Qusay Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti

Saddam's younger son Qusay [Qusai, pronounced "KAW-S-EYE "], born in 1966, appeared to be first in line to succeed his father. He oversaw all Iraqi intelligence and security services, the Republican Guard, and the Special Republican Guard. Qusay helped Saddam eliminate any real or perceived threat to the regime by using bloody and shocking "tools of repression" to blackmail, force confessions, and destroy opponents. He authorized interrogation, jailing, and execution of political prisoners and their families. He periodically ordered during 1988-99 mass prison executions of several thousand inmates ("prison cleansing"), led crackdown against the al-Dulaym tribe in 1995 and local Shi'a revolt in 1997.

In official Iraqi news reports, Qusay Saddam Hussein was identified as the Supervisor of Republican Guard. Little was known about Qusay, inside or outside Iraq. He was known to be in charge of the Special Security Organization, the Special Republican Guard (SRG), and the elite Republican Guard, the units charged with protecting the regime and special weapons programs. Of Iraq's eight known intelligence services, three or four were thought to have been under Qusay's control since the early 1990s, including the Directorate General of Intelligence and the General Security forces. In a surprise move, in mid-May 2001 Qusay was elected to the 18-member Iraqi Regional Command, the executive leadership of the ruling Ba'ath Party. In 2001, he was named Deputy of Ba'ath Party's Military Bureau.

Following a raid conducted on July 22, 2003, by Task Force 20 on a residence in Mosul Iraq, and which resulted in a protracted firefight, CENTCOM confirmed that Qusay Hussein died during the operation, along with his brother Uday and two other people.