Performance and Future Consequences

So media Oh I didn't see you there. Welcome to Behind the Bastards. You've stepped into our Livving room Podcast house? I don't know. This iss a podcast about bad people I struggle through the introduction every week, but then we get to the terrible person, one of the worst people in all of history that we're talking about. and everybody has a good time learning about things that make them feel bad because we're all damaged people. Speaking of shit, that's a bad way But speaking of first of all talalented podcast host. Thank you. My guest this week Molly Conger, Molly, welcome to the show H You done a podcast? Thrilled to be here. Yeah, I also have a podcast about guys who suck Minor, weirder and littleittler. It's weird little guys. Yes, yes. there's a strict height requirement, much like the Prussian heavy infantry Um, in order to on your podcast, but in the reverse way. anyyway. Molly How do you how do you feel about soccer ball as it's called by most of the people who like it So I don't know anything about it, but I've been watching the World Cup with my husband and I love hollering at the TV Okay good good. I feel like it all This is kind of this happens periodically where like the World Cups in the United States. So a lot of Americans who normally aren't so much in to what the West to football, will'll call it football Uh suddenly find themselves intrigued by it for like the first time or the first time in a while. and right now the whole freedom loving world is captured by a new and often performative love of the sport. And as I think most people are aware, the organization that governs how football or soccer works is FIFA. And they are more corrupt than a barrel full of Iraqi generals marinated in oil. mean It's marinated in the oil Is it Gianni and Fantino? Are we doing? You're doing John Much worse. Much worse. Much worse. much worse Because if you're not aware if you werent that excited about that Be he's evil. We will we will have to cover him at some point, but like FIFA is so corrupt that if you Google FIFA corruption scandals, you have to specify the year in order to get any kind of useful result because there's just way too many otherwise. Like you're just gonna get like chronological news stories from the latest one And any infamously corrupt and abusive institution is only as good as its most corrupt and sadistically violent team managers or and in the case of professional soccer, The most abusive manager slash team owner in the history of the sport Do you want to have a guess to who's the most abusive team owner in the history of football? I couldn't even begin to guess, but as I've been watching the World Cup, I have noticed that whenever they cut to the sidelines, it's the most sinister looking man you've ever seen in your fucking life And and that's how it is now Now I'll give you, I'll give you one hint, Molly, onene hint The character we're talking about today is the son of a whitely beloved romance novelist I this someone who's better known for their other work Is it one of the Hussein's sons? It's Ud Hussein. That's right. That's right. He owned a soccer team. He was like the manager of a FIFAa team. He was a big deal. in the world of soccer for a while. And for a long time actually And I imagine he treated the players fairly and with respect That's right. This is a story about a man who treated his players respectfully and didn't, for example, keep a torture dungeon underneath the team workout area for members of the team. Highly motivational, controversial tic. That's right. That's right I've told Sophie Wonna try something like that for the network, but she says apparently it's hard to expense torture dungeons anymore unless you're Amazon. Yeah. I think I could bring in twice as many downloads if I was recording above a torture dungeon. If there was a torture dungeon, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human There was no hing inside those eyes. Turn black scared the hell out of me Eil wake up. And the woman saw the murder take place by Creet and de Pppo. Anthony DPippo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unphazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave Listen to the Devil's Quar in the Bone Valley feed on the iHart radio app podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Yeah. Youady to talk about Ue Hussein Soccer Star Kind of I mean, I think if you asked me like the traits of Uday Hussein, like what was what was he best known for? How would you describe Hussein? foootball manager, top top of the list. Football manager. Yeah. Yeahah, yeah, kind of ye, manager sort of it team owner. It's a little, it's hard to translate his job directly, but he bas it he owns like the most prestigious team in Iraq and he's also the head of like their their their football, like the national like football commommittee and the head of their likelympic Because of his runningill at football because of his great skill in football. Of course, Uouday Hussein wouldn't get the job for any other reason at the age of twenty. Anyway, we're going go give into a bit of a biography. theseese are not technically our Uday episodes. I think I still might do dedicated U day ep. There's a lot this guy got up to in his life and it's all pretty awful, but pretty entertaining We're going to stick mostly to football in this one because there's that much Like his football career was that significant Um Born in Kark Baghdad on either june eighteenth or march ninth of nineteen sixty four. And you again, one of the best ways to tell if this is going to be a great episode of Behind the Bastards are there multiple equally likely birthdays for the Bastard? We like we't have any idea when they were really born. This many children, Oh, yeah at least five children. At least at least These are the details you know that make things fun. Uday came into this world, the son of a father who was a man of modest means. You know, Saddam Hussein was not born wealthy. He came from a scrappy backwater town and he was a scrappy backwater kid who fought every hour of his life to become a powerful and influential man in the new Iraq that he also helped to create. Saddam was a Bath Party activist and he'd fought to help the party seize power three years before Ud's birth. So by the time Ud comes into the world, the future of the Bath Party in Iraq is uncertain, right? They had just taken power. They don't have things like super solidified. It's very possible there's going to be a counter wave that like pushes them out They're not necessarily doing the best job, right? So it's at this point by no means guaranteed that Saddam's going to ever be more than like a mid level kind of politico thug. You know, this is he could have just been just yet another pretty forgetable guy in the history of Iraqi politics And indeed, shortly after Ud was born, Saddam miscalculated and put his support behind a faction in the party that lost out in a major power struggle. And Saddam was