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Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي
Saddam Hussein, 2004.
Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council 5th President of Iraq
In office July 16, 1979 – April 9, 2003
Preceded by	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by	Coalition Provisional Authority
Prime Minister of Iraq
In office 1979 – 1991 1994 - 2003
Preceded by	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr Ahmad Husayn Khudayir as-Samarrai
Succeeded by	Sa'dun Hammadi Iyad Allawi
Personal details
Born	April 28, 1937 Al-Awja, Iraq
Died	December 30, 2006, age 69 Kazimiyah, Iraq
Political party	Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party
Spouse(s)	Sajida Talfah Samira Shahbandar Nidal al-Hamdani

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: Template:Ar Template:ArabDIN; April 28, 1937 – December 30 2006), was the President of Iraq from July 16, 1979 until April 9 2003.

As vice president under his cousin, General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces by creating repressive security forces and cementing his own firm authority over the apparatus of government.

Saddam led Iraq as head of the Baath Party, kept the country unified, practiced one-party rule, censorship, instigated violence against Iraq's Shia, Kurdish, and Marsh Arab populations. He also espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism.

Under Saddam, Iraq fought Iran in the 1980s and invaded Kuwait in 1990. Saddam tried to build Iraq into a regional power, and suspicion among US and UK government members (in a political climate affected by 9/11) that Saddam was attempting to build weapons of mass destruction ultimately led to his downfall.

Maintaining power through the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) and the Gulf War (1991), Saddam's government collapsed as a result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the United States, and he was captured by American forces on December 13 2003. On November 5 2006, he was convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraq Special Tribunal and was sentenced to death by hanging.

On December 26, Saddam's appeal was rejected and the death sentence upheld. He was hanged, in front of lawyers, officials, and a doctor at approximately 06:00 Baghdad time (03:00 UTC) on December 30, 2006, according to Iraqi television.

Youth

Saddam Hussein Kazmi was born in the town of Al-Awja, 13 kilometres (8 mi) from the Iraqi town of Tikrit in the Sunni Triangle, to a family of shepherds from the al-Begat tribal group. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son "Saddam", which in Arabic means "One who confronts". He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abd al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. He was the son of Musa Al-Kazim, one of the Sunni Imams of the Ahlul Bait. Shortly afterward, Saddam's 13-year-old brother died of cancer, leaving his mother severely depressed in the final months of the pregnancy. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle, Khairallah Talfah, until he was three.

His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return. At about the age of 10, Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle, Kharaillah Tulfah. Tulfah, the father of Saddam's future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim. Later in his life, relatives from his native Tikrit would become some of his closest advisors and supporters. According to Saddam, he learned many things from his uncle, a militant Iraqi nationalist. Under the guidance of his uncle, he attended a nationalistic secondary school in Baghdad. After secondary school, Saddam studied at Iraq's School of Law for three years, prior to dropping out in 1957, at age 20, to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Ba'ath Party, of which his uncle was a supporter. During this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher.

Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. The stranglehold of the old elites (the conservative monarchists, established families, and merchants) was breaking down in Iraq. Moreover, the populist pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt would profoundly influence the young Ba'athist, even up to the present day. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, which would see the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Nasser challenged the British and French, nationalized the Suez Canal, and strove to modernize Egypt and unite the Arab world politically.

In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abdul Karim Qassim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in 1959, Saddam was involved in the attempted United States-backed plot to assassinate Qassim.

Saddam was shot in the leg, but escaped to Tikrit. He then crossed into Syria and was transferred to Beirut. From there he moved to Cairo. He was sentenced to death in absentia. Saddam studied law at the Cairo University during his exile.

Rise to power

Concerned about Qassim's growing ties to Communists as the Cold War continued, the CIA gave assistance to the Ba'ath Party and other regime opponents. Army officers with ties to the Ba'ath Party overthrew Qassim in a coup in 1963. Ba'athist leaders were appointed to the cabinet and Abdul Salam Arif became president. Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba'athist leaders later that year. Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964. Just prior to his imprisonment and until 1968, Saddam held the position of Ba'ath Party secretary. He escaped prison in 1967 and quickly became a leading member of the party. In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup led by both Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr and Briyan Al-Reddyb that overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif. al-Bakr was named president and Saddam was named his deputy, and Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam soon became the regime's most powerful player. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions within the first Ba'athist government, which informed his measures to promote Ba'ath party unity as well as his ruthless resolve to maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.

Soon after becoming deputy to the president, Saddam demanded and received the rank of four-star general despite his lack of military training.

Although Saddam was al-Bakr's deputy, he was a strong behind-the-scenes party politician whose formative experiences were in organizing concealed opposition activity. He was adept at outmaneuvering -- and at times ruthlessly eliminating -- political opponents. Although al-Bakr was the older and more prestigious of the two, by 1969 Saddam Hussein clearly had become the moving force behind the party. He personally directed Ba'athist attempts to settle the "Kurdish question" and he organized the party's institutional structure. Hussein was put into control of the internal security apparatus, and within a decade, he had created a police state within Iraq that was so oppressive that it often received criticism from moderate Arab states. Between 1968 and 1973, through a series of sham trials, executions, assassinations, and intimidations, the party removed any group or person suspected of challenging Ba'ath rule.

