Saddam Hussein Biography: The Butcher of Baghdad (Complete Story)

Saddam Hussein Biography: The Butcher of Baghdad

Saddam Hussein
He was one of the world’s most notorious

and ruthless leaders.

Since coming to power in 1979, Saddam used

any means necessary to hold onto Iraq including

killing anyone who stood in his way.

At a young age, he was brutalized at home,

ran away to his uncles, and quickly became

a thug for an extremist political party.

As he raised through the ranks and took over,

he modernized the country -- and ruled through

fear.

Eventually his greed, defiance, and murderous

ways led to the gallows.

Today, on Biographics we learn about life

of Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein.

Early Life

On April 28, 1937, Saddam Hussein was born

to a peasant woman in a mud and straw village

called Al-Awja near Tikrit, on the banks of

the Tigris River.

Saddam bore the physical mark of his tribe

on the wrist of his right hand; a tattoo of

three dark blue dots.

Most people in his village lived in severe

poverty and life were difficult.

Saddam’s father, a sheepherder, disappeared

before he was born.

Then, a few months later, Saddam’s 12-year-old

brother died from cancer.

This sent Saddam’s mother Subha into a crippling

depression and she attempted to abort her

unborn baby and kill herself.

She failed and when her infant son was born

she named him Saddam, which means in Arabic

the “one who confronts,” or “the stubborn

one.”

Without a husband, Subha didn’t have the

means to support her baby.

She sent Saddam to live with her brother Khairallah

Talfah, a retired army officer and Arab nationalist

in Tikrit.

Saddam lived with him for only three years,

until Talfah was imprisoned due to his part

in a coup to overthrow the pro-British government

in Iraq.

By this time, Saddam’s mother had remarried

a man named Ibrahim Hassan.

Villagers knew him as “Hassan the liar.”

Back at his mother’s home, the young Saddam

endured regular beatings and maltreatment

at the hands of his stepfather.

Neighbors and early friends of Saddam recall

Hassan beating him to wake in the morning

and regularly shouting things like, “You

son of a dog, I don't want you!”

He was forbidden from going to school, and

instead was made to be useful by stealing

goats and chickens for the family.

If Saddam was caught stealing -- it has been

said -- he would rather poison the animals

then return them to their owners.

At the age of 10, Saddam heard his uncle had

been released from prison and he fled to Tikrit

to be with him.

Talfah filled the boy with dreams of glory,

saying he would be a great leader of Iraq

someday.

He gave Saddam his first real possession -- a

handgun.

Saddam reportedly used the weapon to threaten

his primary school teachers and he may have

murdered a man when he was not yet a teenager.

According to the story, after the killing

police showed up at Talfah’s house and found

Saddam sleeping with the gun, still warm,

under his pillow.

Under his uncle’s care, Saddam was finally

able to go to school but he learned much more

then how to read and write.

Through the years he was deeply influenced

by Talfa’s politics and after leaving the

al-Karh Secondary School in 1957, at the age

of 20, Saddam joined the Arab Ba’ath Socialist

Party as a low-level thug and gunman.

The party was formed in Syria in 1947 with

the ultimate goal of unifying the various

Arab states in the Middle East.

At the time, it was the most radical, nationalist

party in Iraq and it had become an underground

revolutionary force.

When he was 22, Saddam played a major role

in the Ba’ath Party’s assassination attempt

of the then-Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Karim

Qassim.

During the attack on October 7, 1959, Saddam

and other assassins ambushed Qassim’s car

on Baghdad’s busiest street.

The Prime Minister’s chauffeur was killed

but Qassim was spared, surviving gunshot wounds

in the arm and shoulder.

Saddam escaped with a bullet in his leg.

The official version of the story portrays

Saddam as a hero who dug the bullet out with

a penknife.

Another version suggests that the plot failed

because Saddam opened fire prematurely.

Several of the would-be assassins were caught,

tried and executed but not Saddam.

He managed to flee to Syria before eventually

seeking refuge in Egypt.

While in Egypt, Saddam studied law at the

The University of Cairo.

Saddam returned to Iraq in 1963 after a successful

military overthrow of Qassim's government.

After his return, Saddam was recruited for

yet another assassination.

The Ba’ath Party suffered from infighting

and a coup was planned to overthrow the leader.

