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

A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and 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, Saddam tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces — at a time when many other groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government — by creating repressive security 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.

As president, Saddam maintained power through the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the first Persian Gulf War (1991). During these conflicts, Saddam repressed movements he deemed threatening to the stability of Iraq, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. While he remained a popular hero among many disaffected Arabs everywhere for standing up to the West and for his support for the Palestinians, U.S. leaders continued to view Saddam with deep suspicion following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Saddam was deposed by the U.S. and its allies during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Captured by U.S. forces on December 13, 2003, Saddam was brought to trial under the Iraqi interim government set up by U.S.-led forces. On November 5, 2006, he was convicted of charges related to the executions of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites suspected of planning an assassination attempt against him, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam was executed on December 30, 2006.

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 never knew his father, Hussein 'Abid al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly afterward, Saddam's thirteen-year-old brother died of cancer. 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 around ten, 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 Britain, which remained a major colonial power in the region. 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 high school in Baghdad. After secondary school, Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, prior to dropping out in 1957, at the age of twenty, 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. In Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites (colonial era bureaucrats and landowners, wealthy merchants and tribal chiefs, monarchists). Moreover, the pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt would profoundly influence young Ba'athists like Saddam. 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 inspired nationalists throughout the Middle East for standing up to the British and the French during the Suez Crisis of 1956, and for striving to modernize Egypt and unite the Arab world politically. (Humphreys, 68)

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.

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 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.

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.

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. 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. (Humphreys, 78) Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required both massive repression and the improvement of living standards. (Humphreys, 78)

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, 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).

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. 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 for which Saddam had hoped.

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.

In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. 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 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 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 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 put on trial, and 22 were sentenced to death for treason.

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 power Saddam tended either to provide them with benefits so as to co-opt them into the government, 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. Saddam was also a great admirer of Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. During the 1970s, he visited all fifteen of Stalin's seaside dachas in Abkhazia which dotted along the coast of the Black Sea. In a meeting with Saddam in 1979, Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman recalled that his office included a library of solely books on the Soviet leader. Saddam's visit to the dachas was said to be one of the inspirations for Saddam's construction of the grand palaces built in Baghdad and 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.

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.

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 June 7, 1981 by an Israeli air strike (Operation Opera).

In 1970, Saddam had negotiated an agreement with Kurdish separatist 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.

In 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. Under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in 1978. After the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini perhaps regarded toppling Saddam's government as a goal second only to consolidating power in Iran.

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. Iraq and Iran entered into open warfare on September 22, 1980. The pretext for hostilities with Iran was this territorial dispute, but the war was more likely an attempt by Saddam, supported by both the United States and the Soviet Union, to have Iraq form a bulwark against the expansion of radical Iranian-style revolution.



In the first days of the war, there was heavy ground fighting around strategic ports as Iraq launched an attack on Iran's oil-rich, Arab-populated province of Khuzestan. After making some initial gains, Iraq's troops began to suffer losses from human-wave attacks by Iran. By 1982 Iraq was looking for ways to end the war. At this point, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Riyadh Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations. Ibrahim’s chopped up body was delivered to his wife the next day.

Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most destructive wars of attrition of the twentieth century, with atrocities committed on both sides. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists. On March 16, 1988 Iraqi troops, on orders from Saddam to stop a Kurdish uprising, attacked the Kurdish town of Halabjah with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents killing 5,000 people, mostly women and children. (see Halabja poison gas attack) Dissenting opinions dispute the numbers and have said the incident was actually a battle in the Iran – Iraq war where chemical weapons were used on both sides.

Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political support. The Iranians, hoping to bring down Saddam's secular government and instigate a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq, refused a cease-fire until 1988.

The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties with estimates of up to one million dead for both sides total. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.

Iraq was also stuck with a war debt of roughly $75 billion. 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. Faced with rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, Saddam desperately sought out cash once again, this time for postwar reconstruction.

