01x02 - Crush Your Rivals

[bunniefuu]

[theme music plays]

[narrator] So, you've seen

how following the tyrant's playbook

can help you rise from obscurity

and seize total control of your nation.

But, believe it or not,

gaining power was the easy part.

From day one of your reign,

you'll be beset by enemies

and treacherous rivals

eager to bring your regime to a quick

and likely violent end.

It's a lesson one of history's

most famous leaders learned the hard way.

[machine g*n fires]

k*lled by former allies

less than two years

after naming himself dictator for life.

That too ancient for you?

How about Laurent Kabila of Congo?

Assassinated by one

of his own child soldiers

who got out of line.

And then there's Liberia's Samuel Doe.

[machine g*n fires]

Captured and tortured on camera

before being m*rder*d by a rival warlord.

But you can avoid their fate

by using the playbook

to put potential rivals in their place.

And nobody did this better

than the Butcher of Baghdad:

S*ddam Hussein.

Who ruled Iraq for 24 years

[g*n blasts]

by never forgetting the mantra

all tyrants must follow:

"k*ll or be k*lled."

[ominous music plays]

[speaking Arabic] I will pick up my g*n

and fight to the end.

S*ddam Hussein was a brute.

[man]

His way to stay in power was to make sure

that anybody he even vaguely suspected

might be an opponent, would be dead.

[narrator] But before we get into

how S*ddam masterfully

used the playbook

to stay one step ahead of his rivals,

here are some fast facts

about how he made it to the top.

From a very early age,

S*ddam Hussein believed in power.

When he was young,

S*ddam would carry a metal rod,

and he'd use this metal rod as a way

to threaten and intimidate others.

But he also used it

to t*rture small animals.

[Joseph] S*ddam participated

in the assassination attempt in 1959

of the leader in Iraq, Abd al-Karim Qasim.

And that really gave him

a badge of honor within the Ba'ath Party.

After the coup, one of his cousins,

Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr,

becomes the president.

And S*ddam was appointed vice president.

[narrator] But S*ddam was destined

for bigger things.

[woman] S*ddam was

a vice president for ten years,

but in the meantime,

he's actually taking alliances

and creating friendships

with different aspects of the government.

[Joseph] S*ddam went one day

to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and told him,

"You're getting older.

I hear your health is not in great shape."

"Time for you to retire."

[narrator] Or to put it another way…

[Zainab] You have a choice

of either be ex*cuted

or have a peaceful transition of power.

The next day, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

goes on TV and says, "I'm retiring."

[machine g*n fires]

[narrator] So, now you know

how S*ddam rose to power,

let's talk about how he kept it.

Starting with the first crucial period

of any tyrant's reign,

when you'll have to show what it means

that there's a new sheriff in town.

[g*n blasts]

[electronic music plays]

[woman] There are certain rhythms

to dictatorships.

Right after they seize power

is actually a very unstable time.

[Bruce] In order to stay in power,

you have to be ever vigilant.

You have to make sure that anybody

who is a potential rival is controlled

and put in their place.

[narrator] And those will even include

some of your first and closest allies

with dangerous ambitions of their own.

[g*n shots]

[Bruce] Even a minor slight,

if not dealt with,

may be a signal to rivals that,

"Oh, this guy is vulnerable."

[narrator] These fair-weather friends

are now waiting in the wings

to try to take you down.

[g*n blasts]

So don't give them the chance.

These guys didn't.

[Bruce] Every general

on The Great March with Mao

was dead

within a few years.

[crowd cheering]

Almost everybody

who fought the revolution in Cuba

on behalf of Fidel Castro

was dead within two years.

[narrator] How about Joseph Stalin's

original comrades in the USSR?

All gone…

…in a short time.

[narrator] But S*ddam did them one better

with a surprise move for the ages.

[machine g*n fires]

One of S*ddam's friends tells him

that there are people

who are murmuring and not happy

about S*ddam's takeover from al-Bakr.

So then S*ddam does this call for everyone

in the Ba'athist party to attend Congress.

And S*ddam comes with his famous cigar.

And he says,

"There are people in this room

who are opposing my leadership."

The dreams of the conspirators are many.

[applause]

[Benjamin] And then a man

by the name of Mashadi,

a senior member of the Ba'ath Party

who was highly regarded,

begins to give a rehearsed speech.

[speaking Arabic]

And in it, Mashadi confesses

to having plotted a coup or conspiracy

against the Iraqi leadership,

including S*ddam Hussein.

[narrator] Which, in truth,

was entirely made up.

We know through accounts

that Mashadi had been tortured.

S*ddam brought Mashadi's wife

and daughters to the prison,

and he told Mashadi he had a choice.

He could either sit there and watch

the guards r*pe his wife and his daughters

and then k*ll them,

or he would confess.

