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.

Foreign affairs

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 executions of Iraqi Communists and a shift of trade toward the West strained Iraqi relations with the Soviet Union, which took on a more Western orientation from then until the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Related Topics:
Soviet Union - 1972 - 1978 - Persian Gulf War - 1991

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He made a state visit to France in 1976, cementing close ties with some French business and conservative political circles. Saddam led Arab opposition to the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel (1979). In 1975 he negotiated an accord with Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border disputes. In return, Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition Kurds in Iraq.

Related Topics:
France - 1976 - Camp David Accords - Egypt - Israel - 1979 - 1975 - Iran

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Saddam initiated Iraq's nuclear enrichment project in the 1980s, with French assistance. The first Iraqi nuclear reactor was named by the French Osiraq, after the Egyptian God of the dead. It was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, because Israel suspected it was going to start producing weapons grade nuclear material.

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After Saddam had negotiated the 1975 treaty with Iran, Shah Pahlavi withdrew support for the Kurds, who suffered a total defeat. 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. 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.

Related Topics:
1975 - Shah Pahlavi - 1920 - 1970

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The Iran–Iraq War

In 1979 Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah 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.

Related Topics:
1979 - Shah - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - Islamic Revolution - Islamic republic - Ayatollah Khomeini

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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. Under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in 1978.

Related Topics:
1970s - Exile - 1964 - An Najaf - 1975 - 1978

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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. Iraq invaded Iran by attacking Mehrabad Airport of Tehran and entering the oil-riched Iranian land of Khuzestan on September 22, 1980. Saddam declared Khuzestan a new province of Iraq. During the war, Saddam was supported by the United States, the Soviet Union, as well as most of the Arab countries in the region.

Related Topics:
Mehrabad Airport - Tehran - Khuzestan - September 22 - 1980

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

Related Topics:
Khuzestan - 1982

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Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most destructive wars of attrition of the twentieth century. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists. Many of these chemical weapons, along with Iraq's nuclear program, were developed with the help of Germany.

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(http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html) On March 16, 1988 Iraqi troops, attempting to crush a Kurdish uprising in the Al-Anfal Campaign, attacked the Kurdish town of Halabjah with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents, perhaps killing around five thousand people, mostly civilians. Iraqis claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for that and some other chemical attacks, yet no supporting evidence has ever been found.

Related Topics:
March 16 - 1988 - Al-Anfal Campaign - Attacked the Kurdish town of Halabjah

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Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political support. Iraq successfully gained the support of the United States of America (Ronald Reagan). The Iranians, claiming that the International community should force Iraq to pay the casualty of the war to Iran, refused any suggestions for a cease-fire. They continued the war until 1988, hoping to bring down Saddam's secular government and instigate a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq.

Related Topics:
Ronald Reagan - 1988

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The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties. Perhaps upwards of 1.7 million died on both sides. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.

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Iraq was also stuck with a war debt of roughly $75 billion. Borrowing money from the U.S. was making Iraq into its client state, embarrassing a strongman who had sought to define and dominate Arab nationalism. Saddam also borrowed a tremendous amount of money from other Arab states during the 1980s to fight Iran. Faced with rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, Saddam desperately sought out cash once again, this time for postwar reconstruction.

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Tensions with Kuwait

The end of the war with Iran served to deepen latent tensions between Iraq and its wealthy neighbor Kuwait. Saddam saw his war with Iran as having spared Kuwait from the imminent threat of Iranian domination. Since the struggle with Iran had been fought for the benefit of the other Persian Gulf Arab states as much as for Iraq, he argued, a share of Iraqi debt should be forgiven. Saddam urged the Kuwaitis to forgive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the war, some $30 billion, but the Kuwaitis refused.

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Also to raise money for postwar reconstruction, Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back oil production. Kuwait refused to cut production. 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.

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Meanwhile, Saddam showed disdain for the Kuwait-Iraq boundary line (imposed on Iraq by British imperial officials in 1922) because it cut Iraq off from the sea. One of the few articles of faith uniting the political scene in a nation rife with sharp social, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic divides was the belief that Kuwait had no right to even exist in the first place. For at least half a century, Iraqi nationalists were espousing emphatically the belief that Kuwait was historically an integral part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into being through the maneuverings of British imperialism.

Related Topics:
1922 - Imperialism

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The colossal extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves also intensified tensions in the region. The oil reserves of Kuwait (with a population of a mere 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.

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The Kuwaiti monarchy further angered Saddam by slant drilling oil out of wells that Iraq considered to be within its disputed border with Kuwait. Given that at the time Iraq was not regarded as a pariah state, Saddam was able to complain about the slant drilling to the U.S. State Department. Although this had continued for years, Saddam now needed oil money to stem a looming economic crisis. 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.

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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 sent billions of dollars to Saddam to keep him from forming a strong alliance with the Soviets. {{fn|7}}

Related Topics:
Reagan administration - 1980s

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U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on July 25, 1990, where the Iraqi leader stated his intention to continue talks. 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. Later, Iraq and Kuwait then met for a final negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait.

Related Topics:
April Glaspie - July 25 - 1990 - George H. W. Bush - James Baker

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Although no reliable first-hand information on Saddam's appraisal of the situation exists, one can surmise from the prewar standpoint of the Iraqi leader and his interests and the conflicting prewar signals from Washington that the invasion was likely born out of Iraq's postwar debt problem and faltering attempts to gain the resources needed for postwar reconstruction, rebuild the devastated Iraqi economy, and stabilize the domestic political situation.

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