Saddam Hussein
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Sadam Husein)
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد
التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrītī[1];
28 April 1937[2]
– 30 December 2006)[3]
was the President of Iraq from 16
July 1979 until 9 April 2003.[4][5]
A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath
Party, which espoused secular
pan-Arabism,
economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup
that brought the party to long-term power.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups
were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created
security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the
government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam spearheaded
Iraq's nationalization of the Western-owned Iraq Petroleum Company, which had long held a
monopoly on the country's oil. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his
authority over the apparatuses of government as Iraq's economy grew at a
rapid pace.[6]
As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 through 1988, and
throughout the Persian Gulf War of 1991. During these conflicts,
Saddam suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or
gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs venerated him for his aggressive stance
against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians,[7]
other Arabs and Western leaders vilified him as the force behind both a
deadly attack on northern Iraq in 1988 and, two years later, an invasion of Kuwait to the south.
By 2003, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush perceived
that Saddam remained sufficiently relevant and dangerous to be
overthrown. In March of that year, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, eventually
deposing Saddam. Captured by U.S. forces on 13 December 2003, Saddam was
brought to trial under the Iraqi interim government set up by
U.S.-led forces. On 5 November 2006, he was convicted of charges
related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites convicted of planning an assassination
attempt against him, and was sentenced to death by hanging.
Saddam was executed on 30 December 2006.[8]
By the time of his death, Saddam had become a prolific author.[9][10][11][12]
Among his works are multiple novels dealing with themes
of romance, politics, and war.[13][14][15][16]
Youth
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of Al-Awja,
13 km (8 mi) from the Iraqi town of Tikrit, 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 is always referred to
by this personal name, which may be followed by the
patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abid
al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly
afterward, Saddam's 13-year-old brother died of cancer.
The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three.[17]
His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through
this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly
after his return. At around 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 and
a veteran from the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi
nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial
power in the region.[18]
Later in his life relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his
closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he
attended a nationalistic high school in Baghdad. After secondary school
Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in
1957 at the age of 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.[19]
Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and
throughout the Middle East. In Iraq progressives
and socialists
assailed traditional political elites (colonial era bureaucrats and
landowners, wealthy merchants and tribal chiefs, monarchists).[20]
Moreover, the pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt
profoundly influenced young Ba'athists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser
foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the
1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya.
Nasser inspired nationalists throughout the Middle East by fighting the British
and the French
during the Suez Crisis of 1956, modernizing Egypt, and
uniting the Arab world politically.[21]
In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army
officers led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new
government, and in 1959 Saddam was involved in the unsuccessful United
States-backed plot to assassinate
Abdul Karim Qassim.[22]
Rise to power
Saddam Hussein after the successful 1963 Ba'ath party coup
Saddam Hussein in Cairo after fleeing there following the failed
assassination attempt against
Qassim
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.[23]
He escaped from prison in 1967 and quickly became a leading member of
the party. In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup led by Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr that
overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif. Al-Bakr was named
president and Saddam was named his deputy, and deputy chairman of the
Baathist Revolutionary Command
Council. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions
within the first Ba'athist government, which formed the basis for his
measures to promote Ba'ath party unity as well as his resolve to
maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.
Saddam Hussein in the past was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a
bulwark of anti-communism in the 1960s and 1970s.[24]
Although Saddam was al-Bakr's deputy, he was a strong behind-the-scenes
party politician. Al-Bakr was the older and more prestigious of the
two, but by 1969 Saddam Hussein clearly had become the moving force
behind the party.
Modernization
program
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as vice chairman of the
Revolutionary Command Council, formally the al-Bakr's second-in-command,
Saddam built a reputation as a progressive, effective politician.[25]
At this time, 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.
After the Baathists took power in 1968, Saddam focused on attaining
stability 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.[26]
Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required both massive repression
and the improvement of living standards.[26]
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 1 June 1972, Saddam
oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time,
dominated the country's oil sector. 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).[27][28]
To diversify the largely oil-based Iraqi 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. 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.[19]
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 also doubled
expenditures for agricultural development in 1974–1975. Moreover, agrarian reform in Iraq improved the living standard of the peasantry and increased production.
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 people from other Arab countries and even 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. As the
ailing, 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 leader 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 16 July 1979, and
formally assumed the presidency.
Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders
on 22 July 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped (see [29]),
Saddam claimed to have found a fifth
column within the Ba'ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to
read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators. These
members were labelled "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 tried
together and found guilty of treason.
22 were sentenced to execution. Other high-ranking members of the party
formed the firing squad. By 1 August 1979, hundreds of high-ranking
Ba'ath party members had been executed.[30][31]
Secular leadership
To the consternation of Islamic conservatives,
Saddam's 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 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 colonial 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 Shi'a Islamist influence following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Kurds of northern Iraq (who are Sunni but not Arabs) were
also permanently hostile to the Ba'athist party's pan-Arabism. To
maintain power 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.[32]
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 Nebuchadnezzar 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.
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.
Foreign affairs
Donald Rumsfeld, at the time
Ronald
Reagan's special envoy to the
Middle
East, meeting Saddam Hussein on 19-20 December 1983. During the
1980s, the United States maintained cordial relations with Saddam as a
bulwark against Iran.
In foreign affairs, Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading role in
the Middle East. Iraq signed an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972,
and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers. However, the
1978 crackdown on Iraqi Communists
and a shift of trade toward the West strained Iraqi relations with the
Soviet Union; Iraq then took on a more Western orientation until the Persian
Gulf War in 1991.[33]
After the oil crisis of 1973, France had changed to a
more pro-Arab policy and was accordingly rewarded by Saddam with closer
ties. He made a state visit to France in 1976, cementing close ties with
some French business and ruling political circles. In 1975 Saddam
negotiated an accord with Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on
border disputes. In return, Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition
Kurds in Iraq. Saddam led Arab opposition to the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel (1979).
Saddam initiated Iraq's nuclear enrichment project in the 1980s, with
French assistance. The first Iraqi nuclear reactor was named by the
French Osirak.
Osirak was destroyed on 7 June 1981[34]
by an Israeli
air strike (Operation Opera).
Nearly from its founding as a modern state in 1920, Iraq has had to
deal with Kurdish separatists in the northern part of the country.
(Humphreys, 120) Saddam did negotiate an agreement in 1970 with
separatist Kurdish leaders, giving them autonomy, but the agreement
broke down. The result was brutal fighting between the government and
Kurdish groups and even Iraqi bombing of Kurdish villages in Iran, which
caused Iraqi relations with Iran to deteriorate. However, after Saddam
had negotiated the 1975 treaty with Iran, the Shah withdrew support for
the Kurds, who suffered a total defeat.
Iran–Iraq War
Main article:
Iran–Iraq WarIn 1979 Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown
by the Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an
Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The influence of revolutionary Shi'ite
Islam grew apace in the region, particularly in countries with large
Shi'ite populations, especially Iraq. Saddam feared that radical Islamic
ideas—hostile to his secular rule—were rapidly spreading inside his
country among the majority Shi'ite population.
There had also been bitter enmity between Saddam and Khomeini since
the 1970s. Khomeini, having been exiled from
Iran in 1964, took up residence in Iraq, at the Shi'ite holy city of An Najaf. There he involved himself with Iraqi
Shi'ites and developed a strong, worldwide religious and political
following against the Iranian Government, whom Saddam tolerated.
However, when Khomeini began to urge the Shi'ites there to overthrow
Saddam and under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a
rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel
Khomeini in 1978 to France. However this turned out to be an imminent
failure and a political catalyst, for Khomeini had access to more media
connections and also collaborated with a much larger Iranian community
under his support whom he used to his advantage.
After Khomeini gained power, skirmishes between Iraq and
revolutionary Iran occurred for ten months over the sovereignty of the
disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, which divides the two
countries. During this period, Saddam Hussein publicly maintained that
it was in Iraq's interest not to engage with Iran, and that it was in
the interests of both nations to maintain peaceful relations. However,
in a private meeting with Salah Omar Al-Ali, Iraq's permanent ambassador to the United Nations, he revealed that he intended to invade
and occupy a large part of Iran within months. Iraq invaded Iran, first
attacking Mehrabad Airport of Tehran and
then entering the oil-rich Iranian land of Khuzestan, which also has a sizable
Arab minority, on 22 September 1980 and declared it a new province
of Iraq. With the support of the Arab states, the United States, the
Soviet Union, and Europe, and heavily financed by the Arab states of the
Persian Gulf, Saddam Hussein had become "the defender of the Arab
world" against a revolutionary Iran. Consequently, many viewed Iraq as
"an agent of the civilized world".[35]
The blatant disregard of international law and violations of
international borders were ignored. Instead Iraq received economic and
military support from its allies, who conveniently overlooked Saddam's
use of chemical warfare against the Kurds and the Iranians and Iraq's
efforts to develop nuclear weapons.[35]
In the first days of the war, there was heavy ground fighting around
strategic ports as Iraq launched an attack on Khuzestan. After making
some initial gains, Iraq's troops began to suffer losses from human wave attacks by Iran. By 1982, Iraq was on
the defensive and looking for ways to end the war.
