101 Facts About Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in 2003.

Saddam Hussein previously served as the vice president from 1968 to 1979 and as the prime minister from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003.

Saddam Hussein attempted to ease tensions among Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.

Human Rights Watch estimated that Saddam Hussein's regime was responsible for the murder or disappearance of 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis.

Saddam Hussein's government has been described by several analysts as authoritarian and totalitarian, and by some as fascist, although the applicability of those labels has been contested.

Saddam Hussein Al-Majid Al-Tikriti was born on 28 April 1937, in al-Awja, a small village near Tikrit, to a Sunni Arab family from the Al-Bejat clan of the Bedouin Al-Bu Nasir tribe, which was descended from Sayyid Ahmed Nasiruddin bin Hussein, a descendant of Husayn ibn Ali.

Saddam Hussein's tribe originated in Yemen, eventually migrating to Syria where they settled in Aleppo and Harran, before later settling in Tikrit in Iraq under Ottoman rule.

Subha "would have nothing to do with him", and Saddam Hussein was eventually taken in by an uncle.

At around the age of 10, Saddam Hussein fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Khairallah Talfah, who became a fatherly figure to Saddam Hussein.

Talfah, the father of Saddam Hussein's future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim and a veteran of the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial power in the region.

Saddam Hussein's policies angered several pan-Arab organizations, including the Ba'ath Party, which later began plotting to assassinate Qasim at Al-Rashid Street on 7 October 1959 and take power.

Saddam Hussein was recruited to the assassination conspiracy by its ring-leader, Abdul Karim al-Shaikhly, after one of the would-be assassins left.

Saddam Hussein himself is not believed to have received any training outside of Iraq, as he was a late addition to the assassination team.

Unlike during the Qasim years, Saddam Hussein remained in Iraq following Arif's anti-Ba'athist purge in November 1963, and became involved in planning to assassinate Arif.

Saddam Hussein was arrested in October 1964 and served approximately two years in prison before escaping in 1966.

In September 1966, Saddam Hussein initiated an extraordinary challenge to Syrian domination of the Ba'ath Party in response to the Marxist takeover of the Syrian Ba'ath earlier that year, resulting in the Party's formalized split into two separate factions.

Saddam Hussein then created a Ba'athist security service, which he alone controlled.

In July 1968, Saddam Hussein participated in a bloodless coup led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr that overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif, Salam Arif's brother and successor.

Al-Bakr was named president and Saddam Hussein was named his deputy, and deputy chairman of the Ba'athist Revolutionary Command Council.

Al-Bakr was the older and more prestigious of the two, but by 1969 Saddam Hussein had become the moving force behind the party.

On 1 June 1972, Saddam Hussein oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector.

Saddam Hussein subsequently implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries.

Saddam Hussein nationalized independent banks, eventually leaving the banking system insolvent due to inflation and bad loans.

Saddam Hussein focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athists in the rural areas.

Saddam Hussein's regime aimed to diversify the Iraqi economy beyond oil.

Saddam Hussein had a good instinct for what the "Arab street" demanded, following the decline in Egyptian leadership brought about by the trauma of Israel's six-day victory in the 1967 war, the death of the pan-Arabist hero, Gamal Abdel Nasser, in 1970, and the "traitorous" drive by his successor, Anwar Sadat, to sue for peace with the Jewish state.

Saddam Hussein's self-aggrandizing propaganda, with himself posing as the defender of Arabism against Zionist or Persian intruders, was heavy-handed, but consistent as a drumbeat.

Saddam Hussein sought to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East.

In 1972, Saddam Hussein signed a 15-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Saddam Hussein's visit to Spain took place in December 1974, when the Caudillo of Spain, Francisco Franco, invited him to Madrid and he visited Granada, Cordoba and Toledo.

Saddam Hussein's 1975 visit further cemented close ties with French business and ruling political circles.

In 1976, Saddam Hussein rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government.

