Uday's palace

Abu Halima, of course, was luckier than most, according to the British newspaper the Telegraph, in a July 24, 2003 profile of Uday, in June 1997, just one month after Uday was discharged from the hospital where he had been treated for wound sustained in the ill fated assassination attempt, he shot and killed a young body guard. A week after that, the newspaper reported, Uday was alleged to have killed a young woman at the presidential palace after she resisted his sexual advances. His violence continued unabated, right up until the American led invasion of Iraq.

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And when that invasion sent Saddam and his family underground, coalition forces made his apprehension a top priority. A $30 million bounty was placed on the heads of both Uday and Qusay Hussein, the second and third most wanted men in post-Saddam Iraq. Only their father, who later surrendered to American forces after he was pulled, bearded, bedraggled and disoriented out of a remote spider hole, was worth more.

Uday Hussein, U.S. deck of cards

The reward, it seemed, paid off. On July 22, 2003, a tip from a neighbor, led American forces to surround a nondescript villa in Northern Iraq where Uday and Qusay, together with Uday's son Mustapha, had taken refuge.

Unlike their father, who would give up without a struggle, the two men and the boy, by all accounts, put up fierce resistance, but in the end, proved no match for the overwhelming American fire power.

Saddam Hussein, after his capture

Within hours of their death, it was reported that celebratory gunfire had echoed through the streets of Baghdad, the same streets that Uday Hussein had terrorized for years. And American officials hailed the raid. A White House press release, issued the day of the raids all but crowed over the elimination of Uday and his brother. "Over the period of many years, these two individuals were responsible for countless atrocities committed against the Iraqi people and they can no longer cast a shadow of hate on Iraq," the statement began. "U.S. military forces and our intelligence community, working with an Iraqi citizen, deserve credit for today's successful action. While there is still much work to do in Iraq, the Iraqi people can see progress each day toward a better and more prosperous future for their country."

Authorities had expressed hope that the deaths would sap the burgeoning Iraqi insurgency, and lead to a period of calm. But as Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations put it, "it was wishful thinking to think that the deaths of Uday and Qusay would have some kind of meaningful impact on the insurgency."

Perhaps he is right.

In the two years since the brothers' deaths, the insurgency in Iraq has continued to exact terrible casualties, both among coalition soldiers and average Iraqis. On Sept. 29 alone, three separate suicide bombers around the country killed at least 60 people and wounded 70 more, and in the western Iraqi town of Ramadi, a roadside bomb killed five American soldiers, bringing to 1,934 the number of US servicemen and women to die in Iraq. The vast majority of them have died since Uday Hussein was slain.

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