Source

• Born: 28 April 1937
• Birthplace: Tikrit District, Iraq
• Died: 30 December 2006 (execution by hanging)
• Best Known As: Leader of Iraq, 1979-2003

Saddam Hussein was dictator of Iraq from 1979 until 2003, when his regime was overthrown by a United States-led invasion. Hussein had joined the revolutionary Baath party while he was a university student. He launched his political career in 1958 by assassinating a supporter of Iraqi ruler Abdul-Karim Qassim. Saddam rose in the ranks after a Baath coup, and by 1979 he was Iraq's president and de facto dictator. He led Iraq through a decade-long war with Iran, and in August of 1990 his forces invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait. A U.S.-led alliance organized by George Bush (the elder) ran Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in the Gulf War, which ended in February of 1991 with Saddam still in power. In 2002 Hussein came under renewed pressure from George W. Bush, the son of the first President Bush. Hussein's regime was overthrown by an invasion of U.S. and British forces in March of 2003. Hussein disappeared, but U.S. forces captured him on 13 December 2003 after finding him hiding in a small underground pit on a farm near the town of Tikrit. Late in 2005 he went on trial in Iraq for the 1982 deaths of over 140 men in the town of Dujail. On 5 November 2006 he was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was upheld after appeal, and Hussein was executed by hanging in Baghdad on the morning of 30 December 2006.

Before the 1991 Gulf War, Hussein threatened that if international forces led by the United States attacked Iraq, it would be "the mother of all wars," giving rise to a multi-purpose catchphrase: "the mother of all (fill in the blank)"... The U.S. effort in the Gulf War was directed by the elder George Bush and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell; Powell later became Secretary of State under Bush's son George W. Bush... Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were killed by U.S forces in the northern town of Mosul in July of 2003... Saddam Hussein was no relation to King Hussein, the late ruler of Jordan.

(b. Takrit, Iraq, 28 Apr. 1937) Iraqi; President 1979 – 2003 Saddam Hussein joined the Ba'ath party in 1957 and was sentenced to death in 1959 for participation in the attempted assassination of Premier Qasim. He escaped to Syria. A year after returning to Iraq in 1963, his relative, Hasan al-Bakr, secured his appointment as principal Ba'athist organizer and Saddam played a prominent role in the 1968 Ba'athist coup. President al-Bakr continued to patronize Saddam, making him deputy-chairman of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council. Already head of the Ba'ath party organization and militia, Saddam added control of the security services to become the regime's strong man and effective deputy leader by 1971. Oil revenues enabled them to launch an ambitious programme of public-sector industrialization and the building of a welfare state after 1973. Saddam's powers steadily increased and, with al-Bakr in poor health, his rise to supreme leader was only a matter of time. He assumed absolute power as President in 1979.

The threat to his position from Kurdish rebellion in the north and Shi'i unrest in the south, abetted by Iran, caused Saddam to invade the Islamic Republic in 1980 seeking a quick victory and the overthrow of the Khomeini regime. This failed and Iraq's armed forces withdrew from Iranian territory in 1982. The conflict then became a prolonged war of attrition, increasingly financed by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and supported militarily by the USSR, and increasingly by the West too. It ended in 1988 with Iraq in possession of the world's fourth largest army and mountainous debts, but without territorial or security gains. A second monumental military miscalculation was to invade Kuwait in 1990 and provoke a UN multinational force to rout the Iraqi army and end the occupation in 1991. By arousing popular Arab support, however, the war was a political success for Saddam. Post-war uprisings by Kurds and the Shi'i were brutally crushed and the Iraqi people's agony continued under UN economic sanctions, with Saddam Hussein more securely in power than before.

Hussein, Saddam (1937- ). Born on 28 April 1937 in Tikrit, after a career as an assassin and party enforcer, Hussein became the vice president of Iraq following the seizure of power by the Baʿth national-socialist party in a military coup in July 1968. Nine years later, in July 1979, he forced the resignation of his benefactor, Pres Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, and took his place. With high revenues from oil pouring in, he embarked upon an ambitious and radical modernization of Iraq with preference shown to the military, which grew to be the largest in the Middle East.

In September 1980 he launched the Iran-Iraq war with the double intention of crippling the militant Shiʿa regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and asserting leadership over the Gulf Arab states. Eight years later he was only able to end the war by using chemical weapons, having if anything strengthened the Iranian regime, paralysed his modernization programme, and become deeply indebted to the Gulf monarchies.