Saddam Hussein was the de facto leader of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979.

Saddam Hussein acted to secure his grip on power by forcing the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.

Saddam Hussein convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on 22 July 1979.

Saddam Hussein was notable for using terror against his own people.

Conversely, Saddam Hussein used Iraq's oil wealth to develop an extensive patronage system for the regime's supporters.

Saddam Hussein implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries.

Saddam Hussein's government underwent a large campaign to beautify Baghdad by erecting statues and monuments.

Saddam Hussein established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels and hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program.

In 1980, Saddam Hussein's government granted women full suffrage and the right to run for office.

Saddam Hussein borrowed tens of billions of dollars from other Arab states and a few billions from elsewhere.

Saddam Hussein reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political support during the war, particularly after Iraq's oil industry severely suffered at the hands of the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf.

Saddam Hussein urged the Kuwaitis to waive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the war, some $30 billion, but they refused.

Saddam Hussein pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back production; Kuwait refused, then led the opposition in OPEC to the cuts that Saddam Hussein had requested.

Saddam Hussein had consistently argued that Kuwait had historically been an integral part of Iraq, and had only come into being as a result of interference from the British government; echoing a belief that Iraqi nationalists had supported for the past fifty years.

Saddam Hussein still had an experienced and well-equipped army, which he used to influence regional affairs.

On 25 July 1990, Saddam Hussein summoned the US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, for an emergency meeting where the Iraqi leader attacked American policy with regards to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

On 2 August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, initially claiming assistance to "Kuwaiti revolutionaries", thus sparking an international crisis.

Shortly before he invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein shipped 100 new Mercedes cars 200 Series cars to top editors in Egypt and Jordan.

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 Hussein did not comply with the timetable.

Saddam Hussein's officers looted Kuwait, stripping even the marble from its palaces to move it to Saddam Hussein's own palace.

Saddam Hussein publicly claimed victory at the end of the war.

The US, which had urged Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein, did nothing to assist the rebellions.

Saddam Hussein, 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 militarily from the Gulf War, until a modest recovery recorded in the early 2000s.

Saddam Hussein routinely cited his survival as "proof" that Iraq had in fact won the war against the US This message earned Saddam Hussein a great deal of popularity in many sectors of the Arab world.

Some elements of Sharia law were introduced, and the phrase "Allahu Akbar", in Saddam Hussein's handwriting, was added to the national flag.

Saddam Hussein commissioned the production of a "Blood Qur'an", written using 27 litres of his own blood, to thank God for saving him from various dangers and conspiracies.

On 9 December 1996, Saddam Hussein's government accepted the Oil-for-Food Programme that the UN had first offered in 1992.

American officials continued to accuse Saddam Hussein of violating the terms of the Gulf War's ceasefire, by developing weapons of mass destruction and other banned weaponry, and violating the UN-imposed sanctions.

Bill Clinton maintained sanctions and ordered air strikes in the "Iraqi no-fly zones", in the hope that Saddam Hussein would be overthrown by political enemies inside Iraq.

Saddam Hussein later decided to use Euros, instead of US dollars for Iraqi oil.

Saddam Hussein was widely known for his pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance.

Saddam Hussein appeared on television threatening to burn and destroy Israel.

Saddam Hussein supported various Palestinian guerrilla movements, provided financial support to Palestinians, and allowed Palestinian refugees in Iraq to obtain full citizenship rights, unlike the situation of Palestinians in other countries.

Saddam Hussein maintained close relations with Palestinian leaders such as Yasser Arafat.

Saddam Hussein supposedly offered that Iraq will end its anti-Israel foreign policy if the issue of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was resolved.

Saddam Hussein provided financial assistance from Iraq's oil revenue, to the families of the Palestinian victims and militants.

In 2002, following an Israeli offensive into Palestinian territory, Saddam Hussein stopped supplying oil to Western countries in order to force Israel to abandon its offensive, a move supported by Iran and Libya.

