Chemical Ali sentenced to death for genocide

An Iraqi court has sentenced the cousin of Saddam Hussein to death yesterday. His name is Ali Hassan al-Majid but he was better known to the world as “Chemical Ali”. The former head of the Baath Party's Northern Bureau Command was sentenced to death with two other former regime officials for their roles in a 1980s scorched-earth campaign that led to the deaths of 180,000 Kurds in Northern Iraq, known as Operation Anfal.

Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa convicted al-Majid of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Also sentenced to death was Sultan Hashem Ahmed, former Iraqi army commander during the Iranian war and chief-in-charge of the Anfal operation. The third man is Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy general commander of the Iraqi armed force, assistant chief of staff for military operations, and former Republican Guard commander. Two other men received life sentences and all five plan to appeal.

Born in 1941, Al-Majid was a warrant officer and motorcycle messenger in the army before Saddam's Baath party took power in a 1968 coup. The Kurds gave al-Majid the nickname of "Chemical Ali" for using poison gas against them in the Anfal campaign. “Surat al-Anfal” is the eight chapter of the Koran and means spoils of war. It was the culmination of years of effort by Saddam’s regime to suppress the long-running Kurdish rebellion. Launched in early 1988, the campaign lasted about seven months and involved chemical; weapon attacks, the destruction of over 2,000 villages and mass deportations.

Al-Majid served as governor of Kuwait during Iraq's seven-month occupation of the emirate in 1990-1991 and was then linked to the bloody crackdown on Shiites in southern Iraq when they rose against Saddam in 1991 in the aftermath of the first Gulf war. He was promoted to general and served as defence minister from 1991-95, as well as a regional party leader. Al-Majid was governor of Southern Iraq and number 5 on the list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis at the time of the US-led invasion.

In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, it was mistakenly believed al-Majid was killed. A British officer said his body was found along with that of his bodyguard and the head of Iraqi intelligence services in Basra. British troops entered Basra on 7 April 2003 in the belief that al-Majid’s death would lead to the end of resistance in the city. The British believed Al-Majid was killed two days earlier when coalition aircraft used laser-guided munitions to attack his Basra home.

But by June 2003, Coalition forces were no longer so sure he was dead. The US gathered intelligence from detainees which threw doubt on the earlier British report. His status was changed from ‘confirmed dead’ to ‘unknown’. Two months later, US forces announced his capture but did not divulge details on how it happened. He was held at the same detention centre outside Baghdad as Saddam and 10 other top lieutenants of the Baath regime.

Al-Majid was brought before the Iraq Special Tribunal and charged with genocide in August 2006. He briefly stole the limelight of Saddam’s second trial when which he walked into the court using a cane and wearing a red headscarf and proudly identified himself as "Fighting comrade 1st Maj. Gen. Pilot Ali Hassan al-Majid." He refused to give a plea, and a plea of innocent was entered for him. In sentencing him yesterday, Judge al-Khalifah blew his defence away "You led the killing of Iraqi villagers [and] you restricted them in their areas, burnt their orchards, killed their animals,” he said. “You committed genocide."

analysis of a Saddam execution media log

In the book Journalism: Ethics and Practice, professor Frank Morgan asked the question “what is journalism”? For him, the answer is a complicated entity that must ultimately be expressed as theory. The theory should be a coherent set of ideas that explain not only the media form, its contents but also crucially the audience and the culture they share. This paper therefore is a study not only of a week’s worth of media consumption, it is a study of the consumer and the culture the consumer resides in. This essay will therefore concentrate on the discourse of seeing the media log in terms of theory of journalism. It will examine how log items display characteristics of several aspects of the Four Theories of the Press. The paper will also examine how these theories are now fusing into one comprehensive theory of communication by finding examples of collaboration, surveillance, facilitation and criticism in the week’s media consumption.