Saddam turned his sights to target Kuwait, his Gulf coast neighbour, and for a year waged an escalating diplomatic campaign with threats to force the Kuwaiti monarchy to bail him out of his financial predicament. When the latter refused, he invaded on 2 August 1990, and six days later annexed the emirate and began to dismantle its financial and economic assets and remove them to Iraq.

On 17 January 1991, after six months of futile attempts to bring about Iraq's peaceful withdrawal, a US-led international coalition waged the Gulf war on Saddam and within six weeks inflicted a crushing defeat on his army and liberated Kuwait. Since the coalition did not attempt to topple him and even refrained from supporting Shiʿa and Kurdish revolts against him, Saddam managed to survive. Although his ability to do harm was greatly reduced, well-founded suspicion that he retains not only chemical and biological but also nuclear weapons programmes mean that economic sanctions remain in effect over eight years later.

— Efraim Karsh/Hugh Bicheno

(1937– ), Iraqi dictator

Born on 28 April 1937 in Tikrit, Hussein became the vice president of Iraq following the seizure of power by the Ba'ath national‐socialist party in a military coup in July 1968. After a decade of ruthless elimination of civilian officials and military officers, he forced out his predecessor and benefactor, Gen. Ahmad Hasan al‐, became president in July 1979, killed most of his opponents, and established himself as dictator. Using Iraq's growing oil wealth to support development, grandiose public works, and massive arms purchases, Saddam invaded Iran, whose militant Islamic regime he considered a threat. After the death of one million Iranians and Iraqis, the Iran-Iraq war ended in a stalemate in August 1988. Hussein's forces then killed tens of thousands of Iraq's Kurdish minority, which had rebelled or supported Iran during the war.

With Iraq nearly bankrupt, despite loans of $80 billion (nearly half from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), Hussein sought to bully Kuwait into bailing him out. Then, on 2 August 1990, he invaded and conquered the emirate. Hussein was accustomed to taking calculated risks, but he had overreached and found confronted by almost unified opposition from the West and the rest of the Arab world. In January–February 1991, a US-led Coalition army liberated Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War.

Since the international coalition did not attempt to topple Saddam and even refrained from supporting Iraqi uprisings, his regime continued, brutally suppressing Kurds and Shiites. Although Saddam survived attempted coups in 1992 and 1993, and a major defection in 1995, UN sanctions hurt Iraq and prevented its resurgence as a major military threat in the Gulf.

Yet the UN failed to compel Saddam to comply with a string of special resolutions obliging Iraq to destroy, unconditionally and under international supervision, all its nuclear, chemical and biological stockpiles and research facilities. During the 1990s, Saddam repeatedly challenged the Security Council over the implementation of these resolutions, never giving an inch strategically but always leaving enough wriggle room for last-minute tactical concessions when confronted with the threat of force.

Things came to a head after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Though the US administration refrained from linking Saddam directly to the atrocity, it nevertheless made the Iraqi leader, who applauded the attacks as a heroic act, a central target of President Bush's “war on terrorism.” In November 2002 the UN passed Resolution 1441, which charged Iraq of violating preceding Security Council resolutions regarding non-conventional disarmament and warned that Iraq “will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violation of its obligations.” As Saddam remained unimpressed, in March‐April 2003 a lightning attack by a US-led international coalition crushed the Iraqi army and toppled the Ba'ath regime. Saddam himself managed to escape and to remain in hiding for some time, but was eventually captured and put in prison pending a war crimes trial by the first democratically elected government in Iraq's history.

[See also Bush, George; Middle East, U.S. Military Involvement in the; United Nations.]

Bibliography

• Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography, 2003.
• Samir al‐Khalil, Republic of Fear, 1991.
• Anthony H. Cordesman, Iran and Iraq: The Threat from the Northern Gulf, 1994

Hussein, Saddam (1937-) president of Iraq (1979-) whose rule has been marked by dictatorial control and attempts to take over neighboring Persian Gulf countries. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) ended in a stalemate, but his 1990 invasion of Kuwait brought opposition from the West as well as from much of the Arab world. In early 1991, a U.S.-led coalition army liberated Kuwait in the six-week Persian Gulf War. Hussein suppressed internal uprisings that followed, but the country suffers from U.N.-imposed sanctions that have caused severe shortages of food and medicine.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Saddam Hussein (born 1937), the socialist president of the Iraqi Republic beginning in 1979 and strongman of the ruling Ba'th regime beginning in 1968, was known for his political shrewdness and ability to survive conflicts. He led Iraq in its long, indecisive war with Iran beginning in 1980. He was defeated in the six week Persian Gulf War in 1990 which was a result of his invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti was born in 1937 to a peasant family in a village near Tikrit, a town on the Tigris River north of Baghdad. His father died before his birth and his mother died in childbirth. He was raised by his uncles, particularly his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah, a retired army officer and an avid Arab nationalist who influenced his political leanings and served as a role model for Hussein. (In 1963 Saddam married Talfah's daughter Sajida.) In 1956 he moved to his uncle's house in Baghdad, where he was caught up in the strong Arab nationalist sentiments sweeping Iraq in the wake of the Suez war that year. In 1957 he joined the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party, founded in Syria in 1947 and dedicated to Arab unity and socialism. The party spread to neighboring Arab countries in the 1950s (including Iraq where it was an underground party) and was especially popular with students. From 1957 on Saddam's life and career were inextricably bound up with the Ba'th Party.

