A glance at former Iraqi dictator's biography
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Dec 30, IRNA
Saddam-Execution-Biography
Saddam's rule lasted from July 16, 1979 until April 9, 2003, when he was deposed during the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.
As ruler of Iraq and head of the Baath Party, he espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism.
As vice-president under his cousin, the frail General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces by creating repressive security forces and cementing his own firm authority over the apparatus of government.
As president, Saddam ran an authoritarian government. During his rule, thousands of Iraqi people were killed and the Iraqi imposed war on Iran and the Persian Gulf war occurred.
The Iraqi imposed war on Iran broke out in September 1980 and lasted until August 1988. It was commonly referred to as the first Persian Gulf war.
The Iraqis suffered an estimated 375,000 casualties. Iran's losses may have included more than one million people killed or maimed. The war claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives and injured more than 500,000.
The Iraqi regime used poisonous gas and committed other war crimes against Iran and the Iranian people during the war. Iraq summarily executed thousands of Iranian prisoners of war as a matter of policy.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990-91) was originally known as the second Persian Gulf war, later simply the Persian Gulf war.
Iraq-Kuwait war began on August 2, 1990 as the Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait.
Original figures listed 100,000 Iraqi military dead but more recent estimates put Iraqi dead at 20,000 military and 2,300 civilians.
About 100,000 Iraqi troops were killed. During the occupation and as their troops retreated Iraq embarked on a systematic destruction of Kuwait's oil industry. Iraqi forces set fire to 789 Kuwaiti oil wells.
On March 17, 1988, Saddam's forces attacked the Kurdish city of Halabja, using chemical weapons and cluster bombs.
Among atrocities committed against the Kurds during the Anfal, Halabja has come to symbolize the worst of the repression of the Iraqi Kurds.
The "Anfal" campaign in the late 1980s against the Iraqi Kurds included the use of poison gas against cities. In one of the worst single mass killings in recent history, Iraq dropped chemical weapons on Halabja in 1988, in which as many as 5,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Saddam's crimes against humanity and genocide against Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq includes the destruction of over 3,000 villages.
The Iraqi government's campaign of forced deportation of Kurdish and Turkmen families to southern Iraq has created approximately 900,000 internally displaced citizens throughout the country.
According to the findings of Iranian physicians, the Iraqi regime under Saddam has deployed three kinds of chemical gases including the mustard, nerve and cyanide gases against civilians in Halabja and its surroundings.
According to the Amnesty International, several people were subjected to torture ranging from battery to death to electrocuting.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said nearly 400,000 Iraqi children starved to death during the past five years. Saddam Hussein paid no heed to the issue and adopted no serious measure to prevent it.
International circles made efforts to send medicine and food for the Iraqi people based on the oil-for-food program, but he did not allow the international officials to enter the country and distribute food and medicine.
Saddam executed 4,000 ordinary people in Abu Ghraib in 1984, 3,000 people in Al-Mahjar prison (1993-1998), 2,500 people in the so-called cleansing of prisons process (1997-99), 122 political prisoners in Abu Ghraib (February-March 2000) and 23 political prisoners in Abu Ghraib in October 2001.
He also decapitated at least 130 women from April to June 2001.
After the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam was eventually captured by the US forces on December 13, 2003.
On November 5, 2006, he was convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraq Special Tribunal and was sentenced to death by hanging.
On December 26, Saddam's appeal was rejected and the death sentence upheld.
He was hanged in front of lawyers, officials and a doctor on December 30, 2006.
2327-2325/1414/1412
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