Transcript SADDAM HUSSEIN - Qatar University

SADDAM HUSSEIN
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General Information
Youth
Rise in Ba’ath Part
Consolidation of Power
Foreign Affairs
Invasion of Iraq
Pursuit and Capture
GENERAL INFORMATION
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born April 28, 1937
President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003.
espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic
modernization, and socialism
GENERAL INFORMATION
• Iraq's economy grew at a rapid pace in the
1970s
• As president, he developed a pervasive
personality cult
• Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)
• Captured by U.S. forces on December 13,
2003
YOUTH
• Was born in the village of Al-Awja in Tikrit
• "Saddam," which in Arabic means "one
who confronts
• He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abd alMajid, who died or disappeared five
months before Saddam was born.
• Saddam's twelve-year-old brother died of
cancer
YOUTH
• His mother attempted both to abort Saddam and
kill herself and refused to care for her new child
when he was born
• Very depressive childhood
• Learned many things from his uncle. He was
ambitious.
• he attended a nationalistic secondary school in
Baghdad
• at age 20, Saddam joined the revolutionary panArab Ba'ath Party, of which his uncle was a
supporter
Rise in the Ba'ath party
• Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in
1959, Saddam was involved in the attempted
assassination of Prime Minister Qassim
• Saddam was shot in the leg, but managed to
flee to Syria,
• Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in
1964
• He escaped from jail in 1967 and became one of
the leading members of the party
Rise in the Ba'ath party
• Saddam never forgot the tensions within
the first Ba'athist government
• He was ambitious
• In July 1968 a second coup brought the
Ba'athists back to power under General
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr a Tikriti and a
relative of Saddam
Consolidation of power
• In 1976 Saddam was appointed a general
in the Iraqi armed forces
Consolidation of Power
• Saddam soon gained a powerful circle of
support within the party through his ambition.
• President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became
increasingly unable to execute the duties
• Saddam began to take an increasingly
prominent role as the face of the Iraqi
government, both internally and externally
• 1970s, Saddam had emerged as the undisputed
de facto leader of Iraq.
Foreign affairs
• Communication barriers
• Iraq signed an aid pact with the Soviet
Union in 1972
• Western orientation from then until the
Persian Gulf War in 1991
• Saddam initiated Iraq's nuclear enrichment
project in the 1980s, with French
assistance
Foreign Affairs
• first Iraqi nuclear reactor was named by
the French Osiraq
• Destroyed by an Israeli air strike shortly
before it became capable of producing
weapons
2003 invasion of Iraq
• Bush claimed, "The Iraqi regime has plotted to
develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear
weapons for over a decade."
• "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward
America and to support terror," said Bush
• The Iraqi government and military collapsed
within three weeks of the beginning of the U.S.led 2003 invasion of Iraq on March 20
• When Baghdad fell to the Coalition on April 9,
Saddam was nowhere to be found.
Pursuit and capture
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His sons and political heirs, Uday and
Qusay, were killed in July 2003 in an
engagement with U.S. forces after a
tip-off from an Iraqi informant
• Paul Bremer, formally announced the capture of
Saddam by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, we
got him!" He was captured at approximately 8:30
PM Iraqi time on December 13, in an
underground "spider hole" at a farmhouse in adDawr near his home town Tikri