[narrator] Mashadi chose option two.

[applause]

And one by one,

Mashadi begins to read out the names

of Ba'athist officials

who were, according to him,

accomplices and conspirators.

[Mashadi speaking Arabic]

[in Arabic] Get out.

And then a member

of the police dressed in plain clothes,

the security force,

would come and escort out this person.

Some of these men are begging him,

like, "Please, no, no."

[shouting in Arabic]

[Benjamin] And it was

a bizarre spectacle of feigned loyalty…

[in Arabic] Long live the party!

Long live S*ddam Hussein!

[Benjamin] …but also fear.

You could see the fear

in the eyes of many of these men

who felt at any moment

their names could be arbitrarily read.

[narrator] Outside the meeting room,

the purged party members learn their fate.

More than 20 are sentenced to die.

The rest get prison time.

They think they're lucky

until they're forced

to conduct the executions themselves.

A sadistic twist?

Perhaps.

But it extinguishes any doubt

about what Iraq's new leader is

willing to do to protect his authority.

[g*n blasts]

And in case anybody didn't get the memo…

The video of that meeting

was sent all around,

including to Iraqi embassies abroad.

And the message was, "Look what happens

when people are betraying

the regime and their leader."

"That's the way they're gonna end."

[narrator] What better way

to kick off a new era?

Now that your rivals know

what you're capable of,

they'll have no choice

but to raise their game as well.

How do you make sure

you keep the upper hand?

To survive as a tyrant,

you need to have eyes,

ears, and muscle you can rely on

everywhere.

[Benjamin]

For a dictator to keep any threat

to his power from rising up,

the only way to do that effectively

is to do it in the shadows.

[narrator] That's why

every dictator's best friend

is an effective

and ruthless secret police.

During the Great Terror of the late 1930s,

Joseph Stalin's secret police, the NKVD,

presided over the arrest and execution

of nearly a million

so-called enemies of the people,

accused of opposing Stalin and his regime.

In Uganda, Idi Amin enforced loyalty

through his State Research Bureau,

which was staffed by members of his tribe,

as well as local criminals

and mercenaries from abroad.

Haitian dictator

"Papa Doc" Duvalier's enforcers

were nicknamed

"the Tonton Macoute" or "Bogeyman,"

after a character in folklore

who kidnaps and eats unruly children.

The idea of a secret police in Iraq

began in 1964 with the Jihaz Haneen,

which was a security apparatus

that S*ddam helped found.

After S*ddam ascends to the presidency,

he creates a special secret,

secret police, a sub-unit.

And it's comprised entirely

of members of the tribe and family

that are bound by blood

and oath loyalty to S*ddam Hussein.

[Joseph] In Iraq in the 1970s,

everyone knew these people.

They drove the same kind of cars,

they dressed kind of the same.

They even had the same mustache.

[narrator] So much for the secret part.

But no matter how much

you empower your secret police,

you need something else

to show your rivals

that there's nowhere to hide.

A trusty network of informants.

In S*ddam's Iraq, spying was everywhere.

Everyone spied on the other.

The Ba'athists are

everywhere spying on you.

So, in my own family, for example,

the only way my parents would speak is

in the middle of the garden,

blast out the radio far away from them,

and then they would whisper to each other.

And that's how they talked

with each other in the '80s.

[narrator] Now when the playbook says,

"Be everywhere,"

it's not just talking about

inside your borders.

[Benjamin] When dissidents would make

their way into other parts of the world,

S*ddam would not hesitate to demonstrate

that they were reachable to him,

regardless of where they were.

[narrator] Which leads us to Iraq's former

Prime Minister Abd ar-Razzaq al-Naif.

Al-Naif was a progressive politician,

and S*ddam's longtime nemesis.

[applause]

But after S*ddam

and the Ba'athists seized power…

[rain pouring, thunder rumbling]

…al-Naif was forced

to flee with his family.

He moved to Great Britain

and started speaking out,

publicly criticizing the government.

Unamused, S*ddam begins exploring options

for how to silence his worst critic.

A pair of friendly neighborhood assassins

pay al-Naif a visit.

[elevator dings]

But they hit al-Naif's wife instead.

She survived, by the way,

and the gunmen were ultimately arrested.

[siren wails]

So now S*ddam sends elite agents

from his secret police

from Iraq to London.

Where these skilled professionals

tap their informants

to keep track of al-Naif's every move,

waiting for the opportunity to strike.

[g*n c*ck]

This time, they don't miss.

[g*n shots]

[tires screeching]

The assassination leaves behind

a chilling message for S*ddam's critics.

No matter where you run,

S*ddam will find you.

m*rder and mayhem are always a solid play.

But S*ddam didn't rule by fear alone,

and neither should you.

