The Insider: Trapped in Saddam's Brutal Regime [Paperback]

Ala Bashir (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2005

Ala Bashir, former Professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Baghdad University and Iraq’s most highly decorated doctor, was Saddam Hussein’s personal physician from 1983 to 2003. From his vantage point as a reluctant “Saddam favorite,” Bashir observed and tracked political events in Baghdad. He also witnessed and recorded the hidden life of Saddam’s regime and family—the fear and the killings, the partying and profligacy, and the total disregard for human life and dignity. When Bashir left Iraq in 2003, he brought his diaries with him. Based on these secret documents, The Insider is the astonishing testimony of a man who found himself an unwilling confidant to one of the most infamous dictators in history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As Saddam Hussein's personal physician, Bashir had unique access to the dictator and his family for 20 turbulent years, and in this darkly comic memoir, he chronicles his time as Hussein's "unwilling confidant," taking the reader into presidential palaces, blood-spattered operating rooms and the streets of sanction-era Baghdad. Bashir grounds Hussein's reign in the context of Mesopotamia's chaotic past before letting loose with a wave of wry, absurdist vignettes (one, for instance, is titled, "Iraq loses the Gulf War. Saddam's little finger bothers him") that depict the Hussein family as a pack of feuding, brooding miscreants, all very at home in an atmosphere where people are jailed, tortured or killed for little or no reason. Bashir further unwittingly endears himself to Hussein through his (judging by his descriptions) garish paintings and sculptures, and received awards, exhibitions and a commission to build a seven-story tall monument. His desiccating wit notwithstanding, Bashir captures unexpectedly tender moments, as when Hussein silently held his son-in-law's hand during an emergency operation. Bashir's sadness at the current state of Iraq is palpable throughout these pages, making for a rewarding and unconventional take on the years leading up to Hussein's toppling.
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Review

Apart from the insights Bashir provides on Saddam, there are also riveting tales of his dealings with other members of the Hussein clan. EVEINING STANDARD

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Product Details

• Paperback: 327 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034911935X
• ISBN-13: 978-0349119359
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 5.5 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,885,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars REVIEW OF ALA BASHIR'S THE INSIDER BY JOHN CHUCKMAN, October 31, 2005

By 

John W. Chuckman (Citylights, Ontario) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Insider: Trapped in Saddam's Brutal Regime (Paperback)

This is an interesting book. Doctor Ala Bashir was as much an insider as it possible to be without being treated as a criminal by Bush's invasion forces. He served as a personal physician to Saddam Hussein for about twenty years. He is also an artist whose work Hussein favored.

This book is not a biography, and it is not a history in any proper sense. Rather, it is a series of anecdotes by an intelligent observer about life in Iraq under Hussein. Internal consistencies and other evidence suggest that this is an honest work, although we would like to read considerably more on some subjects.

In the dark world of dictatorship, to be favored by the leader often means to run into bitter dislike from other members of the regime, and this was certainly Bashir's experience. We are reminded by his anecdotes that dictators often are not aware of all that goes on within various fiefdoms, or if they are aware, they often feel unable to change things - a great irony, yet one confirmed by the lives of many from Hitler to the American Pharaoh, Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago.

Bashir confirms that a good deal of American propaganda gives an inaccurate picture of Hussein. Although Hussein could be ruthless and violent, he had a genuine concern with improving conditions of life for Iraqis, building many hospitals, schools, and cultural institutions. He actually advanced Iraqi women's rights significantly concerning important matters like a woman's right to initiate divorce.

Surprisingly, Hussein could even be a good listener, so long as the subject was not one on which he had made up his mind. Hussein was not a Stalin, and he had no admiration for Hitler. He enjoyed books, particularly history and biography. Bashir is pretty sure from personal experiences that Hussein is not an anti-Semite, but he would not even listen to anyone concerning a change in policy towards Israel.

Many of the problems in Hussein's regime were family problems. Hussein depended on clan and family strongly for loyalty, and he knew perfectly well that this often ended up with less competent people in senior positions. Bashir makes clear that Hussein's son, Uday, was mentally ill, and that on least one occasion Hussein was ready to punish him severely. Yet time usually softened Hussein's temper, and he expressed affection for a pretty-much worthless son.

While we all know that American policy favored Iraq over Iran, contributing to the terrible brutality of their 8-year war, Bashir suggests the CIA was there at the beginning, assisting the coup that led to Hussein's eventual assumption of power.

Those seeking to understand affairs in the Middle East will find this book refreshing, without propaganda or bombast. It is of limited scholarly use, but it is definitely worth reading, its main faults being a limited range of subjects and sketchy coverage.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A missed opportunity, August 16, 2005

By 

Alison (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Insider: Trapped in Saddam's Brutal Regime (Paperback)

Dr. Ala Bashir, an eminent artist-surgeon and the scion of a prominent Shiite family, enjoyed Saddam Hussein's confidence and esteem for twenty years, parting company from him only when Baghdad fell in April 2003. In his conversations with American journalist Jon Lee Anderson and elsewhere, Bashir made illuminating observations about little known aspects of Saddam Hussein's personality, describing him variously as gentle and considerate, sensitive and emotional and as the best listener he had ever known. (He is also on record as saying that Saddam is `clean on the inside'.)

By contrast, this memoir is studiously detached, providing relatively few insights into Saddam Hussein's complex personality or Bashir's friendship with him. He prefers to hide behind a seamless narrative that draws on second hand information as well as personal experience. In that respect the book is a disappointment, a missed opportunity.

While Bashir assumes the role of a neutral witness, his account is subtly slanted. The focus on the dictator's minor ailments against a background of war and sanctions is part of a broader narrative strategy with the aim of belittling Saddam, as is the unseemly preoccupation with the goings on in his extended family and the condescending treatment of his literary endeavours. (Saddam's first novel, `Zabiba and the king' is a thoughtful and moving work, which has been translated into a number of languages, including English.)

While it is to be hoped that Bashir will eventually write a more personal memoir, which reflects on the various dimensions of his own relationship with Saddam, that seems unlikely. It is obviously easier and more lucrative to produce a book like this, which aims to satisfy the expectations of a mass market audience, while skirting difficult questions about Bashir's own role.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saddam; just part of the brutal history of Iraq, June 16, 2006

By 

GMG - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Insider: Trapped in Saddam's Brutal Regime (Paperback)

Ala Bashir presents a quite fascinating and thought provoking diary of critical events in the history of Iraq dating from the first world war until 2003 culminating in the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein. As surgeon, artist and scholar Bashir had access to many members of the ruling elite and presents insights in to their feuds, foibles, atrocities and corruption. Here are unique insights in to the personality of Saddam and his family with Saddam presented as a complex personality ruling through a tribal Tikriti clan, initially dominating the nation but ultimately losing control of his appointees. Bashir writes as a neutral observer whose main concern was for his patients, with clear regret for loss of life, however caused. As Plastic Surgeon his department treated 22,000 injured from the disastrous Iraq Iran War and later observed the deprivations of the civilian population from the sanctions and collapse of infrastructure after the First Gulf War.
Many cruelties of Saddam's regime are exposed, and yet Saddam had some sense of right and wrong punishing by imprisonment his son Uday for killing Saddam's valet. But he later relented, realising his son was insane. Many more killings in Iraq were motivated by 'family honour', and Bashir has identified a brutal streak in the current Iraqi personality and expressed his fear that the country is a long way from democracy.
This book is a must-read for all interested in the Iraq war and it is a tragedy of history that it was not available before 2003.