The plan was ultimately betrayed however and

Saddam became a wanted man.

He was forced into hiding but was caught and

imprisoned in 1964.

While in captivity, he remained active in

party politics and read up on his role models

-- tyrants Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

In 1966, Saddam escaped prison thanks to the

the help of sympathetic prison guards.

Afterward, he was appointed deputy secretary

of the Regional Command, and became a rising

star in the Ba and organization.

Rise to Power

In 1968, another successful coup in Iraq put

Saddam’s Ba’ath party in power and President

Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (Saddam’s cousin) named

him deputy and head of the secret police.

Saddam proved to be a ruthless, but effective

politician.

Within government, he either eliminated or

co-opted individuals who stood in his way.

Eventually, he clawed his way to becoming the

vice president of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command

Council (RCC), the core group that held Iraq’s

Ba’athist government together.

Although not the official president of Iraq

until 1979, Saddam truly held the reins from

the early 1970s onward.

When the Ba’ath Party seized control, it

did not enjoy widespread support across the

country.

That changed after Saddam nationalized Iraq’s

the oil industry in the early 1970s before the

the energy crisis of 1973.

As a result, the nation enjoyed a boom to

the economy and the massive earnings allowed

the Ba’athist government to fund the health,

education and public works sectors and expand

social programs.

In an attempt to wipe out illiteracy, Saddam

required all children to attend school and

made it free through high school.

He also provided free hospitalization to all

Iraqis and full economic support to the families

of Iraqis soldiers.

Such reforms were unheard of in any other

Middle Eastern country.

In the years before the Iran-Iraq War construction

became one of the prized occupations of Iraq’s

middle class.

It is also important to note, 40 percent of

the increased revenue from oil went to buying

armaments from Western and Soviet suppliers.

That figure increased at the onset of the

war with Iran.

In 1979, when al-Bakr attempted to unite Iraq

and Syria, in a move that would have left

Saddam effectively powerless, Saddam forced

al-Bakr to resign, and on July 16, 1979, Saddam

Hussein became president of Iraq.

Five days later, he called an assembly of

the Ba'ath Party -- consisting of roughly

250 people.

At the meeting, party officials sat mystified

as Saddam made the announcement he had uncovered

a plot against him -- and he claimed the conspirators

wherein the room.

An alleged informant then read a list of 68

names out loud and each person was promptly

arrested and removed.

All the individuals were eventually tried

and found guilty of treason.

Twenty-two were sentenced to death.

The whole ordeal was filmed and circulated

around Iraq.

This was an intentional, well-scripted display

of Saddam’s power and a clear message of

who was in charge.

Three months later, Saddam declared 14 people

(up to 13 of them Jews), part of a “Zionist

spy ring.”

He made a very public, carnival-like display

out of their execution by stringing them up

before a crowd of thousands in downtown Baghdad.

Over the next several months, Saddam had more

“plotters” murdered live on television

and he hung them up on city lampposts.

To guard against coups and ensure loyalty,

Saddam surrounded himself with kin -- putting

his fellow clansmen in government positions.

He regularly used informants and the secret

police to route out suspected conspirators.

If anyone so much as made a joke about Saddam,

they could have their tongue cut out or pay

with their life.

He believed it was better to murder a person

of suspicion and be wrong -- then it is was

to not, and be killed by them.

Personal Life

Saddam married his first cousin, Sajida -- his

uncle Talfah’s daughter.

They had five children including two sons,

Uday and Qusay, and three daughters, Raghad,

Rana and Hala.

He took on mistresses but did not parade them

around publically.

Later on, when his sons grew up, he gave them

high-ranking positions within Iraq’s government.

Saddam’s public image was meticulously crafted

-- he dyed his hair black, sported a mustache,

and refused to wear his reading glasses unless

in private.

He had a slight limp due to a slipped disc

so he was never filmed walking for more than

a few steps.

He was 6’ tall, and his weight fluctuated

from trim to chubby but his well-tailored

suits were made to disguise his protruding

belly.

Each of his 20 palaces was kept fully staffed,

with meals prepared daily as if he were in

residence to disguise his whereabouts.

He moved around frequently and used body doubles

to thwart assassination attempts.

His meals, such delicacies like imported lobster,

were first tested for radiation and poison.

