Saddam Hussein talking with
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
In
1976 Saddam was appointed a general in the Iraqi armed
forces. He rapidly became the strongman of the regime, and was
the de facto ruler of Iraq some years before he
formally came to power in
1979.
He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government
and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members
were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon gained a powerful
circle of support within the party.
As Iraq's weak and elderly President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
became increasingly unable to execute the duties of his office,
Saddam began to take an increasingly prominent role as the face
of the Iraqi government, both internally and externally. He soon
became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented
the nation in all diplomatic situations. By the late
1970s,
Saddam had emerged as the undisputed de facto leader of
Iraq.
Saddam's consolidation of power and the modernization of
Iraq
Saddam consolidated power in a nation ridden with profound
tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq has been split by social,
ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic fault lines:
Sunni versus
Shi'ite,
Arab
versus
Kurd,
tribal chief versus
urban merchant,
nomad
versus
peasant.
Stable rule in a country torn by political factionalism and
conflict required the improvement of living standards. Thus,
Saddam, a rising star in the new regime, aided party attempts to
strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party by taking a leading role
in addressing the country's major domestic problems and
expanding the party's following.
Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi
economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus
to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections
apart from it. Ever concerned with consolidating his power base,
he followed the administration and execution of state welfare
and development programs closely. He played a leading role in
the oil industry, Iraq's major source of wealth. On
June 1,
1972,
he led the process of expropriating Western
oil
companies, which had had a
monopoly on the country's oil.
Due to the
1973 world oil shock, oil prices skyrocketed. Saddam pursued
an ambitious agenda through oil revenues. Within a period of
just several years, the state provided some social services to
Iraqi people unprecedented in other Middle Eastern countries.
Saddam initiated and led the implementation of the "National
Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for
"Compulsory Free Education in Iraq."
Largely under Saddam's auspices, the government established
universal free schooling up to the highest
education levels, supported families of soldiers killed in
war, granted free
hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers.
The government made great progress in building roads, promoting
mining, and development of other industries to diversify the
oil-dependent economy.
Saddam supervised the modernization of the Iraqi countryside,
the
mechanization of
agriculture on a large scale, and the distribution of land
to farmers. He broke up the large holdings of the landowners and
land to peasant farmers. He effected a comprehensive revolution
in
energy industries as well as in public services such as
transport and education.
Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq,
including many communities in far outlying areas.
Saddam's ruthless organizational prowess was credited with
Iraq's rapid the pace of development in the
1970s;
development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two
million persons from other Arab countries worked in Iraq to meet
the growing
demand for
labor.
By focusing especially on the implementation role, Saddam
became associated with Ba'athist welfare programs, thus widening
his original popular base of support while co-opting new sectors
of the Iraqi population. Part of a combination of "carrot and
stick" tactics, expanding government services forged
patron-client ties between Saddam and his support base within
the party, government bureaucracy.
Succession
In
1979 President al-Bakr began to make treaties with
Syria,
also under Ba'athist leadership, that would lead to unification
between the two countries. Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad would become deputy leader in a union, and
this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Before this could happen,
however, the ailing al-Bakr resigned on
July 16,
1979.
Saddam formally assumed the presidency.
Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party
leaders on
July 22,
1979.
During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped, Saddam claimed
to have found spies and conspirators within the Ba'ath Party and
read out the names of members who he thought could oppose him.
These members were labeled "disloyal" and were removed from the
room one-by-one to face a firing squad. After the list was read,
Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their
past and future loyalty.
Saddam Hussein as a secular leader
Saddam saw himself as a social revolutionary and a
modernizer, following the model of Nasser. To the consternation
of Islamic conservatives, his regime gave women added freedoms
and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam
also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only
country in the
Persian Gulf region not ruled according to
Islamic law. Saddam abolished the Sharia-law courts except
for personal injury claims.
Domestic conflict impeded Saddam's modernizing projects.
Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and
ethnicity; Saddam's government rested on the support of the 20%
minority of largely working class, peasant, and petit bourgeois
Sunni
Muslims, continuing a pattern that dates back at least to the
British mandate authority's reliance on them as administrators.
The
Shi'a majority were long a source of opposition to the
government and constant vigilance was required to keep them
subordinated, particularly after the Shi'a-led
Iranian Revolution in
1979.
