Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd Al-Majid Al-Tikriti (in Arabic: ltr rear صدامحسينعبدالمجيدالتكريتي (présumément born the April 28th 1937 - carried out by Hanging the December 30th 2006 with Baghdad the day of îd Al-Adha (the Aïd to el-Kebir) for crimes against humanity) was a statesman Iraq IEN, vice-president (1968 - 1979), then president (1979 - 2003) of Iraq. It was reversed at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, by the the United States, the the United Kingdom and some other countries of the coalition.

Government S and governmental organizations (ONG) show it war crimes, Meurtre S, crimes against humanity and of Génocide towards the Kurdish . Captured in December 2003, he is condemned to died the November 5th 2006 for the Massacre of Doujaïl of 148 Shiite villagers in 1982. A few days after the verdict was confirmed in call (the December 26th 2006), the sentence is carried out with its hanging which proceeds the December 30th 2006 at six hours, local time (03H00 GMT) in a barracks of the Iraqi military informations located in the Shiite quarters of Al-Khademiya at Baghdad.

Its youth

One knows only few things over the first years of his life. It would have been born the April 28th 1937 in a very poor family from peasants without ground of the village of Aouja, not far from Tikrit. According to his official biographies, his/her father, Hussein Abd Al-Majid would have died, little before or shortly after his birth, but according to other nonofficial biographies, it would have in fact abandoned woman and children.

In fact, small Saddam is raised by the new husband of her mother, a brutal and illiterate man, who treats it harshly. He lived then in a small house in cob, which was made up only of one part where there was no electricity. As of the six years age, it starts to work as shepherd. Its family not having the means of paying him shoes, it was going to work in the fields barefeet. At the eight years age, he flees the family home, he is collected with Baghdad by a maternal uncle, Khairallah Talfah, former officer who had supported the revolution of Rachid Ali Gaylani and which became schoolmaster. Before knowing it, Saddam was called ibn aziqa or literally, “wire of the lanes”. His/her uncle provides education for it in the council school, Saddam was then the oldest pupil of his class. Khairallah leaves then for Baghdad with the Saddam young person, where, in addition to going to school, he exerted small trades like that of assistant of taxi driver and salesman of cigarettes with shouted. His/her uncle also teaches him the handling from the weapons, informs it on the history of Iraq, Nabuchodonosor for the ancient history and Saladin for the medieval history.

He gives his daughter in marriage to Saddam. He returns thus of full foot in the tribe of Albou Nasser. In 1981, his/her uncle still wrote to him not to forget Three things that God should not have created: Persians, Jews and flies . Admiring on his uncle, it decides to become like him, officer. It is presented to the military academy to pass the entrance examination but it fails.

Member of the Left Baath, it militates as of the beginning of the year 1950, for the Arab unit. A few years later, he is condemned with his uncle to six months of prison to have killed an adviser of the police force. He takes part in 1956 in a Coup d'etat fallen through against the king of Iraq, supported and imposed by the Great Britain. In 1958, another group, under the direction of the general Kassem, officer nationalist very on the left, arrives to détrôner the king.

The October 7th 1959, it belongs to a group which tries to kill the Général Kassem, but they fail, and Saddam is wounded at the time of this operation where it had finally only one subordinate role of henchman. Later, its services of Propagande tried to embellish its action, until making of them the central figure of this missed plot and the hero of a news “gesture”.

After its attempted murder missed on president Kassem, it crosses Euphrate to the stroke. But it is constrained to give up its studies to leave for Iraq.

After the Iraqi revolution of the February 8th 1963, at the time which the Général Kassem is reversed by baasists groups ordered by the general Aref, Saddam Hussein returned in Iraq while passing by Syria where it meets once again Michel Aflaq who transmits a message to him that it was to give to Bakr. It forms the link of the Syrian and Iraqi baasists. It also takes part in several conferences panarabes, of the party in Damas, where it presents the same ideas as Aflaq. With its return in Iraq, he works with the recruitment of new militants.

In 1964, Saddam envisages to assassinate president Aref. The attack which was planned for the September 5th is known police force the day before and it is made imprison with an accomplice. During her detention, his Sajida wife brings back books to him thus looking further into her nationalist culture. He manages to escape the July 23rd 1966 during a transfer between two prisons. He devotes himself then to the constitution of a clandestine branch of the Baath which implies a hundred people.

