Saddam Hussein was born on April, 28, 1937 in the town of Al-Awja born to a family of shepherds meaning they were not the richest family in the world. His mother, Subha named her son as ‘Saddam’ meaning ‘One who confronts’. However, unfortunately for Saddam, he never knew his father who disappeared 6 months before Saddam was born. When his brother was 13, he died leaving Saddam alone with Subha.
In 1957, Saddam had joined the Ba’ath party and shortly after, general Qassim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq who was the last king of Iraq. 2 years after Saddam joined the Ba’ath party, he was involved in a plot to assassinate Qassim and after Saddam was shot in the leg, he had to move to Cairo in exile. Saddam studied law at the Cairo University. However, a person called Arif, overthrew Qassim and became president. Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba’ath party leaders the first year he became president. So when Saddam returned to Iraq in 1964, he was imprisoned until 1967, when he escaped and became a leading member of the Ba’ath party. Al-Bakr was named president after they overthrew Arif and Saddam was named his deputy. This was the beginning of his rise to power.
Saddam played a big part in the modernization of Iraq. He strengthned Iraq’s economic status and the centre of his strategy was oil. Iraq had a lot of oil so they could make a lot of money out of its advantage. In 1973, there was the energy crisis when world oil prices rose dramatically. This enabled Saddam to expand on his idea. Before the 1970s, most of Iraq's people lived in the countryside, where Saddam himself was born and raised, and roughly two-thirds were peasants. But this number decreased quickly during the 1970s as the country invested much of its oil profits into industrial expansion.
In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi army. At that time Saddam was considered as an enemy of communism. He made a bigger impact on Iraq as the then president Bakr became elder and couldn’t do his duties perfectly. Then in June 22, 1979, there was disruption among the Ba’ath party leaders. Saddam claimed to have found spies within the Ba’ath party and read out 68 names from his list whom he thought could oppose him. Out of those 68 people, 22 people were executed after being labelled as traitors and disloyal.
Iraq had a lot of foreign affairs. Saddam wanted Iraq to play an important role in the Middle East. Saddam first kept a close relationship with the powerful Unites States. Saddam agreed a treaty with Iran in 1975. Also, Saddam visited France in 1976 and he tried to create a close relationship with the French. In 1979, Iran’s leader Pahlabi was overthrown and Khomeini became the new leader. Khomeini was a bitter enemy of Saddam. After Khomeini gained power, there was constant fight between Iraq and Iran’s revolutionary forces. That’s why Saddam decided to invade Iran to end the conflicts.
In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran by attacking the Meherabad Airport and entering the oil-rich land of Khuzestan. Saddam claimed Khuzestan as a new province of Iraq. Most Arabic nations and Unites States supported Iraq with artillery and medical supplies. Iraq was dominating the war with heavy ground fighting and Iraq was benefiting. However, strong Iran resistance against Iraq with human wave attacks was keeping Iran at bay. Iraq was looking for ways to end the war quickly but it was a war with attrition and the war was dragged on till 1988 when it finally ended. This disastrous war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties and up to 1.7 million people died on both sides. Iraq and Iran’s economies were in ruins.
After the war ended, tensions were created between Iraq and Kuwait. Iraq had a large debt meaning they couldn’t pay off their debts to Kuwait. Also to raise money for reconstruction, Saddam encouraged oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back oil production. Kuwait refused to cut production. Later, Iraq and Kuwait met for a final negotiation to avoid a clash between the two countries, but the negotiation failed and the Iraqi troops marched towards Kuwait.
On August, 2, 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait and overran the country . Saddam threatened to turn Kuwait city into a graveyard if any other country challenges the take-over by force which stopped other countries helping Kuwait. However, as Kuwait controls a large part of the oil industry in the world, this caused a threat to the world economy and there was fear of the oil prices rising to the roof. So the UN security council decided to give Iraq a last chance to withdraw their troops from Kuwait for the world’s security. However, Saddam refused this offer and so war broke out between other countries such as the United States. But Saddam couldn’t resist and there were casualities of about 20,000 according to the U.S data. Although some sources say it was about 100,000. This is known as the Gulf War.
After the Gulf War, relationships between Saddam’s Iraq and United States got worse. Especially after Iraq tried to assassinate the former president Bush during his visit to Kuwait. So on June 26, 1993, the United States launched an attack in Baghdad. Also, the UN blocked the Iraqi oil export after they refused to withdraw their troops from Kuwait during the Gulf War. As Saddam continued to become powerful, they were causing more threats to Western Allies such as Israel and oil-rich Saudi Arabia. On September 11, 2001, there were attacks in New York killing many people. This caused chaos all around the world. It was thought that Iraq and the terrorist Bin Laden might be behind all this. Also Iraq refused to give up their weapons which made Unites States think Iraq wants to have another war. This made U.S president Bush say the ‘axis of evil’ which referred to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. So the prospect of war between the United States and Iraq seemed impossible to avoid. In order to avoid war the United States tried to assassinate Saddam twice, but they failed. So they had to use their massive troop forces. On March 20, 2003, the invasion of Iraq started. Although Iraq fought bravely, they could not resist the great war technology of the United States and the Iraq capital Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. It was obvious Saddam lost control over Iraq now. It wasn’t long until Saddam got caught by the U.S troops. And after 3 years of torture, on 30, December, 2006, Saddam got the death sentence for the crimes against humanity and was executed. That is how Saddam ended his extraordinary life and although he made many of his fellow Iraqis suffer, he was very brave to stand up to the U.S power. The story of Saddam Hussein will probably go on for years and remain in our memories to some as a tyrant and some as a hero. Personally, I think he’s a great man since he’s probably the first one who stood up against the big powers like the United States. Altough he killed many people, it was for his country’s good.