imprisoned for two years, but escaped and being Saddam Hussein. He goes on the run. And so like in some of Udday's earliest years, his dad is like living outside of the law and having like infrequent communication with his family. I think they're moving sometimes to try to like meet up with him And by the time U is like three years old, Saddam has kind of He gotten himself out of the dog house, he scripped enough power to make like a play for for a better position for himself. And he succeeds. There's like a, you know, another coup basically in Iraq And the new power structure that Saddam helps bring into being sees Iraq run by a president named Al Baker, who is a kind of in the mold that happens in these situations, a sick and elderly man that people sometimes compare to Weimar Germany's Paul Hindenburg. Like after this re or this coup, Saddam is the secondary guy to this sick old dude that more people like And he's kind of running things from the background. You know, like that's what's happening when Uay is like four, five, six years old, right in those years. So Saddam is basically running Iraq at that point in U's life, but he's not officially in charge. Does that make sense? I guess it's been so long since you' Saddam Hussein, those eararly in the show, right? You did early years ago. almost ten years ago. I know we're kind of gotta because I this isn Saddam episode. so Ia gotta gotta. Ting of think becausecause I guess that' you know, R M most of what I know about Saddam Hussein. Yeah. It just never occurred to me that H children were young during his rise to power. Like when he were a young like aspiringer. Yeah Yeah, just U day really. I don't think Tus's come into the picture at this point Um, But yeah, he was there for the come upp Yes, Uday is probably his first memories are kind of when his dad is like vice president and just sort of coming into power.. Tribunal writer George Woodward describes Ude being raised, quote from the age of five like a crown prince So From about his earliest memory, his dad is the guy who's running everything and he's expected to follow in his dad's footsteps, right? So he doesn't really have much in the way of a life before that. Although you have to imagine The kind of chaotic and dangerous very earliest years of his life probably had some impact on him. The fact that his dad's on the run and stuff, like that likely percolated through to some extent, I expect. I don't know, if by the time you're five, you're little prince Right, right. Maybe it doesn't do all that much If you lived through the Gulf War and then the Iraq warar years, as I think all three of us on the show did, you've encountered a lot of propaganda about Saddam Hussein and his Iraq. much of that has been proven to be nonsense, as we'll discuss in these episodes. There's a lot of bullshit about Saddam Hussein, just because it made a good story and new especially like cheap periodicals like New York Post weren'tcking anything. Someone had like a lurid story about Saddam Hussein in two thousand two You could get it printed in a bunch of places. Nobody was checking on shit. As long as some guy who was an Iraqi defector said that this is what happened, peopleople were not doing any kind of due diligence in the journalism world, right? Especially the early two thousands but not a lot of them. Right. Yeahah, not in the early two thousands. And that doesn't change the fact Saddam Husse saying, this is not even doing any revisionism. Saddam was an undeniably brutal dictator. He was a horrible guy and Ude is going to grow into a horrific violent man who kills a lot of people Um But that doesn't mean every story about them is true. And so part of what you have to do when you're kind of researching an episode like this is try to pick apart how possible is this crazy claim that I may want to be true, but how likely is that that it happened? D did Ude do that or was it doctor evvil?. Right. because that sounds more doctor evil. Yeah I lasers on the sharks? Yeah. ye, I don't know if he had access to those. I think Iraq might have done better if he'd had lasers for the sharks. Um So I found an article in theseese Football Times by Justin Sherman that gives a pretty representative summary of the common take on Uday's childhood. This is how he's described in a lot of publications, right? in very similar terms to this because this this is the definitely like most marketable version of his life story Almost from birth, Uay Hussein had a curiosity and borderline affinity for violence. As an infant, instead of pushing toy cars, he played with disarmed grenades. By the age of ten, he was already shadowing his father to the torture chamber at Qasar al Nahaya, nicknamed the Palace of the End. Many political enemies were killed here, including the overthrown King Faizel II, to observe how Saddam dealt with perceived dissidents At Bice high school, he bragged he had murdered his teacher for disrespecting him in front of his girlfriend So thats that's the traditional like take on Ue from born to murder, right? Like from the time he' a little kid, torturing with glee, just one of these people who is inherently monstrous and obviously look at how evil Saddam is. How could he be anything but inherently monstrous Um We'll talk a little bit about how accurate I think all of that is here. Woodward's own description attributes Ud's propensity to violence to quote, unusual ideas that Saddam had about raising children but notes that this claim that like Uay iss violent because his dad had these different beliefs about how you raise kids, that that claim is something Saddam's political opponents circulated after they fled the country, right? Beacauseuse who's actually raising the child? Is this mother? Is it nannies? It's nannies and like his mom is in the picture But he's also like a wealthy kid. So they from a pretty early age, he's being watched by a lot of different people, right We don't have a ton of context on that, but that's kind of what I've pieced together And what kind of parenting philosophies are we talking about? Is that like Early twentih century German thing where it's illegal to touch your children. if you can't kiss them More Saddam wanted him to like see guys being beaten and tortured up close from a pretty young age to weird what it takes to be in it's a Game of Thrones kind of shit almost. is like you need to know what it takes to rule this kingdom. G Got to see your first being I sayight Yeah Right. Now again, how crazy all this actually wents and how crazy people talk about it These are two different things. And there are alternate, less extreme explanations for and less crazy sing descriptions of Ud's childhood that sounds very different from the paragraph I just read you. For example, the thing about him playing with disarmed grenades. If you read deeper, that's like one specific story of like him playing around with like a disarmed grenade while they're waiting for like the result of some raid like or some like kind of related