At this point, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Dr Riyadh
Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace
negotiations. Initially, Saddam Hussein appeared to take in this
opinion as part of his cabinet democracy. A few weeks later, Dr Ibrahim
was sacked when held responsible for a fatal incident in an Iraqi
hospital where a patient died from intravenous administration of the
wrong concentration of Potassium supplement.
Dr Ibrahim was arrested a few days after he started his new life as a
sacked Minister. He was known to have publicly declared before that
arrest that he was "glad that he got away alive." Pieces of Ibrahim's
dismembered body were delivered to his wife the next day.[36]
Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most
destructive wars of attrition of the twentieth
century. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces
fighting on the southern front and Kurdish separatists who were
attempting to open up a northern front in Iraq with the help of Iran.
These chemical weapons were developed by Iraq from materials and
technology supplied primarily by West
German companies.[37]
Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political
support during the war, particularly after Iraq's oil industry severely
suffered at the hands of the Iranian navy in the Persian
Gulf. Iraq successfully gained some military and financial aid, as
well as diplomatic and moral support, from the Soviet Union, China,
France, and the United States, which together feared the prospects of
the expansion of revolutionary Iran's influence in the region. The
Iranians, demanding that the international community should force Iraq
to pay war reparations to Iran, refused any suggestions for a
cease-fire. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council,
hostilities continued until 20 August 1988.
On 16 March 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja
was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve
agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or
seriously debilitating 10,000 more. (see Halabja poison gas attack)[38]
The attack occurred in conjunction with the 1988 al-Anfal campaign designed to reassert
central control of the mostly Kurdish population of areas of northern
Iraq and defeat the Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces. The United States now
maintains that Saddam ordered the attack to terrorize the Kurdish
population in northern Iraq,[38]
but Saddam's regime claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for
the attack[39]
and US analysts supported the claim until several
years later.
The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds
of thousands of casualties with estimates of up to one million dead.
Neither side had achieved what they had originally desired and at the
borders were left nearly unchanged. The southern, oil rich and
prosperous Khuzestan and Basra area (the main focus of the war, and the
primary source of their economies) were almost completely destroyed and
were left at the pre 1979 border, while Iran managed to make some small
gains on its borders in the Northern Kurdish area. Both economies,
previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.
Borrowing money from the U.S. was making Iraq dependent on outside
loans, embarrassing a leader who had sought to define Arab nationalism.
Saddam also borrowed a tremendous amount of money from other Arab states
during the 1980s to fight Iran, mainly to prevent the expansion of
Shiite radicalism. However, this had proven to completely backfire both
on Iraq and on the part of the Arab states, for Khomeini was praised as a
hero for managing to defend Iran and maintain the war with little
foreign support against the heavily backed Iraq, and only managed to
boost Islamic radicalism in the Arab states. Faced with rebuilding
Iraq's infrastructure, Saddam desperately sought out cash once again,
this time for postwar reconstruction.
Tensions with
Kuwait
The end of the war with Iran served to deepen latent tensions between
Iraq and its wealthy neighbor Kuwait.
Saddam urged the Kuwaitis to forgive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the
war, some $30 billion, but they refused.[40]
Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting
back production; Kuwait refused, however. In addition to refusing the
request, Kuwait spearheaded the opposition in OPEC to the
cuts that Saddam had requested. Kuwait was pumping large amounts of oil,
and thus keeping prices low, when Iraq needed to sell high-priced oil
from its wells to pay off a huge debt.
