Saddam Hussein
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Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti (born April 28, 1937) has been the autocratic President of Iraq since 1979.
He was born in the village of Al-Auja, in the Tikrit District of Iraq, to a family of sheep-herders. At the age of 10, Hussein moved to Baghdad to live with his uncle, Khayrallah Tulfah.
He joined the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party and in 1956, he took part in an unsuccessful coup attempt against King Faisal II of Iraq. In 1958, a non-Baathist group led by General Abdul Karim Qassim overthrew the king. In 1959, following an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Qassim, he fled to Egypt by way of Syria and was sentenced to death in absentia.
He received some of his higher education at the University of Cairo law Ba'athist coup. He also gained a degree in law from the University of Baghdad in 1968. He was vice-Chairman of the Revolution Command Council from 1968 and appointed a General in the Iraqi armed forces from 1973. In 1979 the President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr announced his retirement (aged 42) and Saddam Hussein gained the posts of Chairman and President.
Hussein took absolute control. Under his dictatorial rule he used the oil revenues to make the country a major regional military power and involved the country in the bloody Iran-Iraq War (1980 - 1988) and the disastrous invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War (1990 - 1991). He has survived numerous attempted coups and assassinations.
A UN trade embargo has been in place continuously since the Gulf War. Though it was originally launched due to Saddam Hussein's refusal to co-operate with the UN over inspections of Iraqi weapons sites, America has indicated the sanctions will remain in place even if Hussein co-operates fully with inspections. In 1996 the Iraqi parliament accepted a UN Security Council plan authorizing Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil in order to meet its urgent humanitarian needs. Despite this, critics of the sanctions policy -- including many respected humanitarian groups -- say that the sanctions have resulted in millions of needless deaths. Others argue that the deaths are due to of Saddam Hussein's intransingence and economic mismanagement, and that the need to contain Iraq ultimately outweights what humanitarian concerns might exist.
According to official reports, Saddam appears to enjoy extremely widespread popularity within Iraq. A 2002 referendum, asking whether he should continue to lead Iraq, claimed 100% of voters thought he should, and that the turnout was 100% with international media releasing pictures of Iraqi women voting in their own blood. However, he was the only candidate on the ballot and voting was mandatory.
He is married to Sajida Talfah and has two sons (Udai Saddam Hussein and Qusai Hussein) and three daughters.
