[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 110 (Wednesday, July 23, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9747-S9748]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE DEATH OF QUSAY AND UDAY HUSSEIN

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, normally in our country we don't 
applaud the death of anyone. We value life greatly. But today we do 
indeed applaud the death, the removal, of two of the most vicious 
criminals who ever lived. Yesterday we heard confirmation that the 
101st Airborne--I can proudly say headquartered in Fort Campbell, KY--
in a raid on a house in Mosul, killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, two of 
the biggest monsters who ever walked the face of the Earth.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two Associated Press 
obituaries be printed in the Record at this point, but I want to take a 
look at those obituaries because I think they tell you a lot about what 
this war was all about.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Odai Hussein, Oldest Son of Saddam

       Baghdad, Iraq.--Odai Hussein, the murderous and erratic 
     oldest son of Saddam Hussein, controlled propaganda in Iraq 
     and allegedly oversaw the torture of athletes who failed to 
     perform.
       The 39-year-old is No. 3 on the list of 55 most-wanted men 
     from the former Iraqi regime--only Saddam and younger brother 
     Qusai ranked higher. The three also are on a U.S. list of 
     former regime members who could be tried for war crimes.
       As head of the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary 
     unit, Odai helped his father eliminate opponents and exert 
     iron-fisted control over Iraq's 25 million people. The eldest 
     of Saddam's five children, Odai was elected to parliament in 
     1999 with a reported 99 percent of the vote, but he rarely 
     attended parliament sessions.
       Iraqi exiles say Odai murdered at will and tortured with 
     zeal, and routinely ordered his guards to snatch young women 
     off the street so he could rape them. The London-based human-
     rights group Indict said Odai ordered prisoners to be dropped 
     into acid baths as punishment.
       The Caligula-like Odai seemed proud of his reputation and 
     called himself Abu Sarhan, an Arabic term for ``wolf.''
       But his tendency toward erratic brutality even exasperated 
     Saddam, who temporarily banished Odai to Switzerland after 
     the younger Hussein killed one of his father's favorite 
     bodyguards in 1988.
       The bodyguard, a young man named Kamel Gegeo, arranged 
     trysts for the Iraqi president--notably with one woman who 
     later became Saddam's second wife. Worried that his father's 
     relationship with the woman could threaten his own position 
     as heir, Odai beat Gegeo to death with a club in full view of 
     guests at a high-society party, according to some reports. 
     Other reports said Odai killed Gegeo with an electric carving 
     knife.
       Odai has once been a strong candidate to succeed his 
     father, but he was badly injured in 1996 in an assassination 
     attempt by gunmen who opened fire as he drove his red Porsche 
     through Baghdad. The attack left Odai with a bullet in his 
     spine that forced him to walk with a cane. Younger brother 
     Qusai was instead groomed to succeed Saddam, worsening 
     already uneasy relations between the two brothers.
       Odai owned Iraq's most widely circulated daily newspaper, 
     Babil, which he used as a platform for regime propaganda, 
     published signed editorials full of bombastic rhetoric. He 
     also oversaw Al-Zawra, a weekly published by the journalists 
     union that he headed, and owned the popular Youth TV.
       Much of Odai's notoriety abroad stemmed from his position 
     as head of the National Iraqi Olympic Committee, which was 
     accused of torturing and jailing athletes.
       The London-based human rights group Indict said the 
     committee once made a group of track athletes crawl on newly 
     poured asphalt while they were beaten and threw some of them 
     off a bridge. Indict also said Odai ran a special prison for 
     athletes who offended him. The International Olympic 
     Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, said earlier this year 
     that it was investigating the allegations.
       One defector told Indict that jailed soccer players were 
     forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 
     1994 World Cup finals. Another defector said athletes were 
     dragged through a gravel pit and then dunked in a sewage tank 
     so infection would set in.
       Army officers also were fair game for Odai's outbursts of 
     violence. In 1983, Odai reportedly bashed an army officer 
     unconscious when the man refused to allow Odai to dance with 
     his wife. The officer later died. Odai also shot an army 
     officer who did not salute him.
       Things were hardly better on the family front, where 
     relations between Odai and his uncles were especially bad. 
     Oadi reportedly divorced the daughter of one uncle, Barzan 
     Ibrahim Hasan, in 1995 after she complained of being beaten. 
     Odai shot and wounded another uncle, Watban Ibrahim Hasan. 
     Both uncles were captured after the war and are in the 
     custody of U.S. coalition forces.
       While millions of Iraqis suffered dire poverty, Odai lived 
     a life of fast cars, expensive liquor and easy women. When 
     U.S. troops captured his mansion in Baghdad, they found a 
     personal zoo with lions and cheetahs, an underground parking 
     garage for his collection of luxury cars, Cuban cigars with 
     his name on the wrapper, and $1 million in fine wines, 
     liquor--and even heroin.
       Odai's obsession with sex was evident everywhere: The house 
     was adorned with paintings of naked women and photographs of 
     prostitutes taken off the Internet, complete with handwritten 
     ratings of each.
       There were bags and boxes of pills and medicines 
     everywhere--ginseng sexual fortifiers, heartburn medication, 
     the anti-depressant Prozac--and an Accu-Rite HIV Antibodies 
     Screening Test Kit was in Odai's office.
       Nearby was a domed house believed to be the residence of 
     Odai's concubines, a bastion of bad taste with statuettes of 
     couples in foreplay, couches with fluffy pillows and a 
     swimming pool with a bar.
                                  ____