His wine of choice was Portuguese, Mateus

Rose, but he never drank in public to maintain

the conceit that he was a strict Muslim.

Saddam was particularly phobic about germs

and even top generals summoned to meet him

were often ordered to strip to their underwear

and their clothes were then washed, ironed

and X-rayed before they could get dressed

to meet him.

They had to wash their hands in disinfectant.

During his imprisonment, it is said he would

try to maintain this cleanliness by wiping

his utensils and food tray with baby wipes

before eating.

Throughout his rule, he maintained a limited

world-view and possessed little knowledge

of Western culture, laws, and advancements

in technology.

He was once shocked to learn there was no

such law in the U.S. that prevented citizens

from complaining about the President.

Decades of Conflict

The same year that Saddam anointed himself

President of Iraq, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini

led a successful Islamic revolution.

Saddam’s political power rested in part

upon the support of Iraq's minority Sunni

population and he worried that developments

in the Shiite majority, Iran could lead to a similar

the uprising in Iraq.

In response, on September 22, 1980, Saddam

ordered Iraqi forces to invade the oil-rich

region of Khuzestan in Iran -- a clear violation

of international law.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war;

one Saddam foolishly expected would be over

in a matter of weeks.

Saddam had no prior military experience and

he grossly underestimated his enemy.

Iran was three times the size of Iraq and

a formidable opponent.

A stalemate ensued, with both sides engaged

in a bloody trench war.

At the same time, ground troops were deadlocked,

Saddam sunk millions of dollars into developing

nuclear weapons.

In 1981, Israel took this matter seriously

-- believing if Saddam had the ability, there

would be no preventing him from dropping an

atomic bomb on their cities.

In June, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s

research center at Osirak.

At least 25 pounds of enriched uranium were

reported to have been on the site.

The plant was near completion and scheduled

to begin operations within a matter of months.

The destruction of Iraq’s nuclear plant

was humiliating and with no end in sight to

the war, Saddam consulted his cabinet.

At the meeting, Saddam’s health minister

suggested that he step down to gain

the ceasefire with Iran.

As the story goes, Saddam thanked him for

his candor and had him arrested on the spot.

The minister’s wife pleaded with Saddam

to release her husband and he promised he

would.

When he sent him home the next day, he was

delivered in a black canvas body bag, cut

up into tiny pieces.

In the closing days of the war with Iran,

Saddam’s murderous ways reached new heights.

In his most savage act, he poisoned thousands

of civilian Kurds using chemical gases, killing

upwards of 5,000 people and injuring 10,000

more.

The genocide became known as the Halabja Massacre

or Bloody Friday.

Iranian photographer Kaveh Golestan witnessed

the gas attacks from a helicopter.

“It was life frozen.

Life had stopped, like watching a film and

suddenly it hangs on one frame.

It was a new kind of death to me.

(…) The aftermath was worse.

Victims were still being brought in.

Some villagers came to our chopper.

They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging

us to take them to the hospital.

So all the press sat there and we were each

handed a child to carry.

As we took off, fluid came out of my little

girl's mouth and she died in my arms.”

One decade after the attack, at least 700

people were still being treated for severe

after-effects of the Halabja Massacre.

Surveys have concluded the Kurdish population

in this region suffer from a higher percentage

of medical disorders, birth defects, and various

diseases including cancers and heart disease.

On August 20, 1988, after years of intense

the conflict that left one half million casualties

on each side, a ceasefire agreement was finally

reached.

The eight-year war-ravaged Iraq’s economy

and infrastructure.

One million Iraqi soldiers were out of work.

At the end of the 1980s, Saddam turned his

attention toward Iraq's wealthy neighbor,

Kuwait.

Saddam believed the Kuwaitis had 200 billion

dollars in various banks around the world.

And, a takeover of this small country would

yield him all the riches he needed to pay

back Iraq’s war debt and stabilize his country.

Using the justification that Kuwait was historically

part of Iraq, Saddam ordered the invasion

on August 2, 1990.

It took only six hours for Saddam’s armies

to the occupy the country -- a move greatly

condemned around the world.

A UN Security Council resolution was promptly

passed, imposing sanctions and setting a deadline

of January 15, 1991, for the Iraqis to leave

Kuwait.

