Saddam Hussein
President of Iraq (1937–2006) and Ba'athist dictator who ruled from 1979 until the US-led invasion in 2003. His regime launched the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), invaded Kuwait in 1990, used chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians at Halabja, and was ultimately captured, tried, and hanged by the Iraqi government in December 2006.
Saddam Hussein's significance lies in the consequences of the movement and rule associated with President of Iraq: ideology, repression, victims, mass violence, and the collapse of democratic or pluralist safeguards. The page should be read as a historical warning, not as validation of office prestige or state authority.
Details
- birth year
- 1937
- death year
- 2006
- editorial frame
- historical_atrocity
- monetization allowed
- false
- office
- President of Iraq
- historical status
- deceased_historical
This profile uses curated historical sections and source-backed metadata. Auto-generated leader framing, quick-fact synthesis, and monetized modules are disabled for sensitive historical figures.
Overview
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (1937–2006) was the President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003 and the dominant figure of Iraqi Ba'athist politics from the late 1960s. Born in humble circumstances in Tikrit, he rose through the Ba'ath Party's apparatus combining ideological commitment, organizational ability, and extreme personal ruthlessness. He played a leading role in the 1968 Ba'athist coup that brought the party to power and consolidated personal authority with brutal efficiency after becoming president in 1979 — immediately convening a party gathering at which he read out a list of alleged conspirators; those named were removed from the room and executed.