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Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied And Survived Saddam Hussein

Wednesday Morning Club. 11:35 a.m. March 16, 2006.

I run into Michael Finch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. His hand is bandaged.

I inquire about his injury. He unpeals the bandage. There's a nasty cut.

"Michael, when did you begin to cut yourself?" I inquire.

"I just did it today opening boxes."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Since I started working for David [Horowitz]."

"Michael, this is an obvious cry for help. I know a lot of Jewish psychiatrists. I can fix you up with one. I think it is time for an intervention."

I discuss this troubling matter with Elizabath, Horowitz's assistant.

"I think we should support and empower Michael to do whatever he wants," she says.

"I just don't think that cutting yourself is a healthy way to express your feelings," I whine.

Whenever I become emotional, I feel an Air Supply song coming on.

It turns out that Elizabeth (her husband Sean is the tall skinny guy behind the WMC camera) was the 16-year old star of the 1985 Air Supply music video "Making Love Out of Nothing at All."

I can make the run or stumble,
I can make the final block;
And I can make every tackle,
at the sound of the whistle,
I can make all the stadiums rock.
I can make tonight forever,
Or I can make it disappear by the dawn;
And I can make you every promise that has ever been made,
And I can make all your demons be gone.
But I’m never gonna make it without you,
Do you really want to see me crawl?
And I’m never gonna make it like you do,
Making love out of nothing at all.

I'm disturbed by the number of people who worked for Horowitz and cut themselves. There should be a congressional inquiry. I'm willing to testify. I'm willing to name names. I'll out every cutter. I think it's gross. It's not the Torah's way.

I did not care for today's lunch -- it was filled with flavor and ingredients. I approve of neither.

I scan the room and see no single chicks under 40. I don't approve of that either.

I sit next to Hyman Jebb Levy of Lastar.org (Sephardic Tradition And Recreation). I volunteer to come say a few words of Torah to his kids.

My friend Jeffrey tells me to save him a seat. Then he runs into my friend Marie, a tall blonde, and they run off together to their own table and I'm left making love out of nothing at all.

Jeffrey is so supercial. He sees a pretty face and then he forgets all about me and everything we've shared.

Where was Marie when I was helping him get that monkey off his back? Who held his hand when he was throwing up in the toilet? Who bailed him out of jail when there was that morals charge?

According to the PR email:

Saddam's Secrets: He was Saddam Hussein's top military advisor and a truth-teller in a regime where truth was relative. He was also a devout Christian in an anti-Christian country. For the first time, General Georges Sada shares his amazing journey and speaks of the military secrets he was asked to keep. Secrets that only those closest to Saddam would know. In this exclusive book, the General paints a picture of Hussein, his regime and his country that is at once personal and truthful, compelling and sobering.

General Georges Sada graduated from Iraq's Air Academy in 1959 and was trained by elite forces in Great Britian, Russia and the U.S. An Ace fighter pilot who trained other pilots, he went on to become air vice marshal in Saddam Hussein's military. His acts of bravery, including saving the lives of forty downed coalition pilots in the gulf War, have earned him hero status. Now retired, Sada is director of the Iraqi Institute for Peace and also serves as spokesman for the newly elected prime minister of Iraq.

General Sada (who trained in the US, USSR, France and England) says he retired as a two-star general in 1986. "I was supposed to be promoted to three-star general but I had to join the Baath party. I refused. When I was asked why not, I said there were two essential principles of the party that I did not agree with. The Baath party is dedicated to the Arab cause and to Islam. I am Assyrian and Christian."

After Iraq annihilated Kuwait in 1990, Saddam brought Sada out of retirement to advise him about the capabilities of the Allies air forces. On December 17, 1990, Saddam said he wanted to send 86 planes to attack Israel with chemical weapons if the Allies attacked him. General Sada argued against this. He said most of the Iraqi planes would be shot down on the way to Israel, and if they released any chemical weapons on Israel, Israel would respond with nuclear weapons.

Saddam wanted to send 12 divisions into Saudi Arabia to destroy its infrastructure. Sada argued against this.

Sadam's people wanted to kill captured Allied fliers during the war. Sada said this was a violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, and that America would go after personally anyone who did this. The prisoners were not killed. Sada was imprisoned for about two weeks because of his stand, but on February 5, 1991, he was freed on Saddam's order.

General Sada said the Allies air forces would destroy Iraqi forces and communications. Other Iraqi military leaders disagreed. It turned out that Sada was right.

After the war, Saddam said he did not want to see Sada's face again. He did not want him in the Iraqi military. But he didn't want him harmed.

Sada said Saddam killed more clerics, more Baath party members, more Sunnis (his own people), more Tikritis (Saddam's home town), more military officers, and more Kurds (203,000) than anyone.

General Sada thanked the United States for liberating Iraq (a country of 27 million people).