Historical Figure
Saddam Hussein
d. 2006
President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003
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Biography
Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in 2003 during the United States-led invasion of Iraq. He previously served as the vice president from 1968 to 1979 and also as the prime minister from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. A leading member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, he was a proponent of Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. The policies and ideologies he championed are collectively known as Saddamism, a right-wing variant of Ba'athism.
Timeline
The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein kills philosopher Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Bint al-Huda after three days of torture.
April 9 →Saddam Hussein's troops seized Irbil after the Kurdish Masoud Barzani appealed for help to defeat his Kurdish rival PUK.
August 31 →Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council Resolution 1441 - The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".
November 8 →Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit (see Operation Red Dawn).
December 13 →2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad falls to American forces; Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader Saddam Hussein, pulling down a grand statue of him and tearing it to pieces.
April 9 →The United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiates war on Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” President Bush and his advisors built much of their case for war on the idea that Iraq, under dictator Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building weapons of mass destruction.
March 19 →Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for the role in the massacre of the 148 Shi'a Muslims in 1982.
November 5 →More from the Unknown
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