Facts: Saddam Hussein

The first time I heard the name of this dictator was during my first few years living in Mekkah, Saudi Arabia. The Gulf War was declared and we all suddenly feared that Saddam Hussein would drop a chemical weapon to the Kingdom. I was only 6 years old but I clearly remember how the Saudi tv networks bombarded us with constantly repeated ads about the war — that we all had to prepare for the deadly weapon. They suggested us to wear gas masks and seal all air holes that we could possibly find around the house.

So I am relieved that he was dead, though I was not pleased with his trial. Anyway, I have been reading about his interesting yet cruel life on the internet for the past few days. I tried to find his biography in the library, but I couldn’t find the specific title. However, I wanted to share these information with you. Though most of them could be found easily on the net, perhaps there’re a number of you who can’t be bother doing some research. So here they are, Saddam’s facts:

• Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of Al-Awja, near Tikrit in 1937 to a poor Iraqi Sunni family. He never knew his father, who dissapeared 6 months before he was born. It was reported that he was frequently abused and harassed by his stepfather. That led to his departure to Baghdad to live with his uncle whose daughter, Sajidah Talfah, became Saddam’s first wife.
• At the age of 20, he joined the radical pan-Arab Ba’ath Party under the influence of his uncle. After the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy (King Faisal II), he participated in an unsuccessful CIA-backed attempt to kill Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim. He fled the country and lived for several years in Egypt where he studied law at Cairo University. He returned to Iraq following the second coup against the prime minister but was thrown into jail later on.
• Saddam first assumed national power when he was appointed as deputy to his cousin, President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, and later vice president. During this time, he managed to control over the country’s intelligence and security forces to prevent coups. Due to the president’s health problems, he forced the president to step down and ascended Ahmad’s throne to become the President of Iraq in 1979. He ruled Iraq for 24 years. There were some reports that Ahmad’s death in 1982 was suspicious.
• During his early years as vice president, Saddam played a key role in modernizing the economic and social condition of Iraq. He established an education campaign, forcing many poor illiterate Iraqi people to go to school. He provided free education and granted free hospitalization to everyone. His country had one of the best public-health system in the Middle East, earning him an award from UNESCO. He also transformed the deserted Iraq to buildings and roads. Electricity was introduced in many cities. Iraqi people who once bundled in poverty could by now enjoyed a better life under his regime.
• Having a great influence from Stalin, he was aware how supreme the family and tribal connections were in Iraq. He appointed the members of his own family and tribe, whom he believed they could be trusted, to be in the government’s important positions. His family controlled oil industries across Iraq. He tortured, imprisoned, and killed all people who were opposed to his regime. Some years ago, Saddam was asked whether or not it was true that his opponents were killed and tortured. He was not offended at all. “Of course,” he replied. “What do you expect if they oppose the regime?”
• In the period of only one year after he became a president, he led his country to bloody war against Iran for 8 years. He declared that every Iraqi family had to donate gold to support the Iraqi army. The war, which used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, caused Iraq $75 billion in foreign debt.
• The relation between the government and the Kurdish people in Iraq had always been unpleasant. The Kurds wished to seek independence and control the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. During the war against Iran, Saddam launched an anti-Kurdish campaign, called Al-Anfal Campaign, killing as many as 100,000 Kurds and destroying thousands of Kurdish villages. The campaign was headed by his cousin, the Butcher of Kurdistan or best known as Chemical Ali. Most of its operation used chemical weapons, which slaughtered thousands of people in the town of Halabja (read the eyewitness accounts here).
• When Saddam visited the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982, he was attacked by members of the Shiite Dawaa Party who were strongly opposed to his war with Iran. The attack was failed and he escaped unharmed. In a video presented by CNN, right after the incident, Saddam started questioning some frighten locals himself and asked his security people to interrogate them. The incident resulted in 148 Dujail residents being killed and thousands other being tortured and imprisoned.
• In 1990, the president ordered the invasion of Kuwait, which led to the Gulf War. Saddam, who once received many supports from the U.S. and Arab states on the war against Iran, faced with disapprovals from those countries. Following the invasion, the United Nations imposed the economic sanctions against Iraq.
• Saddam’s wife, Sajida, is no other than her husband’s reflection. Everytime she visited shops in Baghdad and intended to purchase some goods, she never paid a full price or even left without paying. Some shops were closed down after her visits. She reportedly took all the jewels that were given by Iraqi people to support the Iraq-Iran war and those that were stolen from Kuwaitis during the Gulf War. She regularly tortured her servants and ordered for torture and imprisonment of her enemies.
• Saddam and Sajida had two sons and three daughters. One of their sons, Uday, was once seen as the heir to Saddam, is known to be more cruel than his father. It was reported that he murdered his father’s staff at a party in honor of the wife of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, tortured many Iraqi athletes after failing the games, kidnapped, raped, and murdered many Iraqi women. The other son, Qusay who became his father’s heir in 2000, allegedly responsible for the killing of many Iraqi Shiites and political activists. The two oldest daughters, Raghad and Rana were married to Kamel brothers. The two men, Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel (with their families) defected to Jordan and revealed to both CIA and MI6 about the chemical weapons owned by Iraq. Saddam was furious and encouraged them to come back to Iraq, promising them using Qur’an that they would be pardoned. They were killed few days after their arrivals.

Further reading:

• Saddam’s Delusions: The View From the Inside – a must-read!
• Saddam Hussein: Evil or Hero?

Sources:

• Wikipedia: Saddam Hussein
• BBC: Saddam Hussein profile
• Frontline: The Survival of Saddam
• Mayada: Daughter of Iraq, One Woman’s Survival in Saddam Hussein’s Torture Jail
• CBS News In Depth: Iraq
• Orbituary: Saddam Hussein