Saddam Hussein

Saddām Hussein ʻAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrīt, sometimes spelled Husayn or Hussain; (Arabic صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي; born April 28, 1937 {{fn|1}}) was President of Iraq from 1979 until his removal and capture during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Consolidation of power

In 1976 Saddam was appointed a general in the Iraqi armed forces. He rapidly became the strongman of the government, and was the de facto ruler 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 gained a powerful circle of support within the party.

Related Topics:
1976 - 1979

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As Iraq's weak and elderly President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became increasingly unable to execute the duties of his office, Saddam began to take an increasingly prominent role as the face of the Iraqi government, both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. By the late 1970s, Saddam had emerged as the undisputed de facto leader of Iraq.

Related Topics:
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr - 1970s

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Saddam's consolidation of power and the modernization of Iraq

Saddam consolidated power in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant. Stable rule in a country torn by political factionalism and conflict required the improvement of living standards. 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.

Related Topics:
Sunni - Shi'ite - Arab - Kurd - Tribal chief - Urban merchant - Nomad - Peasant

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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.

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At the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On June 1, 1972, Saddam Hussein led the process of expropriating Western oil companies, which had had a monopoly on the country's oil. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 world oil shock, and Saddam was able to pursue an all the more ambitious agenda through skyrocketing oil revenues.

Related Topics:
June 1 - 1972 - Oil - Monopoly - 1973 world oil shock

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Within a period of just a few years, the state provided some social services to Iraqi people unprecedented in other Middle Eastern countries. Saddam initiated 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 best public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/saddam_hussein.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/iraq/war/player1.html

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In order to diversify the oil-dependent economy, Saddam oversaw and advocated a national infrastructure campaign that made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and development of other industries to diversify the oil-dependent economy. The campaign effected a comprehensive revolution in energy industries. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, including many communities in the countryside and far outlying areas.

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Before the early 1970s, the majority of the population resided in the countryside, where Saddam himself was born and raised; and peasants accounted for roughly two thirds of the populace. This number would decrease dramatically, though, during the rapid industrialization and urbanization of Iraq in the 1970s, which was propelled by Saddam's channeling of oil revenues into the rapidly growing Iraqi industrial sector and the new Ba'athist welfare programs.

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Nevertheless, Saddam focused intensely on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athist government in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the Iraqi countryside, the mechanization of agriculture on a large scale, and the distribution of land to farmers.{{fn|6}} He broke up the large holdings of the landowners and gave land to peasant farmers. The Ba'athists established farm co-operatives, in which profits were distributed in accordance with the labors of the individual peasant and the unskilled were trained. The government's commitment to agrarian reform was demonstrated by the doubling of expenditures for agriculture development in 1974–1975, a policy that Saddam largely spearheaded. Moreover, agrarian reform in Iraq improved the living standards of the broad strata of the peasantry and increased production, though not to the levels for which Saddam had hoped.

Related Topics:
Co-operative - 1974 - 1975

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By focusing on the implementation role (often to the point of micromanaging), Saddam became personally associated with Ba'athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, thus widening his original popular base of support while co-opting new sectors of the Iraqi population. Part of a combination of "carrot and stick" tactics, expanding government services forged patron–client ties between Saddam and his support base among the working class and the peasantry and within the party and the government bureaucracy.

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Saddam's ruthless organizational prowess was credited with Iraq's rapid pace of development in the 1970s; development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million persons from other Arab countries and Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.

Related Topics:
1970s - Demand - Labor

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Succession

In 1979 President al-Bakr began 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. Before this could happen, however, the ailing al-Bakr resigned on July 16, 1979. Saddam formally assumed the presidency.

Related Topics:
1979 - Syria - Hafez al-Assad - July 16

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Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on July 22, 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped, Saddam claimed to have found spies and conspirators within the Ba'ath Party and read out the names of members who he thought could oppose him. These members were labeled "disloyal" and were removed from the room one by one to face a firing squad. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty.

Related Topics:
July 22 - 1979

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