issue will take you to explore the legend behind Saddam, was Saddam really captured by the US military?
1. Saddam Hussein, who is "afraid of death"
Most of the world's evaluations of Saddam Hussein are polarized.
Saddam Hussein climbed from an ordinary person to the position of Iraqi president, and then raised Iraq's military strength to the forefront of the world, for Iraq, Saddam Hussein has made many contributions.
But in the whole world, Saddam Hussein's tyranny at home and launched the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War, which also has certain historical mistakes.
Therefore, many people define Saddam Hussein as a generation of heroes.
(Photo of Saddam Hussein attending the event)
Saddam Hussein was born in 1937 in a small village in Iran and grew up living an ordinary life, studying and working. It wasn't until he was 20 years old that he made the decision to change the trajectory of his life and join the Arab Baath Party.
Saddam Hussein was later wanted after participating in the Baath Party's mission to assassinate Iraq's prime minister and was forced to flee to Syria and Egypt. Even while on the run, Saddam Hussein continued his further studies and rose rapidly through the ranks of the party, becoming the top leader of the Baath Party in more than 10 years.
Just a week after Saddam Hussein came to power, new policies were introduced to govern the government and civilians well.
To sum up, the centralization of power and the soft policy have made Iraq uneven and developed rapidly in the short term. However, under the high-intensity management, there have also been many voices of opposition in the country, and various protest forces have sprung up, and even frequently want to assassinate Saddam.
This also made Saddam afraid of appearing in various public places, so he began to look for a stand-in to attend various events in his place.
(Photo of Saddam Hussein on the front line)
Shortly after Saddam became president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein found a stand-in who looked somewhat similar to him. When going to some slums where security forces are not too strong, Saddam Hussein would let substitutes go for fear of assassination by opposition elements lurking in the ghetto.
Since most of the stand-ins went to the slums, there was little media coverage, and most of the other public occasions were attended by Saddam Hussein himself, so most of the people did not find out about the existence of Saddam's stand-ins in the early days.
It wasn't until the second year of Saddam Hussein's rise to power that Iraq launched an Iran-Iraq war against Iran.
After the war began, the number of people who wanted to assassinate Saddam at home and abroad surged, and at the same time, there was turmoil in Iraq and unstable areas everywhere, which made Saddam, who had come to power by assassination, deeply uneasy, so he began his own substitute army plan.
(Saddam stand-in interviewed)
2. Saddam's 6 stand-ins
At the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein personally went to the village of Dujar, near the front line, to give a speech in order to encourage his soldiers. On the way back, he was attacked by rocket artillery.
Saddam, who narrowly escaped, slaughtered the entire village in a fit of anger because he did not catch the terrorist who attacked him. This experience of slaughtering villages also became the reason why "Saddam" was sentenced to death in the Iraq War.
After this attack, Saddam Hussein was like a frightened bird, afraid to easily appear in public. Some of the places that had to be visited were also directly attended by the newly trained stand-ins, and even later, after multiple doubles were all able to deal perfectly with the media and the public, Saddam Hussein never appeared in public again.
According to the recollections of one of Saddam's stand-ins, Mehaim Ramadan, he was brought to Saddam Hussein long before the Iran-Iraq War and became one of Saddam's many stand-ins.
(Soldiers on the ruins after the war)
Mehail, who was a teacher earlier, was later found by Saddam Hussein, and he could not refuse to become a "president" of Iraq.
As a presidential stand-in, Mehhail's daily task is to watch all the news about Saddam in public places, understand Saddam's every move, and even record every movement of Saddam Hussein when he smokes.
When Mehail arrived at the special room of the presidential stand-in to study, he found that there were as many as 5 people who looked exactly like him.
In addition to his verbal demeanor, Saddam Hussein found the top cosmetic surgeons from Germany to help the stand-ins go one step further and perform many facial surgeries, including bone grinding, tattoos and so on. Looking at the face alone, the public can hardly tell the difference between Saddam and the stand-ins.
After months of training, Mehair was able to visit his first trip as president, and after attending several events, he found that even if he made occasional mistakes, the public could not tell that he was a fake president.
(Photo of Saddam Hussein attending the event)
So Mehail gradually began to enjoy his presidency. Even during a visit to a post-war hospital to offer condolences, Mehail found that a doctor treated wounded soldiers with a very bad attitude, which immediately annoyed Mehail.
The angry Mehair cursed the doctor and even called for his removal. However, after Mehail vented his anger, looking at the strange eyes of the entourage around him, Mehail also woke up from the role of president at once, only to remember that he was just a stand-in.
Mehail originally thought that he would be punished by the president, but things turned out beyond his expectations. Because of his true feelings, the people felt very warm about the president's concern for soldiers, which made Saddam Hussein have a good reputation for a while, and Saddam Hussein happily rewarded Mekhail.
(Iran-Iraq War)
But just as the so-called companion is like a companion tiger, not to mention that Saddam is still a tyrant.
After Mehair attended an event, he was attacked by the opposition, except for Mehail, all the entourage was killed, and Mehail was also imprisoned as a bargaining chip for the opposition.
Later, the opposition camp was attacked by government forces, and Mehail was rescued, but Mehail's family was not so lucky.
Because Mehail's brother-in-law joined the rebels, the Mehail family was arrested. Despite Mehhail's pleas with Saddam, Saddam ruthlessly killed the family.
Since then, Mehail has been like the walking dead, no longer worried about when he will be able to escape here.
(Gulf War)
Fortunately, at an event after the Gulf War, Mehail was seriously injured in the attack, and after being taken to the hospital, he met a nurse who rescued him from suffering.
After learning what happened to Mehhail, the kind nurse offered to help Mehail escape to the United States. After in-depth communication with the female nurse, Mehail did not suspect that he fled to the United States with the female nurse at night and began to live incognito.
