Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He was born in a village near Tikrit in 1937 to a poor peasant family. He joined the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1957 and became involved in several coup attempts against the Iraqi monarchy and the pro-Western government. He rose to power in 1979 when he ousted his mentor, President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and assumed the presidency. He ruled Iraq with an iron fist, suppressing any opposition and dissent with brutal force. He also pursued an ambitious program of economic development, modernization, and secularization. He started the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, hoping to gain control of the oil-rich region, but the war ended in a stalemate after eight years of bloody fighting. He also invaded Kuwait in 1990, triggering the Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led coalition drove his forces out of Kuwait and imposed a trade embargo and sanctions on Iraq. He remained defiant and refused to comply with the UN resolutions that demanded the destruction of his weapons of mass destruction. He faced several uprisings by the Kurds and the Shiites, who sought autonomy or independence from his regime. He also faced the threat of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which aimed to topple him and establish a democratic government. He went into hiding after the fall of Baghdad, but was captured by the U.S. forces in December 2003. He was tried by an Iraqi special tribunal for crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. He was found guilty of ordering the execution of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail in 1982, and was sentenced to death by hanging. He was executed on 30 December 2006 in Camp Justice, a former military base in Baghdad. He is widely regarded as one of the most notorious and ruthless dictators of the 20th century.