Saddam Hussein

Throughout the last thirty years, many of the people of Iraq have been tortured, forced to relocate their families numerous times, arrested and murdered. Those who stood against Saddam Hussein were punished, in most cases by death. All of this happened under the control of Suddam and we have neither found, nor has he offered a sound explanation for his actions. By the early 80's, hundreds of thousands of citizens were deported to Iran. And even now people are still being repressed, persecuted and denied their human rights. He does not deserve to live so luxuriously, while his people are dying from malnutrition and lack of medical attention. He does not deserve the political power that he has acquired

by having people killed and forcing others to resign their authority to him. What he does deserve is a fair trial for the many war crimes he has committed and for being responsible for an unknown, yet large number of assacinations of innocent people.

As a result of the Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations has enforced sanctions on Iraq to limit their ability to make more weapons of mass destruction (WMD). These sanctions are based on an oil-for-food system. Iraq can export limited amounts of oil to buy food and medical supplies only. Hussein is using less than the prescribed amount of money available for humanitarian purposes for buying the much needed medical supplies. Instead, he has used it to buy extremely expensive medical equipment that is rarely used. And as if he is not wealthy enough, every month he smuggles oil out of Iraq that is worth millions of dollars, which goes straight toward his personal spending pleasures. He has built monuments and palaces for himself instead of meeting the necessary health and sanitary needs of his people. It is bad enough that he has terrorized his own people, but he goes crawling to the press saying that the U.N. needs to lift its sanctions because his people are in such a desperate need of help. He acts (for the cameras) as if he actually is doing everything in his power to help the people that he so deeply cares about. Fortunately, the little games that he has played with the media have not fooled too many people. The truth about his past and current crimes is available to any person who that has access to the internet. We know what he has done, we know what he is doing, and we know what he is capable of. He is not going to be trusted by anyone any time soon. He once referred to himself as the reincarnate King Nebucadnezzar, which iseems to be a disturbingly accurate description of what he has become. There are many human rights groups that are collecting evidence against Hussein in an attempt to bring him to trial as a war criminal and for denying people their human rights.

Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937 in a village called Ouja, near Tikrit in Northern Iraq. He grew up in a broken home. His family was a poor peasant family that did not have a place to call home. He also had to grow up without a father, who had either died or disappeared before Hussein was born. When he was still a child, he was sent to live with his maternal uncle, Khairallah Tulfah, who had a tremendous influence on what Hussein later did in his life. There is proof that he had started his record of violence at an early age. There are several reports that link him to the murders of a school teacher and/or a cousin.

Little is known about the rest of his adolescent years. The story of his life then jumps to 1957, when Hussein joined the Ba'th party at the age of 20. He was denied the admission to the prestigious Baghdad Military Academy in the same year. This most likely occurred because he had not finished high school. This was a humiliating blow that tore at his honor,which led him to more problems. In 1958, there was a revolution, the next year Hussein attempted to murder Abdul Karim Qusim, Prime Minster of Iraq. After things didn't go as planned, Hussein fled to Egypt in fear of losing his life and stayed there four years, finishing his high school education. From February of 1963 to November 1963, the first Ba'th regime was established, but when the regime collapsed in November, Saddam took charge of organizing a Ba'th security organization named "Jikaz Haneen." This later became the core of the dreaded security apparatus under the Ba'th regime after 1968.

The second Ba'th regime took control between July 17, 1968 and July 30, 1968. A bloodless plot by senior Arab Nationalist officers and retired Ba'th officers overthrew the regime of President Abdal-Rahman Afif. At this time, Saddam was the Deputy Security General of the Ba'th party, but he played a minor role in the coup. Ahmed Hassen Al-Bakr, a relative of Hussein, became president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC).

Hussein carried out a plot to get rid of the rival faction (Arab Nationalist officers) in the coup. In the fall of 1968, purges began to remove all non-Ba'thists from positions of authority within state institutions. Hussein engaged in purifying the government and society of possible dissidents. The higher ranks of the military and government that were deemed disloyal were retired, imprisoned, tortured or executed. Members of non-Ba'th political parties and non-Arabs were falsely accused of crimes and were executed or deported. One year later, Hussein was appointed Duty Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and Vice-President of Iraq. He controlled the internal security and intelligence organizations and was the driving force behind the regime. In November of 1968, Nasir Al-Hari, former Foreign Minister and co-plotter of the July 17, 1968 coup was abducted from his home under the pretext that President Bakr wanted to consult with him. A few days later his body was found dumped in a ditch. Seventeen alleged "spies", thirteen of which were Jews, were hanged in Liberation Square for no apparent reason in January, 1969.

August 8, 1969, the Kurdish village of Dukan in a Mosul governate was the site of a massacre performed by the army. Later that year, Abd al-Rahman al Buzzaz, former Prime Minister, was accused of being a Zionist Agent and was imprisoned. He was tortured and sentenced to 15 years. In March of 1970, hundreds of communists were arrested and tortured. Haidan al-Tikriti, Minister of Defense, Deputy Premier, and former member of the Revolutionary Command Council was dismissed from all of his functions due to an unknown reason. He was assassinated the next year in Kuwait. And yet, Hussein was still climbing the political ladder.

March 11, 1970, an "autonomy agreement" was concluded between the Kurds, under Mulla Mustafa Barzani, and the central government, but it was never implemented. Eleven months later, there was an assassination attempt on Mulla Mustafa Barzani; he lived,