activity that his dad was carrying out. It was like a dangerous night for them and Uday's playing they've got like a disarmed grenade. And like maybe that sounds crazy.. It could be fun One of my ye, I remember one of my uncles when I was a kid had like a desk toy that was like a disarmed or fail, I think it may have just been a training grenade or whatever, but that may have been what Ude had. It's like a training grenade that was never real. Like it's not clear to me I don't know. I don't think it's that crazy. Like he's not playing with disord. Any weird than like a toy gun No, exactly, exactly. And it's not like those were his only toys. This was like one weird occasion, right? Right If instead of blocks he only had like military surplus equipment, that would be weird. Yeah, that would be weird, but I don't think anyone's really saying that. Yeah And he definitely at a certain point sees like his dad's torture dungeons, right? And it helps his dad. a big fan of torture. It's unclear when that starts. Woodward says it's from age like fifteen on that Saddam lets him participate in torture That said, I also think it's fairer to describe that as Saddam abused him by making him participate in torture because he's fifteen H. Yeah. But also I feel exposing a child to that like especially like during puberty. I don't know. There's something about like the cement being wet in your brain at that moment. It's not gonna do good things to him. You're gonna become weird probably And you get really varying stories as to like when did Saddam start exposing him to this stuff. Uday's obituary in the Independent claimed that when Udday was five, Saddam made him attend a family like gathering in a Baghdad public square to watch the hanging of dozens of Iraqi Jews who had been declared spies. The article continues that quote, Saddam boasted that he toughened his boys up by taking them to watch the torture of enemies of the nation and the liquidation of traitors That's very midy. I don't have trouble believing that. That's in line with some other stuff and it's pretty consistent in stories about them It's often described as like evvidence of Ud's earlypensity violence and brutality, where more of what I'm seeing and this will make sense with some other stuff we're about to talk about is that I think Saddam starts exposing to Uday to violence at a very young age and it like fucks him up and you can see it change him and damage him. He was not a violent kid from an early age. he's rutalized by his dad exposing it this stuff. Even if there's a twelve year old he's saying, Oh, daddy, please take me to the public hanging. That's still a child. And it's still your responsibility as the parent becausecause you make it sound cool. 'causeuse he doesn't really know what it is 'cause he's twelve. You know? It's child abuse, I think, to take children to the torture dungeon. I'm gonna stand firm on that one Exactly, and it it's not described as that often enough. It's always in these stories comes across as part of, well, this is a man who was just always from the earliest days of his childhood, a violent psy. No, this is a child who was molded and abused into being a violent psychopath. That's kind of important, you know? It's not like those stories of like serial killers where you hear like, oh, you know, as in middle school they startorted disemembering cats This is not that. No, this is this is different than that really. And like yeah, I don't know. maybe I don't know enough about Ude's childhood to know was he that guy? but there's reasons to believe he wasn't, right? And I'm inclined to doubt the often repeated possibly by Ude story that he'd murdered a teacher before he went into high school for disrespect. He would tell that. right. not only does it sound fake I've read a book and it's out it's kind of hard to find, but there's some online copies that iss like the Saddam Hussein ved version of his life story for Westerners, like it was a propaganda thing that he came out. And one of the stories in there is him holding his principal at gunpoint to force him to like admit him to school Because Saddam loved being loved learning how to read, like love school. his reading program actually was really good. He had a very effective reading program for Iraq. It was one of the things he was good at. You got a handed to it literacy program was good. It really did. it worked quite well But and that's definitely they help theren there's any real evidence. And I think Ude may have told that lie because like, well, my dad has a story about fucking being violent to his teacher. I need an even more extreme one. That's what I read there. because I don't have I don't have any like good reason to believe he actually killed a teacher. No one claims to know who this teacher is or to have seen it directly. There are accounts of Ude doing stuff like this later in life But I think that just makes people assume, well, if he did that twenty years later, he must have done that when he was ten. and that's nonsense, right? R that's personal myth building Yeah, I think this is him myth building and copying his dad's wanting his dad identify. I think that And this isn't just me thinking that because it's easier We have some accounts from some of his teachers because Ud went to really nice schools for most of his education. And we the most detailed account we have from one of his teachers comes from a foreign teacher who like worked in his because like these are nicer schools in Iraq. A lot of the teachers are foreigners Dina Bintley from Yorkshire in the north of England, married a Kurdish man back in the nineteen seventies and wound up working at a private school in Baghdad when Uh Hussein is a pretty a young kid. Iraq has a long tradition of private schools staffed with foreign teachers for the children of the elite and wealthy. And even in Saddam's era, these people were respected professionals who enjoyed a high degree of protection. Ue's certainly not going to be killing like a white European teacher, right? Saddam doesn't want. But if it did we would like know about it. Like this didn't happen would have happenard ineen fifty nineteen eighty He also had Iraqi teachers, but again, I think someone would have said specifically like we would hear something besides like he killed a teacher for being rude to his girlfriend We would have more of that story, I think, if it were real. And again, this just doesn't comport with Dina's time with him when he was very young. In two thousand three, and this is like the height of Iraq war fever Dina recalled to ABC that time in her life when she was teaching in Iraq and Ud was her student, who would have been eleven years old at this point. And for that article, quote Saddam Hussein, then second in command, was already a powerful figure at the time. Ud arrived at school with bodyguards, but she recalls a normal child who was bright, cheerful, and responsive to discipline. He was always grinning and happy, and as soon as they knew who he