Michael Smith (April 26, 1932 \u2013 October 4, 2000) Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (27 April 1937\u00a0\u2013 30 December 2006) was the fifth\u00a0President of\u00a0Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.\u00a0A leading member of the revolutionary\u00a0Arab Socialist Ba\u2019ath Party, and later, the\u00a0Baghdad-based Ba\u2019ath Party\u00a0and its regional organization the\u00a0Iraqi Ba\u2019ath Party\u2014which espoused\u00a0Ba\u2019athism, a mix of\u00a0Arab nationalism and\u00a0socialism\u2014Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the\u00a017 July Revolution) that brought the party to power in Iraq. Saddam formally rose to power in 1979, although he had been the\u00a0de facto head of Iraq for several years prior. He suppressed several movements, particularly\u00a0Shi\u2019a\u00a0and\u00a0Kurdish\u00a0movements, seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence,\u00a0and maintained power during the Iran\u2013Iraq War and the Gulf War. Whereas some in the Arab world lauded Saddam for his opposition to the United States and for attacking\u00a0Israel he was widely condemned for the brutality of his\u00a0dictatorship. Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of\u00a0Al-Awja, 13\u00a0km (8\u00a0mi) from the Iraqi town of\u00a0Tikrit, to a family of\u00a0shepherds\u00a0from the\u00a0al-Begat clan group, a sub-group of the\u00a0Al-Bu Nasir\u00a0 tribe. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son\u00a0Saddam, which in\u00a0Arabic\u00a0means \u201cOne who confronts\u201d. He is always referred to by this\u00a0personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein \u2018Abd al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly afterward, Saddam\u2019s 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle\u00a0Khairallah Talfahuntil he was threeThe total number of Iraqis killed by the security services of Saddam\u2019s government in various purges and genocides is unknown, but the lowest estimate is 250,000.
\nIn 2003, a coalition led by the U.S.\u00a0invaded Iraq\u00a0to depose Saddam, in which U.S. President\u00a0George W. Bush\u00a0and British Prime Minister\u00a0Tony Blair\u00a0accused him of possessing\u00a0weapons of mass destruction\u00a0and having\u00a0ties to al-Qaeda. Saddam\u2019s Ba\u2019ath party was disbanded and elections were held. Following\u00a0his capture\u00a0on 13 December 2003, the\u00a0trial of Saddam\u00a0took place under the\u00a0Iraqi Interim Government. On 5 November 2006, Saddam was convicted of charges of\u00a0crimes against humanity\u00a0related to the\u00a01982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi\u2019ites, and was sentenced to death by\u00a0hanging.\u00a0His execution\u00a0was carried out on 30 December 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Smith (April 26, 1932 \u2013 October 4, 2000) Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (27 April 1937\u00a0\u2013 30 December 2006) was the fifth\u00a0President of\u00a0Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.\u00a0A leading member of the revolutionary\u00a0Arab Socialist Ba\u2019ath Party, and later, the\u00a0Baghdad-based Ba\u2019ath Party\u00a0and its regional organization the\u00a0Iraqi Ba\u2019ath Party\u2014which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n