Hussein Kamel al-Majid was Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law and Iraq’s Minister of Industry and Military Industrialization. He and his brother Saddam Kamel — head of the Special Republican Guard, married to Saddam’s other daughter — defected to Jordan in January 1993 out of fear of Uday Hussein, whom both saw as a fatal threat once Saddam left the scene.[1][2][3]
CIA interview in Amman
King Hussein of Jordan invited a CIA delegation to interview the brothers. John Kiriakou was among them. “One of the things that struck me immediately was they were wearing sidearms. … You’re a guest of the king, you’re asking for refuge in a royal palace, and you’re carrying a sidearm — like, who do you think you are?”[3][4]
Hussein Kamel opened with a demand: weapons, tanks, air cover, secure communications — i.e., U.S. backing for an overthrow of Saddam. Kiriakou’s boss: “Whoa whoa whoa whoa, we’re not here to help you overthrow Saddam Hussein, we would never do that. We’re here for you to tell us where the WMD is.” Kamel refused: “I’m not telling you where the WMD is — you’re going to help me overthrow Saddam Hussein.” He did not deny possessing it. Per Kiriakou: “I’m confident they had WMD in 1993” — definitely chemical weapons, “because they had used chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Iranians,” and possibly biological.[4][5][6]
The CIA leak that burned him
When the U.S. would not commit to overthrowing Saddam, the agency leaked a false story to the Arab press claiming that a secret CIA delegation had met the Kamel brothers in Amman and that the brothers had told the Americans everything. Per Kiriakou, Saddam saw the article and destroyed the chemical-weapons stockpile. “That was successful — that’s a good leak. The only remnants of chemical weapons we were [finding later] …”[7]