If one wants to amass power, control of the press is desirable. But an army is essential, and Uday had one. In 1995, he founded the notorious Fedayeen Saddam, which translates into "Men of Sacrifice," an elite army of fanatical Saddam loyalists, estimated by some to have been between 18,000 and 40,000 strong and included among other things, a particularly motivated and enthusiastic death squad which rooted out Saddam's real and perceived enemies.
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| Qusay Hussein |
He proved no more successful at running an army to his father's satisfaction than he had at anything else, however, and a year later Saddam stripped him of control of the special army. According to a report published on the Globalsecurity.org website, "Uday's removal may have stemmed from an incident in March 1996 when Uday transferred sophisticated weapons from Republican Guards to the Saddam Fedayeen without Saddam's knowledge. Control passed to Qusay, further consolidating his responsibility for the Iraqi security apparatus. The deputy commander was Staff Lieutenant General Mezahem Saab Al Hassan Al-Tikriti."
It appears, however, that Uday's fall from grace was again temporary, the website continued. After an appropriate period of time, "according to reports, control of Saddam Hussein's personal militia was later passed back to his eldest son, Uday."
Needless to say, he also had political power. Though his younger brother, who in his later years would adopt his father's mustache, and made a point of being seen smoking Saddam's favorite brand of cigar was the heir apparent, Uday was still a political force to be reckoned with in Iraq. In 2000, for example, perhaps in a bid to shed his playboy image, as the Guardian put it, Uday ran for the National Assembly. Naturally he was elected by a stunning plurality, technically as a representative of his Baghdad district, though according to Globalsecurity.org, it took him more than six months to actually show up for any of the assembly' sessions.
A year later, in what is widely regarded as an embarrassingly obvious attempt to woo the nation's oppressed Shi'ite majority, Uday abandoned his family's adherence to the Sunni tradition and became, technically a Shi'ite.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Uday's conversion did anything to mollify the hatred the Shi'ite majority felt for him.
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