Shouldered by its group, its “tribe”, made up of its close family, her many combined cousins and, and of the natives of its town of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein, little by little, “eliminates” its rivals, and succeeds in controlling Baghdad, the capital. He becomes vice president of the republic in 1971. However to control the country, it needs a party to its devotion, and takes model on the Communist party of the Soviet Union, with which the Iraq sign in 1972, a treaty of friendship. Saddam Hussein also goes to France the same year, the June 14th.

The Baath Party, quickly becomes omnipresent, omnipotent, and a required passage for all the businesses and to reach the capacity. In a few years, this party becomes an instrument entirely with the service of Saddam Hussein, who concentrates all the capacities between her hands, passing from a collegial capacity, at the beginning, with an absolute despotism, even if it preserved for the form, the Conseil of command of the revolution, supposed to hold the capacity (Ezzat Ibrahim Al-Duri is the vice-president).

A diplomat had said Iraqi political system, which it functioned like a palm tree, tree which is the symbol of Iraq besides: “It remains always green if one cuts his lowest branches”.

To the beginning of the year 1970, it gives itself the honorary title of general. June 1st 1972 it begins vast a Nationalization oil companies monopolistic which were until there between foreign hands. Iraq will then experience an industrial development and social without precedent. Saddam Hussein endeavoured to modernize the economy and the Industrie. In 1973, he becomes general, and in 1979, at 42 years, feeling rather powerful, he replaces with the presidency of Iraq Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr following her precipitated renouncement, officially for “health reason”. Thousands of frameworks of the Baath party are then convened urgently and twenty-two of them, shown treason, are stopped as a full assembly chaired by Saddam Hussein smoking the cigar and crying sometimes, and are taken along outside to be carried out summarily. The scene is filmed and followed on line in everyone Arab, and will be used to sit the capacity of new the Dictateur in Iraq and will universally become famous like illustration of its methods and its personality.

Dictatorship

Characteristics of the Iraqi dictatorship

In 1979, with its takeover, it appoints marshal and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. During the thirty-five years of her capacity, Saddam Hussein uses all the means to control the population and to reign without division. As in the totalitarian modes, the Propagande is omnipresent through the various media and the posters representing the portrait of the ray. The press is censured and the fear of being stopped and carried out paralyzes the opponents. The dictator ordered a film with the Egyptian realizer Tawfiq Saleh entitled the Long Days: a heroic Saddam Hussein, who tries to assassinate the president Abdel Kerim Kassem, in 1959 is discovered there.

The Prison of Abu Ghraib is symbolic system of arbitrary mode. The witnesses report that the cells were reduced to 4 X 6 meters. They were not equipped with running water nor of toilets. The prisoners, of the opponents to the mode, mainly of islamist the Shiite S pro-Iranian, piled up with several in these parts without comfort. Some were carried out for “religious activities”.

Saddam Hussein has escaped with several attacks or attempts at inversion by the force.

Modernization of Iraq

In same time, enormous progress with the social status will have been accomplished under its presidency. Iraq industrializes itself quickly and becomes one of the Arab countries where the standard of living is highest, with like result the emergence of a true middle-class.

In 1973, Saddam launches the “National campaign for the eradication of illiteracy” an ambitious plan aiming at fighting against the Analphabétisme. The school becomes free, obligatory and secular for the boys and the girls. In less than eighteen months, the number of teachers reaches the number of sixty two thousand people, in addition the number of provided education for girls is multiplied by three. UNICEF recognizes that Iraq éradiqué practically the Illettrisme and will have pushed the schooling of the Iraqis on a still new level in the Middle East. In 1982, UNESCO gives a trophy to Iraq for the effort of elimination of illiteracy of which proof the government with regard to the girls had made. Nearly 95% of the girls were provided education for.

In 1977, 70% of the pharmacists and 46% of the dentists were women. In addition, a intellectual and scientific elite is born quickly. UNESCO explains that:

The education system in Iraq before 1991 was one of most powerful in the area, with a rough rate of schooling close to 100 % in primary school education and an elevated level of elimination of illiteracy for the two sexes. Higher education was of quality, particularly in the educational establishments scientific and technological, and qualified body teaching and motivé.

