Saddam Hussain, Iraq Political Leader

Hussein, Saddam Husan (sadam '), 1937-2006, Iraqi political leader. A member of the Baath Party who fled Iraq after participating (1959), in an attempt to assassinate the prime minister in Egypt he attended law school. Returning to Iraq in 1963 after the Ba'athists briefly came to power, played an important role in the 1968 revolution that secured Ba'ath hegemony. Hussein held key economic and political posts before becoming Iraq's president in 1979.
As president, focused on strengthening the Iraqi oil industry and military and gaining a higher position in the Arab world, while using brutal measures to maintain their power. In 1980, he intensified a long-standing dispute with Iran over the waterway of Shatt al Arab into a full-scale war (see Iran-Iraq War) lasting eight years. On 2 August 1990, Hussein ordered the Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait, but Iraq was forced out in early 1991 by an international military coalition (see Iraq, Persian Gulf War).
After the war, Hussein resisted a Kurdish rebellion in the north and he quelled a Shiite insurrection in the south, while his country suffered the effects of international economic sanctions. Hussein's resistance to UN weapons inspections oversees tax as part of the conditions for ending the Gulf War led to U.S. and British bombing in Iraq since 1998. With the threat of war with U.S. and Britain looming in 2002, Iraq agreed to let UN inspectors return, but the failure of Iraq to cooperate fully with the United Nations led an invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In an Anglo less than a month of complete control of U.S. forces of Saddam in nearly all of Iraq, although guerrillas continued to mount attacks in the coming months. Hussein survived the invasion, but was not captured until December 2003.
In 2004 he was transferred to Iraqi legal custody and indicted on charges stemming from his presidency. The Iraqi government put Hussein on trial in 2005 for crimes against humanity for ordering the execution of 143 Shiite men from the village of Dujail after an assassination attempt against him in 1982. In 2006, charges of genocide, as a result of anti-Kurdish Anfal campaign in the 1980s, were also brought against him. Hussein was convicted and condemned to death in the Dujail case, in November 2006 after an unsuccessful appeal was hanged in December 2006.Biography Saddam hussain, Saddam Hussain Biography, Biography oe Saddam Hussain