Saddam had always argued that Kuwait was historically an integral
part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into being through the
maneuverings of British imperialism; this echoed a belief that Iraqi
nationalists had voiced for the past 50 years. This belief was one of
the few articles of faith uniting the political scene in a nation rife
with sharp social, ethnic, religious, and ideological divides.[40]
The extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves also intensified tensions in the
region. The oil reserves of Kuwait (with a population of 2 million next
to Iraq's 25) were roughly equal to those of Iraq. Taken together, Iraq
and Kuwait sat on top of some 20 percent of the world's known oil
reserves; as an article of comparison, Saudi
Arabia holds 25 percent.[40]
Saddam complained to the U.S. State Department that the
Kuwaiti
monarchy had slant drilled oil out of wells that Iraq considered to
be within its disputed border with Kuwait. Saddam still had an
experienced and well-equipped army, which he used to influence regional
affairs. He later ordered troops to the Iraq–Kuwait border.
As Iraq-Kuwait relations rapidly deteriorated, Saddam was receiving
conflicting information about how the U.S. would respond to the
prospects of an invasion. For one, Washington had been taking measures
to cultivate a constructive relationship with Iraq for roughly a decade.
The Reagan administration gave Saddam roughly $40 billion in aid
in the 1980s to fight Iran, nearly all of it on credit. The U.S. also
gave Saddam billions of dollars to keep him from forming a strong
alliance with the Soviets.[41]
Saddam's Iraq became "the third-largest recipient of US assistance".[42]
U.S. ambassador to Iraq April
Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on 25 July, where
the Iraqi leader stated his intention to give negotiations only.. one
more brief chance before forcing Iraq's claims on Kuwait.[43]
U.S. officials attempted to maintain a conciliatory line with Iraq,
indicating that while George H. W. Bush and James
Baker did not want force used, they would not take any position on
the Iraq–Kuwait boundary dispute and did not want to become involved.[44]
Whatever Glapsie did or did not say in her interview with Saddam, the
Iraqis assumed that the United States had invested too much in building
relations with Iraq over the 1980s to sacrifice them for Kuwait.[45]
Later, Iraq and Kuwait met for a final negotiation session, which
failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait. As tensions between
Washington and Saddam began to escalate, the Soviet
Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, strengthened its military relationship
with the Iraqi leader, providing him military advisers, arms and aid.[46]
Gulf War
On 2 August 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, thus sparking an
international crisis. Just two years after the 1988 Iraq and Iran
truce, "Saddam Hussein did what his Gulf patrons had earlier paid him to
prevent." Having removed the threat of Iranian fundamentalism he
"overran Kuwait and confronted his Gulf neighbors in the name of Arab
nationalism and Islam."[35]
The U.S. had provided assistance to Saddam Hussein in the war with
Iran, but with Iraq's seizure of the oil-rich emirate of Kuwait in
August 1990 the United States led a United Nations coalition that drove Iraq's troops from
Kuwait in February 1991. The ability for Saddam Hussein to pursue such
military aggression was from a "military machine paid for in large part
by the tens of billions of dollars Kuwait and the Gulf states had poured
into Iraq and the weapons and technology provided by the Soviet Union,
Germany, and France."[35]
U.S. President George H. W. Bush responded cautiously for the first
several days. On one hand, Kuwait, prior to this point, had been a
virulent enemy of Israel and was the Persian Gulf monarchy that had had
the most friendly relations with the Soviets.[47]
On the other hand, Washington foreign policymakers, along with Middle
East experts, military critics, and firms heavily invested in the
region, were extremely concerned with stability in this region.[48]
The invasion immediately triggered fears that the world's price of oil, and therefore control of the world
economy, was at stake. Britain profited heavily from billions of
dollars of Kuwaiti investments and bank deposits. Bush was perhaps
swayed while meeting with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who happened to be in the U.S. at the
time.[49]
Co-operation between the United States and the Soviet Union made
possible the passage of resolutions in the United Nations Security Council
giving Iraq a deadline to leave Kuwait and approving the use of force
if Saddam did not comply with the timetable. U.S. officials feared Iraqi
retaliation against oil-rich Saudi
Arabia, since the 1940s a close ally of Washington, for the Saudis'
opposition to the invasion of Kuwait. Accordingly, the U.S. and a group
of allies, including countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria and Czechoslovakia, deployed a massive amount of
troops along the Saudi border with Kuwait and Iraq in order to encircle
the Iraqi army, the largest in the Middle East.