From its difficult youth, it wished that all the country be able to read and write, because for him free education was a step moreover towards the equality.

In its spirit, free education as well relates to the access to the school in itself, as obtaining schoolbooks and the exemption from payment of the means of transport. For this reason in the years 1970 and 1980, the Iraqi minister of education distributes all the necessary tools to a good education. The pupils could go to the school thanks to buses which were free, and at the end of their school year, all the pupils received a gift, like watches for the schoolboys and the high-school pupils. The hospital expenses are henceforth dealt with by the State and of the subsidies are granted to the farmers. The Iraqi health system becomes one of most modern and effective of everyone Arab; the public services are not remains about it, because recruitment is done henceforth on the merit.

Iraq depending largely on oil, Saddam tried to diversify the economy by carrying out a plan of Industrialization. Iraq thus becomes the first Arab State to have used its oil revenue to carry out its industrialization. He undertakes the construction of roads, highway main roads and the buildings as well as the development of industries.

He launches an energy revolution, bringing the electrification of almost all the towns of Iraq (even cities being located in the access campaigns or difficult). Nearly ten thousand villages were electrified at the same time. In addition, it makes distribute free to the Iraqis of the refrigerators and the television sets.

Before the Years 1970, Iraq was a largely rural country; following the various reforms, the urbanization extends. Saddam redistributes the grounds with the peasants, who were before in the hands of a minority of people. It launches a land reform having to make it possible to the farmers to maximize the profit of their exploitation. Agriculture is thus mechanized, and the peasants not knowing to use the new machines are trained by the government. This reform also had like drank to put an end to feudalism.

It also launches a cultural true policy, it rehabilitates and maintains the old palates dating from the Abbasid Empire, the old city of Babylon, the palates of Nabuchodonosor, triples it pregnant as well as the Porte of Ishtar in Babylon. It founds several museums in Baghdad in order to gather and to preserve the Iraqi historical heritage.

In 1980, Iraq was the only Arab country on the way to reach food self-sufficiency. Moreover its policy of modernization did not stop in Iraq, because wanting the modernization of the Arab world, it launches the " Funds national for the external development ". He proposes that the raising of prices of the crude, partly, is devoted to help the Arab States poorest via funds of distribution. This proposal is greeted by the citizens of the Arab countries, but it is immediately rejected by the emirs of the Gulf.

Its dream of a “new Babylonian empire”

Saddam Hussein had like dreams to restore old the Babylonian empire, the size of the antique Mésopotamie and the radiation of the Abbasid empire. He asserted a prestigious destiny for Iraq, wanting to make of his country a strong State, first military and technological power of the great “Arab nation”, with the need by iron and fire. Besides he claimed a direct descent with Saladin.

International non-intervention

Under the direction of Saddam Hussein, Iraq becomes a regional power, partly thanks to the incomes of the Pétrole and with the support at the same time of the countries Occident with and of the Eastern bloc, but will also profit from the ideological support of the socialist parties affiliated with the II {{E}} international, which see in the Baath party one of the spokespersons of a socialist awakening in the countries of the Tiers-monde, wanting réapproprier their energy resources in a step “progressist” and “anticolonialist”.

After the Islamic revolution of Iran which diplomatically insulates this country, Iraq is perceived by the Occident like a stabilizing force for the area, a territorial and human stopping which can and will be used to bar the road with islamist towards the richnesses of the “Arabic horn”.

Iraq profits then from a broad international support and countries like the France and the the United States (which hoped to weaken the Iranian islamist mode and thus to support its fall) provide him in great weapons quantity and technologies, the the USSR remaining however the first supplier of armament. The Raïs , which is caught for new the Saladin - having also been born with Tikrit - and dreams to take the head of the Arab world by the military conquest, is crowned champion of the Occident. The United Nations never inquired into the crimes of Saddam Hussein because it was impossible to violate the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the interior matters of a State. No international assistance supported the Kurdish victims of the gazages and the policy of extermination.