In 1959 Saddam Hussein was one of the party members who attempted to carry out the unsuccessful assassination of the Iraqi dictator, Major General Abdul Karim Qasim (Kassem). Although wounded, he was subsequently able to stage a daring escape to Syria and then Egypt, where he remained in exile until 1963. In Egypt he continued his political activities, closely observing the tactics and movements of Gamal Abdel Nasser and his politics.

In February 1963 a group of Nasserite and Ba'thist officers in Iraq brought down the government of Qasim, and Saddam returned to his country. However, this Ba'thist government did not survive in power past November of the same year, and Saddam was once again forced underground. Between 1963 and 1968 he was involved in clandestine party activities and was captured and jailed, although he later escaped. In 1966 he became a member of the Iraqi branch's regional command and played a major role in reorganizing the Ba'th Party in preparation for a second attempt at power. It was during this period that he formed a close alliance with Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr - a retired officer, a distant relative, and a leading spokesman of the party. It was in this period, too, that Saddam acquired his reputation as a tough, daring Ba'th Party partisan.

The Dual Rule: Bakr and Hussein

In July 1968, after two coups d'etat in short succession - in both of which Saddam played a key role - the Ba'th came back to power in Iraq, temporarily governing through the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr was elected president of the republic by the RCC and Saddam was elected vice president of the RCC in 1969. Between 1969 and 1979 Iraq was ruled outwardly by al-Bakr and behind the scenes by Saddam. Saddam who proved to be a shrewd manipulator and survivor. No major decisions in this decade were taken without his consent.

In domestic affairs the Ba'th regime implemented its socialist policy by bringing virtually all economic activity under the control of the government. In 1972 Iraq nationalized the foreign-owned oil company IBC, the first Middle Eastern government to do so. Minorities were given cultural rights, generally modeled on the Yugoslav experiment in this field, and the Kurdish area of northern Iraq was given some self-rule in 1974.

Saddam Hussein also oversaw the rapid economic and social development of Iraq which followed the oil price increases of the 1970s. The country received major infusions to the infrastructure, especially schools and medical facilities. A major campaign to wipe out illiteracy was started in 1978 and compulsory schooling was effectively implemented. The status of women was substantially improved through legislation. Petrochemical and iron and steel industries were built.

In international affairs, Iraq improved relations with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, signing a treaty of friendship with the U.S.S.R. in 1972; at the same time Iraq distanced itself from the West, except for France. Iraq took a hard line on Israel and attempted to isolate Egypt after Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David agreements with Israel's Menachem Begin.

Between 1974 and 1975 Saddam was involved in a major Kurdish insurrection in northern Iraq; the Kurds were seeking more autonomy and were receiving support from the Shah of Iran. In an effort to bring the conflict to a close, in March 1975 Saddam signed an agreement with Iran, arranged by Algeria, which ended Iranian support for the Kurds in return for rectification of the border with Iran.

Saddam Hussein as President

Iraq was the country most affected by the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. Iraq needed more energetic leadership than that provided by the aging and ailing President Bakr. On July 16, 1979, al-Bakr resigned and Saddam was elected president of the Iraqi Republic. One of the first things he ordered were posters of himself scattered throughout Iraq, some as tall as 20 feet, depicting himself in various roles: a military man, a desert horseman, a young graduate. He carefully concocted an image of himself as a devoted family man. All in order to win the trust and love of the Iraqi people. He held the titles of Secretary General of the Ba'th party and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

Throughout 1979 and 1980 relations with Iran had deteriorated, as Ayatollah Khomeini called on Iraq's Shi'ites to revolt against Saddam and the secular Ba'thist regime. (Iraq is about equally divided between members of the Shi'ite and Sunni branches of Islam.) Secret pro-Iranian organizations committed acts of sabotage in Iraq, while Iranians began shelling Iraqi border towns in 1980. In September 1980 the Iraqi army crossed the Iranian border and seized Iranian territory (subsequently evacuated in the course of the war), thus initiating a long, costly, and bitter war, which continued into the late 1980s.

