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Peshmerga
Kurdistan Flag which Peshmerga use as their emblem
Active	2003–present
Country	Iraq
Branch	Regional Guards, Army
Role	Domestic defense and offensive
Size	375.000 [1]
Garrison/HQ	Kurdistan Parliament
March	Ey Reqîb (English: "Oh, Enemy")
Engagements	- World War I -The Republic of Kurdistan War - The Kurdish-Iraqi War - The Second Kurdish-Iraqi War - Iran-Iraq War - First Gulf War - Second Gulf War -Kurdistan Islamist Conflict -War on Terror -(Various other Battle/Wars)
Commanders
Notable commanders	-Simko Shikak - Kosrat Rasul Ali - Shaikh Said Piran - Mustafa Faraj - Ferzende - Mustafa Barzani - Nawshirwan Mistefa - Qazi Muhammad - Massoud Barzani - İhsan Nuri Pasha - Jalal Talabani - Murat Karayilan - Mama Risha - Mahmoud Othman - Idris Barzani -

Peshmerga or Peshmerge (Kurdish: Pêşmerge or پێشمه‌رگه ‌‌) is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters. Literally meaning "those who face death" (Pesh front + marg death) the Peshmerga forces of Kurdistan have been in existence since the advent of the Kurdish independence movement in the early 1920s, following the collapse of the Ottoman and Qajar empires which had jointly ruled over the area. Peshmerga forces include women in their ranks.^[2] Many Kurds will say that all Kurds willing to fight for their rights are Peshmerga. The term remains in contemporary usage, sometimes written as pesh merga in Anglophone media.^[3]

History[link]

Through much of the late 1900s, Peshmerga often came into conflict with the Iraqi forces, using guerilla warfare tactics against them. Many of these Peshmerga were led by Mustafa Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, while others were under the command of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Jalal Talabani and Kosrat Rasul Ali. After Mustafa Barzani's death, his son Masoud Barzani took his position. Most of the Peshmerga's efforts were to keep a region under the specific party's control and to fight off any incursions by the Iraqi Republican Guard. Following the First Gulf War, Iraqi Kurdistan fell into a state of civil war between the two major Kurdish parties the KDP and the PUK, and their Peshmerga forces were used to fight each other.

The Roots of the Peshmerga (1890-1958)[link]

Kurdish Forces in WWI (1914-1918)[link]

As the Ottoman Empire struggled to stay together during World War I, it called on the Kurds to supplement the Turkish army.

Among the all-Kurdish units were the Eleventh Army, headquartered in Elazig, and the Twelfth Army, headquartered in Mosul. Kurds also made up a majority of the Ninth and Tenth Armies and supplied enough troops for many frontier units and 135 squadrons of reserve cavalry. These forces, with their experience and knowledge of the terrain, were contributory in fighting the threats to the Eastern Ottoman Empire.

Shaykh Mahmud Barzanji Revolt (1919-1923)[link]

Although both the Turks and the British used Kurdish tribes to instigate cross-border conflicts, local shaykhs recruited Kurds to revolt against the regional powers. The first of these Kurdish call-to-arms occurred in British controlled Southern Kurdistan in May 1919. Shortly before being appointed governor of Sulaymaniya, Shaykh Mahmud Bazanji ordered the arrest of all British political and military officials in the region. After seizing control of the region, Barzanji raised a military force from his Iranian tribal followers and proclaimed himself “Ruler of all of Kurdistan”.

Tribal fighters from both Iran and Iraq quickly allied themselves with Shaykh Mahmud as he became more successful in opposing British rule. According to McDowall, the Shaykh’s forces “were largely Barzinja tenantry and tribesmen, the Hamavand under Karim Fattah Beg, and disaffected sections of the Jaf, Jabbari, Shaykh Bizayni and Shuan tribes”. The popularity and numbers of Shaykh Mahmud’s troops only increased after their ambush of a British military column.

Among Mahmud’s many supporters and troop leaders was 16-year-old Mustafa Barzani, the future leader of the Kurdish nationalist cause and commander of Peshmerga forces in Kurdish Iraq. Barzani and his men, following the orders of Barzani tribal shakyh Ahmad Barzani, traversed the Piyaw Valley on their way to join Shaykh Mahmud Barzanji. Despite being ambushed numerous times along the way, Barzani and his men reached Shaykh Mahmud’s location, albeit too late to aid in the revolt.

The Barzani fighters were only a part of the Shaykh’s 500-person force. As the British became aware of the shaykh’s growing political and military power, they were forced to respond militarily. Two British brigades were deployed to defeat Shaykh Mahmud’s fighters at Darbandi Bazyan near Sulaymaniya in June 1919. Shaykh Mahmud was eventually arrested and exiled to India in 1921.

At the root of the rebellion, Shaykh Mahmud’s leadership appealed to both Kurdish nationalist and religious feelings. Although he knew he could not directly defeat the British, Shaykh Mahmud hoped to seek recognition of Kurdish nationalism by advocating a ‘free united Kurdistan’. Using his authority as a religious leader, Shaykh Mahmud called for a jihad against the British in 1919 and thus acquired the support of many Kurds indifferent to the nationalist struggle. Although the intensity of their struggle was motivated by religion, Kurdish peasantry seized the idea of “national and political liberty for all” and strove for “an improvement in their social standing”.

Despite opposition by other regional tribes, possibly fearful of the shaykh’s growing power, Shaykh Mahmud’s fighters continued to oppose British rule after the shaykh’s arrest. Although no longer organized under one leader, this inter-tribal force was “actively anti-British”, engaging in hit-and-run attacks, killing British military officers, and participating in another – left the Turkish ranks to join the Kurdish army.

In response to the rebellion, the Turkish government, realizing the strength of Azadi, quickly arrested many of the organization’s leaders, both . In creating a battle plan, Said and the other prominent remaining Azadi leadership established five major fronts to be commanded by regional shaykhs. These shaykh leaders were assisted by former Hamidiya Cavalry officers who provided military structure to the rebellion. After organization, unit responsibility was divided among nine areas. The overall headquarters of Said’s military force was located in Egri Dagh and protected by a force of 2,000 men. During the onset of the revolt, Said’s fighters, facing nearly 25,000 Turkish troops, gained control of a vilayet near Diyarbakir. Besides seizing Turkish land and acquiring additional munitions, early victories instilled confidence in the rebellion and garnered further Kurdish support.

Throughout the conflict, Said’s fighters used both conventional military tactics, including multi-front assaults and attempts at urban seizure, and unconventional warfare, including guerrilla tactics. An example of the conventional military organization was evident in the assault on Diyarbakir, where reports saw “three columns of 5,000 strong, under the personal command of Shaykh Said”. The establishment of conventional higher levels of Kurdish military command may also be assumed as documents Conditions also improved for Mulla Mustafa Barzani as he was eventually granted the privileges of a leader-in-exile. Throughout his years in the USSR, Barzani was able to broadcast via Soviet radio and attended courses in language and politics. Although many sources claim Barzani was given the rank of general in the Soviet Army, Massoud Barzani denies that this occurred. Possibly most important, however, was Barzani’s ability to correspond with Kurdish exiles throughout the world, including Jalal Talabani and Ismet Cherif Vanly.