The war Iran-Iraq (1980-1988)

The massacre of the Kurds

The mode is the author of the massacre of several thousands of Kurdish S (certain estimates advance the figure of a million dead), primarily in the villages directed by the patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), then supported by the Iran.

As of 1963, the Kurdish population is persecuted and massacred: 4.500 villages are destroyed, of the anti-personnel mines is dispersed in the area and the arable lands are devastated. During the war against Iran, because of the support then granted by this State for the patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurds are as a whole shown to be “traitors in Iraq” and “saboteurs”, which justifies the launching of the operation of Anfal (between February and September 1988). For the first time in the History, a government turns over its chemical weapons against its own population.

It leads to the disappearance of approximately 182 000 Kurdish people. In December 2005, a court of $the Hague qualified this countryside of “genocide”. June 24th, 2007, the Iraqi penal Court condemned Ali Hassan Al-Majid, called “Ali the Chemical one”, and two other old dignitaries of the mode of Saddam Hussein, with the death penalty by hanging for the genocide made against the Kurds during this Anfal operation.

The March 16th 1988, five thousand Kurds die in the town of Halabja and the bombardments cause thirty thousand to forty thousand contaminations. At the time, Washington had supported the thesis that Iran and not Iraq were at the origin of this massacre. The coalition américano-British found, between 2003 and 2005,288 mass grave S containing some: 300000 bodies of people carried out by the mode baasist. The December 13rd 2004 was discovered a pit containing nearly five hundred corpses, of which those of women and children, in the surroundings of Souleimaniye.

Following the use of chemical weapons, two million civilians terrorized, mainly Kurdish, but also Arab Shiites and assyro-chaldéens, flees in spring 1991 towards the adjoining countries of Iraq. Saddam Hussein succeeds in emptying these areas and subjecting them to her dictatorship. Thousands of marked individuals of separatism (Kurds) or intelligence with the enemy (islamist pro-Iranian) are off-set, tortured or massacred at the border with the Turkey and in all the country.

The invasion of Kuwait and the war of the Gulf (1990-1991)

For a few years, several facts will push Saddam Hussein to be tried by the invasion of Kuwait.

Initially Iraq, like frontier country of Iran, underwent large losses in the last war. Certain people estimate that it is because Iraq resisted that it could protect the other Arab countries of which Saudi Arabia. Iraq perceives badly that its Arab neighbors and brothers do not help it more in its effort of rebuilding.

Then, there are divergences on oil-bearing fields in the south of the country, with Kuwait. This last country carries out in 1990 a drilling with the horizontal one, which would be supposed to take oil in Iraqi territory.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein decides the invasion of the Kuwait. In the first time, the ambassador of the the United States transmits that “the United States does not have opinions on the invasion question of Kuwait”, which is equivalent to an approval by tolerance in diplomatic language. Saddam Hussein thus invades Kuwait. The United States revalues the situation, then post their opposition to this annexation.

At a meeting to UNO, the United States pleads in favor of an armed intervention while “a Kuwaiti young woman in tears tells cruelties of the Iraqi armies: rapes of women, executions summary, flight of incubators in the hospitals (what condemns the premature children). UNO approves the war of the Gulf (1990 - 1991), which ends in a defeat of Iraq. However, the forces of the coalition prefer “to contain” the Iraqi mode, rather than to be likely to destabilize the Persian Gulf. Thus, the united armies take the control of the north and the south of Iraq, but do not push their military advantage to Baghdad. Saddam Hussein remains with the capacity and matt a rebellion, united not acting. The order is restored in the center of Iraq under the control of Saddam.

Under international embargo (1991-2003)

An economic blockade is set up during twelve years (the program " Oil against Nourriture"), but it failed to reverse Saddam Hussein. This blockade would have caused in twelve years the death of five hundred and thousand to a million children, according to the the United Nations.

Saddam Hussein subdue the rebellions in the blood and poison gases, in particular the islamist insurrection Chiite S pro-Iranian in the south, where it destroys the marshes of Mésopotamie where were dissimulated the rebels, under the eyes of the international forces which refuse to intervene.

It preserves the capacity on its people, but the country remains controlled by the forces of the coalition and UNO. Only the Iraqi Kurdistan, in the northern part of the country, escapes its monitoring because of the military action of the United States in favor of the rebels.

