Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

(born April 28, 1937, Tikrit, Iraq—died Dec. 30, 2006, Baghdad) President of Iraq (1979–2003). He joined the Ba'th Party in 1957. Following participation in a failed attempt to assassinate Iraqi Pres. 'Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1959, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he briefly attended law school. He returned to Iraq when the Ba'thists gained power in 1963. Jailed when the Ba'thists were overthrown, he escaped and helped reinstall the party to power in 1968. He led the nationalization of the oil industry in 1972. He took over the presidency with the aims of replacing Egypt as leader of the Arab world and of gaining hegemony over the Persian Gulf, and he launched wars against Iran (Iran-Iraq War, 1980–90) and Kuwait (Persian Gulf War, 1990–91), both of which he lost. He instituted a brutal dictatorship and directed intensive campaigns against minorities within Iraq, particularly the Kurds. U.S. fears regarding his development of weapons of mass destruction led to Western sanctions against Iraq. Sanctions were followed by an Anglo-American invasion in 2003 (Iraq War) that drove him from power. After several months in hiding, he was captured by U.S. forces. In 2006 the Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced him to death for crimes against humanity. Days after an Iraqi court upheld his sentence in December 2006, Saddam was executed. See also Pan-Arabism.