Post, the founding director of the CIA’s Center for Personality and Clinical Behavior, has made a career out of preparing psychological profiles of foreign leaders, including Saddam.
A Yale-trained psychiatrist, Post is now director of the political psychology program at George Washington University. But when he established the CIA center in the early 1970s, Post was advising presidents and State Department officials on the mental quirks of foreign leaders. He is the editor of the recently published book “The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders, With Profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton” (University of Michigan Press).
Post, who has been watching Saddam for years, spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about what the interview revealed about Iraq’s president–and whether he’s likely to accept exile as an option.
NEWSWEEK: How did Saddam come across? What was his body language telling you?
Jerrold Post: He was kind of stiff. He certainly didn’t seem under huge stress, no more than any major interview. He conveyed a sense of optimism and relaxation in front of his people. The couple of times Hussein spun up was on the missile issue when he said, “What missiles? We don’t have any such missiles.”
Do you think he might have scored any propaganda points by appearing composed–as opposed to the paranoid crazy that many Americans consider him to be?
You’re probably a better judge of that than I. I think he did successfully convey a sense of reasonableness, and someone [who] can work things out with a reasonable person: “Why do we need to go to war? And if we do go to war, we do it with dignity.”
Dan Rather actually looked more tense than Saddam.
I think there was a certain degree of tension. It was an important interview. I do think there’s an intense interest in the after-interview, when Saddam was interviewing Rather about American opinion. He has to be taking great heart from the worldwide antiwar demonstrations. He was able to play to the American and international public, and perhaps magnify the antiwar sentiment.
Saddam even issued a challenge to debate President George W. Bush.
He raises himself to the stature of Bush, and if Bush were to accept it becomes Bush versus Hussein. It provides great status to him for standing up to the president of the most powerful nation on earth.
Did you learn anything new from the interview, compared to the 1990 interview with Dan Rather? Any insights into the psychological evolution of Saddam?
I was struck by how composed he was and how determined. This man is not a madman by any means. He indicated he would not burn his own oil fields, but I am not so sure about that. If he was going down, he could assuredly do this last act of narcissistic rage: “If I’m not going to have it nobody will.” If you can compare this with the ‘90 interview, there’s a lot of Islamic language here now. He has re-Islamicized Iraq–he now ostentatiously prays five times a day, he says he has a Qur’an written in his own blood. This ostentatious Islamic stuff is meant to help capture the Islamic world, to say “This conflict is really to kill Muslims, and I am the true Islamic leader.”
What does that suggest to you about his relationship with Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden?
There’s no love lost between them. In many ways it is the narcissistic sibling rivalry of who’s the biggest leader in radical Islam. There has been longstanding bad blood between them, and there’s no reason to think they are closely cooperating.
Saddam said Iraq was not defeated in the Persian Gulf War and gave an elaborate justification for that claim. Did he come across as out of touch with reality? Was it political propaganda?
I thought that was quite striking. He has constructed a victory for Iraq. We do have to look at victory from the Arab point of view–to have the courage to stand up to the most powerful country in the world is a very big prestige issue. They have lost the battle, but by no means the war. This is a battle in a continuing war. Indeed, 12 years later he is still there and George Herbert Walker Bush lost [his] next election.
And yet, at one point, he interrupted his interpreter by telling him to call the president’s father “Mr. Bush,” as opposed to just “Bush.” Did that come across as strange to you?
That was interesting. It is what led Rather to ask him about his English capability. That told me he had rather better English than he sometimes indicated. And attaching the respectful “Mr.” to “Bush” was the whole issue of dignity and civility. It was rather positive in that sense, in terms of the things he had been saying about how the U.S. is evil. Now, [he’s saying,] we have to work out our differences as world leaders.
What did you make of his requirement that the interview could only be filmed by an Iraqi crew rather than a team from CBS? Was he being paranoid or is that a sensible precaution for someone so concerned about propaganda and assassination?
He has always had a strong paranoid streak. His sons have to write a letter, I understand, to request an interview, and it takes him up to six weeks to reply. This was an example of heightened paranoid defensiveness–his own readiness to have a false program generated by himself. But Rather indicated [the videotape] was totally intact.
What about his wearing civilian clothes instead of a military uniform? What did his attire suggest to you?
The theory is that after 1990, he succeeded to a role, namely of world-class world leader. He’s not the military combatant. Here, he’s a world leader. That’s the role he’s trying to establish.
After having assessed his current state of mind, what do you make of the speculation around Saddam Hussein going into hiding or exile?
The chances are zero to none. He really confirmed that in the interview–he was stressing honor and dignity. The only meaningful life for him is a life in power.