This period is that of a swing of laic Iraq directed by BAATH towards religious Iraq: construction of several mosques, of which one which was to be largest of the world (towards the airport and district Al-Mansour), images of Saddam Hussein requesting, writing of Coran with its blood, suppression of the prostitution…

The goods of Saddam were cold by a decision of UNO in 2002, in particular its two villas azuréennes of Mougins and Cannes. The Iraqi government asked to become titular about it.

The fall (2003)

The March 20th 2003, the United States and their allies (mainly the the United Kingdom) attack Iraq and the mode of Saddam Hussein and reverses it at the time of a lightning war (March-April 2003).

The reason called upon by George W. Bush US president for the attack of the country is detention by Iraq of weapons of massive destruction. This war did not have the downstream of UNO. An official report published in October 2004 by Washington will conclude that the mode of Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of massive destruction although several tons of toxic products and five hundred shells with chemical load were found. The other called upon reason is the rebuilding of the Middle East cultivating " the démocratie" instead of tyranny. However, according to many analysts and intellectuals, the financial interests of American oil industry in general and the Bush family in particular are not foreign with this invasion.

The fall of Baghdad, the April 9th 2003, mark official end of the mode of Saddam Hussein and her escape. After several months spent in clandestinity, Saddam Hussein is officially stopped in a cellar by the American army with Tikrit in the night of the 13 to the December 14th 2003.

It is quickly exhibé with the hair and the beard hirsutes with the media by the American Armée, with for objective sapping moral armed groups close to the Baath party.

The lawsuit (2005-2006)

The preliminary phase cut-off of its lawsuit took place in Baghdad at the beginning of the month of July 2004. It is an emergency court, the Iraqi Special court (TSI), which will judge it for Génocide, Crime against humanity and War crime, with several other important members of the Baath party.

Thousand five hundred people including twenty-two principal lawyers coming from Iraq, Jordan, Libya, France, and the United States of America proposed to ensure the defense of Saddam Hussein. Jacques Vergès and Roland Dumas is some of her many lawyers.

The July 7th 2005, Ziad Al-Khasawneh, the principal lawyer of Saddam Hussein, resigns, following the pressures of American lawyers, wanting to prevent it from giving an opinion for Iraqi resistance and against the armed invasion.

The August 8th 2005, all its lawyers except an Iraqi, Khalil Al-Doulaïmi, are challenged by the Hussein family which shows them to be itself autoproclamés defendants of Saddam Hussein without to be elected.

The September 4th, the government spokesman Iraqi announces that the opening of the lawsuit will take place the October 19th. That is to say just after the Referendum on the project of Constitution, envisaged the October 15th.

This lawsuit will initially relate to the massacre of 143 Shiites of the village of Doujaïl in 1982 as well as the destruction of properties and the Exil intern during four years of the inhabitants of this city. Several other members of the old Baath party will be also judged:

Taha Yassin Ramadan, former vice-president (carried out by hanging on March 20th, 2007)
Barzan al-Tikriti, former chief of the information (carried out by hanging on January 15th, 2007)
Awad Ahmed Al-Bandar, associated of the principal private secretary of Saddam Hussein (carried out by hanging on January 15th, 2007)
Abdallah Kadhem Roueid, local manager of the Baath party (condemned to 15 years of prison on November 5th, 2006)
Mezhar Abdallah Roueid, local manager of the Baath party (condemned to 15 years of prison on November 5th, 2006)
Ali Daeh Ali, local manager of the Baath party (condemned to 15 years of prison on November 5th, 2006)
Mohammed Azzam Al-Ali, local manager of the Baath party (discharged on November 5th, 2006)

The government spokesman also declared that if Saddam Hussein were condemned to the Capital punishment, the sentence could be carried out without awaiting its judgment for other bills of indictment.

The October 19th, Saddam Hussein defies the court by not recognizing its authority and pleads not culprit for the massacre of Doujaïl.

