The man who arranged the first Uday assasination attempt speaks:

A four man hit squad drawn from Sharif's resistance group decided to go ahead after weeks of surveillance. As Uday Hussein drove his golden Porsche slowly up a busy street in Baghdad's posh Monsour district, just after dark on Dec. 12 1996, two gunmen responded to Sharif's command with a hail of bullets from their AK-47 rifles.

"We were sure we had killed him," Sharif recalled. "We fired 50 rounds into that car."

However, Uday, although struck 17 times, survived. He was crippled for the rest of his life, and - according to popular belief - rendered impotent.

"Everybody in Iraq hated Uday," Sharif said. "The team members were very happy: they said they felt lucky to have been chosen for such an operation."