During the period of negotiations and threats following the invasion,
Saddam focused renewed attention on the Palestinian
problem by promising to withdraw his forces from Kuwait if Israel
would relinquish the occupied territories in the West
Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza
Strip. Saddam's proposal further split the Arab world, pitting U.S.-
and Western-supported Arab states against the Palestinians. The allies
ultimately rejected any linkage between the Kuwait crisis and
Palestinian issues.
Saddam ignored the Security Council deadline. Backed by the Security
Council, a U.S.-led coalition launched round-the-clock missile and
aerial attacks on Iraq, beginning 16 January 1991. Israel, though
subjected to attack by Iraqi missiles, refrained from retaliating in
order not to provoke Arab states into leaving the coalition. A ground
force comprised largely of U.S. and British armoured and infantry
divisions ejected Saddam's army from Kuwait in February 1991 and
occupied the southern portion of Iraq as far as the Euphrates.
On 6 March 1991, Bush announced:
| “ |
What is at stake is more
than one small country, it is a big idea — a new world order, where diverse
nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal
aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of
law. |
” |
In the end, the over-manned and under-equipped Iraqi army proved
unable to compete on the battlefield with the highly mobile coalition
land forces and their overpowering air support. Some 175,000 Iraqis were
taken prisoner and casualties were estimated at over 85,000. As part of
the cease-fire agreement, Iraq agreed to scrap all poison gas and germ weapons and allow UN observers to inspect the sites.
UN trade sanctions would remain in effect until Iraq complied with all
terms. Saddam publicly claimed victory at the end of the war.
Postwar period
Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the brutality of
the conflict that this had engendered, laid the groundwork for postwar
rebellions. In the aftermath of the fighting, social and ethnic unrest
among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units threatened
the stability of Saddam's government. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish
north and Shi'a southern and central parts of Iraq, but were ruthlessly
repressed.
The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam,
did nothing to assist the rebellions. The Iranians, who had earlier
called for the overthrow of Saddam, were in no state to even intervene
on behalf of the rebellions due to the disastrous state of its economy
and military. Turkey opposed any prospect of Kurdish independence,
and the Saudis and other conservative Arab states feared an Iran-style
Shi'ite revolution. Saddam, having survived the immediate crisis in the
wake of defeat, was left firmly in control of Iraq, although the country
never recovered either economically or militarily from the Gulf War.
Saddam routinely cited his survival as "proof" that Iraq had in fact won
the war against the U.S. This message earned Saddam a great deal of
popularity in many sectors of the Arab world. John Esposito, however,
claims that "Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they
rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the
confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues
that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social
justice." As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the
same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic
revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western
feelings. "As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about
Saddam's record and concentrated on America...Saddam Hussein might be
wrong, but it is not America who should correct him." A shift was,
therefore, clearly visible among many Islamic movements in the post war
period "from an initial Islamic ideological rejection of Saddam Hussein,
the secular persecutor of Islamic movements, and his invasion of Kuwait
to a more populist Arab nationalist,
anti-imperialist support for Saddam (or more precisely those issues he
represented or championed) and the condemnation of foreign intervention
and occupation."[35]
Saddam, therefore, increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in
an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society.
Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), in Saddam's
handwriting, was added to the national flag.
Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense following
the Gulf War. The U.S. launched a missile attack aimed at Iraq's
intelligence headquarters in Baghdad
26 June 1993, citing evidence of repeated Iraqi violations of the "no
fly zones" imposed after the Gulf War and for incursions into Kuwait.
The UN sanctions placed upon Iraq when it invaded Kuwait were not
lifted, blocking Iraqi oil exports. This caused immense hardship in Iraq
and virtually destroyed the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure.
Only smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid ameliorated the
humanitarian crisis.[50]
On 9 December 1996 the United Nations allowed Saddam's government to begin selling
limited amounts of oil for food and medicine. Limited amounts of income
from the United Nations started flowing into Iraq through the UN Oil for Food program.
U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the terms of
the Gulf War's cease fire, by developing weapons of mass
destruction and other banned weaponry, and violating the UN-imposed
sanctions and "no-fly zones." Isolated military strikes by U.S. and
British forces continued on Iraq sporadically, the largest being Operation Desert Fox
in 1998. Western charges of Iraqi resistance to UN access to suspected
weapons were the pretext for crises between 1997 and 1998, culminating
in intensive U.S. and British missile strikes on Iraq, 16-19 December
1998. After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British
warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in February 2001.