                  Qusai Hussein, Younger Son of Saddam

       Baghdad, Iraq.--Qusai Hussein, Saddam Hussein's younger 
     son, held wide-ranging powers over the nation's ruthless 
     security apparatus that made him one of the most feared men 
     in Iraq.
       Qusai is No. 2 on the U.S.-led coalition forces' list of 
     the 55 most wanted men from the former Iraqi regime, behind 
     only Saddam himself. He is also on a Bush administration list 
     of former Iraqi regime members who could be tried for war 
     crimes.
       Quiet, handsome and every bit as brutal as Saddam, the 37-
     year-old Qusai headed Iraq's intelligence and security 
     services, his father's personal security force and the 
     Republican Guard, an elite force of 80,000 soldiers 
     responsible for defending Baghdad.
       He stayed out of the public eye and led a substantially 
     more subdued private life than his older brother Odai, who 
     collected luxury cars by the hundreds and had a habit of 
     ordering his guards to snatch young women off the street in 
     order to rape them. Iraqis nicknamed Qusai ``The Snake'' for 
     his bloodthirsty but low-profile manner.
       Qusai was far more trusted by his father and appeared to be 
     his heir before the regime crumbled. In televised meeting 
     with top security and military men, Qusai was seated next to 
     his father, wearing well-tailored suits and dutifully noting 
     his father's every word.
       An exiled dissident told The Associated Press that only 
     Qusai and Saddam's private secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-
     Tikriti, who was captured in June, were kept informed of 
     Saddam's whereabouts. Odai was thought to be too reckless to 
     be trusted with such information.
       Experts do not believe Qusai played a significant role in 
     the Gulf War of 1991. But he was a leading figure of terror 
     in the conflict's aftermath, using mass executions and 
     torture to crush the Shiite Muslim uprising after that war.
       Qusai also helped engineer the destruction of the southern 
     marshes in the 1990s, an action aimed at Shiite ``Marsh 
     Arabs'' living there.
       The marshes--roughly 3,200 square miles--had provided the 
     necessities of life for tens of thousands of marsh dwellers 
     for at least 1,000 years. The area was destroyed through a 
     large-scale water diversion project intended to remove the 
     ability of insurgents to hide there.
       Qusai also oversaw Iraq's notorious detention centers and 
     is believed to have initiated ``prison cleansing''--a means 
     of relieving severe overcrowding in jails with arbitrary 
     killings.
       Citing testimony from former Iraqi intelligence officers 
     and other state employees, New York-based Human Rights Watch 
     said several thousand inmates were executed at Iraq's prisons 
     over the past several years.
       Prisoners were often eliminated with a bullet to the head, 
     but one witness told the London-based human rights group 
     Indict that inmates were sometimes murdered by being dropped 
     into shredding machines. Some prisoners went in head first 
     and died quickly, while others were put in feet first and 
     died screaming. The witness said that on at least one 
     occasion, Qusai supervised shredding-machine murders.
       On another occasion, a witness said, an inmate's foot was 
     cut off in prison torture room while Qusai was present. ``The 
     amputation had been carried out with a power saw during his 
     torture under the direct supervision of Qusai,'' the witness 
     told Indict.
       Qusai was made chief of the army branch for the ruling 
     Baath party in 2000, meaning virtually all the army's 
     movements were under his supervision. Just before this year's

[[Page S9748]]

     war began, he was put in charge of defending the nation's 
     capital and heartland.
       Qusai was spared any real combat during the 1980-88 Iran-
     Iraq war, although state television showed him conferring 
     with commanders. He did not do any of the compulsory military 
     service required of most Iraqi men.
       Qusai wed the daughter of a respected senior military 
     commander. The couple, who later separated, had two 
     daughters.

  Mr. McCONNELL. First, let's take a look at Qusay Hussein. Qusay was 
No. 2 on our list of 55 most wanted men from the former Iraqi regime, 
behind only his father Saddam. He is also on the Bush administration 
list of former Iraqi regime members who could have been tried for war 
crimes. Let's take a look at what he did, not only to help control the 
regime but apparently also for his own personal amusement. The AP says:

       Quiet, handsome, and every bit as brutal as Saddam, the 37-
     year-old Qusai headed Iraq's intelligence and security 
     services, his father's personal security force and the 
     Republican Guard, [which we all know was supposedly] an elite 
     group of 80,000 soldiers responsible for defending Baghdad.

  That was his portfolio in the regime.