The media log tracks the Saddam Hussein execution story from Thursday 29 December 2006 to Wednesday 3 January 2007. The consumption log of 69 media items is shown in Appendix A. In Australian media terms, this period between Christmas and New Year is called the “silly season”. Because many news outlets are on holidays or skeleton staffing, the stories that dominate in this period tend to be time dependent such as the Boxing Day Test and the Sydney to Hobart race. Apart from the random pure news events such as the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, this period does not have the usual newsmakers dominating. The Sydney to Hobart race and the test cricket are usually the only stories that last all week. However on Tuesday 26 December 2006, the Iraqi appeal court announced they had turned down Saddam Hussein’s appeal against his execution. This looked to be a story that had a good chance of lasting all week.

Saddam Hussein has long been a newsmaker. A member of Iraq’s ruling Arab Sunni elite, he came to prominence in the 1970s on the back of Iraq’s oil profits. He was de facto ruler well before becoming president in 1979. Iraq grew wealthy after the 1973 oil crisis and Saddam became a Pan-Arab hero for spending much of his country’s wealth on economic development and education. But he also spent big on arms. Saddam’s most fateful decision came in 1979 when he used Iran’s new Islamic regime as the excuse to renege on a four year old agreement to set the border as the thalweg (midpoint) of the Shatt Al-Arab waterway. The resulting eight year war crippled both countries. This war eventually led to the invasion of Kuwait, which in turn led to the first Gulf War, UN sanctions and then the second Gulf War, leading to capture and trial. Saddam has strong news value of prominence and it made him one of the most talked-about people in Australian media in 2004.

The story of his death took three major phases in the week under examination. The first phase, lasting three days, was the story of whether he would be executed at all and if so when. The second phase was the coverage of his death, a review of his life and immediate reaction to his death. This phase lasted approximately two days. The third phase is analysis and reaction to video footage of his final moments. This phase lasted three days and overlapped with the end of phase 2. See appendix B for the key daily points in the story development.

The story of Saddam’s execution was major news across the world. It not only had the three core news values: interest, timeliness and clarity but it also had five of the six major news criteria: Consequence, Conflict, Human Interest, Novelty and Prominence. Many Australian media built the sixth criteria, Proximity, into the story. On Thursday, the story was in phase 1 and the news was Hussein “could be marched to the gallows any day now” (Australian, 28 December 2006, p.6). For some media, phase 1 did not fit the news criteria. According to the gatekeeper model of journalism a news story must survive a series of discriminating filters in a news organisation. Most TV news stories are visual and much Australian news is local and trivial. However the Saddam story was happening mostly beyond the glare of cameras in a foreign country. As a result, the phase 1 story did not survive the Thursday TV news gatekeeping process on Sky News, Channel Nine and the ABC. Only SBS, established with the specific purpose of countering the myth of monoculturalism picked it up. In the written media, there was more coverage. Saddam had written a goodbye letter to Iraqis. Legal arguments persisted as to whether court needed the signature of the Iraqi president (Sydney Morning Herald 2006, online). On the Friday, speculation continued despite the Iraq’s justice ministry denying he was about to hang. All these stories show the surveillance and facilitation role of the media. The media also played critical roles with opinion pieces taking sides on the merits of capital punishment.

The story shifted dramatically into phase two on Saturday with news of his death. The news broke in the early afternoon which was too late for the daily newspapers and too early for the evening news. The internet broke the story. The online Age told the story in classic hard news format with the most important information first and with verifiable facts and identifiable sources: “Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labeed Abbawi told the BBC.” (Age online) The sources used demonstrate an example of the authoritarian theory of news where authority rests in the state. The story has immediate credibility due to the Government source revealing the news to one of the world’s most respected media, the BBC. The story also shows the complexity within international news. The average international news item has been through as least four separate newsrooms. In this case, the Government tells the BBC, the story is picked up by Reuters who then forward a copy to the Age for publication in Australia. News Corp immediately found a local angle with the story of a Sydney man who fled Saddam’s regime (News.com.au). Proximity acknowledges that the impact of an event is subject to how close the audience is to the event. This angle was followed up by all the TV evening news services who showed pictures of joyous Iraqis celebrating in the streets of the Sydney western suburb Auburn.

