BBC2 is developing a major drama about the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein, drawing on new interviews to tell the story of how the Iraqi dictator and his inner circle of family and trusted lieutenants managed to seize power and hold it for so long.
The series, which has the working title House of Saddam, will begin with his rise to power in the late 1970s and follow the story through until his capture by US troops, hiding in a hole in the ground, after the overthrow of his regime in December 2003.
House of Saddam, which has yet to be cast, will feature actors playing important figures in the story, including the Iraqi leader’s sons, Uday and Qusay, who died in a gunbattle with US forces in July 2003, as well as his wives and daughters. Other senior players in Saddam’s regime, such as Chemical Ali (Ali Hassan al-Majid) and his deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, will also be portrayed.
The drama will tell Saddam’s story “from the inside out”, from the point of view of the Iraqi president’s inner circle rather than a western perspective, according to the writer, Alex Holmes. “It’s more to do with the fall and why he failed,” Holmes said. “He had a vision, which was to create a great Arab nation and write himself into the history books as a great leader who would be remembered in hundreds of years time. But his flaws and the tactics these failings forced him to rely on meant he never came near to achieving this vision, and instead dragged his country into misery and pain. “I want to tell the story from the perspective of the people inside his inner circle and understand how they saw the world and why they did what they did.”
Holmes said he and his team had spent nine months researching the project, talking to people who were privy to what was going on in that world and winning their trust.
He said it had been a challenge to get to former members of Saddam’s regime, such as Aziz, who were in US or Iraqi custody. “We haven’t talked to Tariq Aziz directly, but we have communicated with him indirectly,” he said. “We are trying to understand their world and reassure them that we want to tell the story from their perspective ... not a western viewpoint.” The development of House of Saddam, a co-production with the US broadcaster Discovery, has been given the green light by the BBC2 controller.