During the occupation, Saddam staged a number

of bizarre televised interviews with citizens

of Kuwait in which he asked them if they were

happy with the Iraqis invasion.

Of course, they said yes...they didn’t have

a choice!

When Saddam ignored the January 15 deadline,

a coalition force headed by U.S. President

George H.W. Bush confronted Iraqi forces.

Saddam was no match for America’s firepower

and modern warfare technology.

Within six weeks Saddam’s troops were out

of Kuwait.

A ceasefire agreement was signed, the terms

of which included Iraq dismantling its germ

and chemical weapons programs.

The previously imposed economic sanctions

levied against Iraq remained in place.

Despite this and the fact that his military

had suffered a crushing defeat (an estimated

150,000 Iraqis died), Saddam claimed victory

in the conflict.

He called “The Mother of All Battles”

his biggest victory and maintained that Iraq

had actually repulsed an attack by “America

and its criminal gang.”

He said, “Iraq has punched a hole in the

the myth of American superiority and rubbed the

the nose of the United States in the dust.”

During the 1990s, various Shiite and Kurdish

uprisings in Iraq occurred, but the rest of

the world, fearing another war, did little

or nothing to support these rebellions and

they were ultimately crushed by Saddam's forces.

At the same time, Iraq remained under intense

international scrutiny.

Saddam violated the terms of the UN’s peace

the deal -- when inspectors were sent into Iraq

they found and destroyed stockpiles of weapons

including chemical and biological warheads

and a “supergun” with missiles capable

of reaching Israel.

The inspectors also alleged Saddam was still

at work developing nuclear weapons.

In 1993, when Iraqi forces violated a no-fly

zone imposed by the UN, the U.S. launched

a damaging missile attack on Baghdad.

Further strikes occurred in 1998.

With economic sanctions still in place in

the years following the Gulf War, Saddam continued

to maintain his personal wealth, and his family’s,

through selling oil and medical supplies meant

for his people on the black market.

While the citizens of Iraq were in dire straits,

he built opulent palaces and maintained his

lifestyle.

Saddam's Fall

After the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in

September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush

and members of his administration suspected

Saddam’s government of having a relationship

with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization.

And, of possessing “weapons of mass destruction.”

In his January 2002 State of the Union address,

President Bush named Iraq part of his so-called

"Axis of Evil," along with Iran and North

Korea.

Later that year, UN inspections of suspected

weapons sites began, but little or no evidence

that such programs existed was ultimately

found.

Despite this, on March 20, 2003, under the

the pretense that Iraq did, in fact, have a covert

weapons program and that it was planning attacks,

a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq.

Within weeks, the government and military

had been toppled, and on April 9, 2003, Baghdad

fell.

Saddam, however, managed to elude capture.

In the months that followed, an intensive

search for Saddam began.

While in hiding, Saddam released several audio

recordings, in which he denounced Iraq's invaders

and called for resistance.

Finally, on December 13, 2003, Saddam was

found hiding in a hole in the ground, a bunker

near a farmhouse in ad-Dawr, near Tikrit.

The once well-dressed and groomed leader looked

disheveled, unshaven and bewildered when he

was arrested.

Saddam was moved to a U.S. base in Baghdad,

where he would remain until June 30, 2004,

when he was officially handed over to the

interim Iraqi government to stand trial for

crimes against humanity.

With his days numbered, Saddam showed no accountability

or remorse for his crimes.

In 2003, when asked by Iraqi politicians about

his brutal acts, Saddam called the Halabja

attack Iran’s handiwork; said that Kuwait

was rightfully part of Iraq and that the mass

graves were filled with thieves who fled the

battlefields.

Saddam declared that he had been “just but

the firm” because Iraqis needed a tough ruler.

During his trial, Saddam would prove to be

a belligerent defendant, often boisterously

challenging the court's authority and making

bizarre statements.

On November 5, 2006, Saddam was found guilty

and sentenced to death.

The sentencing was appealed but was ultimately

upheld by a court of appeals.

On December 30, 2006, at Camp Justice, an

Iraqi base in Baghdad, Saddam was executed.

He was then buried in Al-Awja, his birthplace,

on December 31, 2006.

This closed the chapter on one of modern history’s

most tyrannical and brutal dictators.