The language used by TV media on the night of Saddam’s death bears exploration. Each television network carries its own bias inherent in the choice of language used. Language is not a mirror of reality but a “shaper of reality” for those who use it. Channel Nine led with the headline “Death of a Tyrant” and they framed the narrative as the just death of a hated despot. Saddam was the “butcher of Baghdad” who “met the same fate as his victims”. For Iraqi history it was a “dark chapter” that had now closed. These examples show the media not only defining what significant events are taking place but also offers powerful interpretations of how to understand these events. Channel Nine left the viewer in no doubt that Saddam’s execution was just and proper.

Both SBS and ABC followed the Channel Nine lead in terms of proximity and also of government collaboration. All three had the cheering Auburn footage as well as a sound byte from John Howard. But SBS and the ABC also presented more complex reactions to Saddam’s death. They both interviewed Professor Clive Williams an intelligence analyst at the Australian National University. Williams suggested that the real reason for his early execution was to “silence Saddam before he could talk about his links to the US and in particular to chemical suppliers” in the unfinished Kurdish massacre trial (Williams on SBS News World Australia 30 December 2006). This is critical and dialectic journalism that provokes debate about society’s prevailing political order.

SBS demonstrated an example of the social responsibility theory of the media on the day after the execution. They had procured unauthorised mobile phone footage of the execution however the newscaster warned viewers that they, like “other major broadcast media” would not be showing the exact moment when Saddam died. In the libertarian tradition of John Stuart Mill, this could be construed as censorship or “the peculiar evil of silencing an opinion”. However the wording of SBS decision to edit the footage was framed in terms of their status as a major broadcast media. In this example absolute liberty to show shocking footage is moderated by social responsibility.

Due to cultural factors, phase 2 ended after just two days. Although Gerald Ford and James Brown both died a week before Saddam, reactions to their death continued due to a long period before interment. Saddam, however, was buried according to Muslim tradition within a day of his death. While immediate international reaction was still coming in on the Sunday, Saddam’s early burial left the newsmakers quickly moving on the next phase of the story. Phase 3 moved the story on to higher levels of inquiry where journalists challenge initially “authoritative” accounts of events.

A slightly more sympathetic portrait of Saddam was emerging. The unauthorised video of the execution had shown him defiant as his executors hurled insults at him. On Monday night, the ABC 7.30 report had an in-depth interview with John F Burns, a multi-Pulitzer Prize winning journalist of the New York Times. Burns notes that Saddam acted honourably in death unlike the “bullying thugs” that executed him (Burns on ABC 7.30 Report, 1 January 2007). By the end of the week, the execution video became the story as criticism increased around the world and Iraq conducted an enquiry into how it was filmed (Sydney Morning Herald 2007, online).

Although this study is by no means a comprehensive account of media coverage of the story of over the week (only one radio program featured in the log), the coverage shown demonstrates that journalism is inextricable from international politics interacting with society via collaboration, surveillance, facilitation and criticism. Future media log studies should include newer news media. Many weblogs, video logs and podcasts covered the Saddam execution. These newer technologies demonstrate a media convergence as ‘the crossing of paths that results in the transformation of each entity as well as the creation of new ones’.

