Saddam Hussein

Who was Saddam Hussein?

Saddam Hussein was a member of the Ba'ath Party and dictator of Iraq between 1979 and 2006. He was notorious for his ruthless control over the country.

What was Saddam's early life like?

There were 4 important moments in Saddam's early life.

• ❖ Saddam Hussein came from poor and disadvantaged beginnings.
• ❖ He was raised in poverty with no father and an abusive stepfather. He was from a poor peasant family in Tikrit, near Baghdad. He was a Sunni Muslim.
• ❖ At the age of ten he went to live with the family of his uncle, Khairallah Talfah, who provided him with an education and an understanding of Arab nationalism.
• ❖ When he was 18, Saddam moved to Baghdad with his uncle but failed the entrance exam to the Baghdad Military School.

What did Saddam do in the Ba'ath Party?

Saddam had 5 important roles in the Ba'ath Party.

• ❖ Saddam joined the Ba'ath Party as a young man of about twenty and soon played an active role in the organisation.
• ❖ He organised violent anti-government demonstrations, such as gangs beating people up in the street.
• ❖ In 1958, he assassinated a local government official in Tikrit who had informed on his uncle.
• ❖ He attempted to assassinate General Qasim in 1959, but failed and had to leave the country.
• ❖ He spent three years in exile in Damascus and Lebanon, extending his education and studying for a law degree.

How did Saddam Hussein become so powerful?

There were 11 important moments in Saddam's rise to power.

• ❖ Saddam returned to Iraq in time for the overthrow of Qasim in 1963 and rose to power within the Ba'ath Party afterwards.
• ❖ In 1972, the Ba'ath Party nationalised the Iraqi oil industry, taking over its control from the British. This was a popular move.
• ❖ He began to network and build political friendships in the Ba'ath Party.
• ❖ He joined the faction of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the prime minister of Iraq and a relative of Khairallah Tulfah.
• ❖ After the Ba'ath Party's fall from power in late 1963, al-Bakr's moderate wing of the Ba'ath Party did well - and so did Saddam.
• ❖ From 1963, he became head of the Iraqi Intelligence Services. From here he could use arrests, torture, terror and death to control his opponents.
• ❖ In 1964, he was given a place in the Regional Command, the ruling body of the Ba'ath Party.
• ❖ He placed family and friends in key positions in the Ba'ath Party.
• ❖ He was vice-president from 1968 and grew close to an increasingly frail al-Bakr.
• ❖ By 1976, Saddam was made a general in the army, but was probably the effective leader of Iraq by this point.
• ❖ In 1979, al-Bakr retired, possibly because of intimidation, and Saddam became the new President of Iraq.

What was the nature of Saddam's rule in Iraq?

Saddam's rule in Iraq was characterised by several key features:

• ❖ Terror.
• ❖ A cult of leadership.
• ❖ Repression of minorities.
• ❖ Improving infrastructure.

How did Saddam use terror to rule Iraq?

Saddam Hussein used 3 different techniques of terrorising anyone who might present a threat to his rule.

• ❖ When he became president in 1979 he carried out a purge of the Ba'ath Party, executing 500 members.
• ❖ Some political opponents, such as Mashhadi, were subject to televised show trials.
• ❖ He carried out retaliation attacks. For example, 150 villagers were executed in response to an assassination attempt on him in Dujail.

How did Saddam use a cult of personality to rule?

There were 3 types of propaganda Saddam used to develop his cult of personality.

• ❖ Statue and portraits of him were placed in prominent places all around Iraq.
• ❖ His birthday was a national holiday.
• ❖ He was glorified in the media.

How did Saddam treat minorities?

Saddam used 5 different methods against the minority groups in Iraq.

• ❖ Saddam became suspicious of Shia Muslims after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. In 1980-81, 200,000 Iraqi Shia were deported, and their businesses handed to the government.
• ❖ In 1974-75, Saddam's troops attacked the Kurds, who made up 20% of Iraq's population and wanted to break away and form their own nation state.
• ❖ During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988.
• ❖ After the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam decided to solve the 'Kurdish problem'. Using chemical weapons and mass executions, his forces killed about 180,000 Kurds. Around 100,000 fled to Turkey.
• ❖ The numbers of Marsh-Arabs in south-east Iraq dropped from a quarter of a million to about 30,000 after Saddam constructed a new waterway in the region.

Was Saddam's regime totalitarian?

Saddam ultimately achieved absolute power in Iraq.

• ❖ Censorship and tightly controlled media meant the public only heard positive views of the regime.
• ❖ It was a capital offence to criticise the government or join an opposition party.
• ❖ Special courts were run by the president's office.
• ❖ All production was geared to the needs of the state.

How did Saddam increase the military?

There were 6 ways Saddam increased the military.

• ❖ Saddam used profits from the oil industry to build up the Iraqi military.
• ❖ Iraq bought weapons from the USSR, France, Yugoslavia and Brazil.
• ❖ Iraq purchased tanks, bombers, surface-to-air missiles, electronic equipment and other state-of-the-art weaponry.
• ❖ By July 1979, Saddam had constructed Iraq's first chemical weapon plant, which produced chemicals such as distilled mustard, tabun and VX gas.
• ❖ The chemical weapons industry also began producing anthrax, typhoid and cholera in the 1980s.
• ❖ Although Saddam attempted to begin a nuclear programme, bombing raids by Israel and during the Gulf War prevented this.

How did Saddam use the infrastructure to control the people?

Saddam introduced 7 important changes to the infrastructure of Iraq.

• ❖ Rural villages received electricity and other improvements.
• ❖ There were improved roads and water supplies.
• ❖ Health care was free.
• ❖ University education was free.
• ❖ Government subsidies were given to artists.
• ❖ There was freedom of religious worship.
• ❖ Local government in Iraq was largely free from corruption.