For the next tactic in the playbook,

you'll see how to appeal

to another of your rivals' soft spots.

Their greed.

Whoever said you can't buy affection,

probably didn't try hard enough.

What an inner circle needs to stay loyal

is actually very simple.

They need to get more from the leader

than they believe they can get

from anybody else.

The efficient way to stay in power is

essentially giving the coalition bribes

and opportunities to be corrupt.

[narrator] Sounds pricey.

So where's the money coming from?

Most of these regimes are

highly sophisticated operations

of kleptocracy.

[narrator] What is kleptocracy exactly?

I'm not talking about that kid at school

who got busted

for shoplifting wine coolers.

Kleptocracy involves stealing

the resources of your entire nation.

Step one.

Nationalize your natural resources.

Oil, gold, natural gas.

If it's valuable,

it needs to be controlled by the State,

aka you.

Step two. Put your people in charge.

You'd never play a big game

without paying off the referee.

So don't start despoiling your country

without making sure

all decision-makers are

on your team first.

Step three. Control all trade.

Set artificially high prices,

hold back goods to create demand,

tack on some exorbitant taxes.

Then watch the cash flow in.

By mastering this technique,

S*ddam Hussein,

once a penniless shepherd's son,

got his net worth up to

a cool two billion dollars.

Not bad.

But as tempting as it might be

to keep the riches to yourself,

a smart tyrant knows the value of sharing.

S*ddam was able to plunder the resources,

the oil wealth of the State.

But he used these proceeds

to not just enrich himself,

but also as a form of patronage.

He bought the loyalty

of other senior party officials.

[narrator]

All this generosity isn't cheap.

But ignore this tactic at your peril.

Some tyrants find that they have wasted

so much of the government's money,

so much of the people's money,

that they don't have enough left over

to take care of their inner circle.

They wind up dead very quickly.

[narrator] And if you're smart,

you'll also set aside a little extra

to share with the common people.

[Zainab] One famous,

famous S*ddam would do,

he would surprise Iraqis

by visiting someone's home.

And the first thing he would do is

open their refrigerator.

He had this image of himself

that he is the man

who would bring all Iraqis food.

And when he sees an empty refrigerator,

he makes sure that he shows

that there are people

being loaded with gifts.

So that's the charm,

but it's mingled with the fear.

[indistinct chatter]

[woman] The end goal is to make people

in the public say that,

"No, actually everything is a-okay."

"This dictator is a good man."

"He's doing the right things,

right policies. I like him."

[narrator] Who doesn't want to be liked?

But don't go soft now.

Once your inner circle

gets a piece of the action,

they're going to keep demanding more.

Time to develop a new skill,

to remind them you're still the boss,

and they're not.

[big band music plays]

[Ruth] Most successful dictators

engage in ritual humiliation

of everyone around them,

including their closest collaborators.

And they do this very early on so that

the rules of the game are understood.

Are you gonna be on my side

if I let you up?

Sure, d*ck, sure.

I'm on your side.

Just let me up. I'll do anything you say.

[narrator] And why are these displays

such a key part of the tyrant's playbook?

'Cause they're pathological narcissists.

Tyrants are deeply insecure.

Their response

to any sort of criticism is attack.

You don't want somebody thinking

that "I have a better way to do things."

Ideas are very bad for dictators.

[narrator] Keeping your rivals scared

and off-balance is so much better.

S*ddam told friends how he k*lled

one of his best friends,

who was a minister.

His wife went to S*ddam and said,

"Please release him." And he said,

"Tomorrow,

you will find him at your home."

The next day…

[g*n blasts]

S*ddam sends his body cut in pieces,

in a coffin, to his wife.

[Benjamin] Stories like this

were a form of control.

Whether or not they were true

was not the point.

The point was to demonstrate

that he could do these things.

The potential was there.

[narrator] Let me tell you a story.

One day in the early '80s,

S*ddam orders a group of top ministers

to report for a trip

to destination unknown.

They load onto a bus

with blacked-out windows

that slowly drives them

in circles around Baghdad.

They arrive at a remote palace

outside of the city.

The men are directed to put all belongings

into envelopes marked with their names.

They're made to wash with disinfectant,

then forced to wait in silence for hours.

-[tape pauses]

-[narrator] Uh…

wait a minute. For you to understand this,

you have to know

what was happening at the time.

-[g*n blasts]

-[machine g*n firing]

[machine g*n firing]

[Benjamin] In 1979,

under Ayatollah Khomeini,

you had the Islamic Revolution in Iran,

which S*ddam looked at with great concern.

[all shouting]

[Benjamin] So, there was now

this new Iranian regime

that was calling for

a rebellion, an uprising,

an overthrow of S*ddam.

And it actually had

the resources to make it happen.

