Keeping his head above the water
He will need all his street-fighting instincts to emerge alive, let alone in power, if the United States invades to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction - and the man who sought them to further his quest for regional dominance.
Still a hero to some Arabs for his defiance of the United States and Israel, Saddam is demonised today as evil incarnate by some of the same Western powers that armed and supported him in the 1980s, as a bulwark against the Islamic revolution in Iran.