Likewise, the
Kurds
in the north (who are Sunni Muslims but not Arabs) were also
permanently hostile to the Ba'athist party's Arabising
tendencies. Saddam had no choice but to rule as a dictator,
because the Ba'athists could not have retained power any other
way. At the core of Saddam's regime was a retinue of close
relatives and members of his Tikriti tribe.
Saddam justified Iraqi patriotism, in the form of claiming a
unique role of Iraq in the history of the Arab world. As
president, Saddam made frequent references to the
Abbasid period, when Baghdad was the political, cultural,
and economic capital of the Arab world. He also promoted Iraq's
pre-Islamic role as the ancient cradle of civilization,
Mesopotamia, alluding to such historical figures as
Nebuchadnezzar and
Hammurabi. He devoted resources to archaeological
explorations. In effect, Saddam sought to combine pan-Arabism
and Iraqi nationalism, by promoting the vision of an Arab world
united and led by Iraq.
His propaganda and
personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the
various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes
of the
Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant, and
even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits,
projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes
he would be portrayed as a dedicated Muslim, wearing full
headdress and robe, praying toward
Mecca;
at other times, he would be shown wearing a western business
suit and sunglasses, brandishing a rifle over his head.
Foreign affairs
Saddam Hussein meeting with Jacques Chirac, now French
president, during a state visit to Paris in 1976
In foreign affairs, Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading
role in the Middle East. Iraq signed an aid pact with the
Soviet Union in
1972,
and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers.
However, the
1978
the executions of Iraqi Communists and a shift of trade toward
the West strained Iraqi relations with the
Soviet Union, which took on a more Western orientation from
then until the
Gulf War in
1991.
He made a state visit to
France in
1976,
cementing close ties with French political and business circles.
Saddam led Arab opposition to the
Camp David Accords between
Egypt
and
Israel (1979).
In 1975
he negotiated an accord with
Iran
that contained Iraqi concessions on border disputes. In return,
Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition Kurds in Iraq.
After Saddam had negotiated the
1975
treaty with Iran,
the Shah withdrew support for the Kurds, who suffered a
total defeat. Nearly from its founding as a modern state in
1920,
Iraq has had to deal with Kurdish separatists in the northern
part of the country. Saddam did negotiate an agreement in
1970
with separatist Kurdish leaders, giving them autonomy, but the
agreement broke down. The result was brutal fighting between the
regime and Kurdish groups and even Iraqi bombing of Kurdish
villages in Iran, which caused Iraqi relations with Iran to
deteriorate.
The Iraq-Iran War
For details see the main article
Iraq-Iran War.
In
1979 Iran's
Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the
Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an
Islamic republic led by the
Ayatollah Khomeini. The influence of revolutionary Shi'ite
Islam grew apace in the region, particularly in countries with
large Shi'ite populations, especially Iraq. Saddam feared that
radical Islamic ideas—hostile to his secular rule— were rapidly
spreading inside his country among the majority Shi'ite
population.
There had also been bitter enmity between Saddam and Khomeini
since the
1970s.
Khomeini, having been
exiled from Iran in
1964,
took up residence in Iraq, at the Shi'ite holy city of
An Najaf. There he involved himself with Iraqi Shi'ites and
developed a strong, worldwide religious and political following.
Under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement
between Iraq and Iran in
1975,
Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in
1978.
After the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini perhaps regarded toppling
Saddam's government as a goal second only to consolidating power
in Iran.
After Khomeini gained power, skirmishes between Iraq and
revolutionary Iran occurred for ten months over the sovereignty
of the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, which divides the two
countries. Iraq and Iran entered into open warfare on
September 22,
1980.
The pretext for hostilities with Iran was this territorial
dispute, but the war was more likely an attempt by Saddam,
supported by both the United States and the Soviet Union, to
have Iraq form a bulwark against the expansion of radical
Iranian-style revolution.
Saddam Hussein meeting with
Donald Rumsfeld, at the time
Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the
Middle East, during a visit to
Baghdad,
Iraq in
1983. Video frame capture, see the
complete video In the first days of the war, there was heavy ground fighting
around strategic ports as Iraq launched an attack on Iran's
oil-rich, Arab-populated province of
Khuzestan. After making some initial gains, Iraq's troops
began to suffer losses from human-wave attacks by Iran. By
1982
Iraq was looking for ways to end the war.
During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian
forces and Kurdish separatists. On
March 16,
1988
Iraqi troops, on orders from Saddam to stop a Kurdish uprising,
attacked the Kurdish town of Halabjah with a mix of poison gas
and nerve agents killing 5000 people, mostly women and children.