Meanwhile, the successful coup d'état of Brigadier Abd al Karim Qasim and his followers in Iraq in July 1958 opened a new chapter in Iraqi-Kurdish relations. Shortly after taking power, Qasim pardoned Shaykh Ahmad Barzani and allowed Mulla Mustafa, his followers, and his Peshmerga to return to Iraq. The Barzani exile in the Soviet Union ended after 12 years, and upon their return, the Peshmerga would once again play a prominent role in Iraqi regional politics.

The Peshmerga in Modern Iraq (1958-2003)[link]

This section requires expansion.

Barzani's Return to Iraq / Prelude to War (1958-1961)[link]

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First Kurdish-Iraqi War (1961-1970)[link]

In September 1961, Kurdish leader Mustafah Barzani openly revolted against Baghdad's authority. He started with 600 followers, but by spring 1962 had 5,000 full-time guerillas and another 5-15,000 who could be called to assist for short periods of time. When he attacked in autumn 1961 he caught Iraqi government forces, principally the 2nd Division, unprepared. Qasim ordered a counterattack, and the 2nd Division was able to reverse most of the Kurdish gains before Barzani's forces were compelled to withdraw into the mountains during the winter of 1961-62.^[4]

The Second Kurdish-Iraqi War (1974-1975)[link]

Secret negotiations between Barzani and Saddam Hussein led to the "March Manifesto". The agreement included a pledge from the Kurds to stop their rebellion, and in exchange the regime would allow the establishment of a Kurdish autonomous region in areas where the Kurds were a majority.^[5] The agreement was to be implemented within four years.^[6] However during those four years the regime encouraged the "Arabization" of the oil-rich Kurdish areas.^[7] After decreasing the percentage of Kurds in the north for four years, the regime demanded the implementation of the manifesto. The Kurds weren't willing to implement it. After the ultimatum extended by the Baath regime expired, the manifesto became a law on March 11, 1974.^[8] Clashes between the rebels and the Iraqi security forces erupted immediately. The fighting cost the lives of 10,000 Iraqi soldiers.^[9] The Iraqi army was unable to crush the rebellion because of Iran's continual assistance to the rebels, Tehran even deployed two divisions of the Iranian Army inside Iraq in January 1975.^[10] Saddam Hussein, having committed to confrontation with the Kurds, was determined not to lose the fight.^[9] In late 1974 he began negotiations with the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.^[11] An agreement was reached and signed by the sides during an OPEC summit in Algiers. The Agreement guaranteed that Iran would stop assisting the Kurdish rebels. In exchange Iraq agreed to demarcate the joint border with Iran according to the Constantinople Protocol of 1913. In the 1913 protocol the border line in the Shatt Al-Arab was in the middle (thalweg) of the waterway,^[12] and not as was previously decided in 1937 between the countries. In the 1937 understanding Iraq's territorial water extended to most of the Shatt.

The Shah stopped the Iranian support to the rebels, withdrew his forces and sealed the border on April 1. The Iraqi army was able to crush the Peshmerga rebellion until the end of March.^[9] Many leaders of the Kurds, including Mustafa Barzani fled to Iran and others to Turkey.^[13]

Creation of the PUK (1975-1979)[link]

The Political Bureau (or central committee) of the KDP, led by Ibrahim Ahmed and his son in law Jalal Talabani, broke off from the KDP in 1966 when Mustafa Barzani insisted on taking all important decisions without consulting other party leaders. Mustafa Barzani then allocated assassins to kill members of the Polit Bureau to include Jalal Talabani.

When the KDP laid down arms following the Algiers agreement in 1975, the Politbureau joined with other groups to form the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). PUK quickly becoming the second biggest party in Northern Iraq, building its own force of Peshmerga.

The PUK and the KDP developed an intense rivalry that would even lead to war between the two factions.

The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)[link]

Kurdish Peshmerga, 1980

During the Iran-Iraq War the Iraqi Kurds sided with Iran against the Ba'athis Iraq. Help from the Kurds was an important factor in Iran's early success on the Northern Front (Iraqi Kurdistan) but despite their gains the Iranians were unable to take control of any cities or towns of significance. Iraq responded with chemical gas and Saddam Hussein and his government gassed thousands of Kurds and Iranian soldiers. Although the gas did beat the Iranians in the Central Front and Iraq recaptured all lost territories there, including the oil-rich Majnoon Islands, Iran kept making gains in the North until the Iranians accepted Saddam's truce. However Saddam tried to invade Khouzestan as he thought he could still win the war and the Mujahideen-e Khalq (an Iranian terrorist organization that, according to USA, had sided with Iraq) attacked Iran in the center, but both of these invasions failed (though Iraq did make small gains in Iran) and Saddam also accepted the truce. The Iranians pulled out of Northern Iraq and Iran stopped supporting the Kurds in Iraq. The Kurds had to now continue fighting Saddam on their own and were unsuccessful.

Resistance to the Iraqi government continued in 1988-1989.

Peshmerga During Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991)[link]

In the wake of the First Persian Gulf War (aka "Operation Desert Storm": January to March 1991), various considerations led the United States to establish two "no-fly" zones in Iraq: one zone was in southern Iraq, where the Hussein regime had viciously persecuted the Shiite Arabs; the other zone was in the Kurdish territory in northern Iraq. The Baghdad government was forbidden to operate any aircraft in either of these zones, a proscription enforced by United States and United Kingdom military assets in the region. Unable to use air power in the north, and with its conventional capabilities having been all but demolished during Desert Storm, Baghdad had little choice to but to sit by and witness the rebirth of the Kurdish self-governing region.

The 1991 Uprisings[link]

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1991-1995[link]

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The Kurdish Civil War (1995-1998)[link]

The civil war among the Peshmergas of the PUK and the KDP held up the military development of the Peshmerga as the attention was no longer on outside threats.

1998-2003[link]

After the 1998 “Washington Agreement”, fighting between the KDP and the PUK Peshmerga came to an end. As active PUK Peshmerga put down their weapons, elder Peshmerga veterans began filling more political PUK roles. With the KDP increasingly led by Barzani family members, the political tension between the Kurdish parties remained.

The emergence of strict, militant Islamic groups such as the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan in northern Iraq had by then already been an additional source of fighting and political tension for some time. The international prominence of al-Qaeda following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the U.S. led to the Qaeda-brokered^{[citation needed]} creation of Ansar al-Islam, which further exacerbated sectarian violence. Although sporadic fighting continued with the PKK (the Turkish-based Kurdish Worker’s Party), the PUK Peshmerga faced its largest threat from Ansar al-Islam, which was also supported by the Ba'athist government^{[citation needed]}. Led by Mullah Krekar, a Kurd of strict Islamic faith, Ansar al-Islam was composed of over 500 guerrilla fighters, many of whom fled Afghanistan after the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom.

Although they had faced traditional military opposition from the Iraqis and mountain-based guerrilla tactics during inter-Kurdish fighting, the PUK Peshmerga had difficulty countering the fanatical assault of Ansar al-Islam. The foreign fighters used suicide attacks, assassinations, mines, bombs, and swords and machetes to not only kill the Peshmerga but to desecrate their bodies. Whereas Ansar al-Islam allegedly received support from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, the PUK Peshmerga had only the KDP forces as allies. Both parties were steadfast in their displeasure about the Ansar al-Islam presence. PUK commander Anwar Dolani, for example, asserted there is “no room for terrorism in Iraqi Kurdistan” and Massoud Barzani claimed Peshmerga forces did not need assistance to defeat the unwelcome militants. Despite Kurdish solidarity, U.S. preparations to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein brought welcome reinforcements to the conflict.