The end of the war with Iran served to deepen latent tensions between Iraq and its wealthy neighbor Kuwait. Saddam saw his war with Iran as having spared Kuwait from the imminent threat of Iranian domination. Since the struggle with Iran had been fought for the benefit of the other Persian Gulf Arab states as much as for Iraq, he argued, a share of Iraqi debt should be forgiven. Saddam urged the Kuwaits to forgive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the war, some $30 billion, but the Kuwaitis refused. (Humphreys, 105)

Also to raise money for postwar reconstruction, Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back oil production. Kuwait refused to cut production. 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.

On another compelling level, Saddam Hussein and many Iraqis considered the boundary line between Iraq and Kuwait, cutting Iraq off from the sea, a historical wrong imposed by British imperial officials in 1922. (Humphreys, 105) Saddam was not alone in this belief. For at least half a century, Iraqi nationalists were espousing emphatically the belief that Kuwait was historically an integral part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into being through the maneuverings of British imperialism. Indeed, 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. (Humphreys, 105)

The colossal extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves also intensified tensions in the region. The oil reserves of Kuwait (with a population of a mere 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. (Humphreys, 105)

Furthermore Saddam argued that the Kuwaiti monarchy had slant drilled oil out of wells that Iraq considered to be within its disputed border with Kuwait. Given that at the time Iraq was not regarded as a pariah state, Saddam was able to complain about the slant drilling to the U.S. State Department. Although this had continued for years, Saddam now needed oil money to stem a looming economic crisis. 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 sent billions of dollars to Saddam to keep him from forming a strong alliance with the Soviets. Saddam's Iraq became " the third-largest recipient of US assistance."

U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on July 25, where the Iraqi leader stated his intention to continue talks. 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. 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. (Humphreys, 106) Later, Iraq and Kuwait then met for a final negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait.

Although no reliable first-hand information on Saddam's appraisal of the situation exists, we can surmise from the prewar standpoint of the Iraqi leader and his interests and the conflicting prewar signals from Washington that the invasion was likely born out of Iraq's postwar debt problem and faltering attempts to gain the resources needed for postwar reconstruction, rebuild the devastated Iraqi economy, and stabilize the domestic political situation.

On August 2, 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, thus sparking an international crisis. The annexation of Kuwait gave Iraq, with its own substantial oil fields, control of 20 percent of the Persian Gulf reserves. The U.S. 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.

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. 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. The invasion immediately triggered fears that the world's price of oil, and therefore the control of the world economy, was at stake. Britain profited heavily from billions of dollars of Kuwaiti investments and bank deposits. President Bush was perhaps swayed while meeting with the tough British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who happened to be in the U.S. at the time.

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 massive amounts 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 January 16, 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 March 6, 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 publically claimed victory at the end of the war.

Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the violence 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 the Iraq, but were repressed.

The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, did little to assist the rebellions. U.S. ally 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 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 America. This message earned Saddam a great deal of popularity in many sectors of the Arab world.

Saddam 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 June 26, 1993, in retaliation for Iraq's sponsorship of a plot to kill former President George H. W. Bush.

The UN sanctions placed upon Iraq when it invaded Kuwait were not lifted, blocking Iraqi oil exports. This caused hardship in Iraq and greatly impacted the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure. Only smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid ameliorated the humanitarian crisis. On December 9, 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 increased tensions between 1997 and 1998, culminating in intensive U.S. and British missile strikes on Iraq, December 16-19, 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 Hussein and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out a private reign of terror. They likely had a leading hand when, in August 1995, two of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law (Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel), who held high positions in the Iraqi military, defected to Jordan. Both were killed after returning to Iraq the following February.

Iraqi co-operation with UN weapons inspection teams was intermittent throughout the 1990s.

Saddam continued to loom large in American consciousness as a major threat to Western allies such as oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Israel, to Western oil supplies from the Gulf states, and to Middle East stability generally. Bush's successor, U.S. President Bill Clinton (1993-2001), maintained sanctions and made occasional air strikes in the Iraqi no-fly zones or other restrictions, in the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by his many political enemies. Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, an official statement of US policy calling for political change in Iraq.

The situation changed in the U.S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In his January 2002 state-of-the-union message to Congress, President George W. Bush spoke of an "axis of evil" comprising Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. Moreover, Bush announced that he would possibly take action to topple the Iraqi government, because of the threat of its weapons of mass destruction, further stating that "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade." "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror," said Bush. No substantive evidence to support these allegations has ever been produced.