was, the other children were a little bit wary, but he certainly wasn't a bully, she said. People would like me to say that he had two heads and was an unbearable pupil, he wasn't Asked about Uay's current reputation, she said, It must have been around the time of the nineteen ninety one Gulf War when there were stories in the papers, I don't know how true they are about his murderous ways. That did surprise me because he was never aggressive or a problem in class, she said. I had a good relationship with him. He never tried to pull rank. He certainly never said to me, Do you realize who I am? You know? Dem So Ude got the pleasure to be in class on his report card. Right, Right, right. It just sounds like a real kid as opposed to this like violent murderous eleven year old that like a lot of news stories want you to believe that like this kid is obsessed with death as a child Naturally A lot of what I do on my show and I'm writing about these men who become terrible, these men who commit these terrible acts They are not. onological evil. They were not They did not emerge from the womb as a monster. It's a human guy who became fucked up over time sometimes for a discernible reason. Yes, yes. and that's always It's very rare for someone to be born monstrous. Yeah. And again, Uday is gonna do monster. We're going to be talking all about the nightmarish stuff he does. I'm not all trying to mitigate. I just really wantan to emphasize. I think it actually makes it more frightening, right? that this was just a human man became this way.'s, I don't know, it's more comforting sometimes to write these people off as sometimes just ontological evil exists in the world and there it is. It's easier to believe that than that like, yeah, this kid could have been a perfectly nice child at eleven. And then four or five years later because of the shit his dad exposes him to way scarier person, you know? Like that's just more upsetting. It's a more complicated and upsetting story. yeah. Yeah And again, it's not that there's not fear around this kid then, it's just the fear is clearly not because he's a maniac. the fear is if I upset this child, his dad will kill my face. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And Dina was like, I'm glad like Saddam never came to parents evening, then I'm glad he didn't. Like I knew stories about him at the time, right? I didn't wantan to meet the guy A parent teach your conffernce the baby nerve racking Yeah, you don't want to have that one And she also stated that her colleagues, her Iraqi colleagues were surprised that she was willing to discipline Ud when he did misbehave. They were too worried of his father to discipline him again isn't based on him doing stuff, It's based on Saddam, right She told another one other story I find particularly interesting He was leaping about in class one day, so I took him by a tuft of hair and sat him down. I said, We don't do this. I am teaching. You are learning now sit down Another teacher, watching through the classroom window was horrified. She said to me later, Do you know who that is? It's Saddam's son And this anecdote tells us a couple of things. One is that there's enough fear around his family. Again, that most people don't want to discipline Ude, and that must have had an effect on him But Dina does and nothing happens to her Right R.. And it's also interesting U's reaction to being chastised by his teacher, you could see like the crazy version of this kid would have got been furious at her embarrassing him and would have had some plan for reuck or had her killed Ude gets a haircut, so he hases Barbara trim off the bit of hair that she'd grabbed him by. and he like smiles and points it out whichich is like malicious compliance, maybe, but that doesn't that doesn't suggest a homicidal mind. That seems like a normal eleven year old boy, you know, a rich kid maybe, but like pretty lived She lived to tell the tale. She lived to tell the tale, you know. Dina added, he was not a high flyer, but he did his best. He was always smiling, a bit of a clown. Uoue picked up a lovely Yorkshire accent for me. He's probably still got it. It was nice because it reminded me of home. Soome the Yorkshire folks in the audience. If you're wondering how this fucker sounds, is he's torturing soccer players, football players Like you. Sorry. That's not your fault. It's not Din' fault. It's a love try to teach the poor fucker English. Not for fucker s So. That's ridiculous. Yeah, it's really funny to think of. And I want you all to keep that thought in your mind as we take a little trip down advertiser Lane In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was gonna to live I was terrified There was no hing inside those eyes Turn black scared the hell out of me That was your first murder kase. Yes. It's fair to say this was the bigg case your career? Yes, sir. Rape but murder a twelve year old child. bs again agains. I would think so. Evil wake up. the one that saw the murder take place by Cet and DPippo. Anthony DPippo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unphazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave Listen to the Devil'sQuarry on the I Heart radio podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts to hear the Devil's quuarry ad free with exclusive content suubscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals. does also have this darker history to it. Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand The full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin, Taadon, Jelekcaa Yetli, gaya, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big cheese fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be how we got to this present moment Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts The World Cup is underway and it's been incredible. On our podcast The Away End with Ananiee Aacon and John Green, we're talking about the games that have delighted us, the teams that have inspired us, what we're loving and what surprised us, all through the lens of being massive fans of the world's most beautiful gamees Daniel, this tournament has been magical so far. The expanded field of teams has created some incredible matchups that have already made this World Cup one to remember. And now things get even more exciting with the intensity of the knockout rounds as the field is whittled down to one World Cup champion on july nineteenth. When you say like that, I get a pain in my heart that the tournament is over. But there's a lot of soccer yet to go. And if the first few games of the round thirty two are any indication, anything is possible in the lead up to the final We've got it covered from an ultra' perspective here on the A end So listen to the Aaynd with Daniel Ekoon and John Green on the iHart Radiopp, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahillia to Toateines to Monteroso. They brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold brush. Carbon and its derivatives are gonna be really the