The witnesses programmed with the lawsuit, being too afraid to be public witnesses, did not come to Baghdad. The first lawsuit of Saddam Hussein is then deferred to make it possible to hear the latter under security conditions satisfactory. The next audience was envisaged on November 28th, but it was once again deferred to December 5th. December 6th, Saddam Hussein continues to disturb the lawsuit.

The January 23rd 2006, judge Rizgar Amin resigns, it is replaced by Rauf Rashid Abd Al-Rahman.

The March 15th, Saddam Hussein is called by the charge as a witness. With the bar, it made some political statements, by saying in particular that it was always considered as President of the Iraq and by inviting the Iraqis to cease violences between them and to fight the American troops. The judge then cut his microphone and the continuation of the audience proceeded behind closed doors.

The May 15th, it is formally shown crimes against humanity and refuses to plead by declaring that there was no possibility of judging the President of Iraq .

The June 19th, Jaafar Al-Moussaoui, the public prosecutor of the Iraqi penal court requires the capital punishment against Saddam Hussein, like against her half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, and against the former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan.

The November 5th, Saddam Hussein is condemned to died by Pendaison for Crime against humanity. According to the statutes of the court, there is automatically call for this type of judgment. The lawsuit in Appel should last thirty days.

The December 26th, the Iraqi Court of Appeal confirms the death sentence of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. It should be carried out by Pendaison in the thirty days to come.

Several humane ONG denounced this lawsuit. Human Rights Watch thus estimates in a report/ratio as this last “was sullied with irregularities, as well on the form as on the bottom” and “fundamentally inequitable”.

Hanging

The December 29th 2006, one learns by the deputy Sami Al-Askari, collaborator of the Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki that Saddam will be carried out in the night of the 29 to the December 30th 2006 or at the latest the January 4th 2007 (after the Aïd to el-Kebir, the most crowned festival Moslem calendar).

The December 30th 2006, the former Iraqi president is finally carried out in Baghdad with 06:05, local time (03. 05 GMT). Delivered by the Americans to the Iraqi authorities, they are Iraqis who will carry out the sentence. Saddam Hussein is led to the Gibet the blocked arms and feet but preserves her calm. He will even ask to have the discovered head, which was granted to him. He will accept a scarf to avoid the wounds caused by the cord. A few seconds before its execution, some of the official Shiites present on the place of the execution stress: “Moqtada, Moqtada”, by reference to Moqtada al-Sadr, the chief of the Army of Mahdi, whose father was carried out on the order of Saddam Hussein. The emission of August 8th, 2007 on France 2 " One day, a destin" explain that the people having shouted the name of " Moqtada" were its militiamans and would have paid " a price of or" to attend the execution. The scene of the execution was filmed and diffused illegally on Internet.

Its hanging puts an end to all the actions of which this one was to answer, including seven other procedures. Another lawsuit could thus have been open at the conclusion which the dictator would have surely exceeded the 70 years (age from which one cannot carry out one condemned in Iraq any more).

The December 31st, it is buried with 4:00 (1. 00 GMT) in a building built during its presidency and intended to honor deaths, in the center of Aouja, to 180 km in the north of Baghdad and 4 km in the south of Tikrit. It rests with his uncle and his sons Odai and Qusai.

At once after, this execution on the run starts a polemic. Many observers denounce a “masquerade”, a “parody of justice”. Thus, according to Antoine Basbous, director of the Observatory of the Arab countries, interviewed on France 3 the January 2nd 2007, the choice to carry out Saddam Hussein the day of the Aïd el-Adha is disastrous. To kill Saddam in one day of peace and forgiveness for the sunnites (for the Shiites, Aïd was the following day), which more is a festival during which one sacrifices an animal, would be according to him a provocation deliberated on behalf of those which hold from now on the capacity in Baghdad. The question of the responsibility for the Americans in this choice remains open for the moment.

For many analysts, the execution would be more one act of civil war that of justice, or all at least a Community act of revenge:

the fact that it is about one day holy for the sunnites and not for the Shiites;
the execution took place in a district with Shiite majority (Khadamiya), in a barracks of the military informations, unit manifestly infiltrated by the Armée with Mahdi;
the prayer of the people present referred to the Shiite historical Imams.

The Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm commented on as follows: “The United States offered Saddam in sacrifice on the furnace bridge of the Iraqi civil war”

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