Even His Mom Hated Saddam!Saddam Hussein (Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti) was the dictator of Iraq from 1979 until 2003, when his regime was deposed by a United States-led invasion. Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006 upon conviction, by the government of Iraq, of killing 148 Shiites in 1982.
"Saddam" is an Arabic word meaning "one who confronts." Saddam was born to a family of shepherds. He never knew his father, who either died or disappeared five months after Saddam was born. His elder brother died of cancer at the age of 12. During her pregnancy, his mother tried to abort the fetal Saddam by attempting suicide. Saddam was raised by his uncle, Khairallah Talfah, until the age of three. His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers.
His stepfather was abusive and forced his children to steal chickens and sheep for resale. Saddam fled this family at the age of ten to live with his uncle, Kharaillah Tulfah, the father of Saddam's future wife. Saddam looked up to his uncle, who taught him the lesson to never back down to his enemies.
At the age of 20, Hussein joined the pan-Arab Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party, which his uncle supported. The middle of the twentieth century was a time of profound change in the middle east, and Saddam played a role in changing the power structure in Iraq. He was involved in assassinations, some successful, served time in prison and ruthlessly pursued power and influence. He rose through the ranks of the Ba'ath Party, and was part of the 1968 coup which brought the party to power. In 1979 he became the President of Iraq.
One of Saddam's main goals as president was to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East. Iraq signed an aide pact with the Soviet Union in 1972. In 1975, he negotiated an accord with Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border disputes. He visited France in 1976 to cement close ties with French political circles. In the 1980s, he began a nuclear enrichment project with the French.
As president he also focused on strengthening the oil industry and the military in Iraq. In 1980 he escalated a long-standing dispute with Iran over the Shatt al Arab waterway into a full-scale war. This brutal war dragged on for years, until 1988, producing huge casualties on both sides with essentially nothing to show for the carnage.
Saddam ordered his army to invade Kuwait in 1990. Then United States President George H. W. Bush, drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait during the brief Gulf War. This war ended in February 1991, but Hussein maintained control of Iraq.
George W. Bush put Hussein under immense pressure in 2002, accusing him of harboring weapons of mass destruction and supporting Islamic terrorists. The Iraq War (2003 to present) resulted.
Hussein disappeared after the American invasion, but was found by U.S. forces hiding in a small hole in the ground near his hometown, Tikrit. He was captured on December 13, 2003 and put on trial by the Iraqi government for crimes against humanity. He was the suspected force against the Kurds in the north during the Iran-Iraq War and against the Shiites in 1991 and 1999.
His first legal hearing was on July 1, 2004, as well as his first appearance in international media since his capture the previous December.
On the first day of his trial, in October 2005, Hussein pleaded not guilty for the charges against him and was defiant in court by not recognizing the court's authority over him. Other difficulties during the trial were assassinations and attempts on Hussein's lawyers and the replacement of the chief presiding judge, half-way through the trial, on accusations of bias.
Hussein was executed at "Camp Justice," an Iraqi army base, at 6:10am on the muslim holiday Eid ul-Adha.
Hussein threatened that if United States forces ever attacked Iraq, it would be "the mother of all wars." | 