next great commity that the globe's gonna trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all You gott to get Bruce of the guy's credit. They're republic kids. They don't get c. On this season of dririlled Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil, and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the IHart R radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podast And we're back. That was nice. Oh. I just got an email about a FIFA party in Portland. That sounds awful. I don't think I'm gonna be doing that. Hey shouldhould be RSVP Absolutely not Yeah, RSVP, no, thank you. I don't I don't like U no Molly Sophie Shall we dive back in Okay. So Ud's dead now, obviously, but he was noted as speaking English very well. And all of the other hard facts we have about his education comport with Dina's story. He wasn't a great student, but he wasn't a bad one, and there aren't really any clear and credible claims that he was involved in hardcore violence. There are some But not any that I find super believable until he's fifteen and his dad starts taking him to seea and possibly help out in the torture chambers that he's operating, right? Yeah. And I think that, you know, assuming that's true and it does it's pretty consistent. I can see this being what sort of changes him because by the time he's in an adolescent, Saddam is looking at his eldest son as the heir parent, but that's not going to last like forever, right? Ude's going to start to really like change and take a turn for the brutal as a young adult It's a little unclear to me when exactly that starts, but I can definitely see a lot of this being the result of Saddam wanting to raise his heir to be strong and powerful and just kind of destroying this kid's mind and turning him into a dangerous homicidal maniac. becausecause Saddam doesn't do the same thing with Kuse. The funniest thing about maybe there's some fundamental difference in the two of them, I don't know It kind of reads to me just like he got better at being a parent in between the two. I was like, o, I fucked up the main kid. I gott to pick a new heir. I'm not gonna make it I gott to make this next one turn out more normal. This I think's an Irma Bombeck quote, right? Children are like are like pancakes. You have to throw the first one out. Right, right. That's kind of how Saddam treats Ude after a point. But in this era, Ude's still looking like the era parent, you know, and he hasn't done anything too crazy Um So one person who claims to have attended private school with Ude is Latif Yaha You may have heard of this guy. He also becomes particularly famous in the post Gulf War period and then again right before Operation Iraqi freedom when we invaded Iraq for the second and really, really illegal time, right Um, So if you've heard of Latifa, Dr. Latifaya, it's because he's going to claim been forced to serve as Uday's body double. You've probably heard of Saddam's body doubles, the whole family. lot of stories. They may all be lies, by the way. I can't prove well thought I may do a dedicated story. I can't actually prove that like they had body doubles in the way it was usually reported. Everyone takes it as red, but then when you look into like, okay, well, did they find any of those g? it's like, no, they never did Oh, that's weird. It's weird that like the actual individual body doubles, the guys who claim they were always have really sketchy stories that you can't back up. and the evidence, like the body doubles that were supposed to be found mostly weren't there. And it kind of looks like maybe instead of having a stable of comedic body doubles, it just looks like some of his guards who looked like him could also like If you just want to like run a dude out, he might look like the boss to see if anyone's going to try to shoot at him or something. Maybe it wasn't as crazy elaborate as all the news reported was I was just watching Vep and there was like a plotline in Vep where her primary secret Service assigned to her looks like her from the back Yeah like it's not aot I double. It's just like exactly somebody's gonna to shoot you in the back of the head, Maybe they'll shoot her So much late nineties, early two thousands comedy relied upon fucking Saddam Hussein body doubles. likeike that was a really big, I don't know why in the media. and it just anyway So this guy Latif Yaya is going to claim to have been U's body double. And so a lot of our best Ud stories, the wildest stories of Ude being a maniac, come from dor. Latif Yaya. Oh some from a guy who might be taking them up He's definitely making it up. Latif Yiaa is for sure a con man, a huge con man. He definitely lied about a bunch of stuff and there's zero evidence whatsoever he was ever Ud's body double. However, he may have known Ude That doesn't mean he didn't know him at all because there is some evidence that he may have been connected to the regime in some like kind of corrupt ways. like money laundering and stuff have a little bit of truth in the. Like a little newg get her of truth. He denies that entirely. There's just allegations. I don't fully know what's going on with this guy, but there's not there's no reason to really think he was Ude's body double. But he may have in fact known Ue He came from a wealthy family in Baghdad. He claims he and Ude went to the same like primary school, private school, like private primary school. And they very well may have. I can't disprove that. U So I will read you some of his accounts, but I need you to remember this guy is for sure a liar So I don't know I'm not going to tell you to take that you're going to run into this guy anytime you read about Uday, so I don't want to ignore him because then people will be like, Why didn't you include this guy? Well, because he's a fucking liar. But I will tell you some of what he says because again, he may have known Ude. There's some reason to believe that. He just definitely wasn't. doing what he said he was. So here's his account of supposedly Ude in like high school basically First came the bodyguards, then Ude, usually in a t shirt and jeans, like a cowboy. His hair was longer than ours, and he wore it in an afro, like Jimy Hendriicks. After a few weeks, we finally got used to the daily performance. Ude was never friendly, never normal, never conventional, and I actually found him repugnant from the very first. He had no respect for the teachers or anyone else who tried to tell him what to do. He couldn't care less about tests or homework or anything There were twenty four of us in the class, and while everyone else worked hard to succeed, Ude wasn't interested. If a teacher tried to call him to the blackboard, Ude would throw chalk at him and order him to change the subject or simply to leave him alone. He came when he wanted to, left when he wanted to, and basically did whatever he wanted. He never took his textbooks home with him, and nonetheless he received the best grades at the end of the school year. and t actually have that