As the war was looming on February 24, 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. 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 March 20. The United States made at least two attempts to kill Saddam with targeted air strikes, but both failed to hit their target. 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 April 9, Saddam was nowhere to be found.

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 were 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 gunfight with U.S. forces.

On December 14, 2003, U.S. administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer announced that Saddam Hussein had been captured at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near Tikrit. 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 December 13, 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. It is believed he remained there in high security during most of the time of his detention. Details of his interrogations remain unclear.

A British tabloid named 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.

U.S. guards watching Saddam revealed that during incarceration, Saddam developed a taste for Raisin Bran Crunch cereal, but detested Fruit Loops, and would snack during the day on Doritos corn chips (which he preferred to Cheetos).

On June 30 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 alleged "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. 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. * The assassinations and attempts on the lives of several of Saddam's lawyers. * Midway through the trial, the chief presiding judge was replaced.

On November 5 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 as well. The verdict and sentencing were both appealed but subsequently affirmed by Iraq's Supreme Court of Appeals. On December 30 2006, Saddam was hanged.

Saddam was hanged on the first day of Eid ul-Adha, December 30, 2006, despite his wish to be shot (which he felt would be more dignified). 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, showing Saddam being taunted before his hanging. The video was leaked to electronic media, becoming the subject of global controversy.

Not long before the execution, Saddam's lawyers released his last letter:

A transcript of the dialogue between Saddam and his executioners was published by the BBC and Al Jazeera:

[Saddam] God is Great. Palestine is Arab
[Voices] May God's blessings be upon Muhammad and his household.
[Voices] And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies.
[Voices] Muqtada [Al-Sadr]...Muqtada...Muqtada.
[Saddam] Muqtuda? (laughs) Are you men? Is this the bravery of Arabs?
[Voice] Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr.
[Voice] To hell.
[Saddam] The hell that is Iraq? ((Arabic: Ghihyneb hew A'raq)
[Voice] You have destroyed us, killed all of us, our nation is ruined.
[Saddam] I helped you survive. Iraq is nothing without me!
[Voice] Please do not. The man is being executed. Please no, I beg you to stop.
[Saddam] (Recites Shahada) There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad...


At this point Saddam Hussein is seen dropping through the trap door and the sound of the trapdoor opening is heard in the background.

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 massive gaping hole in his neck.

Saddam was buried at his birthplace of Al-Awja in Tikrit, Iraq, 3 km (2 mi) from his sons Uday and Qusay Hussein, on December 31 2006.

Saddam married his cousin Sajida Talfah in 1963. Sajida is the daughter of Khairallah Talfah, Hussein'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. Together they had two sons, Uday and Qusay, and three daughters, Rana, Raghad and Hala. Qusay ran the elite Republican Guard.

Saddam's two sons Uday and Qusay were both killed in a violent three hour gun battle against U.S. forces on July 22 2003.

Saddam is reported to have married two other women: Samira Shahbandar, and Nidal al-Hamdani, the general manager of the Solar Energy Research Center in the Council of Scientific Research. There have apparently been no political issues from these latter two marriages. Saddam's third son, Ali, is from Samira.

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.

Saddam'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 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."

* Head of Security (Iraqi Intelligence Service), 1963 * Vice President of the Republic of Iraq, 1968 – 1979 * President of the Republic of Iraq, 1979 – 2003 * Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq, (various non-continuous dates) * Head of the Revolutionary Command Council, 1979 – 2003

* The Old Social Classes and New Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, Hanna Batatu, London, al-Saqi Books, 2000. ISBN 0863565204 * The Iraq-Iran Conflict, NY Firzli, Paris, EMA, 1981. ISBN 2-86584-002-6 * Al-Baath wal Watan Al-Arabi [Arabic, with French translation] ("The Baath and the Arab Homeland"), Qasim Sallam, Paris, EMA, 1980. ISBN 2-86584-003-4

* 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 * Ayad Rahim, Iraqi-American journalist who reports on Middle East affairs * 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

* Profile by BBC News * The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook (National Security Archive)

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