SADDAM HUSAYN - IRAQ

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005389171
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: June 23, 2015
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2010
• Case Number: F-2009-00854
• Publication Date: February 21, 1995

SADDAM Husayn
(Phonetic: sadDAHM)
Presideng Chairman, Revolutionary Command
Council; Commander in Chief of the Armed
Forces; Secretary General, Baath Party
(since 1979) .
Prime Minister (since 1994)
Saddam Husayn took power in a coup 26
years ago and quickly had at least 21 members of
the ruling Revolutionary Command Council
executed for alleged political crimes, according to
press reports. In 1982 he personally executed
Iraq's Minister of Health, who had suggested that.
Saddam resign in order to help end the war with
Iran. His use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq
war during the 1980s and against his own civilian
Kurdish population also has been well documented
in the world press. Saddam supplements his brutal
tactics by using ideology as a leadcrship,tool: r
Media accounts indicate that he uses state.,
propaganda organs and public displays to promote
a cult of personality, to evoke pan-Arab and
Islamic ideals, and to revive a consciousness of
Iraq's historical and mythic greatness.
Since Saddam assumed the prime-
ministership in 1994, he has taken responsibility
for the governments day-to-day activities. He has
portrayed himself as a "man of the people" by
touring markets in Baghdad and has used the
official media to revile black marketeers and
hoarders.
t1
APPROVED FOR RELEASED
DATE: 07-Jul-2010
Saddam was born in 1937 in the village of
Tikrit According to open source accounts, his
childhood was harsh and abusive; he ran away,
when he was eight and reportedly committed his
first murder by age 12. A few years later, Saddam
traveled to Baghdad to live with his maternal
uncle; Ithayrallah Tilfah-a businessman, petty
criminal, and Anglophobic anti-imperialist,
according to published biographies and academic
studies-and became acquainted with the writings
of Baath Party founder Michel Aflaq. Saddam
joined the Baath Pary in 1957. The press reports
that in 1959, Saddam was a gunman in the
unsuccessful assassination attempt on then Prime
Minister Abd al-Karim Qassim. He spent the next
several years either in prison or exile. Saddam
returned to Baghdad after the Baathist coup in
1963. He soon became a party leader and helped
his Tikriti clan take over the organization. During
'the next decade and a half, he steadily gained
power in the party apparatus and built up the
security services.