much trouble believing it, you know, that that again, this guy may have been in position to have known Uday and that's not necessarily inconsistent with like five or six years later, the kid that we heard about earlier, especially going through some rough years with his dad. E exactly the kind of behavior I would expect from someone who doesn't have no said to him. You're not gonna to punish him. You're not gonna flunk him. So why Why would he? He's a teenager teenagerer For sure And again, as I just said, I think Latif Yaya is not a super honest guy. But also if you're going to be running a con like that, there are often based on some truths and there's evidence, you know, it's not impossible. So I don't find that a super this sounds hard re of description. Yeah like of course's disrespectful to his teachers. What are they going to do? Yeah ye Exactly, right U Yaak claims Ude obeyed no rules and even broke the strictest taboo of all, girls. This means that one time he brought his girlfriend to class with him Yaya describes him enjoying the teacher's helplessness when Ue ordered him to continue teaching while he made out with his girlfriend. He claims this teacher was gone the next day and none of us ever saw him again. And I think that's a lie. And I guess I might be to believe that he knew Oe a little or knew him at a distance and just kind of added some bullshit to. U I don't know, mayaybe this is all like, but there's one more study of Uoode's S schoolool days in Yaa's questionable book that I will include He claims that in nineteen eighties soon after Saddam took power in the right likeike he's no longer kind of sitting in the back pretending to be the VP. Ude asked Yaya to paint a picture of his father as a congratulations gift So Yaya says he took this as an honor initially, and he finishes a painting of Saddam Hussein and he ges it to Ue in class and the dictator's son is really happy and compliments him. And quote, He heaped me with compliments. Thimply perfect. simimply perfect, he lisped, because he had slightly protruding teeth and thus a slight speech defect, although no one ever mentioned it And this is interesting. I found one other account at least that Ude had a speech impediment that I can like to a separate person. so at least a couple people have said that. It's weird to me that his English teacher didn't notice it. Maybe he didn't have a listp in English. I know I guess's's possible I don't know. But a lisp specifically is like a Isn't it like a structural thing in your m? It's like something you're doing with your mouth that you would do in any language. I asse mean we can language An another I'm not my mom a speech language pathologist ironically, but I don't know shit. So I'm not gonna try to guess more. I can't say that he's like because other people do talk about him having it's just interesting that his teacher didn't seem to mention that either And I could also see this him kind of wanting to make fun of Ue and this was a time in which it was more acceptable. Obviously there's nothing wrong with was speech and impediment, but in the nineties, it was a lot more acceptable to like mock people for stuff like that. Like people did that a lot more openly. And this is kind of a shitty guy. So that might just be what he's doing here. I don't actually know Um So yeah Yaya says that Ud was thrilled and starts seeking him out and trying to hang out with him every day after getting this painting of Saddam. And quote, he even promised he would give me everything I wanted. He would sort it all out But Yaya claims he instinctively knew to keep Ude at a distance because he wasn't comfortable with their peers kept pointing out how similar they looked. They're like, wow, you guys really look a lot alike And they did look do look kind of similar A little, yeah. Im a little crazily, but somewhat, yeah. doctor Latif Yaya and Ude U Now I'll caution against giving again, too much credence to anything in this fuckers's book, but it's not too wild a claim. Yaya claims that he and Ude lost touch after graduating like you do. and we'll hear more of Yaa's claims next episode. We will talk about him more, but let's get back to Ude. After graduating, you know, the school, the high school where he and Yaya went together, Ude went to Baghdad Medical College and you can kind of gather how legitimately he got he earned his introduction to Baghdad Medical College by the fact that he dropped out three days later. Oh was medical school for ninety six hours. So like he wouldn't have even attended very many lectures at that point I don't know if we attended any. He signed up for classes, He got to the dorm and he went home Yeah No, he might have been spooked by his first stethoscope It's thank God he didn't. doct. Ude Hussein, no Probably not a good idea L I lookicked it up and maybe it's just, I mean, they're just like two guys who both have a mustache Yeah Yeah That's that's the other thing. And this is also part of the if you If you read like the some of the like Saddam Hussein body double stories Having been to Iraq a good amount of times, I could just see those being stories of like, well, they were just looking for a guy who was kind of Saddam's size and had a mustache because they needed somebody at a distance for a minute But that's not as crazy as he's got like this team of men who live their entire lives pretending to be him and get like facial surgery. you know I don't know which is true He drops out of Baghdad Medical College and next he starts taking classes at the College of Engineering, where he got a bachelor's degree. and then he attends military Academy and he writes a thesis on the Iran Iraq War He's trying different things. Yeah He's trying to a doctor, be an engineer, be a general. whoo knows? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He needs to He needs to establish his Bonafid as like this is why I'm good to follow in my father's footsteps. You know, I have the military experience. I have this you know professional experience. Now he's not really doing much of any work here. His thesis is nearly universally agreed to have been written by like a professional military advisor in the Iraqi army. He just like writes it for U Uh whichich should be nice Although I guess in the United States, if Pete Hegseth wrote your essay, I don't think it would get you very much. So I guess it depends on who's grading Yeah, deitss on who's grading Per George Woodward's article, quote While at university, Ude wanted to marry a fellow student from a noble Iraqi family, but his father refused. He wanted a bride from within the family clan. Ude obeyed, but from then on, he was spoken of as a serial rapist. Girls were allegedly abducted for him and forced into sex. One of the most famous stories says that a bride was kidnapped for Ude on the second day of her wedding. After the rape, she could not live with the horror and took her own life, and the groom by U's order was hanged as a preventative measure Now That's an awful