Dissenting opinions dispute the numbers and have said the
incident was actually a battle in the Iran-Iraq war where
chemical weapons were used on both sides and a significant
portion of the fatalities were caused by the Iranian weapons.
Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and
political support. The Iranians, hoping to bring down Saddam's
secular government and instigate a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq,
refused a cease-fire until
1988.
The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were
hundreds of thousands of casualties. Perhaps upwards of 1.7
million died on both sides. Both economies, previously healthy
and expanding, were left in ruins.
Saddam was also stuck with a war debt of roughly $75 billion.
Borrowing money from the U.S. was making Iraq into its client
state, embarrassing a strongman who had sought to define and
dominate Arab nationalism. Saddam also borrowed a tremendous
amount of money from other Arab states during the
1980s
to fight Iran. Faced with rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure,
Saddam desperately sought out cash once again, this time for
postwar reconstruction.
Tensions with Kuwait
Saddam was pressuring
Kuwait to forgive its share of his war debt, some $30
billion. He argued that since the struggle with Iran had been
fought for the benefit of the other Gulf Arab states as much as
for Iraq that a share of Iraqi debt should be forgiven. Perhaps
Saddam's war with Iran spared the Kuwaitis from the imminent
threat of Iranian domination.
Saddam had pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices
and cut back production, but on top of Kuwaiti refusals to do
so, Kuwait helped spearhead
OPEC's
opposition to the production cuts that Saddam had requested.
Kuwait was pumping large amounts of oil, and thus keeping prices
low, when Iraq needed to sell high-priced oil from its wells to
pay off a huge debt.
On another compelling level, Saddam showed disdain for the
Kuwait-Iraq boundary line (actually imposed on Iraq by British
imperial officials in
1922)
because it cut Iraq off from the sea. One of the few articles of
faith uniting the political scene in a nation rife with sharp
social, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic divides was the
belief that Kuwait had no right to even exist in the first
place. For at least half a century, Iraqi nationalists were
espousing emphatically the belief that Kuwait was historically
an integral part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into
being through the maneuverings of British
imperialism.
Of course, the colossal extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves
intensified tensions in the region. The oil reserves of Kuwait
(with a population of a mere 2 million next to Iraq's 25) were
roughly equal to those of Iraq. Taken together Iraq and Kuwait
sat on top of some 20 percent of the world's known oil reserves;
as an article of comparison Saudi Arabia holds 25 percent.
The Kuwaiti monarchy further angered Saddam by slant drilling
oil out of wells that Iraq considered within its disputed border
with Kuwait. At the time, Saddam's regime was not regarded as a
pariah state. Saddam was able to complain about the slant
drilling to the U.S. State Department. Although this had
continued for years, Saddam now needed oil money to stem a
looming economic crisis. Saddam still had an experienced and
well-equipped army, which he used to influence regional affairs.
He later ordered troops to the Iraq-Kuwait border.
As Iraq-Kuwait relations rapidly deteriorated, Saddam was
receiving conflicting information about how the U.S. would
respond to the prospects of an invasion. For one, Washington had
been taking measures to cultivate a constructive relationship
with Iraq for roughly a decade. The
Reagan administration gave Saddam roughly $40 billion worth
of arms in the
1980s
to fight Iran, nearly all of it on credit. The U.S. also sent
billions of dollars of food and arms to Saddam to keep him from
forming a strong alliance with the Soviets.
4
U.S. ambassador to Iraq
April Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on
July 25, where the Iraqi leader stated his intention to
continue talks. U.S. officials attempted to maintain a
conciliatory line with Iraq, indicating that that while
George H. W. Bush and
Baker did not want force used, they would not take any
position on the Iraqi-Kuwait boundary dispute and did not want
to become involved. Later, Iraq and Kuwait then met for a final
negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops
into Kuwait.
Although no reliable firsthand information on Saddam's
appraisal of the situation exists, surmising from the prewar
standpoint of the Iraqi leader and his interests and the
conflicting prewar signals from Washington, the invasion was
likely born out of Iraq's postwar debt problem and faltering
attempts to gain the resources needed for postwar
reconstruction, rebuild the devastated Iraqi economy, and
stabilize the domestic political situation.
The Gulf War
For details see the main article
Gulf War.