Appendix A:
Chronological index of news consumption 28/12/2006 to 03/01/2007
Number Date Time Source Format Headline
1 28/12/06 am Australian Newspaper Saddam to die within a month
2 28/12/06 am Australian Newspaper Editorial: Saddam Hussein’s fate
3 28/12/06 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Saddam to die ‘any day now’
4 28/12/06 am Sydney Morning Herald Internet Saddam’s goodbye letter
5 28/12/06 am Al Jazeera Internet Saddam hanging date unclear
6 28/12/06 am BBC Internet Saddam lawyer in last ditch plea
7 28/12/06 0900 Sky News Australia TV No coverage
8 28/12/06 1800 C9 Brisbane TV No coverage
9 28/12/06 1830 SBS World News TV European human rights concerns
10 28/12/06 1900 ABC Brisbane TV No coverage
11 29/12/06 0800 ABC RN news Radio No coverage
12 29/12/06 1000 Sky News Aus TV No coverage
13 29/12/06 am Australian Newspaper Opinion: Hanging Saddam will make it worse
14 29/12/06 am Courier-Mail Newspaper No coverage
15 29/12/06 pm Sydney Morning Herald Internet Saddam farewells family
16 29/12/06 pm IHT Internet Saddam’s execution date uncertain
17 29/12/06 1800 Sky News Aus TV Breaking news: Saddam handed over to Iraqi custody
18 30/12/06 am Australian Newspaper Saddam could die within days
19 30/12/06 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Opinion: Don’t hang Saddam
20 30/12/06 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Saddam execution date doubt
21 30/12/06 pm Age Internet Saddam executed, officials say
22 30/12/06 pm Nine MSN Internet Saddam execution too late for expat
23 30/12/06 pm NPR Internet Iraq executes Saddam; challenges remain
24 30/12/06 1800 C9 Brisbane TV Tyrant executed
25 30/12/06 1830 SBS TV Saddam dead, Iraq high alert
26 30/12/06 1900 ABC Brisbane TV Saddam dead
27 31/12/06 am Sunday Mail Newspaper No Remorse
28 31/12/06 am Sunday Mail Newspaper Revenge Fears after hanging
29 31/12/06 am Al Jazeera Internet Saddam buried in Awja
30 31/12/06 am Al Jazeera Internet Iran welcomes Saddam execution
31 31/12/06 am CNN Internet Hussein buried in same cemetary as sons
32 31/12/06 am Sydney Morning Herald Internet Saddam laid to rest
33 31/12/06 am Age Internet Hanging one man won’t fix the mess
34 31/12/06 am Age Internet World divided over Saddam’s death

35 31/12/06 am Herald Sun Internet Saddam dies a broken man
36 31/12/06 1800 C9 Brisbane TV Iraqis celebrate Saddam’s death
37 31/12/06 1830 SBS TV Final taunts
38 31/12/06 1900 ABC Brisbane TV After Saddam
39 01/01/07 am Courier-Mail Newspaper No fanfare as tyrant buried with sons
40 01/01/07 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Buried at dawn but few mourn Saddam
41 01/01/07 am Australian Newspaper Saddam supporters vow revenge on US, Shiites
42 01/01/07 am Australian Newspaper I destroyed Iraq’s enemies: Saddam defiant until the end
43 01/01/07 am Australian Internet Nurse tells: Poetic Saddam
‘didn’t complain much’
44 01/01/07 am Australian Internet Millions watch images of death
45 01/01/07 am Australian Internet Countries divided on execution
46 01/01/07 am Sydney Morning Herald Internet Insults on the gallows for Saddam
47 01/01/07 1800 C9 Brisbane TV US death toll in Iraq above 3,000
48 01/01/07 1830 SBS TV Saddam reaction
49 01/01/07 1900 ABC Brisbane TV Insults at execution
50 01/01/07 1930 ABC 7:30 Report TV Interview with John F Burns
51 02/01/07 am Australian Newspaper Tyrant wrote poetry and fed birds in his final days
52 02/01/07 am Australian Newspaper My father a martyr, says dictator’s daughter
53 02/01/07 am Australian Newspaper Saddam taunted on the gallows
54 02/01/07 am Australian Newspaper Opinion: moral defeat at the end of a rope
55 02/01/07 am Courier-Mail Newspaper 3000th US soldier killed on Iraq soil
56 02/01/07 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Editorial: Another Iraqi death sparks more killing
57 02/01/07 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Opinion: No capital in hanging
58 02/01/07 am Sydney Morning Herald Internet Saddam’s last humiliating moments fire Sunnis
59 02/01/07 1730 Sky News Aus TV No coverage
60 02/01/07 1800 C9 Brisbane TV No coverage
61 02/01/07 1830 SBS TV Sunni anger
62 03/01/07 am Sydney Morning Herald Internet Iraqi inquiry into Saddam hanging video
63 03/01/07 am Age Internet Saddam’s race to gallows anger US officials
64 03/01/07 am Age Internet Saddam’s party faces upheaval
65 03/01/07 am Australian Newspaper Iraqi inquiry into Saddam gallows taunt
66 03/01/07 am Courier-Mail Newspaper Anger festers on Iraq streets
67 03/01/07 1800 C9 Brisbane TV No coverage
68 03/01/07 1830 SBS TV Saddam video
69 03/01/07 1900 ABC Brisbane TV Execution anger



