Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein
Childhood
Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937 in a village called Al-Ouija in the country of Iraq. His father died before his birth. His brother at the age of 12 died of cancer. His mom went into depression and sent Saddam to live with his uncle who was a retired military.
At the age of 3 he began to live with his mom again, but his stepfather abused him. The influence ofhis uncle was very important, and when he graduated from high school, Saddam join the political party of his uncle. Baath Socialist party´s purpose was to unify the Arab States. It was a revolutionary group.
Rise to Power
In 1959 Saddam participated in the homicide of the Prime Minister Abdul Ka-im Qassin. Saddam was hurt in the leg and escaped out of the country. First he went to Syria, thenhe went to Egypt. In Egypt he studied law. In 1963 he returned to Iraq. He got married to Sajida, the daughter of his idol. In 1964 he was arrested for 2 years. From jail he continued working with the political party. He escaped from jail in 1966.
In 1968 the Baath party took over the government and Saddam became vice-president. However, Saddam was the head of Iraq. Because of him Iraqlived the best moments of its history. He created a strong economy. The price of oil went up. He raised the value of Iraq´s currency. He built schools and hospitals. The hospitals were free. He gave money to the family of soldiers. Eleven yeara later, on July 22, 1979 Saddam became president.
The 1st thing he did as president was to have a meeting with all the members of his party. He readthe names of the people he thought were spies against him. They were publically executed. A few years later he did the same thing with other leaders in his party. His behavior made a lot of people hate him. He became paranoid. He thought that everyone wanted to kill him. To protect himself, he made very little public appearances. He had people taste his food to make sure it was not poisoned.He slept very little and in secret places. Saddam created a tight circle of family and friends in his government. However, even they were not safe. His brother-in-law mysteriously disappeared in a helicopter accident. In 1996 he killed his two son-in-laws.
Even though he was feared by the people around him, Saddam sold a good image of himself by making statues and murals of him. He tried toreach everyone in Iraq, the Muslims, the men, and the business people.
Conservative Muslims didn’t like Saddam because he was breaking Islamic rules. Also, a big group called Kurds was against Saddam.

The War with Iran
In 1980 Iraq invaded Iran because they were fighting over land on their border. Saddam was also against the idea of falling under Muslim rule. He wanted to continue rulingwith his own rules. The war with Iran took 8 years. 1.7 million people died. The war took down the economy of Iraq. The war cause that Iraq and Iran get irreparable damage. Other countries lent billions of dollars to Iraq because they thought that Iran was a nuclear threat to the rest of the world. Some of these countries were the United States, Russia, France and Kuwait. Only the United Statesgave $40 billion to Iraq. On March 16, 1988, Iraq attacked the Kurds, using poison nerve gas. Almost 5 thousand civilians died. This attack made a lot of people around the world see another side of Saddam and began to fear him. In 1989 the war ends without winner.
Saddam was trying to rebuild the country. Iraq had to pay to Kuwait $30 billion, Saddam was negotiating with Kuwait but thenegotiation didn´t have result. On August 2 of 1990 Saddam invaded Kuwait. The countries of all worlds especially the United States criticized. Before the invaded of Kuwait the United States was his ally but after the United States putted against him. As result Saddam refused to leave Kuwait and the United States and United nation combined forces and stepped in. Fighting lasted a mere six weeks, but after...