Saddam Hussein

SADDAM HUSSEIN Saddam Hussein is the authoritarian president of Iraq since 1979 who has led his country into two devastating wars. Born to a poor farming family in Tikrit, a town north of Baghdad, Hussein was raised by his widowed mother and other relatives. He moved to Baghdad in 1955 and became involved in politics, joining the opposition Baath Party, an Arab nationalist movement. Hussein rose quickly within the party and in 1959 helped organize an assassination attempt …

…series of air strikes on Iraqi military and industrial targets. In response, Hussein declared that Iraq would allow no further UN inspections and threatened to fire on foreign aircraft patrolling over northern and southern Iraq. Iraqi challenges to the patrols led to British and U.S. attacks on Iraqi missile launch sites and other targets. In late 1998, the United States passed a resolution to provide economic assistance to Iraqi dissident groups seeking to overthrow Hussein.