Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in Tikrit District, Iraq, on April 28, 1937. His father died shortly before he was born, and his mother remarried to Ibrahim Hassan. Saddam lived briefly with Hassan, but suffered physical beatings. He was then raised by his uncles. His uncle Khairallah Talfah, a retired army officer, was Saddam’s role model.
Saddam moved to his uncle’s house in Baghdad in 1956. While he was there, he became involved in the strong Arab nationalist movement. At age 19, Saddam joined that Iraqi branch of the Arab Ba’th Socialist Party. Saddam was a very enthusiastic member. In 1958 he participated in activities against the regime and was sentenced to 6 months in prison. In 1959 Saddam was involved in an attempt to assassinate Major General Abdul Karim Qasim, the dictator of Iraq. Hussein became a member of the Iraqi branch's regional command in 1966. He played a major role in reorganizing the Ba'th Party and preparing them for a second attempt at power. During that time he was looked at as a tough and daring member of the Ba'th Party.
On July 16, 1979 Saddam Hussein became president of the Iraq Republic. Once elected, he demanded to have posters of himself in multiple places throughout Iraq. Some of the posters were as tall as twenty feet. They showed him as a military man, a desert horseman, a young graduate, and a devoted family man. All this was done to win the respect of the Iraqi people. In 1979 and 1980 relations with Iran had fallen apart. Iranian leader Ayatollah told the Iraqi Shi'ites to revolt against Hussein. Pro-Iranian organizations caused destruction in Iraq. The Iraqi army crossed the Iranian border in September of 1980 and seized Iranian territory. Doing so caused a long war between them that lasted into the late 1980’s. Despite the failing relations with Iran, relations with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt improved since they provided Iraq with either financial or military aid. Relations with the United States were restored in November 1984.
When Saddam took power he got rid of his party of officials and military officers due to an alleged Syrian plot to overthrow his government. He executed 300 officers in 1982 for rebelling against his tactics in the war with Iran. He ordered the murders of his son-in-laws in 1996 after they fled to Jordan. Because of these acts he was no longer looked at as a family man. In 1997 he accused UN inspectors of being spies and made them leave Iraq. Iraq refused to let the inspectors back in 1998, so the United States and Great Britain began air strikes on Iraq that lasted four days.
Saddam said he did not offer his sympathy for the 9/11 attacks to George W. Bush because he did not agree with U.S. policy toward Iraq. When he wouldn’t cooperate with UN investigators in November 2002, the United States and Great Britain became very frustrated. On March 17, 2003, President Bush ordered Saddam to resign from office and leave Iraq within 48 hours. He refused to leave, and the United States and allied forces attacked Iraq on March 20, 2003.
On April 9th, Saddam fled into hiding. His sons were killed on July 22nd. On December 13 Saddam was finally caught. He was hiding in a small underground spot near a farmhouse close to Tikrit. He surrendered to U.S. soldiers, and though he was armed, didn’t fire at them. In October of 2005 he went to trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal. His trial lasted 9 months and he often interrupted the trial with angry outbursts. He believed that U.S. interests were behind the Tribunal. Saddam was finally convicted of crimes against humanity, which included willful killing, illegal imprisonment, deportation, and torture. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam Hussein died on December 30, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq.
If you had no idea who Saddam Hussein was prior to reading the first paragraph I wrote, you might feel sorry for him. It has to be hard on a child to not know his father, then be beaten by his step-father. After reading on, you then understand that the little bit of sympathy you had for him doesn’t really exist anymore. At least, that’s how I looked at it. If you take power of a country, you need to be good to the people. Obviously that’s not always how it works, as history has shown us. When I was thinking up what I would say to reflect, I thought back to our class discussion about the death penalty. I made the comment that if someone kills one person, they don’t deserve to die. But if they kill multiple people, then the death penalty should definitely be an option/applied to them. Also, he was the head of Iraq! Of course I totally agree with the sentence of hanging him! I think that if we would have just let him rot in jail he would have escaped somehow. I’d be willing to bet on that. I also think that if we just let him die in jail there would be a constant worry about his chances of escaping and we wouldn’t be able to get anything accomplished. Saddam Hussein shouldn’t have been in control of Iraq in the first place.
Video of Saddam Hussein Prior to Hanging (I was unable to embed the video... again)
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