With hours remaining before the war, UN
Secretary-General
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar met with Saddam Hussein to
discuss the Security Council timetable for the withdrawal
of troops from Kuwait.
On
August 2,
1990,
Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, thus sparking an
international crisis. The annexation of Kuwait gave Iraq, with
its own substantial oil fields, control of 20 percent of the
Persian Gulf reserves. The U.S. provided assistance to
Saddam Hussein in the war with Iran, but with Iraq's seizure of
the oil-rich emirate of
Kuwait in August of
1990
the United States led a United Nations coalition that drove
Saddam from Kuwait in
February
1991.
US President
George H. W. Bush responded cautiously for the first several
days. On one hand, Kuwait, prior to this point, had been a
virulent enemy of Israel and the Persian Gulf
monarchy that had had the most friendly relations with the
Soviets. On the other hand, Washington foreign policymakers,
along with Middle East experts, military critics, and firms
heavily invested in the region, are extremely concerned with
stability in this region.5
The invasion immediately triggered fears that the world's
price of oil, and therefore the control of the world
economy, was at stake. President Bush was perhaps swayed while
meeting with the tough British prime minister
Margaret Thatcher, who happened to be in the U.S. at the
time.6
Britain profited heavily from billions of dollars of Kuwaiti
investments and bank deposits.
Cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union
made possible the passage of resolutions in the
United Nations Security Council giving Iraq a deadline to
leave Kuwait and approving the use of force if Saddam did not
comply with the timetable.
Saddam ignored the Security Council deadline. Backed by the
Security Council, a U.S.-led coalition launched missile attacks
on Iraq,
January 16,
1991.
The
United States and a group of allies it had hastily rounded
up to fight the
Gulf War, including
Egypt,
Syria
and
Saudi Arabia, evicted Saddam's army from Kuwait in January
1991.
Israel, though subjected to attack by Iraqi missiles,
refrained from retaliating in order not to provoke Arab states
into leaving the coalition. But Saddam had focused renewed
attention on the
Palestinian problem by promising to withdraw his forces from
Kuwait if
Israel would relinquish the occupied territories in the
West Bank, the
Golan Heights, and the
Gaza Strip. Saddam's proposal further split the Arab world,
pitting U.S.- and Western-supported Arab states against the
Palestinians.
On
March 6,
1991,
Bush announced: "What is at stake is more than one small
country, it is a big idea - a new world order, where diverse
nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the
universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom,
and the rule of law." The United States responded with massive
troop deployments along the Saudi border with Kuwait and Iraq in
order to encircle the Iraqi army, the largest in the Middle
East. U.S. officials feared Iraqi retaliation against oil-rich
Saudi Arabia, since the
1940s
a close ally of Washington, for the Saudis' opposition to the
invasion of Kuwait.
Some 175,000 Iraqis were taken prisoner and casualties were
estimated at over 85,000. As part of the cease-fire agreement,
Iraq agreed to scrap all poison gas and germ weapons and allow
UN observers to inspect the sites. UN trade sanctions would
remain in effect until Iraq complied with all term
Postwar aftermath
Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the
brutality of the conflict that this had engendered, laid the
groundwork for postwar rebellions. In the aftermath of the
fighting, social and ethnic unrest among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds,
and dissident military units threatened the stability of
Saddam's regime. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish north and
Shi'a southern and central parts of the Iraq, but were
ruthlessly repressed.
The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against
Saddam, did nothing to assist the rebellions. U.S. ally
Turkey opposed any prospect of Kurdish independence, and
because the Saudis and other conservative Arab states feared an
Iran-style Shiite revolution. Saddam, having survived the
immediate crisis in the wake of defeat, was left firmly in
control of Iraq, although the country never recovered either
economically or military from the Gulf War. Saddam routinely
cited his survival as "proof" that Iraq had in fact won the war
against America. This message earned Saddam a great deal of
popularity in many sectors of the Arab world.
Saddam increasingly portrayed himself as a devout
Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious
segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were
re-introduced (such as the
2001
edict imposing the death penalty for
homosexuality and other sexual offences), and the ritual
phrase "Allahu
Akbar" ("God is great"), in Saddam's handwriting, was added
to the national flag.
1991-2003
Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense
following the Gulf War. The U.S. launched a missile attack aimed
at Iraq's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad
June 26,
1993,
citing evidence that Iraq had sponsored a plot to kill former
President George H. W. Bush.
