Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Saddam Hussein, the controversial Iraqi leader known for his iron-fisted rule and involvement in regional conflicts, left a lasting impact on Middle Eastern history with his reign marked by oppression and international tensions.
Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq from 1979 until 2003, gained international notoriety for torturing and murdering thousands of his people. Hussein believed he ruled with an iron fist to keep his country, divided by ethnicity and religion, intact.
Saddam Hussein [c] (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003.
Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq for more than two decades and is seen as a figurehead of the country's military conflicts with Iran and the United States.
Saddam immediately succeeded him as president, chairman of the RCC, secretary-general of the RL, and commander in chief of the armed forces. Less than two weeks after Saddam claimed leadership, it was announced that a plot to overthrow the government had been uncovered.
He took over the presidency with the aims of replacing Egypt as leader of the Arab world and of gaining hegemony over the Persian Gulf, and he launched wars against Iran (Iran-Iraq War, 1980–88) and Kuwait (Persian Gulf War, 1990–91), both of which he lost.
For over 20 years, the greatest threat to Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein's regime -- he has killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and his neighbors for over two decades.
Saddam Hussein led Iraq from 1979 to 2003. During his rule he projected an image of himself as Iraq’s most influential leader and a courageous moderniser, but at the same time his repressive regime killed thousands of people.
Saddam Hussein's life was permeated by violence, in wars, in coups - successful and unsuccessful - in assassination, treachery and terrorism. Born in the central Iraqi town of Tikrit in...
Swept up in the nationalist politics of Iraq, he became an enforcer for the Ba'th Party in the 1950s, rising to become the country’s vice president—and the chief of its notorious secret police. He...