Saddam Was 'Uncle'; Now He's 'My Demon'
Nov. 27, 2005 — -- Zainab Salbi's father was one of Saddam Hussein's handpicked pilots. As a girl she called the tyrant "uncle." With Saddam's trial for mass murder set to resume Monday, Zainab told ABC News what it was like to live in the prison of his inner circle -- the terror and humiliation then, her hope for justice now.
Zainab Salbi: I knew two things about him. I knew that he killed my best friend's father. I also knew by the time I met him in our house that I almost lost my mother because of him, because of their ethnic heritage or origin. As a child, I remember having my mother and her family afraid. They were in hiding.
There was always a part of him that was just Uncle Saddam, and there was a part of him that was a criminal. We were always afraid of his moods. There were times in which he killed his best friends, and he would talk about that. And he killed his relatives, and he would talk about it. He killed his own lovers, and he talked about that.
When he saw a woman that he liked, he literally did take her to the other room and raped her. I suspect that some of them may be my mother's friends. I remember them whispering, I remember them crying in our living room.
My personal moment in which I was aware … one is, it was in the afternoon, and he came. And there were a couple of girls with me. The other families were in the same relationship. And he said, "Let me give you a ride." And he took us to different houses -- houses and houses that he had in that huge compound. He would show us the bedrooms; he would show us the bunkers. And when we came back from that ride, all the parents were outside of the house, and looked very, very nervous. They all looked pale. And much later, many, many, many years later, on my mother's deathbed, I realized that he actually was very angry at them when he saw them upset and suspicious of him by taking the girls out for a ride.
Saddam Hussein is my demon. And I still shiver when I think of him. It's easy to execute Saddam. This is what he has done to so many Iraqis. But is that what we want? … His trial presents that opportunity to have ownership of how we want to move forward with the future and not just do what he had taught us to do.
Related Stories
ABC News Live