Many members of the international community, especially the US, continued to view Saddam Hussein as a bellicose tyrant who was a threat to the stability of the region.

Saddam Hussein expressed a wish to have a live televised debate with George W Bush, which was declined.

Saddam Hussein later told an FBI interviewer that he once left open the possibility that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to appear strong against Iran.

The resistance of the much-weakened Iraqi Armed Forces either crumbled or shifted to guerrilla tactics, and it appeared that Saddam Hussein had lost control of Iraq.

Saddam Hussein was last seen in a video which purported to show him in the Baghdad suburbs surrounded by supporters.

Various sightings of Saddam Hussein were reported in the weeks following the war, but none were authenticated.

Saddam Hussein was placed at the top of the US list of most-wanted Iraqis, which included officials of his government and the party members.

On 13 December 2003, in Operation Red Dawn, Saddam Hussein was captured by American forces after being found hiding in a hole in the ground near a farmhouse in ad-Dawr, near Tikrit.

Saddam Hussein was shown with a full beard and hair longer than his familiar appearance.

Saddam Hussein was described by US officials as being in good health.

British tabloid newspaper The Sun posted a picture of Saddam Hussein wearing white briefs on the front cover of a newspaper.

The nickname and the garden are among the details about the former Iraqi leader that emerged during a March 2008 tour of the Baghdad prison and cell where Saddam Hussein slept, bathed, kept a journal, and wrote poetry in the final days before his execution; he was concerned to ensure his legacy and how the history would be told.

On 30 June 2004, Saddam Hussein, held in custody by US forces at the US base "Camp Cropper", along with 11 other senior Ba'athist leaders, was handed over to the interim Iraqi government to stand trial for crimes against humanity and other offences.

Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging on the first day of Eid ul-Adha, 30 December 2006, despite his request to be executed by firing squad, which he argued was the most appropriate method due to his role as commander-in-chief of the Iraqi military.

The accounts of the two witnesses are contradictory as Haddad describes Saddam Hussein as being strong in his final moments whereas al-Rubaie says Saddam Hussein was clearly afraid, but the common view is not of the latter.

Not long before the execution, Saddam Hussein's lawyers released his last letter.

Saddam Hussein recited the shahada one and a half times, as while he was about to say 'Muhammad' on the second shahada, the trapdoor opened, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Saddam Hussein was buried at his birthplace of Al-Awja in Tikrit, Iraq, on 31 December 2006.

Saddam Hussein's tomb was reported to have been destroyed in March 2015.

On 28 April 2001, Saddam Hussein marked his 64th birthday with a large state-sponsored celebration.

Saddam Hussein was honored by titles such as "Field Marshal" and "Comrade".

Saddam Hussein is one of the recipients of the Key to the City.

In 1980, Saddam Hussein received a ceremonial key to the city of Detroit after making a donation of nearly half a million dollars to a local church.

Saddam Hussein successfully turned Iraq into a leading hub for healthcare and education.

Saddam Hussein received the Order of Merit, which is rare and was awarded to only a few Iraqi rulers.

Saddam Hussein received numerous medals from the Iraqi state commemorating his involvement or leadership during various events, including the 1948 Palestine War, crushing the Kurdish rebellion, the 1963 and 1968 revolutions, cooperation with Syria, peace in 1970, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War with Israel.

Saddam Hussein viewed Iraq's ancient Mesopotamian heritage as compatible with his vision of Arab nationalism.

Saddam Hussein often emphasized his nomadic Bedouin roots, framing them as a source of honor and traditional values.

Saddam Hussein organized two show elections in 1995 and 2002.

Saddam Hussein's regime suppressed political opposition through a combination of violence, intimidation, and censorship.

Cultural depictions of Saddam Hussein can be found in various movies, including three documentary movies made about Saddam Hussein.

Irish actor Barry Keoghan will appear in a new movie about Saddam Hussein which was announced in 2024.