Modernization program

Saddam consolidated power in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and economic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant. Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required the improvement of living standards. Saddam moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country's major domestic problems and expanding the party's following.

Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.

At the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On June 1, 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, had a monopoly on the country's oil. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.

Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

To diversify the largely oil-based economy, Saddam implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries. The campaign revolutionized Iraq's energy industries. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, and many outlying areas.

Before the 1970s, most of Iraq's people lived in the countryside, where Saddam himself was born and raised, and roughly two-thirds were peasants. But this number would decrease quickly during the 1970s as the country invested much of its oil profits into industrial expansion.

Nevertheless, Saddam focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athist government in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the countryside, mechanizing agriculture on a large scale, and distributing land to peasant farmers. The Ba'athists established farm cooperatives, in which profits were distributed according to the labors of the individual and the unskilled were trained. The government's commitment to agrarian reform was demonstrated by the doubling of expenditures for agricultural development in 1974-1975. Moreover, agrarian reform in Iraq improved the living standard of the peasantry and increased production, though not to the levels Saddam had hoped for.

Saddam became personally associated with Ba'athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, widening his appeal both within his traditional base and among new sectors of the population. These programs were part of a combination of "carrot and stick" tactics to enhance support in the working class, the peasantry, and within the party and the government bureaucracy.

Saddam's organizational prowess was credited with Iraq's rapid pace of development in the 1970s; development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million persons from other Arab countries and Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.

Succession

In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. At the time Saddam was considered an enemy of Communism and radical Islamism. As the weak, elderly al-Bakr became unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de facto ruler of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon accumulated a powerful circle of support within the party.

In 1979 al-Bakr started to make treaties with Syria, also under Ba'athist leadership, that would lead to unification between the two countries. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would become deputy leader in a union, and this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on July 16, 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.

Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on July 22, 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped, Saddam claimed to have found spies and conspirators within the Ba'ath Party and read out the names of 68 members that he alleged to be such fifth columnists. These members were labeled "disloyal" and were removed from the room one by one and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently put on trial, and 22 were sentenced to execution for treason.

Saddam Hussein as a secular ruler

Saddam saw himself as a social revolutionary and a modernizer, following the Nasser model. To the consternation of Islamic conservatives, his government gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia law courts, except for personal injury claims.

Domestic conflict impeded Saddam's modernizing projects. Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity; Saddam's government rested on the support of the 20% minority of largely working class, peasant, and lower middle class Sunnis, continuing a pattern that dates back at least to the British mandate authority's reliance on them as administrators.

The Shi'a majority were long a source of opposition to the government's secular policies, and the Ba'ath Party was increasingly concerned about potential Sh'ia Islamist influence following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Kurds of northern Iraq (who are Sunni Muslims but not Arabs) were also permanently hostile to the Ba'athist party's pan-Arabism. To maintain his regime Saddam tended either to provide them with benefits so as to co-opt them into the regime, or to take repressive measures against them. The major instruments for accomplishing this control were the paramilitary and police organizations. Beginning in 1974, Taha Yassin Ramadan, a close associate of Saddam, commanded the People's Army, which was responsible for internal security. As the Ba'ath Party's paramilitary, the People's Army acted as a counterweight against any coup attempts by the regular armed forces. In addition to the People's Army, the Department of General Intelligence (Mukhabarat) was the most notorious arm of the state security system, feared for its use of torture and assassination. It was commanded by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's younger half-brother. Since 1982, foreign observers believed that this department operated both at home and abroad in their mission to seek out and eliminate Saddam's perceived opponents.

Saddam justified Iraqi nationalism by claiming a unique role of Iraq in the history of the Arab world. As president, Saddam made frequent references to the Abbasid period, when Baghdad was the political, cultural, and economic capital of the Arab world. He also promoted Iraq's pre-Islamic role as Mesopotamia, the ancient cradle of civilization, alluding to such historical figures as Nebuchadrezzar II and Hammurabi. He devoted resources to archaeological explorations. In effect, Saddam sought to combine pan-Arabism and Iraqi nationalism, by promoting the vision of an Arab world united and led by Iraq. <--!According to Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, torture was systematic in Iraq under Saddam's regime. This section covers his consolidation of power in the 1970s. This is out of place here. This UK report is recent.-->

As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam's personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports, and shops, as well as on Iraqi currency. Saddam's personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant (which he essentially wore during his childhood), and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca.

In August 1995, Rana and her husband Hussein Kamel al-Majid and Raghad and her husband, Saddam Kamel al-Majid, defected to Jordan, taking their children with them. They returned to Iraq when they received assurances that Saddam would pardon them. Within three days of their return in February 1996, both of the Majid brothers were attacked and killed in a gunfight with other clan members who considered them traitors. Saddam had made it clear that although pardoned, they would lose all status and would not receive any protection.

Hussein's daughter Hala is married to Jamal Mustafa Sultan al-Tikriti, the deputy head of Iraq's Tribal Affairs Office. Neither has been known to be involved in politics. Jamal surrendered to U.S. troops in April 2003. Another cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, infamously known as “Chemical Ali,” was accused of ordering the use of poison gas in 1988, and is now in U.S. custody.