Appendix B
Key points in Saddam story development 28/12/06 to 03/01/07
Phase 1: When will he die?
Thursday 28/12/06:
His court appeal is turned down, goodbye letter released to media, execution “soon”,
Friday 29/12/06:
lawyer pleads for clemency, Saddam says farewell to family, could die “within days”
Phase 2: Saddam is dead.
Saturday 30/12/06:
execution, obituary, immediate reactions.
Sunday 31/12/06:
burial, mixed world reaction
Phase 3: The consequences
Monday 01/01/07:
supporters vow revenge, unofficial video footage shows insults
Tuesday 02/01/07:
criticism of executioner taunts and insults on unofficial video
Wednesday 03/01/07:
growing anger around the world about video

Saddam buried in Tikrit

In accordance with Muslim tradition, Saddam Hussein was buried within 24 hours of his death in the family plot near Tikrit. A local tribesman told journalists that the burial had taken place at 4am Sunday in a family plot in Awja, the village of Saddam's birth. He was buried next to his sons Uday and Qusay. The family overrode the wishes of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. His spokesman had earlier said the government wanted Saddam to be buried in a secret location to prevent the site becoming a place of pilgrimage.

The new Shia Prime Minister has strengthened his hand in his own community after pushing through the execution of Saddam over the protest of Saddam’s own Sunni constituency and the Kurds who wanted to see him tried for genocide against their peoples. Iraqi TV showed al-Maliki signing the death warrant in red ink on Friday night. Afterwards he said "Saddam's execution puts an end to all the pathetic gambles on a return to dictatorship.”

World opinion is sharply divided over the execution. President Bush said the former Iraqi dictator had received the kind of justice he denied his victims. Iran and Kuwait also welcomed the execution. Britain said Saddam had been "held to account" but reiterated its opposition to the death penalty. But Saudi Arabia, expressed “surprise and dismay” that the hanging was carried out on the day of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. Russia and the Vatican also expressed anger at the decision.

Some analysts in the West have also expressed suspicion that Saddam’s death was orchestrated by the Americans so that he would be unable to give testimony that might be embarrassing to the US in the ongoing Kurdish trial. Iraqi journalist Cirwan Mostafa warned that his death prior to that trial’s completion would be a “conspiracy woven by powerful parties and maybe the Americans so that Saddam is not sentenced for crimes he committed against the Kurds with the knowledge of the whole the world and the Americans who kept silent at that time."

The sudden execution on the eve of the Eid-al-Adha religious holiday did nothing to help stem the sectarian violence. On the day of his death car bombs killed almost 70 people in Baghdad and Najaf. The bombs exploded in Shia suburbs. In north-west Baghdad, two parked cars exploded in quick succession, killing 37 civilians and wounding 76. Another 31 people died and 58 were hurt when a bomb planted on a minibus exploded in a fish market in Kufa near Najaf. A mob cornered and killed the man who planted that bomb as he walked away from the explosion.

Meanwhile the US military announced the deaths of three Marines and three soldiers, making December the year’s deadliest month for US troops in Iraq with the toll reaching 109. Three marines died on Thursday from wounds suffered in combat in the western Anbar province. Yesterday, one soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in north-west Baghdad and another was killed in Anbar. A sixth was killed by a roadside bomb in south-west Baghdad.

