Saddam Hussein in a Nut-Shell

by John Thompson

October 7, 2002

Now that Saddam Hussein is getting the world’s attention again; it might be useful to recall just who he is.

Born April 28^th, 1937 to the al-Khatab clan in the Sunni Arab village of al-Auja, Saddam Hussein climbed from an impoverished background to become the absolute ruler of Iraq.

Official biographies omit many details of his childhood, but his father, Hussein al-Majid, either died or deserted his family sometime around Saddam’s birth. His mother Subha -- who must have been a tough and determined woman to survive these circumstances -- later married Ibrahim Hussein. Ibrahim was an illiterate farmer in nearby Tikrit, a small town on the banks of the Tigris River, northwest from Baghdad. Treatment by his stepfather was apparently harsh and abusive — giving the young boy an extended seminar in strength, deception and survival

Saddam was forbidden to enter school until he was ten, when he went to live with his uncle, Khayralla Tulfah, a Baghdad schoolteacher and cashiered army officer. His schooling finished six years later, but his marks were too low to enter Baghdad Military Academy. Instead, he became involved with Arab nationalist politics and took part in an abortive coup against the Iraqi Monarchy in 1956.

In 1957, Saddam Hussein became a member of the Baath (Renaissance) Party, which modeled itself on the ideology of Egyptian leader Gamil Abdel Nasser. In 1958, Army officers overthrew King Faisal II, and General Abdul Karim Qassim became the new leader of Iraq. A year later, Saddam was among the Baathists involved in an assassination attempt on Qassim. The attack was badly executed, and a wounded Saddam fled Iraq for Egypt.

When a Baathist/nationalist coup toppled Qassim in 1963, Saddam hurried back to Iraq where he soon became an interrogator and torturer, and a protégé of Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. He also married Khayralla’s daughter Sajidah Talfah; they have three daughters and two sons, Oday and Qusay.

The next five years were unstable ones, as the Baath Party lost and regained power (once putting Saddam in prison). In 1968, another coup resulted in a Baath regime with al-Bakr as its head. Saddam was his deputy, having spent five years building the party’s internal security apparatus. In this position he started to amass a vast personal fortune, and surrounded himself with a cadre of relatives and Tikritis. In 1979, Hussein displaced Bakr and then used terror and complicity in murder to secure his leadership. The videotape of his subsequent meeting with frightened senior party members is a chilling example of group psychology in a totalitarian regime.

Since becoming leader of Iraq, Saddam used its oil wealth to turn the Iraqi military into one of the largest in the Middle East. He initiated the 1980-88 war with Iran; used chemical weapons against Kurdish insurgents in the north; and annexed and lost Kuwait in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. These three conflicts alone conservatively cost about 670,000 lives — overall, he may be responsible for a million deaths.

Subsequent to Desert Storm, Hussein has quelled several insurgencies among the southern Shi’ia and the northern Kurds — adding tens of thousands more deaths to his ledger. Iraq has experienced a prolonged series of economic sanctions; although Iraq has exaggerated the death toll associated with it, but most commentators forget that the sanctions could end anytime Saddam Hussein was prepared to agree with all of the terms of the 1991 Ceasefire. However, the sufferings of Iraqi citizens carry little weight with Saddam, save for their propaganda value.

Hussein has temporarily lost most of his capability to produce additional nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. It should be recalled that he has twice been within six months of producing his first nuclear weapon and that he has produced his own ballistic missiles. It has been suggested by several commentators that Al-Qaeda terrorists received their training in chemical and biological weapons as a courtesy from Iraq.

Aware of his vulnerabilities, Saddam’s ruthlessness (even to family), mastery of his internal intelligence agencies, terror, meticulous attention to security and reliance on close tribal/family connections have combined to keep him secure. As a dictator, he must always seem strong: to show weakness is to invite death. He knows of no alternatives.

Still, in January 2001, Indian and Saudi press reports cast doubt about his health by hinting at a stroke or cancer. The Iraqi leader recently turned 65 and is grooming his second son, Qusay, as a possible successor since Oday, an irresponsible playboy, was crippled in a 1996 murder attempt.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: institute@mackenzieinstitute.com

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