Saddam Hussein: A Biography

"Words are very powerful things, but a word and a gun makes it easier" [46]

Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937 in Ouja, near Tikrit, in northern Iraq.

Much of Saddam's early life may explain his character as an adult, according to a US psychiatric profile. His conception and birth follow the death of his twelve year old brother, from cancer. Saddam's father died during the pregnancy and the expectant mother entered clinical depression; after the birth, she refused to see her newly-born son. Saddam was brought up by his uncle until age three, when he was returned to his mother and new step-father, who physically abused him and refused to send him to school. He was eventually sent back to his uncle, who imbued him with stories about great "Iraqi" and Arab leaders, such as the ancient Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and President Nasser.

Saddam's political aggression began in early adulthood. He failed to finish high school, moving to Baghdad in 1955, where he joined the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party (A.B.S.P) in 1956 or 1957 (references vary), hoping to enter the Baghdad Military Academy, but was rejected.

He was arrested and imprisoned for six months, in 1958-1959, for his involvement in political activities and participation in an attempted assassination against Prime Minister Abdul-Karim Qassim. Qassim was shot, while Hussein was wounded in the leg by a bodyguard. In 1960, he fled to Syria and then to Egypt, where he completed his secondary school studies that year. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death in Iraq in absentia on February 25, 1960.

Hussein studied at the College of Law in Cairo from 1962-1963. He returned to Iraq after the 14th of Ramadan Revolution (February 8) 1963 and was married that year. He also returned to his studies, but they were interrupted and he graduated from the College of Law in Baghdad only in 1968, at some point after the July 17th coup ("revolution").

Saddam's political activities center on running the "Jihaz Haneen", the Ba'ath Party's security service, and he was arrested on October 14, 1963, on charges related to what appears to have been an internal power struggle, but the record is vague. He soon returned to ascendancy in the Party and in September 1966, Saddam was elected Deputy-Secretary General of the Ba'ath Party leadership in Iraq and develops his punitive security apparatus.

Sentencing for political activities appears to have been only subsequent to this appointment, as the official record shows that Saddam escaped from prison in 1967, possibly going underground, because he was under police surveillance.

On July 17, 1968, Saddam was one of a Ba'ath party group leading a political coup which began with a siege of the Presidential Palace and President Abdul Rahman Arif. The new President, Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr, was one of Saddam's relatives and a Tikriti. Saddam was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and Vice-President. He began purges to remove all non-Ba'athists from positions in government and the military and intimidate, torture, or kill his rivals, using his security services. In January 1969, 17 alleged spies – including 13 Jews – were hanged in Liberation Square.

On June 1, 1972, after years of purging opponents, potential rivals and the Kurds, Saddam led the process of nationalizing Western oil companies that had the monopoly of Iraq's oil, which provided untold wealth to the regime. Saddam reneged on his 1970 autonomy agreement with the Kurds, whose land included the Mosul oil fields. The regime continued to persecute Kurds, Communists, Turkomans, Shiite Muslims, and anyone considered a political opponent.

In June/July, 1979, Saddam had President Bakr stripped of all positions and placed under house arrest and was sworn in as President. By July 16, 1979, he also held the positions of Secretary General of the Regional Leadership of the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, and a day later he promoted himself to the rank of Field Marshal, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Purges of top army and Party members follow, under the guise of foiling a Syrian plot for control of Iraq.

In 1980, Saddam Hussein turned against leading Shiite clerics and, in September, he tore up the 1975 Algiers Accord with Iran to begin an eight-year war against the Iranians.[47] The West sold arms to Iraq. From 1987 onwards, under cover of the war, Saddam displaced or killed tens of thousands of Kurds, using chemical weapons, demolition, population transfer and execution against unarmed civilians. The Iran-Iraq war caused over a million casualties, including 250,000 Iraqi dead. A cease-fire was declared in August 1988.

On August 2nd 1990, Saddam's forces invade Kuwait, the UN imposed sanctions on Iraq, and the US led an allied attack called Operation Desert Storm (The Gulf War). When the allies looked set to win, Saddam ordered the firing of Kuwaiti oil fields, which was an ecological disaster, and retreated. However, fearing political upheaval, the US backtracked, isolating - rather than toppling – Saddam and a cease-fire was declared on February 28th 1991. President George Bush senior preferred the devil he knew to the devil he did not.