(Macmillan, London, October 2002,350pp, £20)
Imagine, dear reader, that your are a fly on the wall in a bunker deep under Baghdad. If, by the time this review reaches you, an Anglo-American army has not overthrown the leader of the Arab Socialist Renaissance (Ba'ath) Party there, and if a Russian hit squad has not already got to him to avert a Western invasion to safeguard Russia's lucrative interests in the country, the following routine takes place every evening in the German-built structure whose precise position, depth and layout is known to your reviewer, let alone to the American and British air forces. The Hero-President, the Saviour of All the Arabs, the successor to Nebuchadnezzar, sits in front of several widescreen television sets with a remote control in his hand and flicking between a number of satellite television news stations, chief among them being America's CNN, Britain's BBC World and the Emirate of Qatar's Al Jazeerah. As he searches impatiently for the mention of his own name or, better still, a large, flattering photograph of himself, he sweats profusely, his back hurts and he worries about his heart. He is taking too many medicines these days. But, at least for the time being, he feels safe here. America's bunker-busting bombs have not started to fall yet and he has made certain of the loyalty of his body guard. Not only are they chosen from among his own tribe, he also pays each one of them twice the salary of a top cabinet minister. They live in large houses in the grounds of the palace with their families and use the capital's best gyms, hospitals, stores and night clubs. In fact, so powerful has he made the barely literate men that most ministers call them "Sir" when they are summoned.
He has taken other precautions, too. For example, he has appointed the son of his personal chef as his food-taster, in the expectation that the cook would not poison his food if he thought he would kill his own son first. Also, everyone allowed into his presence, including his two sons, always pass through a fumigation chamber and wash their hands with a powerful solvent to make certain they do not carry, inadvertently or otherwise, any poisons provided by the Russians or Americans. Ministers remember that they have even been probed in their private parts for concealed weapons.
Recently, he has come to regret increasing Russia's economic stake in Iraq. He offered Moscow contracts worth over £25bn in the southern oil fields in return for the promise that it would work at the United Nations and elsewhere against an American invasion of his lair. But now his informers tell him that the Russians see such an invasion as inevitable, unless they get rid of him first. A change of faces at the top in Baghdad would make it more difficult for the Americans to go on with their plan and, thus, would leave the regime – and Russia's contracts – intact.
Soon, the sweating becomes worse and the great socialist leader, who has stashed away some £130bn for a rainy day abroad, feels the need to relieve the oppression of life underground. He orders that the pretty woman who has been chosen for him for the evening be brought in. She is normally someone whose photograph has been shown to him previously and has excited him. Sometimes, she has been here before and pleased him with her humour and willingness to serve. Most are of the fair-skinned variety. More rarely she is here because her husband or father have not agreed to join the Ba'ath party and need to be humiliated. He is known to have shot some of them for sulking.
One could go on with many more such horror stories to show that in Saddam Hussein we really do have a reincarnation of ancient Babylonian god kings, albeit armed with rockets and VX gas. But any such recounting of the story of the former small-time thug from downtown Baghdad who rose to be the ruler of a medium-sized country would soon become tedious and, so, only a small part of Con Coughlin's book is mercifully about the 'secret life' of the title. In the greater part, it is the story of Iraq and the Middle East in the past half-century, when the Arabs tried a number of panaceas in their dream of catching up and surpassing the old infidel rival in the north. The first step was to throw away the yoke of the Western empires. Then came socialism under Nasser and others. Now a possible solution is seen by the newer, much more numerous generation in the precepts of seventh-century Islam.
At the time of writing, an Anglo-American invasion of Iraq soon seems almost certain and this solid, well-illustrated and profusely annotated book will prove both a work of reference and a gift from heaven as we sit down again in front of our television sets for the latest war reports. Its author, now the executive editor of the Sunday Telegraph, has had many years of covering the Middle East and, for this effort, interviewed many people who played a direct part in the life of Iraq over the past thirty years. Coughlin is to be congratulated for doing a painstaking job and tell it as a story well told. I found I did not want it to come to an end.
By courtesy of the Literary Review, London, February 2003