Peshmerga during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)[link]

The Peshmerga linked up with the CIA's Special Activities Division (SAD) and the U.S. Military's 10th Special Forces Group and prepared the battle space for conventional U.S. Military forces throughout Iraq. The first step was evicting the Ansar Al Islam from their enclave around the village of Biyara. This battle happened prior to the invasion in February 2003 and was carried out with officers from SAD and the U.S. Army's 10th Special Forces Group. Most Ansar al-Islam fighters were killed during this operation, but some escaped to Iran and later regrouped in Iraq as the Ansar al-Sunnah.

US and peshmerga spokesmen also claimed to have uncovered a chemical weapons facility at Sargat, the only facility of its type discovered in the Iraq war, which could not have been unnoticed by the government of Saddam Hussein.^[14]

In addition, this team led the Peshmerga against Saddam's forces in the north. Their efforts kept the 5th Corps of Saddam's Army in place to defend against the Kurds rather than move to contest the coalition force coming from the south. The efforts of the SAD Paramilitary Officers and 10th Special Forces Group with the Kurds, likely saved hundreds if not thousands of lives of the coalition service men and women during and after the invasion.^[15]

Peshmerga in the New Iraq (2003-Present)[link]

As an ally of the US-led coalition, Peshmerga forces fought side by side with American troops in the 2003 Iraq War in Iraqi Kurdistan. Since that time the Peshmerga have assumed full responsibility for the security of the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq.

In late 2004, when Arab Iraqi Police and ING (Iraqi National Guard) units in the city of Mosul collapsed in the face of an insurgent uprising, Kurdish Peshmerga battalions, who had recently been converted into ING forces, led the counter-attack alongside US military units. To this day, there are a number of Kurdish battalions of former Peshmerga in the Iraqi Army serving in Northern Iraq. These unit are mostly part of the reformed 2nd Division (Iraq), stationed in Mosul.

In early 2005 it was speculated by Newsweek magazine that Peshmerga forces would be trained by the US to take on Sunni rebels in Iraq.

It was estimated that in 2005 there were 180,000 Peshmerga fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, the article estimating their number to be 270,000 in total. A recent CBS News reports places their number at 375,000.^{[citation needed]}

The Peshmerga were an active partner in the American-led coalition in Iraq. Many Peshmerga are fluent in Arabic, in contrast to foreign coalition troops, and they therefore played an important role in the Sunni triangle of Central Iraq. On the strategic level the Peshmergas are ready to fight a guerrilla war of any invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Current equipment of the Peshmerga[link]

Unlike the other militias, the Peshmerga were not prohibited by the transitional government;^[16] the Kurdish army has been formed out of the Peshmerga. They are usually armed with AKMs, RPKs (light Soviet machine guns) and DShKs (heavy Soviet machine guns). During the American-led invasion the Peshmerga captured the rest of the arms of the Iraqi forces, consisting of more than 2,000 armored vehicles (some hundred of them PT-76s and a smaller number of T-55s) and an unknown number of artillery pieces.

• Individual Weapons
  • Assault Rifle
    • AKM (Assault Rifle - 7.62 x 39 mm)
    • Zastava M92 (Assault Rifle - 7.62x39 mm)
    • AK-74 (Assault Rifle - 5.45 x 39 mm)
    • Heckler & Koch G3 (Battle Rifle - 7.62 × 51 mm)
    • M16 (Assault Rifle - 5.56 x 45 mm) ^[17]
  • Sniper Rifle
    • SVD Dragunov (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 × 54 mmR)
    • M-40A1 (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 × 51 mm)
    • Barrett M82A1 (Sniper Rifle - 12.7 x 99 mm)
    • Tabuk Sniper Rifle (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 x 39 mm)
    • M-24 SWS (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 × 51 mm )
    • Dragunov SVU (Sniper Rifle - 7.62x54R)
    • Zastava M91 (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 x 54 mm)
    • PSG1 (Sniper Rifle - 7.62x51)
  • Anti-Tank Explosive
    • RPG-7 (rocket-propelled grenade launcher - 40 mm)
    • RPG-29 (rocket-propelled grenade launcher - 105 mm)
    • AT4 (rocket-propelled grenade launcher - 84 mm)
    • AT-4 Spigot (rocket-propelled grenade launcher - 120 mm)
  • Man-Portable Air-Defence System
    • SA-7 Grail
    • SA-16 Gimlet
    • SA-18 Grouse

• Vehicles
  • Main Battle Tank
    • T-54/T-55 ^[18]
    • T-62
    • T-72 ^[18][19]
  • Infantry Fighting Vehicle
    • BMP-1
  • Armoured Personal Carrier
    • MT-LB
  • Military trucks
    • Ural-5323 (8x8 10-tons)
    • GAZ-33097 (4x4 2-tons)
    • GAZ-66 (4x4 2-tons)
    • Humvee ^[20]
  • Pickup trucks
    • Toyota Hilux (4x4 "4Runner")
    • Nissan Titan
    • Defender-110^[21]
  • Self-Propelled Artillery
    • 122mm 2S1 M-1974 (122mm, maximum range with regular shell; 15.3 km, rocket assisted; 21.9 km)
    • 107mm Type 63 Multiple Rocket Launcher
    • 122mm BM-21 Grad Multiple Rocket Launcher
  • Towed Artillery
    • 105mm M-56
    • 122mm D-30 (122mm, maximum range with regular shell; 15.4 km, rocket assisted; 21.9 km)
    • 122mm M-30
    • 152mm D-1
  • Mortar
    • 82mm Vasilek
    • 81mm M252
    • 81mm M-29
    • 60mm M-224
    • 160mm Mortar M1943
  • Anti-Aircraft Gun
    • ZU-23-2
    • KS-30

• Helicopters
  • • Mil Mi-17
    • Mil Mi-8
    • Sikorsky S-333
    • Eurocopter EC120 Colibri

See also[link]

Kurdistan portal

• Jash

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kurdish Peshmerga

Further reading[link]

• Lieutenant Colonel Dennis P. Chapman USA, 'Security Forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government,' 2009 U.S. Army War College Senior Service College Fellowship, 2011 published by Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, CA. E-ISSN: 1940-3461 Print ISSN: 0026-3141 $45. Reviewed by Michael M. Gunter in Middle East Affairs, Vol. 65, No. 3, Summer 2011.

Saddam Hussein صدام حسين
5th President of Iraq
In office 16 July 1979 – 9 April 2003
Prime Minister	List Sa'dun Hammadi Mohammed Amza Zubeidi Ahmad Husayn Khudayir as-Samarrai
Preceded by	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by	Jay Garner (CPA)*
Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council
In office 16 July 1979 – 9 April 2003
Preceded by	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by	Post abolished
57th and 61st Prime Minister of Iraq
In office 29 May 1994 – 9 April 2003
Preceded by	Ahmad Husayn Khudayir as-Samarrai
Succeeded by	Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum**
In office 16 July 1979 – 23 March 1991
Preceded by	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by	Sa'dun Hammadi
Secretary General of the National Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
In office 23 June 1989 – 30 December 2006
Preceded by	Michel Aflaq
Succeeded by	Vacant
Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
In office 16 July 1979 – 30 December 2006
National Secretary	Michel Aflaq (until 1989) Himself
Preceded by	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by	Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri
Deputy Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
In office 1966–1979
Preceded by	Unknown
Succeeded by	Taha Yassin Ramadan
Personal details
Born	Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (1937-04-28)28 April 1937 Al-Awja, Iraq
Died	30 December 2006(2006-12-30) (aged 69) Kadhimiya, Iraq
Nationality	Iraqi
Political party	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (1957–1966) Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party (1966–2006) (NPF)
Spouse(s)	Sajida Talfah Samira Shahbandar
Children	Uday Hussein Qusay Hussein Raghad Hussein Rana Hala Hussein
Religion	Sunni Islam
*As administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq. **As Acting President of the Governing Council of Iraq.

