Dr Ala Bashir was one of Saddam Hussein's inner circle. As the Iraqi dictator's personal physician, he was many of the regime's horrors, and now he has written about his experiences in a new book. Hannah Stephenson meets the man who knew everything, from torture to plastic surgery.
ON the day I meet Dr Ala Bashir, sirens are screaming past the publisher's offices throughout our interview as the rescue operation for the recent terrorist attack on London begins. Everyone is jumpy. Workers have been told to stay inside and not attempt to travel within the capital. But Ala is the picture of calm. It's not surprising because, as Saddam Hussein's former physician, he experienced more fear and saw more horrors during the Iraqi leader's tyrannical reign than most of us could imagine.
"You'd regularly hear explosions and see people wandering the streets injured in Baghdad," he explains. "This is like a normal day there."
The 64-year-old, former head of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Baghdad University and Iraq's most highly decorated doctor, was Saddam's physician for 20 years until 2003, when he escaped to Britain, where he has made a new life for himself.
But he was determined the world should know the devastation that power and greed can cause, so he kept diaries while working for Saddam and persuaded his friends and relatives to hide them for him. Now he has written The Insider, based on those diaries, detailing what life was like trapped in Saddam's brutal regime.
Stories of casual violence, torture and mindless killings pepper Ala's prose as Saddam and his family became more detached from reality.
"You would never approach his authority," he says. "He didn't ask me very crucial questions whereby if I said yes or no I would endanger myself. He was charismatic, smart and very considerate but I had to keep silent to keep safe.
"He has a psychopathic personality and is a very unpredictable man. Power is like a shield from reality. It makes people blind."
ALA first drew Saddam's attention as an eminent painter and sculptor and was soon unwittingly drawn into the leader's inner circle, which put him in danger and effectively lost him his freedom.
Being the leader's favourite, Ala found himself among envious enemies. He describes it as "swimming amongst sharks" and he constantly lived in fear.
"I lost my freedom 100 per cent. I was followed all the time by the security police. One warned me to take care and not talk even in my house. My house phones were bugged. On one occasion I was in a car and received a call from the Indian Embassy inviting me and other artists to an event.
"I thanked him but said I doubted if I could go. Three days later I was called by Saddam's security group who asked me if I'd gone to the embassy. It was stifling, but my saviour was art. I spent all my spare time painting, when I could be alone with myself.
"My family suffered because they couldn't socialise with certain people, they weren't allowed to leave the country. It was impossible to go on holiday."
As mayhem continued in Iraq and the common man became increasingly poor while Saddam's inner circle's riches increased, Saddam seemed more concerned with the painful corns on his feet - which developed as a result of him wearing shoes two sizes too small thanks to his vanity - than the state of his country.
Ala wants readers to understand the damage inflicted by absolute power but doesn't blame Saddam alone for all the barbarous actions which took place.
"I dislike him and his brutal, criminal regime. But how did he become a tyrant if he was alone? He must have been supported by many Iraqis.
"Power doesn't corrupt only one person. Most Iraqis are innocent, decent people. The tragedy is that they are always caught between two waves. They are overcome by the tyranny and then another wave comes of hate, revenge and aggression. The end result is the same."
The book is disturbingly detailed. Many incidents of torture are featured, from the punishment given to the Iraqi national football team of hard blows under the feet with a bar if they lost matches, to the execution of thousands of others who disappeared into mass graves.
Ala rose to prominence as a plastic surgeon during the Iran-Iraq war, when the hospital under his leadership performed more than 22,000 operations on soldiers from both sides.
He also helped save the lives of some of the most vicious criminals within Saddam's regime, including Saddam's psychopathic son, Uday. Indeed, he patched Uday up after a failed assassination attempt left him disabled and brain damaged.
"God created evil people and good people at the same time," says Ala. "Doctors cannot choose their patients. We saved many lives of Iranian soldiers, who were our enemy at the time."
Surviving supporters of Saddam's regime are furious at the revelations in the book, says Ala, and he admits that he may have once again put himself in danger by writing it at all.
"One of Saddam's people contacted me and said, 'What you have written is very dangerous to you'. But the truth has to be told."
Ala never did anything he was ashamed of, for his own self preservation, and he only ever refused an order once, which was to change the face of an Iraqi assassin.
He also put himself in danger when he agreed to give Saddam's wife a facelift. What he didn't realise was that the Iraqi president didn't know about it and had always given clear instructions that he was to be informed of any medical treatment carried out on his family.
When Saddam confronted them about it, his wife said she'd had a small growth removed from behind her ear and Ala added that he had repeated the procedure on the other side so there would be no difference between the two sides of her face when it healed.
"What kept me going was the love of my country. But I'm not proud of the atrocities in our history."
Four months after Saddam's regime was toppled in 2003, Ala escaped to England with his wife, Amel, a retired paediatrician, and now lives in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, where he spends his time painting. His four children had already left and all of them live in this country.
He lost all his possessions, which were looted by the murderous sects who took over the country and Ala says disorder and strife remain.
"There was a total loss of law and order. There were three militia groups from all parties going out killing people. Many doctors were killed. I myself received two envelopes with a bullet in each.
"Two young men came to my clinic and warned me that if I wanted to practise medicine I'd have to leave Iraq. I don't know why. My home was looted and I left with nothing. I had thought that any regime after the Saddam regime would be better. But I was wrong."
How can the situation in the country improve? Ala says the only way forward is democracy. "Democracy has to be healthy. But before that happens we need to inject ourselves with a very high dose of love and forgiveness."
* The Insider, by Ala Bashir (Abacus, £12.99).
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