About Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, an Iraqi politician who served as the country’s fifth president and is thought to have had a net worth of $2.5 billion, lived from 28 April 1937 to 30 December 2006. One of the most contentious political figures in recent memory is Saddam Hussein. Saddam was born in 1937 into a peasant family in the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit to a single mother who struggled to raise him alone. Eventually, Saddam’s mother remarried to a vicious guy, who severely handled Saddam. When Saddam was ten years old, he asked to move in with his maternal uncle because he wanted to leave this difficult existence behind.
Introduction of Saddam Hussein to Politics
Saddam’s uncle had a significant impact on his life. Initially, Saddam acquired his first official schooling during this time. Saddam kept learning and studying, but it wasn’t enough to get him into the military academy. Dejected, Saddam discovered a new path through politics, a hobby of his uncle. At the age of 20, Saddam joined the nationalist Ba’ath Party, which his uncle was active in. The monarchy in Iraq came to an end in 1958, only a year after King Faisal II was overthrown by a military coup. But as soon as the new Prime Minister became unpopular, the impressionable young Saddam was selected to be a member of a team entrusted with killing him.
Political Career of Saddam Hussein
Saddam left the country once the planned ambush was unsuccessful. Up until the Ba’athists effectively toppled the Iraqi government in 1963, Saddam stayed in Egypt. The new government, however, was short-lived. The next unsuccessful coup attempt that Saddam took part in ended with his imprisonment. Saddam was tortured in prison for 18 months until he was finally able to escape and continue his ascent through the Ba’ath party’s hierarchy. Saddam was appointed Vice President in 1968, when the Ba’athists officially retook control. From this position, he consolidated his power throughout the 1970s.
Saddam’s plan to transition Iraq to an oil-based economy with greater living standards solidified his hold on power. Saddam assumed the office of President in 1979 and immediately began the harsh suppression of any dissent while also establishing a personality cult. Saddam was in charge of a conflict with Iran that raged for a large portion of the 1980s and came to a standstill in 1988. Then, in 1990, Saddam gave the order to invade Kuwait on the grounds that the country had been wrongfully divided from Iraq at the end of British colonial administration over the area. In what was known as the Persian Gulf War, the US successfully overcame Saddam while defending Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein is ousted from office
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US and its allies once again attacked and conquered Iraq, leading to the overthrow of Saddam’s administration. Saddam escaped Baghdad before being found in December 2003, concealed in a hole in the ground not far from Tikrit, his hometown. On December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein was hung after being tried for his crimes against humanity.
