Hussein, Saddam

Iraqi leader, in power from 1968, president 1979–2003. He presided over the Iran–Iraq war 1980–88. In 1990 he annexed Kuwait but was driven out by a US-dominated coalition army in the 1991 Gulf War. This defeat led to unrest in Iraq, and both the Kurds in the north, who were seeking independence, and Shiites in the south, rebelled. His savage repression of both revolts led to charges of genocide. In the 2003 Iraq War US-led forces invaded Iraq on the grounds that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and was in contravention of UN resolutions requiring Iraqi disarmament. Saddam went into hiding and was captured by coalition forces in December 2003. He was tried by an Iraqi court and sentenced to death in November 2006 over the killings of 148 Shiites in the 1980s, and was executed in December.

Saddam joined the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party in 1957 and soon became involved in revolutionary activities. In 1959 he was sentenced to death for the attempted assassination of the head of state, General Kassem, and took refuge in Syria and Egypt. He returned in 1963, following a coup which overthrew Kassem, but in the following year was imprisoned for plotting to overthrow the new regime. After his release he took a leading part in the 1968 revolution, removing the civilian government and establishing a Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). Initially, he wielded influence from behind the scenes, but he progressively eliminated real or imagined opposition to become president in 1979. He governed autocratically, supported by a clique of loyal supporters drawn from his home region and secret police who ruthlessly suppressed dissent. In all, an estimated 300,000 suspected political opponents were killed during his 24 years in power.