Dubai, May 09: Saddam Hussein was seriously wounded during an allied bombing raid in the 1991 Gulf War and had to be operated on, the deposed Iraqi President`s personal doctor said in comments published today. "The main operation I carried out on the former president took place during the Gulf War, to be exact on February 1 (1991) after he suffered deep wounds," Ala Bashir told Asharq al-Awsat in an interview.

"I was called out in an emergency to the IBN Sina hospital which was reserved for Iraqi leaders and found Saddam Hussein in the operating theatre, his face and uniform covered in so much blood I thought he was dead.”

"Saddam told me he had been hurt in a road accident, but it was clear from the state he was in that it was the result of bombing," the doctor related.

"He was injured in the jaw which had a major deep wound in a semi-circle right to the bone. He had also been cut on his left cheek and over his eyebrow. The little finger on his right hand had been cut and was hanging off.


"I operated and stitched the finger back on and, to my great surprise, three months later there was no scar."

Before his overthrow in April 2003, speculation was rife about the health of Saddam who ruled Iraq with an iron fist from 1979.
Western and Arab media carried occasional reports that he was gravely ill, even dead, notably from Leukaemia.

US forces captured Saddam last December 13 hiding down a hole near his hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
Bureau Report