Many Iraqis were taken by surprise when their president popped in on them in factories, hospitals, mosques and farms. [Saddam Hussein] used these unannounced visits to make himself appear close at hand and potentially at any place at any time. Occasionally he would try to disguise his identity by wearing a big hat or an Arabic kefiya (cotton headdress), so as to ostensibly receive candid replies from his unsuspecting audience. In a television program featuring such meetings, Hussein was often shown sitting at an ordinary Iraqi home, exploring his hosts' views about himself and his policies. The hosts, pretending not to recognize their president, whose picture adorned every street corner, did not spare their praise for his great achievements. Whenever Hussein felt the subject had been exhausted, he unveiled his real identity, to his hosts' staged surprise and delight.

A personal guest of Hussein at the time, a Western surgeon flown to Baghdad to operate on him-Iraqi surgeons were presumably reluctant to undertake this hazardous task-was struck by the more fearful side in Hussein's personality: his excessively suspicious mentality and the fear he evoked among his coterie. In the long conversation between the two after the operation, Hussein paid close attention to the explanations given to him, and his manner was that of a person recognizing a higher professional authority.