The overall total of US dead since the start of the 2003 invasion is now 2,998. The total number of Iraqi dead in this time is a matter of intense debate. Iraqi Body Count put the figure as between 52,000 and 58,000 however the British medical journal Lancet published an article in October which suggested over 650,000 have died.

Saddam the Martyr?

After denying the possibility for the last three days, Iraq executed its former leader Saddam Hussein early this morning. The Iraqi deputy foreign minister confirmed the news to the BBC. Iraqi TV said the execution took place at 6am local time. The execution took place at the Iraqi-controlled compound known by the Americans as “Camp Justice” in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya. He died unhooded and carrying a copy of the Koran.

Saddam was sentenced to death in November for the killing of 148 people in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. On Tuesday, an Iraqi appeals court upheld the sentence. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days. Rumours have since been rife that he would be executed by the weekend. The rumours intensified after a US military office said that Saddam would be hanged before the beginning of the Eid religious holiday which starts on Sunday.

On Thursday Saddam’s lawyers published a letter he wrote after he received the death sentence. In it he stated that his execution is a sacrifice to Iraq, and that his death will lead to martyrdom. "I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will send it to heaven with the martyrs”. He signed the letter as “President and Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Mujahed Armed Forces”.

On Thursday, Saddam's defence lawyers in Jordan issued an unsuccessful last ditch call to Arab governments and the United Nations to intervene to stop the execution. Chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said Saddam was a prisoner of war and should not be handed to his enemies according to international law. On the same day, the Vatican condemned the sentence, saying it was wrong to answer crime with another crime.

Speculation increased yesterday after US officials handed Saddam over to Iraqi authorities. US officials stated then he could be hanged as early as Saturday. However the official Iraqi line was that would not happen. A swag of officials issued heated denials. These came from at least two cabinet ministers, the Justice Ministry responsible for executions, a court prosecutor as well as an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. But an Iraqi television channel was closer to the truth when they quoted a judge saying he would die on Friday or Saturday.

Saddam was executed at dawn. An Iraqi official told Associated Press his execution was attended by a Muslim cleric, lawmakers, senior officials and relatives of victims. He was 69 years old and ruled Iraq for 24 years until the US-led invasion in 2003. He was captured in December that year.

As the news filtered through the streets of Baghdad, many people took to the streets in the pre-dawn hours to fire guns in the air in celebration. Many expressed disbelief it had happened and wanted to see proof. However not everyone is happy about his execution, including some of Saddam’s old enemies. Kurdish leaders denounced the timing of the execution as a miscarriage of justice. Saddam was still on trial for atrocities and genocide against the Kurds in northern Iraq between 1987 and 1988. That trial was adjourned until 8 January though the trial of his co-defendants will continue.

Saddam means “stubborn one” in Arabic and he lived up to his name by showing no remorse during his sometimes farcical trial last year. In November a five-judge Iraqi panel announced a unanimous sentence of death for Hussein and two of his seven co-defendants, including Hussein's half brother.

His Baath Party was officially disbanded after the 2003 invasion but some members escaped to Yemen where they issued a warning of retaliation on Wednesday. The Baath Party website issued statement, signed by "the Defence Committee for President Saddam Hussein.” It said "our party warns again of the consequences of executing Mr. President and his comrades," and continued, "the Baath and the resistance are determined to retaliate, with all means and everywhere, to harm America and its interests if it commits this crime.”

Saddam is survived by his wife Sajda in Qatar, and his daughter Raghad who supervised the defence team in Amman.

Saddam Busters

The trial of Saddam Hussein has resumed this week in Baghdad without the presence of the former Iraqi leader who is ill. He was taken to hospital on Sunday as a result of a hunger strike in protest at the murder of his lawyer. Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial charged with crimes against humanity but the entire defence team is also boycotting the trial. The court heard a statement from a court-appointed lawyer representing Saddam’s former intelligence chief and half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti. It said he refused to accept the lawyers nominated by the court. The judge adjourned the case until Wednesday, when he hoped lawyers for the defendants would come to present their case. The 68 year old former leader is being force-fed in hospital and in "good condition".

