Not just fade away
Saddam Hussein: Vanishing act
Saddam Hussein At-Tikriti (1937-2006) played an instrumental role, as a leader of the Ba'ath Socialist party, in the 1968 coup that brought that party back to power, where it remained until very recently. Saddam became president and sole ruler of Iraq in 1979.
Baghdad fell to US forces on 9 April 2003. The fate of Saddam Hussein remained a mystery, leaving the field clear for Saddam-of-the-Andes-style sightings, which kept US and UK intelligence busy.
Earlier in the conflict, there had been two attempts to kill Saddam in bombing raids: on 19 March, the first day of the war, and then again on 7 April, when the target was a restaurant in a Baghdad suburb. But after that, there were reports of sightings, as well as video tapes purportedly featuring Saddam, though his well-publicised use of look-alikes – a tactic also used by Hitler – made such appearances especially difficult to authenticate. Senior British and US officials indicated that they believed that Saddam had survived the attacks.
It all ended rather tamely. On 13 December 2003, eight months and a few days after the fall of Iraq, Saddam was found in a tiny cellar under a hut at his former cook's home at Ad Dawr, between Baghdad and Saddam's powerbase Tikrit. Bearded and seemingly resigned to his capture, he had a suitcase containing $750,000. His identity was finally confirmed by a DNA test.
In November 2006, at the end of a flawed trial, Saddam was sentenced to death for the killing of 148 Shia men and boys in the town of Dujail, following a failed assassination attempt in 1982. Then came the totally unexpected news on 30 December that he had been unceremoniously hanged, having been taunted and insulted during his last moments. His body was buried in a cemetery near Tikrit.