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī;^[1] 28 April 1937^[2] – 30 December 2006)^[3] was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.^[4][5] A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.

As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions.^[6] Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace.^[7] Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.

Saddam suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively.^[8] Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 through 1988. In 1990 he invaded and looted Kuwait. An international coalition came to free Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991, but did not end Saddam's rule. Whereas some venerated him for his aggressive stance against Israel, including firing missiles at Israeli targets,^[9] he was widely condemned for the brutality of his dictatorship.

In March 2003, a coalition of countries led by the U.S. and U.K. invaded Iraq to depose Saddam, after U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused him of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to al-Qaeda. Saddam's Ba'ath party was disbanded and the nation made a transition to a democratic system. Following his capture on 13 December 2003, the trial of Saddam took place under the Iraqi interim government. On 5 November 2006, Saddam was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites and was sentenced to death by hanging. His execution was carried out on 30 December 2006.^[10]

Youth[link]

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of Al-Awja, 13 km (8 mi) from the Iraqi town of Tikrit, to a family of shepherds from the al-Begat tribal group, a sub-group of the Al-Bu Nasir (البو ناصر) tribe. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam, which in Arabic means "One who confronts"; he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abid al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly afterward, Saddam's 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three.^[11]

His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return. At about age 10, Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Kharaillah Tulfah. Tulfah, the father of Saddam's future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim and a veteran from the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial power in the region.^[12]

Later in his life relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he attended a nationalistic high school in Baghdad. After secondary school Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in 1957 at the age of 20 to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Ba'ath Party, of which his uncle was a supporter. During this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher.^[13]

Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959–1963

Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites (colonial era bureaucrats and landowners, wealthy merchants and tribal chiefs, monarchists).^[14] Moreover, the pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt profoundly influenced young Ba'athists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Nasser inspired nationalists throughout the Middle East by fighting the British and the French during the Suez Crisis of 1956, modernizing Egypt, and uniting the Arab world politically.^[15]

In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq.

Rise to power[link]

Part of a series on
Ba'athism
Organisations Arab Ba'ath (1940–1947) Arab Ba'ath Movement (1940–1947) Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (1947–1966) Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party (1966–present) Syrian-led Ba'ath Party (1966–present)
People   Zaki al-Arsuzi   Michel Aflaq   Salah al-Din al-Bitar   Fuad al-Rikabi   Salah Jadid   Hafez al-Assad Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr   Saddam Hussein   Bashar al-Assad   Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri
Literature Ba'ath Constitution On the Way of Resurrection The Battle for One Destiny The Genius of Arabic in its Tongue
History Syrian Committee to Help Iraq Ramadan (8 February) Revolution 8 March Revolution November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état 1966 Syrian coup d'état 17 July Revolution Corrective Revolution Iran–Iraq War Ba'athist Iraq Ba'athist Syria Gulf War Iraq War Syrian uprising
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Of the 16 members of Qasim's cabinet, 12 of them were Ba'ath Party members; however, the party turned against Qasim due to his refusal to join Gamel Abdel Nasser's United Arab Republic.^[16] To strengthen his own position within the government, Qasim created an alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party, which was opposed to any notion of pan-Arabism.^[17] Later that year, the Ba'ath Party leadership was planning to assassinate Qasim. Saddam was a leading member of the operation. At the time, the Ba'ath Party was more of an ideological experiment then a strong anti-government fighting machine. The majority of its members were either educated professionals or students, and Saddam fit the bill.^[18] The choice of Hussein was, according to historian Con Coughlin, "hardly surprising". The idea of assassinating Qasim may have been Nasser's, and there is speculation that some of those who participated in the operation received training in Damascus, which was then part of the UAR.^[19]

The assassins planned to ambush Qasim at Al-Rashid Street on 7 October 1959: one man was to kill those sitting at the back of the car, the rest killing those in front. During the ambush it is claimed that Saddam began shooting prematurely, which disorganised the whole operation. Qasim's chauffeur was killed, and Qasim was hit in the arm and shoulder. The assassins believed they had killed him and quickly retreated to their headquarters, but Qasim survived. At the time of the attack the Ba'ath Party had less than 1,000 members.^[20]

Some of the plotters quickly managed to leave the country for Syria, the spiritual home of Ba'athist ideology. There Hussein was given full-membership in the party by Michel Aflaq.^[21] Some members of the operation were arrested and taken into custody by the Iraqi government. At the show trial, six of the defendants were given the death sentence; for unknown reasons the sentences were not carried out. Aflaq, the leader of the Ba'athist movement, organised the expulsion of leading Iraqi Ba'athist members, such as Fuad al-Rikabi, on the grounds that the party should not have initiated the attempt on Qasim's life. At the same time, Aflaq managed to secure seats in the Iraqi Ba'ath leadership for his supporters, one them being Saddam.^[22]

In February 1960, the CIA planned an unrelated attempt to oust Qasim by giving him a poisoned handkerchief. Many foreign countries opposed Qasim, particularly after he threatened to invade Kuwait.^[23]

Saddam lived in Egypt from 1959 to 1963. Some sources have alleged that he had occassional contacts with US and CIA officials while living there, although the CIA has called the notion that he received American funding "utterly ridiculous."^[24]

Army officers with ties to the Ba'ath Party overthrew Qasim in the Ramadan Revolution coup of 1963. Ba'athist leaders were appointed to the cabinet and Abdul Salam Arif became president. The governments of the United States and United Kingdom were complicit in the coup.^[25] Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba'athist leaders later that year in the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état.

Arif died in a plane crash in 1966, in what was probably an act of sabotage by Ba'athist elements in the Iraqi military.^[26] Abdul Rahman al-Bazzaz became acting president for three days, and a power struggle for the presidency occurred. In the first meeting of the Defense Council and cabinet to elect a president, Al-Bazzaz needed a two-thirds majority to win the presidency. Al-Bazzaz was unsuccessful, and Abdul Rahman Arif was elected president. He was viewed by army officers as weaker and easier to manipulate than his brother.^[27]

Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964. Saddam was released from prison in 1966, after Abdul Rahman Arif assumed power. That same year, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr appointed him Deputy Secretary of the Regional Command. Saddam, who would prove to be a skilled organiser, revitalised the party.^[28] He was elected to the Regional Command, as the story goes, with help from Michel Aflaq--the founder of Ba'athist thought.^[29]

From 1963-67, the U.S. and Iraq enjoyed extremely close relations; so close that, in 1967, a group of Iraqi military officers under Abdul Rahman Arif were given a tour of American chemical weapons facilities. In an irony of history, one officer was reportedly a young Saddam, who would later play a major role in the military coup that removed Arif from power (he would also become infamous for his use of chemical weapons in the eighties).^[30] Nevertheless, Arif broke all ties with the U.S. later that year after the Six Day War with Israel.^[31]

In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr that overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif. Arif was given refuge in London and then Istanbul.^[32] Al-Bakr was named president and Saddam was named his deputy, and deputy chairman of the Ba'athist Revolutionary Command Council. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions within the first Ba'athist government, which formed the basis for his measures to promote Ba'ath party unity as well as his resolve to maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.