story. And you hear a couple versions of it. So there it either means either he did stuff like this several times or like one person told this story about him and maybe pieces of it were true and other pieces aren't, but people just started spinning it off It's very hard for me to tell. because there's slightly different versions of the story. and I don't know are these evidence of him doing it a bunch? or is this evidence of like the same because a lot of these come from like people, dissidents who leave Saddam's Iraq and are telling all sorts of horrible stories And I don't doubt some amount of this is happening. It's just hard to tell what is happening and which stories are true and which ones are like the in repetition of something that has changed over telling a bunch of times, right? I I guess too because you know he's murky take as a given he is a serial rapist. He is committing these these sexual crimes. Pretty good evidence that he was. Abducting a woman on her wedding night and raping her is this sort of worst scenario of this genre. This is very this is Dictator's Son primin Nocta type shit. I never doubt the basics of like, o Dictator Son committed a lot of rape, but these partic details is like what's the worst version of the story you could tell? The theatricality always makes me second guess like this doesn't necessarily always seem like something person would do. Right? Like not even I don't think he's the bad. I guess This seem seems weirdly elaborate. Like you're getting you're getting jaded. you had done too many sex crimes Yeah maybe And again, so I I can't For reasons like that, I can't throw all this stuff out either because he does some pretty crazy shit Um, Yeah, and one of the reasons that kind of makes me hesitant about this is that one of the most detailed accounts of this kind of like him murdering like raping a woman after her wedding and like there being murders after that comes from Latif Yaya, right? He's got a story that sounds a lot like the one I just recounted to you that I found from a two thousand nine interview he gave to the national And this is in an article on Michael Tibidos. This is years after Ue's dead He tells of a grotesque episode in El Habania Iraq's leading honeymoon resort, when Ude noticed a newlywed couple walking hand in hand and called over to them Uudde was livid when they ignored him mister Yaa attempted to persuade Ud to leave the couple alone, pointing out that they had only been married a few days. Ude snapped back. This isn't your business. Ude's pimps beat up the husband and forced the beautiful bride to his suite where he raped her. In shame and despair she later threw herself to her death from the fourth floor window of the building. mrter Yaa says the husband was accused of trying to kill Ude and sentenced to death but was later spared because of his long service in a war against Iran for which he was awarded medals The man Yaa claims was one of those who nearly killed Ue in a nineteen ninety six assassination attempt and I have That So this is part of why I have trouble believing specifically is that we know the story Yya gives claims from when he's supposedly Ude's body double, and he almost certainly wasn't So that means I don't believe this story. and that's so similar to the other one that it makes you wonder how much of these specific really theatrical stories of rape are just sort of like things that enemies concocted in that period of time when it was profitable to do so. But again, kernels of truth, right? I'm sure totally raped married women who then killed themselves because within her culture, she would not be able to go back to her family. Yeah. And like the curel of Trit. I don't Kernels of truth It's just there's so much of it that's like or then he tried to kill him and let him live because of his metedals. like's too many details. There's a lot of like, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. I'm trying to present you with all this so that like you, the listener can conclude what you wantan to believe about Udday Hussein, but choose your own hard it's hard to tell for sure with stuff like this. It's so politicized The fact that the US was looking for any excuse to do a war against Saddam's Iraq makes it hard to judge every piece of information as easily as I'd otherwise likek to. Um But yeah, anyway U all of this takes us up to the early nineteen eighties. During this period of time, Iraq was not yet the global pariah state that it would become after desert Storm, and it had one of the best football teams in the entire Middle East. Iraqis had become very proud of their team, which got its first foreign manager, the Romanian Cornel Dragushin in nineteen sixty two. and in nineteen sixty five, under his leadership, they won the Arab Nations Cup They won it again in nineteen sixty six, peopleople started calling them by the nickname the Lions of Mesopotamia, which is an undoubtedly cool name for your football te Yeah. I mean that pretty s. Yeah. That rocks. Yeah, That's a dude's rock moment. Given the guys involved, I'm surprised there wasnt lion on the field. Where's the lion? Get me the lion. I don't know that there wasn't Molly. And I would also like to remind you You've got a fucking Romanian man whose last name is basically Dragon and a team full of Iraqis. The mustache game in that team. We don't have the capability to recreate mustaches that were that powerful. L I need to see this Aazing stuff. Yeah, I can only imagine him in my dreams They' mightad to actually be pictures of the guy. I didn't look them up Um But I'd be disappointed if he doesn't have a beautiful mustache first couple of years that this guy's working, you know, the Iraqi team in the mid sixties is really starting to get off the ground in a big way, it's looking good. And for a new country in Iraq is a new country in the mid sixties, having like a football team that's a huge hit, like one of the best in the region, that's a big deal. And so it becomes like integral to burgoning sense of national pride that Iraqi people are getting. You know, the team becomes very beloved for this reason. However, after the mid sixties, they kind of backslide for quite a while. There's this initial period of greatness and then through the late sixties, up through much of the seventies, you know, there's a lot of unrest and disorder in the country. Saddam is rising to power and causing a good amount of that unrest It's a rough period for the team. Um, So after Saddam takes power and starts a war against Iran in nineteen eighty four, that war is consuming Iraqi soldiers at a terrifying rate. And Saddam needs something to bind the people together and improve morale because the population is not happy with this war that did not need to happen. say People don't love it when you take them into an unnecessary war with Iran and you should distract them with soccer Yes, Saddam Hussein.omet something that we wouldn't know anything leader. Exactly. No Yeah, no it's never happened