Certainly Saddam is a man who can lash himself into a fury, which feeds on his own rhetoric and unpredictable rages. He is nothing but a strutting peacock, a clown, a sly ruthless politician who plays one colleague off against another. He’s terrible in anger, pitiless in action, but he can also be a courteous and sometimes wily diplomat, charming even to his enemies. But above all else, his most terrifying feature is his unpredictability. He can change in a moment, from good humour to towering rage, from kindness to cruelty. All such men have a touch of madness in their make-up, an extra charge of imagination or a single mindedness, which makes them dangerous and difficult. Saddam is unendurably arrogant. He has a long memory and long knives. He’ll never forget nor forgive.