Saddam's support base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members, and other
supporters was divided after the war, and in the following years,
contributing to the government's increasingly repressive and arbitrary
nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq grew worse, and Saddam's sons, Uday
and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out
a private reign of terror.
Iraqi co-operation with UN weapons inspection teams was intermittent
throughout the 1990s.
2003 invasion
of Iraq
Satellite channels
broadcasting the besieged Iraqi leader among cheering crowds as U.S.-led
troops push toward the capital city.
[51]
4 April 2003.
The U.S. continued to view Saddam as a bellicose tyrant who was a
threat to the stability of the region. During the 1990s, President Bill
Clinton maintained sanctions and ordered air strikes in the "Iraqi
no-fly zones" (Operation Desert Fox), in
the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by political enemies inside
Iraq.
The domestic political equation changed in the U.S. after the September 11,
2001 attacks; in his January 2002 state of the union address to
Congress, President George W. Bush spoke of an "axis
of evil" consisting of Iran, North
Korea, and Iraq.
Moreover, Bush announced that he would possibly take action to topple
the Iraqi government, because of the alleged threat of its "weapons of mass
destruction." Bush claimed, "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop
anthrax,
and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade...
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support
terror."[52][53]
Saddam Hussein claimed that he falsely led the world to believe Iraq
possessed nuclear weapons in order to appear strong against Iran.[54]
With war looming on 24 February 2003, Saddam Hussein talked with CBS News
reporter Dan Rather for more than three hours, his first interview
with a U.S. reporter in over a decade.[55]
CBS aired the taped interview later that week.
The Iraqi government and military collapsed within three weeks of the
beginning of the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq on 20 March. The United
States made at least two attempts to kill Saddam with targeted air
strikes, but both failed to hit their target, killing civilians instead.
By the beginning of April, U.S.-led forces occupied much of Iraq. The
resistance of the much-weakened Iraqi Army either crumbled or shifted to
guerrilla tactics, and it appeared that Saddam
had lost control of Iraq. He was last seen in a video which purported to
show him in the Baghdad suburbs surrounded by supporters. When Baghdad
fell to U.S-led forces on 9 April, Saddam was nowhere to be found.
Incarceration
and trial
Capture and
incarceration
 |
|
 |
Saddam shortly after capture by American forces, and after being shaved
to confirm his identity |
In April 2003, Saddam's whereabouts remained in question during the
weeks following the fall of Baghdad and the conclusion of the major
fighting of the war. Various sightings of Saddam were reported in the
weeks following the war but none was authenticated. At various times
Saddam released audio tapes promoting popular resistance to the U.S.-led
occupation.
Saddam was placed at the top of the U.S. list of "most-wanted Iraqis." In July
2003, his sons Uday and Qusay and 14-year-old grandson Mustapha were killed in a three-hour[56]
gunfight with U.S. forces.
On 14 December 2003, U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer announced that Saddam Hussein had been
captured at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr
near Tikrit.[57]
Bremer presented video footage of Saddam in custody.
Saddam was shown with a full beard and hair longer than his familiar
appearance. He was described by U.S. officials as being in good health.
Bremer reported plans to put Saddam on trial, but claimed that the
details of such a trial had not yet been determined. Iraqis and
Americans who spoke with Saddam after his capture generally reported
that he remained self-assured, describing himself as a "firm but just
leader."
According to U.S. military sources, following his capture by U.S.
forces on 13 December Saddam was transported to a U.S. base near Tikrit,
and later taken to the U.S. base near Baghdad. The day after his
capture he was reportedly visited by longtime opponents such as Ahmed
Chalabi.
British tabloid newspaper The Sun posted a picture of Saddam wearing
white briefs on the front cover of a newspaper. Other photographs inside
the paper show Saddam washing his trousers, shuffling, and sleeping.
The United States
Government stated that it considers the release of the pictures a
violation of the Geneva Convention, and that it would
investigate the photographs.[58][59]
During this period Hussein was interrogated by
FBI agent George Piro.[60]
The guards at the Baghdad detention facility called their prisoner
"Vic," and let him plant a little garden near his cell. The nickname and
the garden are among the details about the former Iraqi leader that
emerged during a 27 March 2008 tour of prison of the Baghdad
cell where Saddam slept, bathed, and kept a journal in the final days
before his execution.[61]
Trial
Saddam speaking at a pre-trial hearing.
