Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi officer and nationalist and socialist politician. He was President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. Due to is political views and staunch anti-Zionism, he was considered an enemy by both Israel and the USA. His government managed for the most part, to stop the various, rival sectarian groups within Iraq from being able to tear each other a part. Hussein successfully suppressed extremist Islamic terrorism throughout the region. He was hanged following the American led invasion of Iraq .

Saddam’s removal empowered Iran, as Iraq’s Shiite-majority government aligned with Tehran. This shifted the regional balance, escalating Saudi-Iranian rivalry and proxy conflicts (e.g., Yemen, Syria). Iran’s influence grew through Shiite militias like the Popular Mobilization Forces and political dominance in Baghdad, alarming Sunni-led states like Saudi Arabia. The 2003 invasion, justified by claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and Saddam-al-Qaeda links, was undermined when no WMDs were found and al-Qaeda ties were disproven. This damaged U.S. credibility globally.

The absence of WMDs, confirmed by the Iraq Survey Group (2004), led to widespread criticism of the Bush administration. The war’s $2 trillion cost (per Brown University estimates) strained U.S. resources. The Iraq War became a rallying cry for jihadist groups, boosting recruitment for al-Qaeda and inspiring lone-wolf attacks worldwide. The war’s imagery (e.g., Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib) fueled anti-Western sentiment. The 2006 National Intelligence Estimate noted the Iraq War as a key driver of global jihadist movements. ISIS’s propaganda explicitly cited the invasion as justification.

Life

Saddam Hussein with gun

Saddam was born in 1937 into a poor family living in Tikrit . The name Saddam, which means "he who faces the aggressor", was given to him by his uncle. His father had died shortly before he was born.

By the 1960s, Saddam had emerged as a Baath party leader . A leading member of the revolutionary Baath party, which espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the Baath party to long-term power. This coup took place on 17 July 1968. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became Iraq's new president and Saddam, at the age of 31, became the vice president .

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 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.

CIA documents later would reveal that the United States helped Saddam launch chemical weapons attacks on Iran.

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 popular among many Arabs everywhere for reasons such as his support for the Palestinians, neocon 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.

Saddam’s Ba’athist regime was secular and nationalist, prioritizing state control over religious movements. He repressed Islamist groups, including Shiite and Sunni extremists, that threatened his power. Saddam cracked down on groups like the Shiite Dawa Party and Kurdish Islamist factions, viewing them as threats to his Sunni-dominated regime. His tactics, including mass arrests and executions, kept such groups in check within Iraq. In the 1980s and 1990s, Islamic terrorism was less prominent globally than after 9/11, with groups like al-Qaeda emerging later. Saddam’s focus was on internal control, not global counterterrorism. Saddam’s fall led to a power vacuum, fueling sectarian violence between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The dismantling of the Iraqi army and Ba’athist institutions (via de-Ba’athification) created chaos, enabling insurgencies. The insurgency, including al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), emerged post-2003, evolving into ISIS by 2014. Sectarian violence killed tens of thousands, with estimates of 100,000–200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths by 2011 (Iraq Body Count and other sources). The power vacuum and U.S. occupation provided fertile ground for groups like AQI and later ISIS. The alienation of Sunnis, combined with regional instability, amplified extremist recruitment. ISIS’s 2014–2017 caliphate, which controlled parts of Iraq and Syria, was a direct consequence of post-2003 chaos. The U.S. surge (2007–2008) temporarily reduced violence, but underlying sectarian tensions persisted.

Capture and death

Captured by U.S. forces on 13 December 2003, Saddam was brought to trial under the Iraqi puppet government set up by U.S.-led forces. On 5 November 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 30 December 2006.

See also

• A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
• Gulf War
• Iraq War‎
• Islamization and anti-Islamization
• Neoconservatism
• Regime change

Further reading

• Nita Renfrew: SADDAM HUSSEIN, Chelsea House Publishers, New York / Philadelphia 1992
• Manuel Ochsenreiter: Staatsmord in Bagdad. Saddam Hussein am Galgen, Bonus, Selent 2007

External links

• Saddam Hussein Murdered by Zionist Jew-controlled U.S. Puppet Regime at Radical Press
• Mossad tried to kill Saddam in the 1970s at Times of Israel