Saddam Hussein

Iraqi politician and revolutionary, president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003

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Lived 1937–2006, aged 69

PoliticiansPolitician

Wikipedia
135 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1937–2006
Aged 69
Known for
Equilibrium
2002

Summary

Updated 2026-09-05

Iraqi president for 24 years whose rule spanned invasion, genocide, and two wars before his overthrow by US forces in 2003. His name became shorthand for dictatorship in the Middle East, and his execution closed a chapter that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Biography

About

Born near Tikrit in 1937, Saddam joined the Ba'ath Party at twenty and helped bring it to power in the 17 July Revolution, rising to vice president under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr in 1968. During those years he nationalized oil, introduced free healthcare and education, and crushed Kurdish insurgency before taking the presidency in 1979 with a purge of rivals. In 1980 he invaded Iran, launching an eight-year war that ended in stalemate; as it closed he ordered the Anfal campaign, a genocide against Kurdish rebels. Two years later he invaded Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War and Iraq's defeat by a US-…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

said2002

Traditionally Marxism attracts the oppressed. This, however, is not the case in the Arab nation...

— n.d., quoted in Saddam Hussein: a political biography (2002) by Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi.

Saddam Hussein

said30 May 2001

Palestine is Arab and must be liberated from the river to the sea and all the Zionists who emigrated to the land of Palestine must leave.

— On Iraqi Television, May 30, 2001; quoted in Robert Wistrich, Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger(2002), page 43.

Saddam Hussein

said17 Jan 1991

The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.... The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins!

— Broadcast on Baghdad state radio, January 17, 1991.

Saddam Hussein

saidJul 1990

The ruling family in Kuwait is good at blackmail, exploitation, and destruction of their opponents. They had perpetuated a grave U.S. conspiracy against us....

— Radio Baghdad, July 1990, quoted in Saddam Hussein: a political biography (2002) by Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi.

Saddam Hussein

said1985