Although Saddam was al-Bakr's deputy, he was a strong behind-the-scenes party politician. Al-Bakr was the older and more prestigious of the two, but by 1969 Saddam Hussein clearly had become the moving force behind the party.

Political program[link]

Promoting women's literacy and education in the 1970s

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, formally the al-Bakr's second-in-command, Saddam built a reputation as a progressive, effective politician.^[33] At this time, Saddam moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country's major domestic problems and expanding the party's following.

After the Ba'athists took power in 1968, Saddam focused on attaining stability in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and economic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant.^[34] The desire for stable rule in a country rife with factionalism led Saddam to pursue both massive repression and the improvement of living standards.^[34]

Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.

At the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.

Saddam seen talking to Michel Aflaq, the founder of ba'athist thought, in 1988.

Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).^[35][36]

With the help of increasing oil revenues, Saddam diversified the largely oil-based Iraqi economy. Saddam implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries. The campaign helped Iraq's energy industries. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, and many outlying areas.

Before the 1970s, most of Iraq's people lived in the countryside and roughly two-thirds were peasants. This number would decrease quickly during the 1970s as global oil prices helped revenues to rise from less than a half billion dollars to tens of billions of dollars and the country invested into industrial expansion.

Saddam was lucky for the revenue.^[37] The Economist described the sentiments, stating that "Much as Adolf Hitler won early praise for galvanising German industry, ending mass unemployment and building autobahns, Saddam earned admiration abroad for his deeds. He had a good instinct for what the "Arab street" demanded, following the decline in Egyptian leadership brought about by the trauma of Israel's six-day victory in the 1967 war, the death of the pan-Arabist hero, Gamal Abdul Nasser, in 1970, and the "traitorous" drive by his successor, Anwar Sadat, to sue for peace with the Jewish state. Saddam's self-aggrandising propaganda, with himself posing as the defender of Arabism against Jewish or Persian intruders, was heavy-handed, but consistent as a drumbeat. It helped, of course, that his mukhabarat (secret police) put dozens of Arab news editors, writers and artists on the payroll."^[37]

Alexei Kosygin (left) and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr signing the Iraqi–Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Co-Operation in 1972

In 1972, Saddam started developing his chemical weapons program^{[citation needed]} and signed a 15-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.

According to former CIA Near East Division Chief James Chritchfield, after al-Bakr and Hussein seized power in 1968, "America slowly developed, not a hostility, but enormous reservations about the ability of the Ba'ath to constructively bring Iraq along."^[38] From 1973-5, the CIA colluded with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War in an attempt to overthrow al-Bakr. When Iran and Iraq signed the Algiers Agreement in 1975, the support ceased.^[39]

Saddam focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athists in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the countryside, mechanizing agriculture on a large scale, and distributing land to peasant farmers.^[13] The Ba'athists established farm cooperatives and the government also doubled expenditures for agricultural development in 1974–1975. Saddam's welfare programs were part of a combination of "carrot and stick" tactics to enhance support for Saddam. The state-owned banks were put under his thumb. Lending was based on cronyism.^[6]

Development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million people from other Arab countries and even Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.^{[citation needed]}

Succession[link]

In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. As the ailing, elderly al-Bakr became unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de facto leader of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon accumulated a powerful circle of support within the party.

In 1979 al-Bakr started to make treaties with Syria, also under Ba'athist leadership, that would lead to unification between the two countries. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would become deputy leader in a union, and this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.

Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on 22 July 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped (viewable via this reference^[40]), Saddam claimed to have found a fifth column within the Ba'ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators. These members were labelled "disloyal" and were removed from the room one by one and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently tried together and found guilty of treason. 22 were sentenced to execution. Other high-ranking members of the party formed the firing squad. By 1 August 1979, hundreds of high-ranking Ba'ath party members had been executed.^[41][42]

Genocidal campaign against Kurds[link]

The Al-Anfal Campaign was a genocidal^[43] campaign against the Kurdish people (and many others) in Iraqi Kurdistan led by the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid. The campaign takes its name from Surat al-Anfal in the Qur'an, which was used as a code name by the former Iraqi Ba'athist administration for a series of attacks against the peshmerga rebels and the mostly Kurdish civilian population of rural Northern Iraq, conducted between 1986 and 1989 culminating in 1988. This campaign also targeted Shabaks and Yazidis, Assyrians, Turkoman people and Mandeans and many villages belonging to these ethnic groups were also destroyed. Some reports cite Saddam Hussein's army as being responsible for 200,000 civilian deaths.^[44]

Political repression[link]

Saddam was notable for terror against his own people. The Economist described Saddam as "one of the last of the 20th century's great dictators, but not the least in terms of egotism, or cruelty, or morbid will to power".^[37]

The New York Times described in its obituary how Saddam "murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule".^[45]

Others have estimated 800,000 deaths caused by Saddam not counting the Iran-Iraq war.^[46] Estimates as to the number of Iraqis executed by Saddam's regime vary from 300–500,000^[47] to over 600,000,^[48] estimates as to the number of Kurds he massacred vary from 70,000 to 300,000,^[49] and estimates as to the number killed in the put-down of the 1991 rebellion vary from 60,000^[50] to 200,000.^[48] Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.^[51]

Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity; Saddam's government rested on the support of the 20% minority of Sunnis. The Ba'ath Party was increasingly concerned about potential Shi'a Islamist influence following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Kurds of northern Iraq (who are Sunni, but not Arabs) were also permanently hostile to the Ba'athist party's pan-Arabism. To maintain power Saddam tended either to provide them with benefits so as to co-opt them into the regime, or to take repressive measures against them.^[52]

The major instruments for accomplishing this control were the paramilitary and police organizations. Beginning in 1974, Taha Yassin Ramadan (himself a Kurd Ba'athist), a close associate of Saddam, commanded the People's Army, which was responsible for internal security. As the Ba'ath Party's paramilitary, the People's Army acted as a counterweight against any coup attempts by the regular armed forces. In addition to the People's Army, the Department of General Intelligence (Mukhabarat) was the most notorious arm of the state security system, feared for its use of torture and assassination. It was commanded by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's younger half-brother. Since 1982, foreign observers believed that this department operated both at home and abroad in their mission to seek out and eliminate Saddam's perceived opponents.^[53]

The Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.

Personality cult[link]

As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam's personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. He had thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports, and shops, as well as on Iraqi currency. Saddam's personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. A clotheshorse, he appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant (which he essentially wore during his childhood), and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits fitted by his favorite tailor, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca.