On 30 June 2004, Saddam Hussein, held in custody by U.S. forces at
the U.S. base "Camp Cropper," along with 11 other senior
Baathist leaders, were handed over legally (though not physically) to
the interim Iraqi government to stand trial for crimes against
humanity and other offences.
A few weeks later, he was charged by the Iraqi Special Tribunal with
crimes committed against residents of Dujail in
1982, following a failed assassination attempt against him. Specific
charges included the murder of 148 people, torture
of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 others.[62][63]
Among the many challenges of the trial were:
- Saddam and his lawyers' contesting the court's authority and
maintaining that he was still the President of Iraq.[64]
- The assassinations and attempts on the lives of several of Saddam's
lawyers.
- Midway through the trial, the chief presiding judge was replaced.
On 5 November 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against
humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.
Saddam's half brother, Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary
Court in 1982, were convicted of similar charges. The verdict and
sentencing were both appealed but subsequently affirmed by Iraq's Supreme
Court of Appeals.[65]
On 30 December 2006, Saddam was hanged.[8]
Execution
Saddam was hanged on the first day of Eid
ul-Adha, 30 December 2006, despite his wish to be shot (which he
felt would be more dignified).[66]
The execution was carried out at Camp
Justice, an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya,
a neighborhood of northeast Baghdad.
The execution was videotaped on a mobile
phone and he and his captors could be heard insulting each other.
The video was leaked to electronic media and posted on the Internet
within hours, becoming the subject of global controversy.[67]
It was later claimed by the head guard at the tomb where his body
remains that Saddam's body was stabbed six times after the execution.[68]
Not long before the execution, Saddam's lawyers released his last
letter. The following includes several excerpts:
| “ |
To the great nation, to the
people of our country, and humanity,
Many of you have known the writer of this letter to be faithful,
honest, caring for others, wise, of sound judgment, just, decisive,
careful with the wealth of the people and the state ... and that his
heart is big enough to embrace all without discrimination.
You have known your brother and leader very well and he never bowed
to the despots and, in accordance with the wishes of those who loved
him, remained a sword and a banner.
This is how you want your brother, son or leader to be ... and those
who will lead you (in the future) should have the same qualifications.
Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will
send it to heaven with the martyrs, or, He will postpone that ... so
let us be patient and depend on Him against the unjust nations.
Remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love,
forgiveness and brotherly coexistence ... I call on you not to hate
because hate does not leave a space for a person to be fair and it makes
you blind and closes all doors of thinking and keeps away one from
balanced thinking and making the right choice.
I also call on you not to hate the peoples of the other countries
that attacked us and differentiate between the decision-makers and
peoples. Anyone who repents - whether in Iraq or abroad - you must
forgive him.
You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who
support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered
for the legal defence of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein ... some
of these people wept profusely when they said goodbye to me.
Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the
merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never
disappoint any faithful, honest believer ... God is Great ... God is
great ... Long live our nation ... Long live our great struggling people
... Long live Iraq, long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine ... Long
live jihad and the mujahedeen (the insurgency).