With the continuation of the war, Saddam adopted a more pragmatic stance in international affairs. Relations with conservative countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt improved since they provided Iraq with either financial or military aid. Diplomatic relations with the United States, cut in 1967 in protest against U.S. support for Israel in the Six-Day War, were restored in November 1984. However, Iraq did not change its friendly relations with the U.S.S.R. which, together with France, was the main source of its arms. In 1987 the United Nations formally called for a cease-fire, but the fighting continued.

Saddam Hussein was a man with the reputation for ruthless suppression of opposition. When he assumed power, he purged his party of officials and military officers due to an alleged Syrian plot to overthrow his government. He executed another 300 officers in 1982 for rebelling against his tactics in the war with Iran. In order to protect himself, Saddam surrounded himself with a coterie of family and friends in positions of trust and responsibility in the government. This however did not ensure that these individuals were safe from his rages. After Saddam had a much publicized affair with another woman, his brother-in-law, first cousin and childhood companion, and Minster of Defense Adnan Talfah was killed in a "mysterious" helicopter crash for standing by his sister (Saddam's wronged wife). He ordered the murders of his sons-in-law after they defected to Jordan in 1996. His image of a devoted family man was shattered with these acts.

On several occasions (1969, 1973, 1979, and 1981) the regime uncovered plots against it, and at least seven unsuccessful assassination attempts were made against Saddam. The main opposition came from the Kurds, the Communists, pro-Khomeini Shi'ites, and, on occasion, elements within the Ba'th Party itself.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein brought the wrath and combined power of the West and the Arab world down upon Iraq by his unprovoked invasion of Kuwait. The Persian Gulf War lasted for six weeks and caused Iraq's leader worldwide condemnation. However, there are still a great many proponents of Saddam scattered throughout the world. They see him as "someone who is shaking an unacceptable status quo." Despite the sanctions imposed upon Iraq in the years subsequent to the war, Saddam maintained absolute power over his country. In 1997, citizens of Baghdad feared to overtly criticize Saddam and rumors abounded that he had put his wife under house arrest after his son Uday was shot. Whatever the case, Saddam Hussein remained a powerful strongman, in spite of an ongoing embargo of his country's oil, goods and services.

Further Reading

Majid Khadduri, Socialist Iraq, A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968 (1978); Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (1985); Christine Helms, Iraq, Eastern Flank of the Arab World (1984); and Fuad Matar, Saddam Hussein, the Man, the Cause and the Future (London, 1981) provide information on Saddam's role in the leadership of Iraq. Stefoff's Saddam Hussein: Absolute Ruler of Iraq provides valuable insight into the operation of Iraq since the Persian Gulf War. Bob Simon's Forty Days is an excellent memoir of the war.

For more information on Saddam Hussein, visit Britannica.com.

(sädäm' hūsān') , 1937–2006, Iraqi political leader. A member of the Ba'ath party, he fled Iraq after participating (1959) in an assassination attempt on the country's prime minister; in Egypt he attended law school. Returning to Iraq in 1963 after the Ba'athists briefly came to power, he played a significant role in the 1968 revolution that secured Ba'ath hegemony. Hussein held key economic and political posts before becoming Iraq's president in 1979.

As president, he focused on strengthening the Iraqi oil industry and military and gaining a greater foothold in the Arab world while using brutal measures to maintain his power. In 1980 he escalated a long-standing dispute with Iran over the Shatt al Arab waterway into a full-scale war (see Iran-Iraq War) lasting eight years. On Aug. 2, 1990, Hussein ordered an Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait; however, Iraq was forced out in early 1991 by an international military coalition (see Iraq; Persian Gulf War).

Following the war, Hussein weathered a Kurdish rebellion in the north and quelled a Shiite insurrection in the south, while his country suffered the effects of international economic sanctions. Hussein's resistance to UN-supervised weapons inspections imposed as part of the conditions for ending the Gulf War led to U.S. and British bombing raids against Iraq beginning in 1998. With the threat of war with the U.S. and Britain looming in 2002, Iraq agreed to let UN inspectors return, but the failure of Iraq to cooperate fully with the United Nations led to a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in Mar., 2003. In a little less than a month Anglo-American forces ended Hussein's control over nearly all Iraq, although guerrillas continued to mount attacks in the following months. Hussein survived the invasion, but was not captured until Dec., 2003.

