Ala Bashir was a plastic surgeon who had had an unusually friendly relationship with Saddam for twenty years and was also a member of the medical team responsible for his care.
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He was at the clinic on Friday, April 4th, the day the Americans took control of the airport. He went home early to look after his elderly mother, who was unwell, and the next day, Saturday, one of Saddam's guards came to his house and told him to pack his bags and return "immediately, immediately" to the clinic. The guard left, and Bashir soon followed. He didn't show up for work at the hospital the next day, and no one seemed to know where he was.

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I had met Ala Bashir in Baghdad in the summer of 2000.... Ala Bashir had a quiet and self-effacing manner, and he talked about how Saddam was doing the best he could for his country, and made some remarks to the effect that Adolf Hitler had got a bad rap from historians. I quoted his comments in an article I wrote about Iraq, and when I returned to Baghdad late last year I went to see Bashir again. He said that I had perhaps "overemphasized" his remarks about Hitler, but he didn't bear a grudge, and we met two or three more times. Just before I was to leave, he asked me to meet him in a neutral place, and suddenly and unexpectedly he began to talk, in a low voice, about how fearful Iraqis were. He never mentioned Saddam's name, but he spoke about political repression, executions and disappearances, and how no one could ever say what was truly on his mind. I knew that he was taking a risk in saying these things, and I steered the conversation back to mundane matters. When I went to see him a few days later, to say goodbye, I intentionally did so formally, in front of several of his colleagues.
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Bashir didn't speak freely to me about Saddam Hussein very often, but once or twice, when we were alone in his house, he described the terrified sycophants who surrounded the President, and his pathological, "worthless" sons, and the curious affection he seemed to feel for Bashir. "Even his brother Barzan"--the former intelligence chief and Saddam's personal banker--"who is a friend of mine, says I am blessed by God to speak to his brother in the way I do. No one else can or does. Even his own family is afraid of him." But Bashir also said that most of the people he knew, including some high-ranking generals and ministers, wanted a change, and would be angry if Bush decided not to invade. If Saddam stayed in power, "it would be a victory for dictatorship, for murder, for torture and bloodshed." He had travelled to many countries, and he knew of no crueller place than Iraq: "Some of the things that have been done to people over the years are beyond any description."
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On Saturday, April 12th, a week after Bashir disappeared, Dr. Walid and I set out in my car on a circuitous route to Bashir's sister's house, which Walid thought was a good place to start looking for him, although neither of us really believed he would be there. I thought it was more likely that he was dead or, possibly, a fugitive on the run with Saddam.
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Dr. Walid got out of our car and went to the gate, where a young woman--Bashir's niece, I was told later--let him into the garden, and a few moments later he walked back, smiling broadly and waving for me to come in. Just then Ala Bashir came striding down the driveway. He, too, had a big smile. Bashir is normally a reticent, undemonstrative man, but he embraced me and kissed me on both cheeks. His clothes were rumpled and he hadn't shaved for several days.
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He said that when Saddam's guard came for him "it meant that the President had asked for me, because this man deals directly with him." The guard had been tense, he said, and "I had the feeling that we were not really going to the clinic, and that if I went with him I might never return. Saddam had many secret places to hide." Bashir had been listening to the BBC, which was reporting that the airport had been taken, and he knew that the Americans were making incursions into the city. He told Saddam's guard to go on ahead and that he would leave for the clinic in a few minutes, but he didn't. He had his driver take him to his sister's house, because he was more or less confident that Saddam's people did not know its location. And he had been there ever since.
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I visited Ala Bashir every day after that. We sat in the family room, left more or less alone by his relatives, except when, every so often, they brought us small cups of Turkish coffee and in the early afternoon called us to lunch.
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Saddam Hussein looked down on doctors," Bashir said, "but he thought of me as something else. He said several times, in front of other people, 'I see you as an artist, as a man of culture.' Once, in the late eighties, a lady interviewed me on TV, and the next day the chief of the Presidential guard sent for me. He told me the President had watched the program and had been very impressed. They had shown a painting I had done of a man holding up a grim-looking bird that is trying to bite the man's face. It's a very strong image. I had explained to the interviewer that the painting represents man's struggle with destiny, and that in this battle man always lost. I also said that when men come to have a lot of power and begin to think of themselves as immortal, then it's all over, they lose the battle. To find an example of what I meant, I quoted a famous Iraqi poet, Mutanabbi: 'The most bitter experience for a free man is to make a friendship with someone he doesn't like.' Saddam Hussein had enjoyed the interview, but he was very upset with the lady announcer, who had asked me about my baldness. He sent orders for her not to be allowed on TV for six months.
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Bashir talked at length about why he thought Saddam had been drawn to him, but he was less clear about what he thought of Saddam, although he mentioned that he had a soothing manner. "The amazing thing about this man is that he'd have been the No. 1 actor if he'd ever gone to Hollywood," he said. "When you talk to him, he listens to you. I've never known a better listener. He doesn't seem like the same man who does these cruel things. I never saw him angry. He always seemed serene and calm." He suggested that Saddam had multiple personalities. "I don't know if he is schizophrenic," Bashir said, "but he could be. He can be very calm, apparently normal--like when he was interviewed by Dan Rather--but then he changes."

Saddam's eccentricities included an interest in the occult. Bashir said that a few years ago Saddam set up a secret facility for people with special powers. A young boy from Kirkuk, for example, apparently had the ability to see through walls. He and his family were brought to Baghdad to live, but the boy's powers began to diminish and then subsided altogether. A woman with a gift for telepathy turned out to be more useful. When Hussein Kamal defected to Jordan, she was asked to concentrate on making him return to Iraq. He did so, and was killed immediately. Bashir said that the story of the telepathic woman is the only one he knows of that explains why Hussein Kamal would have been so crazy as to come back home.

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