Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937, in a village called al-Auja in northern Iraq. Soon after he was born, his father disappeared from his life. Soon after, his mother married another man who was illiterate, immoral, and brutal. Saddam hated living with his stepfather, Once his uncle Khairullah Tulfah was released from prison, Saddam insisted that he go live with him instead. After Saddam moved in with his uncle, he started primary school. He graduated from it at age 18. After primary school he applied to military school, but he wasn’t able to pass the entry exam. Saddam then moved to Baghdad and started high school, but he found it boring and became interested in politics. He started out as a low ranking member of the Baath party where he was in charge of leading his schoolmates in rioting. In October of 1959, Saddam was promoted to the assassination squad. He and some other men attempted to assassinate the prime minister, but they failed. Shortly after the attempted assassination, Saddam fled to Egypt and stayed there for three years. In 1963, the Baath party successfully overthrew the Iraq government. Saddam then returned to Iraq, but the Baath party lost power after just 9 months. Saddam was arrested in another coup attempt in 1964, and he was put in prison. He was in there for 18 months until he escaped. During the next two years, Saddam became an important leader in the Baath party. In 1968, the Baath party once again gained power, and Saddam was made vice President. Over the next decade, Saddam became increasingly powerful. On July 16, 1979, the President of Iraq resigned and Saddam became President. Saddam ruled with a brutal hand. He used fear and terror to say in power. From 1980 to 1988, Saddam led Iraq in a war against Iran that ended in a stalemate. Saddam also used chemical weapons against the Kurds including the gassing of Halabja, which killed 5000 Kurds during the war. In 1990, Saddam ordered Iraqi troops to take the country of Kuwait. In response, the United States defended Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. On March 19, 2003, the United States attacked Iraq. During the fighting, Saddam fled Baghdad. On December 13, 2003, U.S. forces found Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole in al-Dwar, near Tikrit.
Ali Hassan Al Majid
Ali Hassan Al Majid
Ali Hassan Al Majid is believed to have been born in Al Auja, near Tikrit. However, Ali claims to have believed to have been born three years earlier. Later in life, he joined the army, and by the mid 1960’s he was an NCO and driver. It was then that the family connections helped his rise. After the collapse of the Ba'ath government of 1963, the party was being rebuilt by Colonel Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, a tribal relative of Majid, who had entrusted Saddam with restoring the underground networks of the Ba'ath party. In the violent and conspiratorial world of Baghdad politics, Majid became Saddam's loyal enforcer. By 1976, he was director general of the office of the Ba'ath's regional command, and two years later he became head of the party's key military bureau. After his important role in the bloody party purges which accompanied Saddam's assumption of the Iraqi presidency in 1979, he was rewarded, the following year, with the directorship of public security. When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Majid was appointed governor. In March 1991, he was made minister of the interior, charged with putting down the rebellions that had broken out in southern and northern Iraq following the Iraqi army's expulsion from Kuwait. He helped to crush these uprisings in his usual style, leaving some 30,000 people dead or missing. In 2009 he was sentenced to death for his actions in the suppression of the Shia uprising that followed the murder of Ayatollah Sadiq al-Sadr in 1999. Finally, in January 2010, he was found guilty and sentenced to death for having ordered the chemical weapons attack on Halabja in 1988. For some 40 years he had used ruthless violence in the service of his cousin Saddam Hussein, but his past finally caught up with him and Majid shared his cousin's fate
Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai
Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai
Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai was the minister of defense under Saddam Hussein's regime. He’s also considered one of Iraq’s most competent military commanders. He was appointed to the position in 1995. He served Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war, and the first gulf war. He signed the cease-fire treaty that ended it. He survived several purges and became the highest-ranking general in the Iraqi army. He was regarded as a figurehead in the Iraqi armed forces with real control resting with Saddam. In February of 2003, Saddam, who was trying to prevent a coup, placed him under house arrest. However Sultan continued to appear on Iraqi state TV, to preserve a sense of normality. He was number 27 on the US’s list of most wanted former Iraqi officials. On September 19, 2003, after nearly a week of negotiations, he gave himself up in Mosul to the 101st airborne division.