In 2004 he was transferred to Iraqi legal custody and arraigned on charges stemming from his presidency. The Iraqi government put Hussein on trial in 2005 for crimes against humanity, for ordering the execution of 143 men in the Shiite village of Dujail following an assassination attempt on him there in 1982. In 2006, charges of genocide, resulting from the anti-Kurd Anfal campaign in the late 1980s, also were brought against him. Hussein was convicted and sentenced to death in the Dujail case in Nov., 2006; after an unsuccessful appeal he was hanged in Dec., 2006.

1937 -

President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003.

Saddam Hussein (also Husayn, Hussain) al-Tikriti was born on 28 April 1937 to a Sunni Arab family in Tikrit, Iraq, on the northern bank of the Tigris River. His family was from the village of al-Awja, near Tikrit, and was of poor peasant stock; his father reportedly died before his birth. His stepfather denied him permission to go to school, so Saddam ran away, seeking refuge in Tikrit, in his mother's brother's home.

Early History

Saddam Hussein's maternal uncle, Adnan Khayr Allah Talfa, raised him through adolescence; he was a retired army officer and an advocate of Arab nationalism - a sentiment he imparted to Saddam - and he had participated in the short-lived anti-British revolt in 1941, known as the Rashid Ali Coup.

In 1956, Saddam moved to Baghdad, where he was impressed by the nationalism that swept Iraq in the wake of Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal and the British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt. In 1957, he joined the Baʿth Arab socialist party, which had been founded in Syria in 1947. Dedicated to Arab unity, the party had been popular among students in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon since the early 1950s. From 1957 on, his life was inextricably bound up with Baʿth.

In 1959, during the presidency of the Iraqi dictator General Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam was a member of a Baʿth team assigned to assassinate Qasim. The attempt failed, and Saddam was wounded in the leg during an exchange of gunfire. He fled Baghdad and later staged a daring escape to Syria, and from there to Egypt, where he joined a number of other exiled Iraqis. He is believed to have become a full member of Baʿth while he was in Egypt.

Qasim's regime ended in February 1963, when a group of Iraqi nationalists and Baʿthist officers brought it down in a violent coup. Qasim was killed, and Saddam returned to Iraq with other exiled Iraqis, although he played only a minor role in the
Baʿth government that took power. The new regime did not last.

In November 1963, General Abd al-Salam Arif staged a successful anti-Baʿthist coup and Saddam went underground again. From 1963 to 1968, he worked in clandestine party activities, and he was captured and jailed, although he managed to escape. In 1966, while still underground, he became a member of the regional command of the Iraqi branch of the Baʿth Party and played a major role in reorganizing the party to prepare for a second attempt at seizing power. He worked closely with General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, a fellow Tikriti and a distant relative, who had been prime minister under the Baʿth and was respected by the military. In this period, Saddam was known as a tough partisan and a political enforcer, willing to liquidate enemies of the party.

In July 1968, the Baʿth Party returned to power after two successful coups that took place in rapid succession. Saddam played an important part in both. Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr became president of the republic; Saddam became vice president of the Revolutionary Command Council after some maneuvers to eliminate competitors for the position.

Al-Bakr and Saddam

From 1969 through 1979, Iraq was ruled by al-Bakr, the respected army officer, and Saddam, the young, dynamic manipulator and survivor. No major decisions were made without Saddam's consent, and he gradually built the organs of a police state that spread an aura of fear over the country and of invincibility around himself.

In the 1970s, Saddam had helped shepherd Iraq through major social and economic development, made possible by an increase in petroleum revenues. The changes brought by this expansion of social programs included compulsory primary education, a noticeable increase in women's participation in the workforce, the founding of new universities, and the availability of medical services. An ambitious industrial program in petrochemicals, steel, and other heavy industry began. The Baʿth Party also implemented policies that brought all the social and economic sectors under its control, including the foreign-owned Iraq Petroleum Company, which was nationalized in 1972.

Saddam and the Baʿth Party distanced themselves from the West in the 1970s, instead building strong ties with the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. In 1972, an important treaty of friendship was signed between Iraq and the Soviet Union. France was the only Western European country with which Iraq maintained good political and economic relations. Iraq took a hard stand against Israel, attempting to isolate Egypt after the 1978 Camp David Accords.

The Baʿth Party inherited a problem with the Iraqi Kurds, who were struggling for self-determination. After a major revolt that lasted two years, the Kurds had been given special status in 1970, allowing self-rule in Kurdish areas. The Kurds revolted again in 1974 and 1975. Unable to put an end to their revolt, mainly because the Kurds had help from Iran, Saddam demonstrated his daring style by signing the 1975 Algiers Agreement with the shah of Iran, putting an end to Iranian support for the Kurds in return for some modifications of the Iran - Iraq border along the Shatt al-Arab in the south.

