Purge

With 1,000 top Baath Party leaders gathered at short notice in a Baghdad auditorium, Hussein told them somberly that a plot against the regime had been uncovered.

”We used to be able to sense a conspiracy with our hearts before we even gathered the evidence," he said. "Nevertheless we were patient, and some of our comrades blamed us for knowing this but doing nothing about it."

Then he called on stage a top party officer who had been arrested and tortured after daring to protest Hussein's seizure of power. Brought from prison, where he had been threatened with the rape and murder of his wife and daughters, Muhyi Abdul Hussein Mashadi confessed that he had plotted with Syria to overthrow the Iraqi regime - and that his co-conspirators were in the audience.

Then a security official read the names of 66 miscreants, who were led from the hall as relieved survivors began to outdo one another with chants denouncing the plotters and declaring, "Long live Saddam Hussein!" Hussein sat quietly, wiping away tears at one point, as if saddened at the perfidy of his former friends.

Twenty-two of those arrested were executed with shots fired by Baath leaders offered the chance to prove their fealty. Hussein made sure footage of these "democratic executions" was added to the tape before copies were distributed to Baath activists across Iraq.