He also conducted two show elections, in 1995 and in 2002. In the 1995 referendum, conducted on October 15, he reportedly received 99.96% of the votes in a 99.47% turnout, getting only 3052 negative votes among an electorate of 8.4 million.^[54][55] In the October 15, 2002 referendum he officially achieved 100% of approval votes and 100% turnout, as the electoral commission reported the next day that every one of the 11,445,638 eligible voters cast a "Yes" vote for the president.^[56]

He erected statues around the country, which Iraqis toppled after his fall.^[57]

Foreign affairs[link]

Iraq's relations with the Arab world have been extremely varied. Relations between Iraq and Egypt violently ruptured in 1977, when the two nations broke relations with each other following Iraq's criticism of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's peace initiatives with Israel. In 1978, Baghdad hosted an Arab League summit that condemned and ostracized Egypt for accepting the Camp David accords. However, Egypt's strong material and diplomatic support for Iraq in the war with Iran led to warmer relations and numerous contacts between senior officials, despite the continued absence of ambassadorial-level representation. Since 1983, Iraq has repeatedly called for restoration of Egypt's "natural role" among Arab countries.

Saddam developed a reputation for liking expensive goods, such as his diamond-coated Rolex wristwatch, and sent copies of them to his friends around the world. To his ally Kenneth Kaunda Saddam once sent a Boeing 747 full of presents — rugs, televisions, ornaments. Kaunda sent back his own personal magician.^[58]

Saddam had close relationship with Russian intelligence agent Yevgeny Primakov and apparently Primakov helped Saddam to stay in power in 1991.^[59]

Saddam's only visit to a Western country took place in September 1975 when he met with his friend, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac in Paris, France.^[60]

Several Iraqi leaders, Lebanese arms merchant Sarkis Soghanalian and others have told that Saddam financed Chirac's party. In 1991 Saddam threatened to expose those who had taken largesse from him: "From Mr. Chirac to Mr. Chevènement, politicians and economic leaders were in open competition to spend time with us and flatter us. We have now grasped the reality of the situation. If the trickery continues, we will be forced to unmask them, all of them, before the French public."^[60] France armed Saddam and it was Iraq's largest trade partner throughout Saddam's rule. Seized documents show how French officials and businessmen close to Chirac, including Charles Pasqua, his former interior minister, personally benefitted from the deals with Saddam.^[60]

Because Saddam Hussein rarely left Iraq, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam's aides, traveled abroad extensively and represented Iraq at many diplomatic meetings.^[61] In foreign affairs, Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East. Iraq signed an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972, and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers. However, the 1978 crackdown on Iraqi Communists and a shift of trade toward the West strained Iraqi relations with the Soviet Union; Iraq then took on a more Western orientation until the Gulf War in 1991.^[62]

After the oil crisis of 1973, France had changed to a more pro-Arab policy and was accordingly rewarded by Saddam with closer ties. He made a state visit to France in 1975, cementing close ties with some French business and ruling political circles. In 1975 Saddam negotiated an accord with Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border disputes. In return, Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition Kurds in Iraq. Saddam led Arab opposition to the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel (1979).

Saddam initiated Iraq's nuclear enrichment project in the 1980s, with French assistance. The first Iraqi nuclear reactor was named by the French "Osirak". Osirak was destroyed on 7 June 1981^[63] by an Israeli air strike (Operation Opera).

Nearly from its founding as a modern state in 1920, Iraq has had to deal with Kurdish separatists in the northern part of the country.^[64] Saddam did negotiate an agreement in 1970 with separatist Kurdish leaders, giving them autonomy, but the agreement broke down. The result was brutal fighting between the government and Kurdish groups and even Iraqi bombing of Kurdish villages in Iran, which caused Iraqi relations with Iran to deteriorate. However, after Saddam had negotiated the 1975 treaty with Iran, the Shah withdrew support for the Kurds, who suffered a total defeat.

Iran–Iraq War[link]

This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (May 2012)

Saddam Hussein greeting Carlos Cardoen, a Chilean businessman who provided Iraq with weapons in the 1980s

Middle East special envoy Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam Hussein on 19–20 December 1983. Rumsfeld, who became U.S. Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration, led the coalition forces during the Iraq War

In early 1979, Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The influence of revolutionary Shi'ite Islam grew apace in the region, particularly in countries with large Shi'ite populations, especially Iraq. Saddam feared that radical Islamic ideas—hostile to his secular rule—were rapidly spreading inside his country among the majority Shi'ite population.

There had also been bitter enmity between Saddam and Khomeini since the 1970s. Khomeini, having been exiled from Iran in 1964, took up residence in Iraq, at the Shi'ite holy city of An Najaf. There he involved himself with Iraqi Shi'ites and developed a strong, worldwide religious and political following against the Iranian Government, whom Saddam tolerated. However, when Khomeini began to urge the Shi'ites there to overthrow Saddam and under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in 1978 to France. However this turned out to be an imminent failure and a political catalyst, for Khomeini had access to more media connections and also collaborated with a much larger Iranian community under his support whom he used to his advantage.

After Khomeini gained power, skirmishes between Iraq and revolutionary Iran occurred for ten months over the sovereignty of the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, which divides the two countries. During this period, Saddam Hussein publicly maintained that it was in Iraq's interest not to engage with Iran, and that it was in the interests of both nations to maintain peaceful relations. However, in a private meeting with Salah Omar Al-Ali, Iraq's permanent ambassador to the United Nations, he revealed that he intended to invade and occupy a large part of Iran within months. Later (probably to appeal for support from the United States and most Western nations), he would make toppling the Islamic government one of his intentions as well.^[65]

Iraq invaded Iran, first attacking Mehrabad Airport of Tehran and then entering the oil-rich Iranian land of Khuzestan, which also has a sizable Arab minority, on 22 September 1980 and declared it a new province of Iraq. With the support of the Arab states, the United States, and Europe, and heavily financed by the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Saddam Hussein had become "the defender of the Arab world" against a revolutionary Iran. The only exception was the Soviet Union, who initially refused to supply Iraq on the basis of neutrality in the conflict, although in his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev claimed that Leonid Brezhnev refused to aid Saddam over infuriation of Saddam's treatment of Iraqi communists. Consequently, many viewed Iraq as "an agent of the civilized world".^[65] The blatant disregard of international law and violations of international borders were ignored. Instead Iraq received economic and military support from its allies, who conveniently overlooked Saddam's use of chemical warfare against the Kurds and the Iranians and Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.^[65]

In the first days of the war, there was heavy ground fighting around strategic ports as Iraq launched an attack on Khuzestan. After making some initial gains, Iraq's troops began to suffer losses from human wave attacks by Iran. By 1982, Iraq was on the defensive and looking for ways to end the war.

At this point, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Dr. Riyadh Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations. Initially, Saddam Hussein appeared to take in this opinion as part of his cabinet democracy. A few weeks later, Dr. Ibrahim was sacked when held responsible for a fatal incident in an Iraqi hospital where a patient died from intravenous administration of the wrong concentration of potassium supplement.

Dr. Ibrahim was arrested a few days after he started his new life as a sacked Minister. He was known to have publicly declared before that arrest that he was "glad that he got away alive." Pieces of Ibrahim's dismembered body were delivered to his wife the next day.^[66]

Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most destructive wars of attrition of the 20th century. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces fighting on the southern front and Kurdish separatists who were attempting to open up a northern front in Iraq with the help of Iran. These chemical weapons were developed by Iraq from materials and technology supplied primarily by West German companies as well as ^[67] the Reagan administration of the United States which also supplied Iraq with "satellite photos showing Iranian deployments"^[68] and advised Hussein to bomb civilian targets in Tehran and other Iranian cities.^[69] France sold 25 billion dollars worth arms to Saddam.^[60]

Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political support during the war, particularly after Iraq's oil industry severely suffered at the hands of the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf. Iraq successfully gained some military and financial aid, as well as diplomatic and moral support, from the Soviet Union, China, France, and the United States, which together feared the prospects of the expansion of revolutionary Iran's influence in the region. The Iranians, demanding that the international community should force Iraq to pay war reparations to Iran, refused any suggestions for a cease-fire. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988.

