Ex-leader of Baath Party, Born to
a poor farming family in Tikrīt, a town north of Baghdad,
Hussein was raised by his widowed mother and other relatives. He
moved to Baghdad in 1955 and became involved in politics,
joining the opposition Baath Party, an Arab nationalist
movement. Hussein rose quickly within the party and in 1959
helped organize an assassination attempt on Abdul Karim Kassem,
the military president of Iraq. Both Kassem and Hussein were
injured in the gun battle, and Hussein fled to Cairo.
Hussein studied law in Cairo while continuing party-affiliated
activities. He returned to Baghdad in 1963, married, and rose to
the post of assistant secretary general of the Baath Party. The
party remained in opposition to the government until 1968, when
it seized power in a coup. Years of underground work gave
Hussein a small core of like-minded friends, many related to him
by blood or marriage and most from Tikrīt. After the coup, this
clique established itself as a Revolutionary Command Council
with absolute authority in the country. Hussein became vice
chairman of the council in 1969. He worked closely with General
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the council’s chairman and president of
Iraq.
Hussein took a leading role in addressing the country’s major
domestic problems. He negotiated an agreement in 1970 with
separatist Kurdish leaders, giving them autonomy. The agreement
later broke down, leading to brutal fighting between the regime
and Kurdish groups. He also played a part in the nationalization
of the oil industry, Iraq’s major source of wealth. In 1973 oil
prices skyrocketed, allowing the government to pursue an
ambitious economic development program that included new
schools, universities, hospitals, and factories.
In foreign affairs, Hussein at first helped Iraq play a leading
role in the Middle East. In 1975 he negotiated a settlement with
Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border demarcation. In
return, Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition Kurds in Iraq.
Hussein also led Arab opposition to the 1979 Camp David Accords
between Egypt and Israel. President al-Bakr gradually withdrew
from politics during the 1970s and formally retired in 1979.
Hussein became chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and
president of the country. In 1979 Iran’s government was
overthrown by Islamic fundamentalists and their supporters, and
Hussein feared radical Islamic ideas were spreading inside Iraq,
especially among the country’s majority Shia Muslim population.
In September 1980 Hussein abandoned his 1975 agreement with Iran
and invaded. After making some initial gains Iraq’s troops were
stopped, and by 1982 Iraq was looking for ways to end the war.
Hussein reached out to other Arab governments for financial and
diplomatic support and began to target the Iranian oil industry.
The Iranians, hoping to bring down Hussein, refused a cease-fire
until 1988.
The Iran-Iraq War left Iraq devastated with hundreds of
thousands of casualties and a debt of about $75 billion. Still,
Hussein had an experienced and well-equipped army, which he used
to influence regional affairs, for example, by pressuring Kuwait
to forgive its share of Iraq’s debt. In August 1990 Hussein sent
troops into Kuwait and annexed it. An international coalition
led by the United States evicted Iraq in January and February of
1991 in a conflict known as the Persian Gulf War. Though briefer
than the Iran-Iraq War, it was equally devastating, leaving Iraq
isolated and reeling from international economic sanctions.
Despite having led Iraq into two wars and, in so doing,
squandering the country’s oil wealth, Hussein succeeded in
facing down all internal challenges to his rule. In 1991,
shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf War, Hussein
suppressed an uprising among Shias in the south. Kurds who
rebelled in the north were saved from complete defeat only
because the international community protected them. Hussein’s
small clique of friends and family was divided after the war,
and in the following years Hussein arrested, exiled, and killed
many among them who were thought to threaten his rule.
In the mid-1990s Hussein began interfering with the work of
United Nations (UN) inspection teams assigned to Iraq after the
Persian Gulf War to ensure that Iraq had ceased development of
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and had destroyed any
stockpiles of these weapons. His government insisted that the
sanctions against Iraq should be lifted in return for its
compliance with UN resolutions and accused the United States of
seeking not to disarm Iraq but to overthrow the Iraqi regime.
Arguments over the inspections led to a series of international
confrontations. In 1998 Hussein averted conflicts in February
and again in November by agreeing to allow inspections to
continue. However, when in December he again blocked
inspections, the United States and Britain launched a four-day
series of air strikes on Iraqi military and industrial targets.
In response, Hussein declared that Iraq would allow no further
UN inspections. In November 2002, after months of heightened
pressure from the United States and the UN, Hussein submitted to
a UN resolution ordering the immediate return of weapons
inspectors to Iraq. Inspectors were sent to Iraq and reported
compliance and demanded further time for inspection.
HHowever, the United States argued that Iraq was not complying
fully with inspectors and was continuing toto hide banned
chemical and biological weapons.
In March 2003 U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq with the goals of
removing, capturing Hussein and destroying the country’s banned
weapons. When Baghdad fell to U.S. forces in April, Hussein’s
regime collapsed but the US failed to find any banned weapons.
After a long hide and seek Saddam Hussein was found in a hole
under the ground on Saturday 13th December 2004.
