Saddam's Minister of Mass Destruction?

Sept. 26 -- In the khaki and gray lineup of ever-attentive aides, cabinet members, and sundry yes-men around Saddam Hussein in the photo-ops these days, one man stands out from the crowd.

Abdul Tawab el-Mulla Howeish, Iraq's deputy prime minister and military industrialization minister, has been bagging the best spot in the officially released photographs and news clips emerging from Baghdad over the past few weeks, and it's an arrangement that has not gone unnoticed in certain circles.

As the head of Iraq's mammoth Ministry for Military Industrialization, the department responsible for the country's weapons development program through the 1980s — and U.S. and British officials say after the 1991 Gulf War as well — Howeish is of obvious interest for analysts and intelligence officials.

U.S. officials believe the Ministry for Military Industrialization is responsible for manufacturing Iraq's chemical and biological weapons.

But in a country where actual power is believed to flow from one's proximity to Saddam, experts have been exploring the significance of the handlebar-mustachioed, beret-sporting Howeish's constant presence at the Iraqi leader's side.

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words — and by all accounts, analysts are boosting their word count on Howeish as the West ramps up its quest to penetrate the tight hierarchy of Baghdad's inner circle.

"There is not a lot of published information on the internal dynamics of Iraq's leadership circle," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based defense think tank. "These photo-ops are staged and carefully arranged, it's no accident — people didn't just mill around there."

Myself and My Brother

By all accounts, the only people allowed to mill around Saddam these days are the most trusted and loyal officials and family members, which in Iraq often tend to be one and the same.

"Myself and my brother against the world," goes an old Arab proverb, and as Washington's calls for a "regime change" increases the pressure on Saddam, his inner circle has increasingly featured members of his family, clan or tribe.

"It's important to emphasize just how tribal the Iraqi government is," said Sandra Mackey, an Iraq expert and author of the book The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein. "Ever since the Gulf War, there's been a fundamental increase in the importance of the tribe in government as opposed to the educated urban elite with some technical expertise."