Saddam married his cousin Sajida Khayr Allah Tulfa and had five children. His two sons, Uday and Qusay, held high security positions in the mid-1990s.

War with Iran

The health of President al-Bakr had been deteriorating, reportedly due to cancer. Saddam felt that the moment had come for him to assume total power. On 16 July 1979, al-Bakr was forced to resign and Saddam was elected president of the Iraqi republic. Followed a ruthless purge of suspected challengers, he executed five members of the Revolutionary Command Council and some twenty Baʿth Party members. This cleared the way for him to establish personal rule and a total monopoly of power.

Also in 1979, the Iranian Revolution established a Shiʿite Islamic republic. Iran's new government soon became a political threat to Iraq, calling for an uprising among Iraq's Shiʿite population and the establishment of a regime similar to Iran's. Soon border clashes and claims of border violations by troops from both sides were weekly events. Some pro-Iranian Shiʿite elements in opposition to Saddam, mainly the al-Daʿwa al-Islamiyya (Religious Call) Party, aggravated this situation with internal violence, including two assassination attempts on top Iraqi government members.

Saddam took advantage of Iran's weakness to settle previous scores. In September 1980, he declared that the 1975 Algiers Accord with Iran was null and void. The Iraqi army then crossed the Iranian border and seized Iranian territories, which were evacuated later in the war. The result was a bitter and costly war that lasted eight years.

Islamic, Arab, and international mediation efforts to end the war were unsuccessful. Both countries used long-range missiles against cities, and Iraq used chemical weapons to ward off Iran's human-wave attacks. Casualties - both military and civilian - mounted on both sides. As the war continued, Saddam adopted a pragmatic stance in international affairs, and the oil-rich Gulf states provided funds to finance the Iraqi military effort. Diplomatic relations with the United States - severed since 1967 - were reestablished in November 1984.

In July 1988, Iran unexpectedly announced that it had agreed to a cease-fire after repeated attempts to defeat the Iraqi army near Basra. Peace negotiations continued for months; in the fall of 1990 (after Iraq's August invasion of Kuwait), in a dramatic action, Iraq accepted the reinstitution of the 1975 Algiers Accord and a rectification of borders between the two countries, as demanded by Iran. However, no peace treaty was signed.

Kuwait

On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The invasion was swift and met little resistance, and the Kuwaiti ruling family fled to Saudi Arabia. Iraq had longstanding claims to Kuwait, which went back to the days of the Ottoman Empire, but Kuwait's independence had been recognized by Iraq's Baʿthist regime, which had come to power in 1963.

Just before the invasion, relations between Iraq and Kuwait had been tense. Differences existed over loan repayments, oil pricing, and the border. Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing oil by slant drilling under the border into Iraqi oil fields, and of economic warfare because of Kuwait's oil policy. Saddam annexed Kuwait a few days after the invasion, declaring that country a province of Iraq. The Kuwaiti government called for help to force Iraq's withdrawal. The UN Security Council repeatedly convened to debate several resolutions asking Iraq to withdraw and restore Kuwait's legitimate government. The United Nations agreed to impose an economic blockade on Iraq and, if that did not succeed, to use military force. The role of the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union was pivotal in passing these measures.

Mediation efforts and economic pressures proved unsuccessful, but an international coalition of military forces, led by the United States (in accord with the newly cooperative Soviet Union), was deployed to eastern Saudia Arabia. After several months of troop buildup in Saudi Arabia and Saddam's failure to accede to a deadline for withdrawal, the attack began, on 16 and 17 January 1991, with a five-week campaign of air strikes on Iraq, followed by a four-day land campaign. Saddam ordered a retreat from Kuwait when coalition forces entered southern Iraq. A cease-fire was declared on 27 February 1991, and anti-Saddam uprisings began in some southern Iraqi cities - mainly Basra, Amara, al-Najaf, and Karbala, spreading throughout the south. Separatist uprisings took place soon after in Iraq's northern Kurdish cities. The United States had called for Saddam's overthrow but did not aid the rebellion.

Saddam used the army to crush these revolts, and he was successful, but only after fierce fighting with insurgents in southern Iraq, which resulted in major destruction in the Shiʿite cities of the south. The Kurds in the north, faced with Saddam's tanks, left the cities they had occupied and retreated to more secure positions in the mountains. Many retreated to Turkey and Iran.