On 16 March 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or seriously debilitating 10,000 more. (see Halabja poison gas attack)^[70] The attack occurred in conjunction with the 1988 al-Anfal campaign designed to reassert central control of the mostly Kurdish population of areas of northern Iraq and defeat the Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces. The United States now maintains that Saddam ordered the attack to terrorize the Kurdish population in northern Iraq,^[70] but Saddam's regime claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for the attack^[71] which some including the U.S. supported until several years later. (See also Halabja poison gas attack.)

The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties with estimates of up to one million dead. Neither side had achieved what they had originally desired and at the borders were left nearly unchanged. The southern, oil rich and prosperous Khuzestan and Basra area (the main focus of the war, and the primary source of their economies) were almost completely destroyed and were left at the pre 1979 border, while Iran managed to make some small gains on its borders in the Northern Kurdish area. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.

Saddam borrowed tens of billions of dollars from other Arab states and a few billions from elsewhere during the 1980s to fight Iran, mainly to prevent the expansion of Shiite radicalism. However, this had proven to completely backfire both on Iraq and on the part of the Arab states, for Khomeini was widely perceived as a hero for managing to defend Iran and maintain the war with little foreign support against the heavily backed Iraq and only managed to boost Islamic radicalism not only within the Arab states, but within Iraq itself, creating new tensions between the Sunni Ba'ath Party and the majority Shiite population. Faced with rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and internal resistance, Saddam desperately sought out cash once again, this time for postwar reconstruction.

Tensions with Kuwait[link]

The end of the war with Iran served to deepen latent tensions between Iraq and its wealthy neighbor Kuwait. Saddam urged the Kuwaitis to forgive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the war, some $30 billion, but they refused.^[72]

Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back production; Kuwait refused, however. In addition to refusing the request, Kuwait spearheaded the opposition in OPEC to the cuts that Saddam had requested. Kuwait was pumping large amounts of oil, and thus keeping prices low, when Iraq needed to sell high-priced oil from its wells to pay off a huge debt.

Saddam had always argued that Kuwait was historically an integral part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into being through the maneuverings of British imperialism; this echoed a belief that Iraqi nationalists had voiced for the past 50 years. This belief was one of the few articles of faith uniting the political scene in a nation rife with sharp social, ethnic, religious, and ideological divides.^[72]

The extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves also intensified tensions in the region. The oil reserves of Kuwait (with a population of 2 million next to Iraq's 25) were roughly equal to those of Iraq. Taken together, Iraq and Kuwait sat on top of some 20 percent of the world's known oil reserves; as an article of comparison, Saudi Arabia holds 25 percent.^[72]

Saddam complained to the U.S. State Department that Kuwait had slant drilled oil out of wells that Iraq considered to be within its disputed border with Kuwait. Saddam still had an experienced and well-equipped army, which he used to influence regional affairs. He later ordered troops to the Iraq–Kuwait border.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Catherine Glaspie meets Saddam for an emergency meeting.

As Iraq-Kuwait relations rapidly deteriorated, Saddam was receiving conflicting information about how the U.S. would respond to the prospects of an invasion. For one, Washington had been taking measures to cultivate a constructive relationship with Iraq for roughly a decade. The Reagan administration gave Saddam roughly $40 billion in aid in the 1980s to fight Iran, nearly all of it on credit. The U.S. also gave Saddam billions of dollars to keep him from forming a strong alliance with the Soviets.^[73] Saddam's Iraq became "the third-largest recipient of U.S. assistance".^[74]

U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on 25 July 1990, where the Iraqi leader stated his intention to give negotiations only... one more brief chance before forcing Iraq's claims on Kuwait.^[75] U.S. officials attempted to maintain a conciliatory line with Iraq, indicating that while George H. W. Bush and James Baker did not want force used, they would not take any position on the Iraq–Kuwait boundary dispute and did not want to become involved.^[76] Whatever Glaspie did or did not say in her interview with Saddam, the Iraqis assumed that the United States had invested too much in building relations with Iraq over the 1980s to sacrifice them for Kuwait.^[77]

Later, Iraq and Kuwait met for a final negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait. As tensions between Washington and Saddam began to escalate, the Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, strengthened its military relationship with the Iraqi leader, providing him military advisers, arms and aid.^[78]

Gulf War[link]

On 2 August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait, initially claiming assistance to "Kuwaiti revolutionaries," thus sparking an international crisis. On 4 August an Iraqi-backed "Provisional Government of Free Kuwait" was proclaimed, but a total lack of legitimacy and support for it led to an 8 August announcement of a "merger" of the two countries. On 28 August Kuwait formally became the 19th Governorate of Iraq. Just two years after the 1988 Iraq and Iran truce, "Saddam Hussein did what his Gulf patrons had earlier paid him to prevent." Having removed the threat of Iranian fundamentalism he "overran Kuwait and confronted his Gulf neighbors in the name of Arab nationalism and Islam."^[65]

When later asked why he invaded Kuwait, Saddam first claimed that it was because Kuwait was rightfully Iraq's 19th province and then said "When I get something into my head I act. That's just the way I am."^[37] After Saddam's seizure of Kuwait in August 1990, a UN coalition led by the United States drove Iraq's troops from Kuwait in February 1991. The ability for Saddam Hussein to pursue such military aggression was from a "military machine paid for in large part by the tens of billions of dollars Kuwait and the Gulf states had poured into Iraq and the weapons and technology provided by the Soviet Union, Germany, and France."^[65]

Shortly before he invaded Kuwait, he shipped 100 new Mercedes 200 Series cars to top editors in Egypt and Jordan. Two days before the first attacks, Saddam reportedly offered Egypt's Hosni Mubarak 50 million dollars in cash, "ostensibly for grain".^[79]

U.S. President George H. W. Bush responded cautiously for the first several days. On one hand, Kuwait, prior to this point, had been a virulent enemy of Israel and was the Persian Gulf monarchy that had had the most friendly relations with the Soviets.^[80] On the other hand, Washington foreign policymakers, along with Middle East experts, military critics, and firms heavily invested in the region, were extremely concerned with stability in this region.^[81] The invasion immediately triggered fears that the world's price of oil, and therefore control of the world economy, was at stake. Britain profited heavily from billions of dollars of Kuwaiti investments and bank deposits. Bush was perhaps swayed while meeting with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who happened to be in the U.S. at the time.^[82]

Cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union made possible the passage of resolutions in the United Nations Security Council giving Iraq a deadline to leave Kuwait and approving the use of force if Saddam did not comply with the timetable. U.S. officials feared Iraqi retaliation against oil-rich Saudi Arabia, since the 1940s a close ally of Washington, for the Saudis' opposition to the invasion of Kuwait. Accordingly, the U.S. and a group of allies, including countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria and Czechoslovakia, deployed a massive amount of troops along the Saudi border with Kuwait and Iraq in order to encircle the Iraqi army, the largest in the Middle East.