S*ddam decided

to preemptively attack Iran.

[b*mb detonates]

[Joseph] He really believes

that it is going to be a short w*r,

that within a month,

the regime will collapse.

[reporter]

S*ddam Hussein's w*r against Iran

has now lasted not three days,

but ten long months.

There was a lot of rumblings

among some ministers.

"This is a dead end."

"Where is it going to end?"

[narrator] So, before his restless allies

got any bad ideas,

S*ddam decided to give them

a little attitude adjustment.

Let's get back to the palace

where S*ddam's ministers

have been waiting

in silent terror for hours.

Finally, S*ddam arrives.

He speaks for 30 rambling minutes.

Having seen

their leader's brutality firsthand,

the men prepare for the worst.

Instead, S*ddam invites them

to a lavish supper.

Gives them one thousand dollars each,

and has them driven home.

But the message is clear.

Next time they might not be so lucky.

It was his way of instilling fear,

of projecting his power and authority.

It was a form

of psychological manipulation.

What he was doing is keeping fear alive.

And he did it with intention.

[narrator] When times get tough,

sometimes fear is all you have.

[Joseph] The Iran-Iraq w*r

lasted eight years.

He lost a lot of soldiers.

And at the end,

Khomeini was far more popular

and stronger in the whole world.

[narrator] How frustrating.

When your ill-fated plans

lead to national disaster,

you can count on facing

even graver threats to your rule.

Some from the most unexpected places.

Time to show how far you're

willing to go to preserve your power.

Surviving as a tyrant

means making tough decisions.

And you can't allow your emotions

to get in the way,

even when it comes to blood.

[Benjamin] S*ddam had zero tolerance

for any hint of rebellion or betrayal

from members of his own family.

And he would not hesitate

to arrest them, detain them,

execute them, t*rture them,

whatever he needed to do.

[narrator] Is it too much to ask

for your family to stick by your side

no matter what?

Of course not.

[bombs detonating in distance]

After being crushed

by coalition forces in the first Gulf w*r,

S*ddam needs

to quickly reaffirm his authority.

Even if that means taking on

his nearest and dearest.

[Joseph]

S*ddam's two daughters were married

to Hussein Kamel

and his brother S*ddam Kamel.

They were all third cousins,

second cousins.

[narrator] S*ddam placed

the older brother, Hussein Kamel,

in charge of Iraq's

nuclear weapons program.

[Joseph] S*ddam really was

almost besotted with him.

S*ddam thought that,

"This is a great young man,

who might be even one day my successor."

[narrator] Which came as unwelcome news

to S*ddam's eldest son

and notorious psychopath Uday.

[Joseph]

Uday was truly cruel and sadistic.

He was jealous of Hussein Kamel.

Hussein Kamel is beginning to sense

that Uday is going to make it

more and more difficult for him.

You know, sooner or later, k*ll him.

[narrator] So, one night

under the cover of darkness,

the brothers flee to Jordan

with their wives and children.

Hearing the news,

S*ddam is less than pleased.

Especially when he learns

Hussein Kamel is demanding asylum

and talking to CIA agents

about Iraq's chemical weapons program.

But S*ddam knows just how to respond.

[ringing]

He calls his daughters

and swears the Kamels

will be forgiven if they return home.

He must have been pretty convincing,

since they all returned to Baghdad.

But S*ddam greets them

with something other than open arms.

[overlapping screaming]

[narrator] He forces his daughters

to divorce the Kamels.

A few days later, S*ddam's government

claims the brothers are k*lled

in a sh**t-out

with vengeful relatives

at the family estate.

But others tell a different tale.

That S*ddam sent a death squad,

led by his own sons Uday and Qusay,

to take the Kamel brothers out.

What did you expect?

Actions have consequences.

The aftermath is even more dramatic.

[Zainab] They take the dead bodies

and attach them to a car,

and drive the car,

dragging the dead bodies

of S*ddam's son-in-laws

into the entire city.

He horrified the entire country.

That, "This is

what I can do to my sons-in-laws

if they disobey me."

[narrator] Coldhearted? Sure.

But that's how S*ddam

kept his rivals underfoot

until the last days of his reign.

Nothing lasts forever.

But to survive nearly this long…

[machine g*n fires]

…you're going to need to deal with threats

even more challenging

than treacherous rivals.

Because they're coming

from inside your population.

Fear not.

The playbook has some handy tricks

to keep any restless citizens

under control.

But they're not pretty.

Next stop, Uganda,

to meet the man who mastered

the art of terror to preserve his reign.

Are you ready to follow his lead?

[reporter]

What will happen to these people?

[Idi Amin] I think they will be sitting

like they're sitting on the fire.

-[reporter] What will you do to them?

-You will see.

[all laughing]

[theme music plays]