The plight of the Kurds was dramatized by the international media, especially in the United States and Europe. As a result, public opinion allowed Western leaders to order military penetration of northern Iraq to establish secure zones guarded by coalition forces. Safe havens were established to entice Kurdish refugees back. Saddam invited a top-level Kurdish delegation to negotiate with his government in April 1991, but it failed and Saddam pulled his forces back from Kurdish areas and established a trade embargo on the north. Inside the Kurdish zone, under the protection of UN forces (mainly U.S., British, and French), the Kurds began to establish genuine self-rule and in 1992 elected a Kurdish government.

During his presidency, Saddam established an extreme cult of personality. Photos of him were everywhere; his speeches were printed and widely distributed; schools, towns, and the Baghdad airport were named for him. Any criticism of him as head of state was severely punished. Despite a military defeat, destruction of large parts of the Iraqi economy, and the most widespread rebellion Iraq had experienced since 1920, he remained in control. By the end of 1991, although weakened by these events, his presence was ubiquitous in Baghdad.

Sanctions

Between 1991 and 2003, Saddam Hussein adopted a siege mentality, making rare public appearances, and his whereabouts were a state secret. He received few foreign visitors and never left the country.

Under continuing UN sanctions, the population of Iraq suffered enormously. A rationing system provided basic food items and enabled the population to purchase necessities at nominal prices. However, the health and education systems rapidly deteriorated. Many students dropped out of school to work at menial jobs in order to help their needy families. Malnutrition created a dramatic rise in the number of deaths among children under five. Faced not only faced with economic difficulties but also the pressures of a police state, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled the country. The number of Iraqis living abroad was estimated to be at least 3 million. As inflation soared, the value of the national currency, the dinar, dropped sharply without any concomitant increase in salaries.

Since Iraq was unable to sell its oil, its economic situation worsened. By the mid-1990s, the deterioration of social and economic conditions had helped generate a religious revival, which received the regime's blessings. The new Islamic movement did not adhere to any internal or external political group or party.

Saddam's complex and difficult relationship with his family affected the political situation. His three half-brothers, Barzan, Watban, and Sabawi, served in key security posts, but their status deteriorated and by the mid-1990s they had disappeared from public view. Both the regime and Saddam's personal prestige suffered a serious shock in August 1995 when two key relatives and aides defected with their wives, who were Saddam's daughters. They went to Jordan, where they received the protection of King Hussein. The two men, however, were convinced by Saddam's emissaries to return to Baghdad and receive a pardon. When they arrived, they were divorced from their wives and three days later it was announced that they had died in a shootout with members of the extended family. The family declared that they were avenging the dishonor brought on their clan by these defectors.

On 12 December 1996, Saddam's elder son, Uday, was wounded in an assassination attempt in Baghdad. His wound left him partially paralyzed, which excluded him from becoming the eventual successor to his father. This position was taken by his younger brother, Qusay (born in 1968), who slowly assumed all the important security responsibilities in the state.

As part of the 1991 cease-fire accord with the UN coalition forces, Iraq accepted the elimination of its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. The United Nations charged two bodies with overseeing Iraq's disarmament operations, the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency. When these two agencies started inspections in Iraq, they were expected to disarm Iraq within a few weeks. Instead, the regime challenged the inspectors constantly, refusing to submit documents and materials and withholding information; the inspections dragged on for over a decade.

In the aftermath of the Kurdish revolt against the regime and the flight of Kurds toward neighboring Turkey and Iran, the United States led the coalition countries in imposing a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. This allowed the Kurds to return home. A similar no-fly zone was imposed in 1992 in southern Iraq in order to protect the Shiʿa. It was also used as a punitive measure against a possible attempt to mass Iraqi armed forces on or near the Kuwaiti border. In 1996, this zone was extended to the outskirts of Baghdad.

The imposition of these no-fly zones curtailed the sovereignty of the Iraqi state over its territory. This was particularly true in northern Iraq, where the two main Kurdish parties, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (Iraq) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, started to build state institutions and rule over northern Iraq.

In April 1995, responding to the deterioration of the economic situation in Iraq, the UN Security Council passed the Oil-for-Food resolution (Resolution 986), which allowed Iraq to sell some of its oil to buy food and medicine for its population. Iraq initially rejected the resolution, but accepted it in December 1996 due to the worsening economic situation.

U.S. and British war planes continued to patrol the no-fly zones, firing missiles on Iraqi military targets when they were challenged. Tensions increased over weapons inspections. On more than one occasion, Iraq threatened to expel the UN inspectors.

The deterioration of relations between UNSCOM and the Iraqis reached its climax in December 1998, when Richard Butler, head of UNSCOM, presented a negative report to the UN Security Council and withdrew his inspectors. Three days later, U.S. and British airplanes staged air raids on Iraq military installations in Operation Desert Fox. The Iraqis responded by declaring that they would never allow UN inspectors to return.