Saddam's officers looted Kuwait, stripping even the marble from its palaces to move it to Saddam's own palace.^[6]

During the period of negotiations and threats following the invasion, Saddam focused renewed attention on the Palestinian problem by promising to withdraw his forces from Kuwait if Israel would relinquish the occupied territories in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. Saddam's proposal further split the Arab world, pitting U.S.- and Western-supported Arab states against the Palestinians. The allies ultimately rejected any linkage between the Kuwait crisis and Palestinian issues.

Saddam ignored the Security Council deadline. Backed by the Security Council, a U.S.-led coalition launched round-the-clock missile and aerial attacks on Iraq, beginning 16 January 1991. Israel, though subjected to attack by Iraqi missiles, refrained from retaliating in order not to provoke Arab states into leaving the coalition. A ground force consisting largely of U.S. and British armoured and infantry divisions ejected Saddam's army from Kuwait in February 1991 and occupied the southern portion of Iraq as far as the Euphrates.

On 6 March 1991, Bush announced:

In the end, the over-manned and under-equipped Iraqi army proved unable to compete on the battlefield with the highly mobile coalition land forces and their overpowering air support. Some 175,000 Iraqis were taken prisoner and casualties were estimated at over 85,000. As part of the cease-fire agreement, Iraq agreed to scrap all poison gas and germ weapons and allow UN observers to inspect the sites. UN trade sanctions would remain in effect until Iraq complied with all terms. Saddam publicly claimed victory at the end of the war.

Postwar period[link]

Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the brutality of the conflict that this had engendered, laid the groundwork for postwar rebellions. In the aftermath of the fighting, social and ethnic unrest among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units threatened the stability of Saddam's government. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish north and Shi'a southern and central parts of Iraq, but were ruthlessly repressed.

The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, did nothing to assist the rebellions. The Iranians, despite the widespread Shi'ite rebellions, had no interest in provoking another war, while Turkey opposed any prospect of Kurdish independence, and the Saudis and other conservative Arab states feared an Iran-style Shi'ite revolution. Saddam, having survived the immediate crisis in the wake of defeat, was left firmly in control of Iraq, although the country never recovered either economically or militarily from the Gulf War.^[65]

Saddam routinely cited his survival as "proof" that Iraq had in fact won the war against the U.S. This message earned Saddam a great deal of popularity in many sectors of the Arab world. John Esposito, however, claims that "Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social justice." As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western feelings."^[65]

As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about Saddam's record and concentrated on America ... Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct him." A shift was, therefore, clearly visible among many Islamic movements in the post war period "from an initial Islamic ideological rejection of Saddam Hussein, the secular persecutor of Islamic movements, and his invasion of Kuwait to a more populist Arab nationalist, anti-imperialist support for Saddam (or more precisely those issues he represented or championed) and the condemnation of foreign intervention and occupation."^[65]

Saddam, therefore, increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), in Saddam's handwriting, was added to the national flag. Saddam also commissioned the production of a "Blood Qur'an", written using 27 litres of his own blood, to thank God for saving him from various dangers and conspiracies.^[83]

Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense following the Gulf War. The U.S. launched a missile attack aimed at Iraq's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad 26 June 1993, citing evidence of repeated Iraqi violations of the "no fly zones" imposed after the Gulf War and for incursions into Kuwait.

The United Nations sanctions placed upon Iraq when it invaded Kuwait were not lifted, blocking Iraqi oil exports. This caused immense hardship in Iraq and virtually destroyed the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure. Only smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid ameliorated the humanitarian crisis.^[84] On 9 December 1996 the UN allowed Saddam's government to begin selling limited amounts of oil for food and medicine. Limited amounts of income from the United Nations started flowing into Iraq through the United Nations Oil for Food program.

U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the terms of the Gulf War's cease fire, by developing weapons of mass destruction and other banned weaponry, and violating the UN-imposed sanctions. Also during the 1990s, President Bill Clinton maintained sanctions and ordered air strikes in the "Iraqi no-fly zones" (Operation Desert Fox), in the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by political enemies inside Iraq. Western charges of Iraqi resistance to UN access to suspected weapons were the pretext for crises between 1997 and 1998, culminating in intensive U.S. and British missile strikes on Iraq, 16–19 December 1998. After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in February 2001.

Saddam's support base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members, and other supporters was divided after the war, and in the following years, contributing to the government's increasingly repressive and arbitrary nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq grew worse, and Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out a private reign of terror.

Iraqi co-operation with UN weapons inspection teams was intermittent throughout the 1990s.

Saddam continued involvement in politics abroad. Video tapes retrieved after show his intelligence chiefs meeting with Arab journalists, including a meeting with the former managing director of Al-Jazeera, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, in 2000. In the video Saddam's son Uday advised al-Ali about hires in Al-Jazeera: "During your last visit here along with your colleagues we talked about a number of issues, and it does appear that you indeed were listening to what I was saying since changes took place and new faces came on board such as that lad, Mansour." He was later sacked by Al-Jazeera.^[85]

In 2002 Austrian prosecutors investigated Saddam government's transactions with Fritz Edlinger that possibly violated Austrian money laundering and embargo regulations.^[86] Fritz Edlinger, president of the General Secretary of the Society for Austro-Arab relations (GÖAB) and a former member of Socialist International's Middle East Committee, was an outspoken supporter of Saddam Hussein. In 2005 an Austrian journalist revealed that Fritz Edlinger's GÖAB had received $100,000 from an Iraqi front company as well as donations from Austrian companies soliciting business in Iraq.^[87]

In 2002, a resolution sponsored by the European Union was adopted by the Commission for Human Rights, which stated that there had been no improvement in the human rights crisis in Iraq. The statement condemned President Saddam Hussein's government for its "systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law". The resolution demanded that Iraq immediately put an end to its "summary and arbitrary executions ... the use of rape as a political tool and all enforced and involuntary disappearances".^[88]

Oil vouchers[link]

In the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, Saddam was supposed to trade oil for food. In practice, the program benefitted political parties, politicians, journalists, companies, and individuals around the world.

The Russian state was the largest beneficiary.^[89]

Invasion of Iraq in 2003[link]

Satellite channels broadcasting the besieged Iraqi leader among cheering crowds as U.S.-led troops push toward the capital city.^[90] 4 April 2003.

The international community, especially the U.S., continued to view Saddam as a bellicose tyrant who was a threat to the stability of the region. After the September 11 attacks, Vladimir Putin began to tell the United States that Iraq was preparing terrorist attacks against the United States.^[91] In his January 2002 state of the union address to Congress, President George W. Bush spoke of an "axis of evil" consisting of Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. Moreover, Bush announced that he would possibly take action to topple the Iraqi government, because of the threat of its weapons of mass destruction. Bush stated that "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."^[92][93]

After the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which demanded that Iraq give "immediate, unconditional and active cooperation" with UN and IAEA inspections^[94], Hussein allowed U.N. weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix to return to Iraq. During the renewed inspections beginning in November 2002, Blix found no stockpiles of WMD and noted "proactive" but not always the "immediate" Iraqi cooperation as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1441.^[95]

With war still looming on 24 February 2003, Saddam Hussein took part in an interview with CBS News reporter Dan Rather. Talking for more than three hours, he denied possessing any weapons of mass destruction, or any other weapons prohibited by U.N. guidelines. He also expressed a wish to have a live televised debate with George W. Bush, which was declined. It was his first interview with a U.S. reporter in over a decade.^[96] CBS aired the taped interview later that week. Saddam Hussein later told an FBI interviewer that he once left open the possibility that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to appear strong against Iran.^[97]