Saddam's eldest son tied to athlete tortureApparently the apple doesn't fall from the tree. In the latest edition of Sports Illustrated, investigative reporter Don Yaeger describes the ruthless acts committed by Uday Hussein (Saddam's oldest son) since his father granted 20 year-old Uday control over Iraq's soccer federation and Olympic committee in 1984.

Yaeger's article begins with former Uday body double Latif Yahia recounting a story of a disgraced Iraqi boxer returning to Baghdad after a Gulf States competition.

According to Yahia, Uday had Iraqi secret service agents drag the manacled boxer into a dark room with a portrait of the prince. "In sport," railed Hussein, "you can either win or you can lose. I told you not to come home if you didn't win."

Yahia says Uday proceeded to throw two vicious rounds of punches into the defenseless boxer's face before employing his famous electric prod to jolt the battered athlete in the chest.

Far from finished, Uday then asked his guards to grab him a straight razor. Hussein held it to the man's throat momentarily before shaving his eyebrows, a sharp insult to Muslim males.

Yahia says they then took the boxer into Uday's infamous 30-cell prison where athletes, as well as those out of favor with the prince, are regularly beaten and tortured.

Uday, who Yaeger says was playing with disarmed grenades as an infant and is commonly known as the "Butcher Boy" of Iraq, benefitted from the fallout of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

Perhaps as a reward for committing his first murder at the age of 16 ("Uday," writes Yaeger, "told classmates he had killed a teacher who had upbraided him in front of a girlfriend"), Saddam handed his eldest son the reigns to Iraq's struggling athletic organization.

Iraq, once a major player in the Asian sports world, sending 46 athletes to the 1980 summer games, fell on hard times after their youth were demoralized by the Iran conflict.

Sabah Mohammed, Iraq's former national basketball coach, fled to London in 1999. He says that Uday and the Hussein regime executed nine members of his wife's family.

While coaches and athletes fled the country in the 90s, Uday continued his reign of terror. In 2001, Amnesty International reported that the prince ordered the hand of a security officer at Iraq's Olympic headquarters chopped off in 1996. Uday accused the man of stealing missing sports equipment that was later found untouched.


Burk says war may alter tone of protest

Women's activist Martha Burk, who for months now has blasted the administrative staff at all-male Augusta National Golf Club (home of the Masters), now says that her long-time nemesis, Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson, should consider postponing the event.

While Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, announced Wednesday that she still intends to protest the April 12 Masters, she admits the ongoing war in Iraq will "alter the tone and possibly the size" of the planned protest.

Burk, who recently sued the city of Augusta, Ga., after her request to protest at Augusta National's front gate was denied, had joined forces with the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

Augusta National spokesman Glenn Greenspan isn't buying Burk's semi-compassionate new stance. "To now suggest that she wishes to show some restraint out of respect for our military is an affront to common decency," he said, "She'll say anything to get publicity."


Jackson's verbal slap spices up hot rivalry

On Thursday, after his team was thoroughly dominated by the Sacramento Kings in a 107-99 defeat, Lakers coach Phil Jackson (who former Knicks head man Jeff Van Gundy once labeled "Big Chief Triangle" for his offensive schemes and bizarre Zen-inspired coaching tactics) went off on the home team.

"I have absolutely no fear of this team at all," said Jackson, "Did you look at their bench and their demeanor? They whined the whole game long ... that's not good behavior for a team that wants to win a championship, or thinks it can win a championship."

The Kings-Lakers rivalry, which gained steam in the pre-season when Laker Rick Fox and King Doug Christie engaged in a heated scuffle that filtered into the locker room, got another jolt last week. Laker Center Shaquille O'Neal (who reached the 20,000 point milestone Thursday night in Sacramento) went haywire after he learned that the U.S. Olympic team selection committee had selected Kings guard Mike Bibby over ill-tempered Sixers star Allen Iverson to compete in the 2004 games in Athens.