The UN placed a trade embargo on Iraq, blocking Iraqi oil
exports. This caused immense hardship in Iraq and virtually
destroyed the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure. Only
smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid kept
Iraq from humanitarian crisis. On
December 9,
1996
the
United Nations allowed Saddam's government to begin selling
limited amounts of oil for food and medicine. Limited amounts of
income from the United Nations started flowing into Iraq through
the UN
oil-for-food program.
U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the
terms of the Gulf War's cease fire, by developing
weapons of mass destruction and other banned weaponry, and
violating the UN-imposed sanctions and "no fly zones." Isolated
military strikes by U.S. and British forces continued on Iraq
sporadically, the largest being
Operation Desert Fox in
1998.
Western charges of Iraqi resistance to UN access to suspected
weapons were the pretext for crises between
1997
and
1998, culminating in intensive U.S. and British missile
strikes on Iraq,
December 16-19,
1998.
After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British
warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in
February,
2001.
Saddam's support base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members,
and other supporters was divided after the war, and in the
following years, contributing to the regime's increasingly
repressive and arbitrary nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq
grew worse, and Saddam's sons,
Uday Hussein and
Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out
a private reign of terror. They likely had a leading hand when,
in
August
1995,
two of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law, who held high positions in
the Iraqi military, defected to Jordan. Both were killed after
returning to Iraq the following February.
Iraqi cooperation with UN weapons inspection teams was
intermittent throughout the
1990s.
It now appears more likely that Iraq was playing a game of
bluff, hoping to convince the Western powers and the other Arab
states that Iraq was still a power to be reckoned with, than
that Iraq was hiding significant stockpiles of prohibited
materials.
2003 invasion of Iraq
For details see the main article
2003 invasion of Iraq.
Saddam continued to loom large in American consciousness as a
major threat to Western allies such as oil-rich Saudi Arabia and
Israel, to Western oil supplies from the Gulf states, and to
Middle East stability generally. Bush's successor, U.S.
President
Bill Clinton (1993-2001),
maintained sanctions and made occasional air strikes in the "Iraqi
no-fly zones" or other restrictions, in the hope that Saddam
would be overthrown by his many political enemies.
The domestic political equation changed in the U.S. after the
September 11, 2001 attacks, which bolstered the influence of
the
neoconservative faction in the presidential administration
and throughout Washington. In his
January
2002
state-of-the-union message to Congress,
George W. Bush (the son of George H.W. Bush) spoke of an
"axis of evil" comprising
Iran,
North Korea, and Iraq. Moreover, Bush announced that he
would possibly take action to topple the Iraqi government. Bush
claimed, "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and
nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade." "Iraq
continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support
terror," said Bush.8
(So far no evidence linking Saddam and the attacks of September
11, 2001 appears to have been found.)
As the war was looming on
February 24,
2003,
Saddam Hussein talked with
CBS News anchor
Dan Rather for more than three hours—his first interview
with a U.S. reporter in over a decade.
9 CBS aired the taped
interview later that week.
The Iraqi government and military collapsed within three
weeks of the beginning of the
U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq on
March 20. The United States made at least two attempts to
kill Saddam with targeted air strikes, but both narrowly failed
to hit their target. By the beginning of April Coalition forces
occupied much of Iraq. The resistance of the much-weakened Iraqi
Army either crumbled or shifted to
guerrilla tactics, and it appeared that Saddam had lost
control of Iraq. He was last seen in a video which purported to
show him in the Baghdad suburbs surrounded by supporters. When
Baghdad fell to the Coalition on
April 9, Saddam was nowhere to be found.
Pursuit and capture
Saddam's whereabouts remained in question in the weeks
following the fall of Baghdad and the conclusion of the major
fighting in the war. Various sightings of Saddam were reported
in the weeks following the war but none was authenticated. A
series of audio tapes claiming to be from Saddam were released
at various times, although the authenticity of these tapes
remains uncertain.
Although Saddam was placed at the top of the "most-wanted
list," extensive efforts to find him had little effect,
although many of the other leaders of the Iraqi regime were
arrested. His sons and political heirs,
Uday and
Qusay, were killed in July 2003 in an engagement with U.S.
forces after a tip-off from an Iraqi informant.