Saddam Hussein President and Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Mujahed
Armed Forces
Additional clarification note:
I have written this letter because the lawyers told me that the
so-called criminal court — established and named by the invaders — will
allow the so-called defendants the chance for a last word. But that
court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and
issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence —
dictated by the invaders — without presenting the evidence. I wanted the
people to know this.[69]
|
” |
| |
— Letter by Saddam Hussein
|
A second unofficial video, apparently showing Saddam's body on a
trolley, emerged several days later. It sparked speculation that the
execution was carried out incorrectly as Saddam Hussein had a gaping
hole in his neck.[70]
Saddam was buried at his birthplace of Al-Awja
in Tikrit, Iraq, 3 km (2 mi) from his sons Uday
and Qusay Hussein, on 31 December 2006.[71]
Marriage
and family relationships
Saddam Hussein's family (clockwise from top L), son-in-law Saddam Kamel
and daughter Rana, son Qusay and daughter-in-law Sahar, daughter Raghad
and son-in-law Hussein Kamal, son Uday, daughter Hala, Saddam Hussein
and his first wife Sajda Talfah, pose in this undated photo from the
private archive of an official photographer for the regime
While Saddam has no official marital history he is believed to have
been married to at least four women, two of whom have been confirmed as
his wives, and had five children.[citation needed]
- Saddam married his first wife and cousin Sajida
Talfah (or Tulfah/Tilfah) [72]
in 1958 [73]
in an arranged marriage. Sajida is the daughter of Khairallah Talfah,
Saddam's uncle and mentor. Their marriage was arranged for Hussein at
age five when Sajida was seven; however, the two never met until their
wedding. They were married in Egypt during
his exile. The couple had five children.]],[74]
-
- Uday Hussein (18 June 1964 - 22 July 2003), was Saddam's
oldest son, who ran the Iraqi Football
Association, Fedayeen Saddam, and several media
corporations in Iraq including Iraqi TV and the newspaper Babel. Uday, while Saddam's favorite son and raised
to succeed him, eventually fell out of favour with his father due to
his erratic behavior; he was responsible for many car crashes and rapes around
Baghdad, constant feuds with other members his family, and killing his
father's favorite valet and food taster Kamel Hana Gegeo at a party in Egypt honoring Egyptian first
lady Suzanne Mubarak. He was widely known for his
paranoia and his obsession with torturing people who disappointed him
in any way, which included tardy girlfriends, friends who disagreed with
him and, most notoriously, Iraqi athletes who performed poorly. He was
briefly married to Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri's daughter but later
divorced her. The couple had no children. He was killed in a gun battle
with US Forces in Mosul.[citation needed]
- Qusay Hussein (17 May 1966 - 22 July 2003), was Saddam's
second — and, after the mid-1990s, his favorite — son. Qusay was
believed to have been Saddam's later intended successor as he was less
erratic than his older brother and kept a low profile. He was second in
command of the military (behind his father) and ran the elite Iraqi Republican Guard and the
SSO. He was
believed to have ordered the army to kill thousands of rebelling Marsh
Arabs and frequently ordered airstrikes on Kurdish and Shi'ite
settlements. He was also believed to have assisted Ali Hassan al-Majid in the 1988 Halabja and Dujail
chemical attacks. He was married once and had three children. His oldest
son, Mustapha Hussein, was killed along with
Uday and Qusay in Mosul.[citation needed]
-
- Raghad Hussein (2 September 1968) is Saddam's oldest
daughter. After the war, Raghad fled to Amman, Jordan
where she received sanctuary from the royal family. She is currently
wanted by the Iraqi Government for
allegedly financing and supporting the insurgency and the now banned
Iraqi Ba'ath Party.[75][76]
The Jordanian royal family refused to hand her over. She married Hussein Kamel al-Majid and has five
children from this marriage.[citation needed]
- Rana Hussein (c. 1969), is Saddam's second daughter. She
like her sister fled to Jordan and has stood up for her father's rights.
She was married to Saddam Kamel and has had four children from
this marriage.
- Hala Hussein (c. 1972), is Saddam's third and youngest
daughter. Very little information is known about her. Her father
arranged for her to marry General Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan
al-Tikriti in 1998. She fled with her children and sisters to Jordan.
The couple have two children.[citation needed]
- Saddam married his second wife, Samira Shahbandar,[77]
in 1986. She was originally the wife of an Iraqi
Airways executive but later became the mistress of Saddam.
Eventually, Saddam forced Samira's husband to divorce her so he could
marry her. [78]
There have been no political issues from this marriage. After the war,
Samira fled to Beirut, Lebanon.
She is believed to have mothered Hussein's sixth son [79].
Members of Hussein's family have denied this.
- Saddam had allegedly married a third wife, Nidal
al-Hamdani, the general manager of the Solar Energy Research Center
in the Council of Scientific Research.[80]
She bore him no children. Her current whereabouts are unknown.[citation needed]
- Wafa
el-Mullah al-Howeish is rumoured to have married Saddam as his
fourth wife in 2002. There is no firm evidence for this marriage. Wafa
is the daughter of Abdul Tawab el-Mullah Howeish, a former minister of
military industry in Iraq and Saddam's last deputy Prime Minister. There
were no children from this marriage. Her current whereabouts are
unknown.[citation needed]
In August 1995, Raghad and her husband Hussein Kamel al-Majid and Rana 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 Kamel 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.[citation needed]
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."[81]
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