In , just three years after the costly Iran-Iraq war ground to a halt, Saddam, having built up one of the largest militaries in the region, decided to resolve tensions with Kuwait over oil rights and boundary lines by invading. But he underestimated the response from the international community and a U. From until the U. Fs patrolled "no fly zones" in large portions of its northern and southern regions.
The second Gulf War drove Saddam from Baghdad and power and into the spider hole. In the interim, his Baathist apparatus and military were dismantled. His family dispersed. His heirs, the despicable Uday and Qusay, were killed while fugitives in Iraq.
Two years after his arrest, Saddam was put on trial for war crimes before the newly re-constituted Iraqi High Tribunal. In November he was convicted of genocide for ordering the executions of men and boys in response to a assassination attempt in the town of Dujail.
The Dujail trial introduced witnesses and an extensive document trail that proved Saddam's personal hand in the collective punishment that followed the attempt on his life. His death comes in the middle of another trial that had Saddam and other key figures from his regime facing charges of launching chemical attacks against tens of thousands of Kurds in the late '80s.
That trial will continue without Saddam as a defendant. It is fitting that Saddam Hussein died, as many of his political opponents did, dangling from the end of a rope.
He had used the gallows at Abu Ghraib to silence opposition and dissent. In doing so, he had controlled Iraq for over two decades, but he created a generation of enemies. And some of those enemies, who never forgot their fathers and brothers who disappeared in the night, were there to watch him die. For many who watched it, the execution of Saddam Hussein was a personal vindication.
While she believed the deposed leader was a dictator, she felt that his hanging was a punishment for all of Iraqis. This is what she remembers from the day Saddam was executed:. I was young. I had no interest in politics. I surely felt very sad.
I started crying because it wasn't about Saddam himself but I felt they executed Iraq. I know that Saddam Hussein was a dictator to be honest, but he represented Iraq, he was the president of Iraq. When other countries come in and take [Saddam] down and then they execute him, you feel like that's it, Iraq is done.
They executed the president, he represents your country and they kind of humiliated your country. It was the same feeling [I got] when the US army came to Baghdad. There was big statue of Saddam. One of the US soldiers wiped Saddam's face with the American flag and took it down.
All of us were like ' who is this person to take the statue down? This is our country, this is our own business. I know we were living under a dictator, but we didn't ask anyone to come and do this damage to our country.
First, we were afraid of only one person, [Saddam]. If you don't talk bad about him or his family, then you are safe. After that it was a complete chaos. The situation is not getting any better. I am from Mosul and you know how the situation is like. Everything is destroyed. Zaid Ridha, Ridha lives in Diwaniyah, a predominantly Shiite city located about miles south of Baghdad. He was 13 when Saddam was executed. I remember I woke up and found my dad having the TV on the Al Arabiya channel, and there were live scenes of Saddam Hussein's execution.
I said, 'What!? The day has finally come. As I remember, it was a very special day, especially for my father and my family. We suffered a lot. I don't know how to describe, but the joy was overwhelming everybody.
So everybody was in the street, and everybody was firing [gunshots in the air] in celebration. And everybody was smiling A ceasefire agreement was signed, the terms of which included Iraq dismantling its germ and chemical weapons programs. The previously imposed economic sanctions levied against Iraq remained in place.
Despite this and the fact that his military had suffered a crushing defeat, Saddam claimed victory in the conflict. The Gulf War's resulting economic hardships further divided an already fractured Iraqi population.
During the s, various Shi-ite and Kurdish uprisings occurred, but the rest of the world, fearing another war, Kurdish independence in the case of Turkey or the spread of Islamic fundamentalism did little or nothing to support these rebellions, and they were ultimately crushed by Saddam's increasingly repressive security forces. At the same time, Iraq remained under intense international scrutiny as well. In , when Iraqi forces violated a no-fly zone imposed by the United Nations, the United States launched a damaging missile attack on Baghdad.
In , further violations of the no-fly zones and Iraq's alleged continuation of its weapons programs led to further missile strikes on Iraq, which would occur intermittently until February Members of the Bush administration had suspected that the Hussein government had a relationship with Osama bin Laden 's al Qaeda organization. In his January State of the Union address, U. President George W. Bush named Iraq as part of his so-called "Axis of Evil," along with Iran and North Korea, and claimed that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism.
Later that year, UN inspections of suspected weapons sites in Iraq began, but little or no evidence that such programs existed was ultimately found. Despite this, on March 20, , under the pretense that Iraq did in fact have a covert weapons program and that it was planning attacks, a U. Within weeks, the government and military had been toppled, and on April 9, , Baghdad fell.
Saddam, however, managed to elude capture. In the months that followed, an intensive search for Saddam began. While in hiding, Saddam released several audio recordings, in which he denounced Iraq's invaders and called for resistance. Finally, on December 13, , Saddam was found hiding in a small underground bunker near a farmhouse in ad-Dawr, near Tikrit.
From there, he was moved to a U. During the subsequent trial, Saddam would prove to be a belligerent defendant, often boisterously challenging the court's authority and making bizarre statements. On November 5, , Saddam was found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentencing was appealed, but was ultimately upheld by a court of appeals. He was buried in Al-Awja, his birthplace, on December 31, We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!
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