On
December 14,
2003,
the
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) of Iran first reported
that Saddam Hussein had been arrested, citing Kurdish leader
Jalal Talabani. These reports were soon confirmed by other
members of the
Governing Council, by U.S. military sources, and by
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. In a press conference in
Baghdad, shortly afterwards, the U.S. Civil Administrator in
Iraq
Paul Bremer formally announced the capture of Saddam by
saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" He was captured at
approximately 8:30 PM Iraqi time on
December 13, in an underground "spider
hole" at a farmhouse in
ad-Dawr near his home town
Tikrit, in what was called
Operation Red Dawn.
[1] (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/14/sprj.irq.saddam.operation/)
Bremer presented video footage of Saddam in custody, and said
that
DNA testing to confirm his identity beyond doubt was in
progress.
Saddam was shown with a full beard and hair longer and
curlier than his familiar appearance, which a barber later
restored. His identity was later reportedly confirmed by
DNA
testing. He was described as being in good health and as
"talkative and co-operative." Bremer said that Saddam would be
tried, but that the details of his trial have not yet been
determined. Members of the Governing Council who spoke with
Saddam after his capture reported that he was unrepentant,
claiming to have been a "firm but just ruler." Later it emerged
that the tip-off which led to his capture came from a detainee
under interrogation.
Trial
On
June 30, 2004, Saddam Hussein (held in custody by U.S.
forces at
Camp Cropper in Baghdad), along with 11 senior Ba'athist
officials, were handed over legally (though not physically, as
there is at present no adequate Iraqi prison to hold them) to
the interim Iraqi government to stand trial for alleged war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and other offences.
The first legal hearing in Saddam's case was held before the
Iraqi Special Tribunal on
July 1,
2004.
Broadcast later on Arabic and Western television networks, it
was his first appearance in footage aired around the world since
his capture by U.S. forces last December.
The 67-year-old deposed Iraqi leader appeared surprisingly
confident and defiant throughout the 26-minute hearing.
Alternating between listening to and gesturing at the judge,
Saddam questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal set up to try
him. He called the court as a "play aimed at Bush's chances of
winning the
U.S. presidential elections." He emphatically rejected
charges against him. "This is all theater. The real criminal is
Bush," he stated. When asked by the judge to identify himself in
his first appearance before an Iraqi judge, he answered, "I am
Saddam Hussein al-Majid, the President of the Republic of Iraq."
"I am still the president of the republic and the occupation
cannot take that away," Saddam declared.
Also during the arraignment, Saddam defended Iraq's August
1990 invasion of Kuwait and referred to Kuwait's rulers as
"dogs," which led to an admonishment from the judge for using
coarse language in court (dogs are widely considered unclean in
the Arab world). Later on July 1, Kuwait's information minister
Abul-Hassan said crude language was "expected" of Saddam. "This
is how he was raised," said the minister.
[2] (http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118085)
Unlike the conservative monarchs in the area, which rule every
other Arab nation in the Persian Gulf region, Saddam Hussein was
born into a hardscrabble, landless peasant family.
Although no attorneys for Saddam were present at the July 1
hearing, his first wife,
Sajida Talfah, has hired a multinational legal team of over
20 attorneys, headed by
Jordanian
Mohammad Rashdan and including
Curtis Doebbler (United
States),
Emmanuel Ludot (France),
Marc Henzelin (Switzerland)
and
Giovanni Di Stefano (United
Kingdom). Toward the end of the hearing, deposed president
refused to sign on the legal document confirming his
understanding of the charges.
Personal
Saddam has been married three times. His first marriage was
to his first cousin
Sajida Talfah, a former teacher in
1963.
This union with the eldest daughter of Khairallah Talfah,
Saddam's uncle and
surrogate, produced two sons (Uday
Saddam Hussein and
Qusay Hussein) and three daughters,
Rana, Raghad and Hala. Sajida was put under house arrest in
early
1997, along with daughters Raghad and Rana, because of
suspicions of their involvement in an attempted
assassination on Uday in
December 12,
1996.
General
Adnan Khairallah Tuffah, who was Sajida's brother and Saddam
Hussein's boyhood friend, was allegedly executed because of his
growing popularity.
Saddam Hussein also married two other women: Samira
Shahbandar, whom he married in
1986
after forcing her husband to divorce her (she is rumoured to be
his favourite wife), and Nidal al-Hamdani, the general manager
of the Solar Energy Research Center in the Council of Scientific
Research, whose husband apparently was also persuaded to divorce
his wife. There apparently have been no political issues from
these latter two marriages. Saddam has a son, Ali, by Samira.
Saddam with his daughter, Rana Hussein