Third, Saddam Hussein was really arrested?
After Saddam Hussein came to power, a series of strong policies have greatly improved Iraq's military strength in a short period of time, and at the same time gave Saddam Hussein great confidence.
So the year after Saddam Hussein came to power, he launched an Iran-Iraq war against Iran, wanting to unify Arab countries. Although Iraq's military strength is stronger than Iran's, it has some advantages in the early stage, but after Iraq is dragged into a tug-of-war by Iran, the advantage is minimal.
The battle lasted eight years and did not end until 1988. Whether war is just or unjust, it is inevitable that labor and wealth will be lost, because of the war, Saddam Hussein has also been opposed by many forces at home and abroad.
This period was the peak of Saddam's assassination. Stand-in Mehair was also arrested during the Iran-Iraq War when he was ambushed by opposition forces.
(Photo of Saddam Hussein in middle age)
After the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein did not die, but launched the Gulf War to invade Kuwait, which attracted a joint attack from the United States and other countries.
After the Gulf War, Saddam, who was beaten fat by the United States, had a sharp decline in his reputation at home. Therefore, more and more people at home and abroad want to assassinate Saddam, and even the United States wants to directly assassinate and kill Saddam Hussein in private.
However, because Saddam Hussein is very good at winning the hearts and minds of the people, even after provoking the United States, Saddam's support rate at home is still more than 50%. Although Saddam still has many supporters, there are also a large number of extreme opponents, who desperately hope that Saddam Hussein will step down as soon as possible, even to the point of carrying out suicide attacks.
After Saddam Hussein developed steadily for several years, he was re-elected twice as president, and the previous two wars did not subdue Saddam Hussein, so Saddam Hussein clamored to develop weapons of mass destruction, which became the reason for the United States to launch the Iraq war.
In 2003, the Iraq War broke out, and the United Nations forces led by the United States invaded Iraq. A large number of anti-Saddam forces in Iraq also became the help of the US military, so in a short time, the Iraqi army was defeated.
(Photo of Saddam Hussein attending the event)
Saddam Hussein was also captured by the US military while fleeing. According to the US military, Saddam Hussein was caught because Saddam Hussein accidentally used electronic devices to be discovered by the US military during the flight.
(Iraq post-war housing)
However, a Russian official later revealed that the US military could capture Saddam Hussein because someone in Saddam's entourage had snitched, and the reason why the United States made up the reason was to swallow the large amount of wealth that Saddam took away when he fled.
Either way, Saddam Hussein was caught. Before Saddam Hussein was captured, the U.S. military had executed several Saddam Hussein, but all of them proved to be mere stand-ins.
Therefore, the outside world also gave Saddam a nickname, called "Saddam Hussein who cannot be killed". So is the capture of Saddam Hussein real this time?
In order to confirm whether the Saddam Hussein captured this time is himself, the United States also issued a blood cost, offering a reward of $15 million for Saddam's son Uday, wanting to directly do DNA comparison.
(Saddam Huday's son Uday)
Fourth, the U.S. military and the Iraqi people have their own words
Long before Saddam's defeat, for the safety of his children, Saddam Hussein sent his family out of the country early, and only Saddam's son Uday and three others remained in the country.
Before fleeing, in order to distract the target, Saddam Hussein sent his son Uday and three others to his cousin's house. Therefore, the US military received the whistleblower and did not capture any of Saddam's relatives after arresting Saddam.
In order to calm public opinion, the US military directly offered a sky-high $15 million wanted son Uday, just to verify whether Saddam Hussein was played by Saddam again this time and arrested a fake Saddam.
(Saddam Hussein on trial)
There will be a brave man under the heavy money, Saddam's cousin is also a little unable to walk when he sees $15 million, plus Saddam Hussein's general trend is gone, and it is useless to hide this former Iraqi "demon prince", it is better to exchange him for the rest of his life.
In this way, Saddam's son Uday was personally delivered to the US military by his cousin. The U.S. military compared Saddam's DNA with Uday's, confirming that it was indeed Saddam Hussein himself who was caught this time.
Despite what the U.S. military said, the Iraqi people still have many questions.
(Saddam Hussein after his arrest)
The first is that when Saddam Hussein was arrested, his whole person was sloppy, like a homeless man. The U.S. military insulted the captured Saddam, but Saddam Hussein did not resist.
Even when the American flag was inserted into Saddam's underwear, Saddam Hussein did not resist, and he did not look like the spirited Saddam Hussein.
The second is that after Saddam's arrest, one of Saddam's former mistresses said that the arrest was just a stand-in for Saddam, because the real Saddam Hussein had two unique spot-like tattoos on his left arm, but the arrested Saddam Hussein did not. At the same time, Saddam's teeth are not the same as those of the arrested Saddam.
For these doubts, the US military did not come out to respond, which also provoked rumors among the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein was not dead for a long time.
(Iraqis tear down Saddam Hussein's statue)
But it is not the duty of the US military to convince everyone in the world that Saddam Hussein was really killed. The U.S. military only needs to show the Iraqi people and convince most of the Iraqi population that Saddam Hussein is dead.
After all, everyone knows that the US military paid $15 million to arrest Saddam's son Uday. Only when Saddam Hussein died, the war in Iraq could end.
Even if Saddam Hussein was really on the run, Saddam Hussein was 69 years old at the time and lost the support of the army, what kind of turmoil could this old man make? Do you think that Saddam, who was executed by the US military, is really Saddam?
Resources
Conspiracy theories go viral, throw three major pieces of evidence, substitute on behalf of Saddam on the gallows? [OL].Chu Tianjin News,2007-01-08
Was Saddam really put to death? The mistress called the deceased a stand-in [OL].Dagong.com,2013-09-29