again. Never has a world leader started an ill advised war with Iran and then tried to distract the country by a soccer game against Iran. Yeah, that's never happened before. It's never happened Um There's wars consuming human beings at a terrifying rate and Saddam needs something to improve morale. I'm going to quote from Justin Sherman's article again here In the hope that his son could help rebuild the spirit of the nation while also proving himself a worthy successor, Saddam handed Ud the reigns of both the country's Olympic Committee and its football Federation. Through sports, Saddam believed that a fervent nationalism would return, permeating through the sun kissed football pitches to the trenches in the desert. The appointment of the twenty year old Ude would initially yield historic results. Iraq would win the Golf Cup his first year in charge, followed by the Arab Cup just a year later. However, nothing could prepare them for what was about to come. With a dramatic win over Syria and their final match of qualifiers, Iraq punched their ticket to the nineteen eighty six World Cup in Mexico, which to this day represents their first and only appearance in the prestigious tournament So Wow prettyretty good early first two year run for the fail for, you know, Saddam's Nepo baby son Late, is that because of his management Or were they going to go anyway and he was just there. So not long before this. and by the way, I should note, Iraq is in the World Cup this year So this articles tim sinceday. These articles are yld, but I think this is their first Yeah, qualified for the second time in twenty twenty six So That is something to celebrate this year. Like I love it. They can do it with. They can do it without it day They could. They finally did. They finally did. It took a while. And I I've loved the country a long time. likeike it's it's unfortunately, when we're telling Iraqi stories, they're often very sad just because of how difficult that country's recent history has been. But it's actually really awesome. I'm really happy for them that they made it back to the World Cup because that's going to mean a lot to people. Like we've been talking about like football means a lot to people teeams like this, especially sh' really hard out there means a hell of a lot to people. So that's actually super nice to hear. Um, and that's why Saddam thinks this is a good idea, right? And at first it kind of looks like it is. You know, Uday pulls the team. It seems like Udday pulls the team. Now the what's part of what's really happening is they've recently brought on a new coach. And he's downing. Like Udy doesn't know shit about managing. He's the national soccer team? No. And I think this new coach has started before and it's that's kind of started too, but he doesn't fuck it up. You gott to give him credit for that. Like he doesn't he doesn't step over his own dick.'t's intous. Yeah, I don't I certainly can't say that he was bad at the job at this stage, right? But it may just be that's because he was too nervous to like do anything. So maybe he was just listening to his subordinates this period of time because it's not going this is going to be the only period of time where things are like really good for the team But yeah, at first things are going really well. and at this stage in the story, like the Lions of Mesopotamia, it's like a fucking nineties movie. It's like a Disney movie from like nineteen ninety six. like you've got the dictator's fail son who doesn't particularly like football and has never been good at anything and is desperate to please his father. And he takes on this team that had been great once But they fall into disrepute, and he welds them together into this group of lovable misfits and they make it to the World Cup Like that's that's a really good Disney. I'll watch that movie. I'll watch that. Absolutely, absolutely. If you do not include anything that happens after the World Cup, it's a great Disney movie. credits roll over the football pitch. Yeah, over the football pitch in the torture chamber Um No, no no, at the World Cup. we It ends there It ends there. It ends there. That's right. It ends there because there's no torture at the World Cup other than having to watch football Oh there was isue there was an isue with some sllayer'ads Well, yeah, they're slaves too There's slaves too. We should There's a lot of issues to have do. Yeah, I was trying to go to ads after accusing FIFA of complicity in slavery U you was saying you definitely are That is a fact. You know what else is a fact, Molly It's time for Es. Wow In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was going live I was terrified There was no thing inside those eyes. Turn black scared the hell out of me That was your first murder case. Yes. It's fair to say this was the biggest case your career? Yes, sir. Rape murder of a young twelve year old child. bad as it gets. I would think so Evil wake up. The one that saw the murder take place by Creet and DPippo. Anthony DPippo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unphazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave. L listen to the devil's quuarry on the I Heart radio or wherever you get your podcasts Hear the Devil's quuarry ad free with exclusive content suubscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals. does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded who won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin, Taadon, Jelekca Yetli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big chef fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be how we got to this present moment Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts The World Cup is underway and it's been incredible. On our podcast, The Aay End with Anieil Alacon and John Green, we're talking the games that have delighted us, the teams that have inspired us, what we're loving and what surprised us, all through the lens of being massive fans of the world's most beautiful game Daniel, this tournament has been magical so far. The expanded field of teams has created some incredible matchups that have already made this World Cup one to remember. And now things get even more exciting with the intensity of the knockout rounds as the field is whittled down to one World Cup champion on july nineteenth When you say like that, I get a pain in my heart that the tournament is over. But there's a lot of soccer yet to go. And if the first few games of the round thirty two are any indication, anything is possible in the lead up to the final We've got it covered from an ultrra' perspective here on the away end So listen to the Aaynd with Daniel Ekon and John Green on the IHart Radiopp, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahillia to Toateines to Modteroso. They brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold brush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commody that the globe is going to trade But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all