Military Intervention

Since 1997, faced with the difficulties of disarming Iraq, the U.S. government had considered overthrowing the Saddam regime. The U.S. began to openly encourage Iraqi opposition groups abroad (mainly in London) to cooperate and organize their efforts to topple the Iraqi ruler. The war of words between Iraq and the United States rose in tone. When the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 occurred in New York and Washington D.C., Saddam's regime was one of the very few to declare its public satisfaction over what had happened.

Internally, Saddam became more oppressive toward his opponents, putting a brutal end to unrest, especially among the Shiʿa, and assassinating well-known Shiʿite clerics. In a State of the Union address delivered after the 11 September attacks, President George W. Bush labeled Iraq a member of the "axis of evil" and called for "regime change." In 2002, after months of UN discussions and U.S. threats, Saddam finally allowed the UN inspectors to return to Iraq. A new inspection agency, the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, headed by Hans Blix, was created to oversee this operation. On 27 January 2003, after inspecting suspected sites for several weeks, the team handed in a report that was inconclusive on the question of whether illegal arms or arms programs existed. Meanwhile, the United States and Britain continued to demand regime change in Baghdad and undertook a massive military buildup around Iraq, preparing for military intervention, preferably with the blessing of the UN Security Council. Objections to intervention, however, came from countries such as France, Germany, and Russia, which called for continued inspections, and from individual citizens in many countries. The Security Council did not back intervention.

On 17 March 2003, the United States issued an ultimatum demanding that President Saddam Hussein leave the country within twenty-four hours. He rejected it, and UN inspectors left Iraq. On 20 March, the first air attacks on Baghdad began, followed by U.S. and British troops entering Iraq from Kuwait. Despite some resistance, U.S. troops pushed north toward Baghdad and occupied it on 9 April. Saddam Hussein and his top aides went underground. By 18 April, most of the country was under the control of U.S. and British forces.

The United States issued a list of fifty-five of the most wanted persons in the old regime, including Saddam, his two sons, and his half-brothers. Uday and Qusay were killed in Mosul on July 22 during a firefight with U.S. forces. Two of his half-brothers, Barzan and Watban, were captured but the third, Sabawi, was still at large in 2004. Saddam Hussein himself was captured on 13 December 2003, hiding underground in Dur, a small town south of Tikrit.

After Saddam's capture, the United States declared him a prisoner of war. Several suggestions were made by Iraq's transitional authority (put in place by the Americans) and others on how to bring Saddam to justice. Iraqis insisted that he be held in Iraq and tried by an Iraqi court.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq became a theater of violence, with widespread looting, attacks on American troops and the newly installed Iraqi police, and suicide bombings of key targets, including UN personnel and Shiʿite leaders and mosques. These acts were blamed on Iraqi groups resisting foreign occupation. The perpetrators were believed to consist of remnants of the old Baʿthist regime in addition to Muslim fundamentalists, some of whom were believed to have ties to alQaʿida. Saddam himself was believed to have directed some of the resistance before his capture. Despite efforts by the Americans to discover them, no hidden weapons of mass destructions were found. David Kay, a former weapons inspector appointed by President Bush to investigate the situation, reported in 2004 that none were likely to be found.

Bibliography

Aburish, Said K. Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge. New York: Bloomsbury, 2000.

Henderson, Simon. Instant Empire: Saddam Hussein's Ambition for Iraq. San Francisco: Mercury, 1991.

Karsh, Efraim, and Rautsi, Inari. Saddam Hussein: A PoliticalBiography. New York: Free Press, 1991.

Khadduri, Majid. Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since1968. Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 1978.

Marr, Phebe. The Modern History of Iraq. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.

Matar, Fuad. Saddam Hussein: The Man, the Cause, and the Future. London: Third World Centre, 1981.

Miller, Judith, and Mylroie, Laurie. Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf. New York: Times Books, 1990.

Munthe, Turi, ed. The Saddam Hussein Reader. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002.

— LOUAY BAHRY

(sah-dahm, sah-duhm hooh-sayn)

Dictator of Iraq who seized power in 1979. With the intent of making Iraq the dominant power in the oil-rich Persian Gulf, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. The latter invasion provoked a military response from the United Nations, led by the United States, which drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. (See Persian Gulf War.)

Hussein's cruelty and deviousness have become legendary. He has ruthlessly suppressed both Shi'ite Muslims and Kurds within Iraq; in 1987 and 1988 he authorized poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages.

Although widely loathed outside the Arab world and feared by most Arab governments, Hussein retains some of his appeal to the Arab masses because of his resolute defiance of the United States and western Europe.