In August 2003, Saddam's daughters Raghad and Rana received sanctuary in Amman, Jordan, where they are currently staying with their nine children. That month, they spoke with CNN and the Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya in Amman. When asked about her father, Raghad told CNN, "He was a very good father, loving, has a big heart." Asked if she wanted to give a message to her father, she said: "I love you and I miss you." Her sister Rana also remarked, "He had so many feelings and he was very tender with all of us."

Notes

1. Saddam, pronounced (see Arabic phonology for details), is his personal name, means the stubborn one or he who confronts in Arabic (in Iraq also a term for a car's bumper). Hussein (Sometimes also transliterated as Hussayn or Hussain) is not a surname in the Western sense but a patronymic, his father's given personal name; Abd al-Majid his grandfather's; al-Tikriti means he was born and raised in (or near) Tikrit. He was commonly referred to as Saddam Hussein, or Saddam for short. The observation that referring to the deposed Iraqi president as only Saddam may be derogatory or inappropriate is based on the mistaken assumption that Hussein is a family name: thus, the New York Times incorrectly refers to him as "Mr. Hussein", while Encyclopædia Britannica prefers simply to use Saddam . A full discussion can be found here (Blair Shewchuk, CBC News Online).
2. Under his government, this date was his official date of birth. His real date of birth was never recorded, but it is believed to be a date between 1935 and 1939. From Con Coughlin, Saddam The Secret Life Pan Books, 2003 (ISBN 0-330-39310-3).
3. "Hussein executed with 'fear in his face'". CNN.com. 2006-12-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2526020,00.html
5. Saddam Hussein sentenced to death, BBC World Service, November 11, 2006.
6. "Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq". BBC News. 2006-12-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. From Elisabeth Bumiller's interview of Jerrold M. Grumpkin, the founder of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior at the CIA in the New York Times (15 May 2004) on the importance of events during Saddam Hussein's youth. It can be read online at .
8. ^ Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, 1978). Cite error: The named reference "ref6" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
9. Saddam Key in Early CIA Plot, NewsMax.com, April 11, 2003
10. Morris, Roger, "Remember: Saddam was our man", New York Times, March 14 2003
11. , The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton 1978)."
12. Sada, George, Saddam's Secret
13. Saddam Hussein, CBC News, December 29, 2006
14. Jessica Moore, The Iraq War player profile: Saddam Hussein's Rise to Power, PBS Online Newshour
15. Saddam Hussein Crimes and Human Rights Abuses by UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office
16. "Saddam's daughters express love for dad". USA Today. 2003-08-01. Retrieved 2006-12-31.

References

• Interview with Saïd K. Aburish (2003). "The survival of Saddam: Secrets of his life and leadership:". PBS Frontline. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
• Gerald Butt (2000-10-16). "Analysis: Instability benefits Saddam Hussein". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
• Jane Corbin (2004-03-28). "Panorama: Saddam on the run". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-12-31.

See also

• Iran-Iraq War
• Baghdad International Airport (formerly Saddam International Airport)
• Human rights in Saddam's Iraq
• Operation Rockingham
• Saddam Hussein's novels
• Saddam's Trial and Iran-Iraq War
• Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda
• Saddam Hussein, Sri Lanka
• Rumours of the death of Saddam Hussein
• Saddam Beach, a fishing village in India named after Saddam Hussein, in an act of solidarity during the 1991 Gulf War
• Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards, a deck of playing cards featuring Saddam Hussein as the ace of spades

External links

Template:Wikinewshas

• Saddam Hüssein Execution Full video
• Saddam Hussein Execution video, stabilized to remove camera shake
• BBC Saddam Hussein profile
• The 2005 CIA report concluding that Saddam "had no link to al-Qaeda"
• Sadaam Hussein Crimes and Human Rights Abuses - by the Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Saddam Hussein legal news and resources, JURIST
• (includes an archive of Saddam Hussein's recent audiotape recordings posted by the London-based "Free Arab Voice")
• Saddam Hussein's Philanthropy of Terror by Deroy Murdock (Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University)
• Saddam Hussein Biography
• The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook — Provided by the National Security Archive
• Tammuz I, Iraqi nuclear reactor
• Iraqi Scientist Reports on German, Other Help for Iraq Chemical Weapons Program
• CNN Report on Iraqi Kurds
• CNN map of chemical weapon attacks against Iraqi Kurd population
• President's Statement on the Saddam Hussein Verdict - U.S. White House
• Execution Footage of Saddam Hussein *GRAPHIC*
• Saddam Hanged for War Crimes in Iraq Dec 30, 2006

Template:Persondata

• Current events
• 1937 births
• 2006 deaths
• Cairo University alumni
• Cold War leaders
• Executed presidents
• Arab nationalists
• Iraqi anti-communists
• Members of Saddam Hussein's family
• Muslim politicians
• Presidents of Iraq
• People executed by hanging
• Murderers
• People executed for murder
• Executed politicians
• People convicted of crimes against humanity
• Saddam Hussein
• Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards