Saddam Hussein (1937- )

Iraqi dictator. Born on 28 April 1937 into a peasant family in Tikrit, he studied in Baghdad and Cairo. He joined the Ba'ath Socialist party in 1957 and became involved in its underground activities, which aimed to overthrow the Western-dominated King Faisal II.

In 1959, he fled to Syria and Egypt after an abortive coup against Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassem. He returned to Iraq after Qassem had been killed in 1963, and at first supported the new president Aref, but was imprisoned for conspiracy soon after.

He became leader of the Ba'ath party in Iraq in 1966. He played an important role in the revolution led by General Bakr in July 1968, and became president of Iraq when Bakr resigned in July 1979. By then, he had ruthlessly purged the party machine and filled its main posts with his own supporters.

Once in power, he regularly executed opponents and extended his hold on state organisations through nepotism. As well as creating a cult of personality, he used Arab nationalism, anti-Zionism and Islamic rhetoric to build up his position in the Middle East.

He attacked minority groups such as the Shi'ite Muslims and the Kurds, but made peace with them when expedient. He fought a long war against Iran (1980-8), but agreed to peace when the conflict became bogged down in stalemate.

His pragmatic brutality led to miscalculations, such as his decision to invade Kuwait in August 1990. This resulted in the first Gulf War, at the end of which he was forced to pull back his troops and suffered international humiliation.

He survived attempted coups, put down an army rebellion in June 1995 and foiled an assassination attempt a year later. A referendum in 1995 showed that he had widespread public support despite the fact that Iraq had become an international pariah and its population suffered greatly from sanctions imposed on them by Western powers for most of the 1990s.

In March 2003, following unsubstantiated claims that it had ‘weapons of mass destruction’, Iraq was invaded by a coalition of US and British forces: the second Gulf War. Hussain was overthrown and went into hiding but, eight months later, was discovered hiding in a pit in his hometown of Tikrit. The following year, he was charged with crimes against humanity for ordering the execution of 143 men in the Shi’ite village of Dujail in 1982 and was brought to trial in Baghdad.

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