       Iraqis nicknamed Qusay ``The Snake'' for his bloodthirsty 
     but low-profile manner. He was a leading figure of terror in 
     the conflict aftermath of the gulf war in 1991, using mass 
     executions and torture to crush the Shiite Muslim uprising 
     after the Persian Gulf war.

  The AP says Qusay also helped engineer the destruction of the 
southern marshes in the 1990s aimed at Shiite Marsh Arabs who had lived 
there for over 1,000 years.

       Qusay also oversaw Iraq's notorious detention centers and 
     was believed to have initiated ``prison cleansing''--a means 
     of relieving severe overcrowding in jails.

  That is a unique way to deal with jail overcrowding--the way they did 
it in Iraq--by eliminating the prisoners.

       Citing testimony from former Iraqi intelligence officers 
     and other state employees, New York-based Human Rights Watch 
     said several thousand inmates were executed at Iraq's prisons 
     over the past several years.

  One of the things Qusay liked to do in overseeing these prison 
executions was to feed the prisoners into shredders. The lucky 
prisoners were the ones who got fed into the shredders head first 
because they died quickly. The unlucky prisoners were the ones who were 
fed into shredders feet first.
  This was Qusay Hussein--eliminated by the 101st Airborne yesterday, 
No. 2 on our list of most wanted from the Saddam Hussein regime.

       Qusay was made chief of the army branch for the ruling 
     Baath Party in 2000, meaning virtually all of the movements 
     were under his supervision.

  This man was a complete monster. Thanks to the 101st Airborne, he is 
no longer able to terrorize Iraqi citizens.

       Let's take a look at Uday, No. 3 on the list, the murderous 
     and erratic oldest son of Saddam Hussein.

  He controlled the propaganda in Iraq and allegedly oversaw the 
torture of athletes who failed to perform. Talk about an incentive. In 
Iraq, if you were an athlete and you didn't measure up, you got to meet 
Uday Hussein, No. 3 on the most wanted list, only eclipsed by his 
younger brother, whose activities I just described, and his father, who 
is No. 1 on the list.

       Uday was head of the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam unit. 
     Uday helped his father eliminate opponents and exert iron-
     fisted control over the 25 million people in Iraq. Iraqi 
     exiles tell us that Uday murdered at will and tortured with 
     zeal--

  Murdered at will and tortured with zeal, and routinely ordered his 
guards to snatch young women off the streets--routinely ordered his 
guards to attack young women on the streets--to bring them in for his 
personal pleasure. So he was raping them.
  Uday was fascinated with prisoners as well. Like his younger brother, 
he would order the prisoners to be dropped into acid baths as 
punishment. His tendency toward erratic brutality even eclipsed his 
father's. That is pretty hard to imagine--that you could be so 
outrageous and so brutal that you could outrate Saddam Hussein. But 
apparently that is what happened. He was temporarily banished after he 
killed one of his father's favorite bodyguards in 1988.

       Much of Uday's notoriety abroad stemmed from his position 
     as head of the National Iraqi Olympic Committee, which was 
     accused of torturing and jailing athletes. The London-based 
     human rights group Indict said the committee once made a 
     group of track athletes crawl on newly poured asphalt while 
     they were beaten, and he also threw some of them off a 
     bridge. Indict also said Uday ran a special prison for 
     athletes who offended him.

  This was Uday Hussein.

       One defector told Indict that jailed soccer players were 
     forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 
     1994 World Cup finals. Another defector said athletes were 
     dragged through a gravel pit and then dunked in a sewage tank 
     so that infection would set in.
       While millions of Iraqis suffered dire poverty, Uday lived 
     a life of fast cars and expensive liquor. When U.S. troops 
     captured his mansion in Baghdad, they found a personal zoo.

  The man had his own personal zoo with lions and cheetahs--

     and an underground parking garage for his collection of 
     luxury cars, Cuban cigars with his name on the wrapper, and 
     $1 million in fine wines, liquor, and even heroin.

  This was Uday Hussein.
  In this country, we rarely applaud the deaths of anyone. But these 
two monsters--No. 2 and No. 3 on the list of the regime that we are 
tracking in Iraq--will no longer be able to prey on the citizens of 
Iraq for their own amusement. No longer will Iraqis live in fear of 
night-time visits from the Fedayeen and the secret police. No longer 
will Iraqi athletes fear being tortured for failure to win a soccer 
game. No longer will young Iraqi brides be forcibly taken from their 
families on their wedding day to be exploited by Uday Hussein.
  Knowing what we now know about the Saddam Hussein regime and its 
penchant for brutality, it is abundantly clear that as a result of 
ridding Iraq of this evil Iraqi, the world is a better place.
  Are we finished with the job in Iraq? Not yet. But yesterday was a 
day of great progress. No. 2 and No. 3 are no longer available to prey 
on the citizens of Iraq. We believe No. 1--Saddam Hussein--is still 
alive. And we are on his trail. And he will been brought to justice.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, what is the regular order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute 45 seconds remain under the control 
of the minority.
  Mr. REID. I yield back that time.

                          ____________________