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Devildogg4ever
08-01-03, 03:32 AM
By NILES LATHEM

August 1, 2003 -- WASHINGTON — Jordan granted asylum to two of Saddam Hussein's daughters and their nine children yesterday, claiming the decision was made as a humanitarian gesture.
The women Raghad, 36, and Rana, 34, whose husbands were executed by Saddam and who were reportedly moving from house to house after the fall of Baghdad, arrived in Amman from Abu Dhabi, Jordanian Information Minister Nabil al-Sharif told western news agencies.

Jordan's King Abdullah, a staunch U.S. ally, personally approved their asylum request.

"They are Arab women who have run out of all options," al-Sharif said. The daughters are in Amman, officials said.

A Pentagon official told The Post last night the United States has no objection because the two daughters were not involved in Iraq's brutal regime and apparently can provide no information on the whereabouts of their father or other sinister regime figures.

The decision comes a week after their brothers, Uday and Qusay, were killed in a raid by U.S. troops in Mosul.

Saddam's first wife, Sajida Khairallah Telfah, and his fifth child, Hala, are believed to have fled the country shortly after the war — possibly to Syria.



Hala's husband, Gen. Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti, No. 17 on the U.S. most-wanted list of Iraqi regime figures, surrendered to U.S. forces on May 17.

In an interview with the Sunday Times of London, Raghad described how she and her family dodged missiles and sought shelter during the "shock and awe" U.S. air campaign in Baghdad before fleeing the capital city as U.S. forces marched in to topple her father.

She said they lived as fugitives outside Baghdad for weeks.

"I spent my days cooking typical Iraqi food, washing dishes, doing housework, laundry. I do things I never did in the past because, since I was a child, we always had maids, housekeepers and lived in big houses with swimming pools," Raghad told the Sunday Times.

Last month, Britain rejected the sisters' request for asylum, where the two daughters wanted to live in Leeds with their father's cousin, Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid.

The move to Jordan is the latest chapter in an often tragic and twisted life of the two daughters, once Saddam's favorite children, who grew up in a life of opulence and luxury but after the war were left with nothing and had to depend on the kindness of friends.

The sisters married two brothers, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel, who had prominent positions in Saddam's regime before defecting to Jordan in August 1995.

From Jordan, the two brothers plotted to overthrow Saddam and gave the CIA details of Saddam's regime.

Saddam, pulling on his family heartstrings and promising that all was forgiven, managed to lure his daughters back to Iraq with their husbands in 1996.

But the sisters and their children were separated from their husbands and fathers. The two men, after being told all was forgiven, were taken to a presidential palace in Baghdad, where they were forced to sign documents giving Rana and Raghad immediate divorces.

Later that night, Saddam's vicious henchman Hassan "Chemical Ali" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Majid, led an assault on the brothers' home where they were slaughtered while Qusay and Uday watched from a car.

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/2152.htm

JChristin
08-02-03, 12:06 PM
and these two women still profess "love" for their daddy?

adds a new dimension to the term, "dysfunctional."


semper fi,
jchristin