The former leader's full name is Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti. Saddam is Arabic for “stubborn one” and Hussein is a patronymic rather than a surname. It means the stubborn one is the son of Hussein. Abd al-Majid is his grandfather’s name and al-Tikriti means he is from the town of Tikrit. Saddam is not quite a townie. He was born of peasant stock in 1937 (though this date has been questioned) in the village of Al-Awja which is eight kms outside of Tikrit. He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abd al-Majid, who disappeared 6 months before Saddam was born. His mother remarried when he was three years old and he was treated harshly by his new stepfather. Aged 10, he fled to live with relatives in Baghdad. There he lived with his uncle Kharaillah Tulfah who was a prominent leader in the failed 1941 Nazi backed coup of Iraq.

The British occupied Iraq during the Second World War to ensure its own wartime oil supplies. The pre-war Hashemite monarchy was reinstalled in 1945 and lasted until the 14 July Revolution of 1958. By now Saddam was 21. He had left school and joined the Ba’ath Party. The Ba'athists started their party in Syria in 1947. They were a radical, secular Arab nationalist political party. The Arabic word Ba'th means "resurrection" or “renaissance”. Because it was a pan-Arab party, it quickly became popular in Iraq also. In 1958, the Ba’athists opposed the new army-led government of Iraq which overthrew the Hashemite regime. A year later, new Prime Minister Qasim took Iraq out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. Saddam was involved in the attempted CIA-backed plot to assassinate him. One former CIA official said that the 22-year-old Saddam lost his nerve and began firing too soon, killing Qasim's driver and only wounding Qasim in the shoulder and arm. Saddam escaped back to Tikrit then crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian intelligence agents eventually to Cairo. There he studied law and lived on expenses paid by both Egypt and the US.

Army officers with ties to the Ba'th Party overthrew Qassim in a another coup in 1963 and Saddam returned home. His freedom was short-lived. A year later an anti-Ba’thist coup took power and imprisoned many opponents including Saddam. He escaped prison in 1967 and was now considered to be a leading party member. The Ba’thists regained power in 1968 and General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became president. He appointed fellow Tikriti and his cousin Saddam as his vice-president. The al-Bakr regime nationalised the Iraqi Petroleum Company which brought in major revenues after the 1973 oil crisis. It also strengthened Iraq's ties with the Soviet Union. Hussein moved quickly to usurp more power from the older president and by the mid 1970s he was the de facto ruler. In 1979 Saddam formalised the relationship and forced Al-Bakr to resign on “health grounds”. Saddam used the country’s oil revenues to invigorate education, health and industry. Iraq became wealthy and attracted many guest workers from poorer countries to serve the economy. His allies in the modernisation of Iraq were the minority Sunni Muslims. The majority Shia and the Kurds were mostly hostile to his regime.

When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, Saddam feared that revolutionary Shi’ite Islam would spread to Iraq. Ayatollah Khomeini had lived in exile in the Iraqi Shi'ite holy city of An Najaf. There he incurred Saddam’s suspicions for fomenting a strong, political and religious following with Iraqi Shia. After Khomeini gained power in Iran, Saddam attacked Tehran International airport and invaded the oil-rich border province of Khuzestan. After initial gains which were encouraged secretly by the Jimmy Carter administration, the sheer numbers of Iranian troops pushed them back at the cost of very heavy casualties. The conflict settled into a long, intractable defensive war of attrition. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists. On March 16, 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or seriously debilitating 10,000 more. Thousands died of horrific complications, debilitating diseases and birth defects in the years that followed.

The 8 year Iran-Iraq war ended in a stalemate with over a million deaths shared equally by both sides. The two countries’ economies were left in ruins. The war left Saddam with a post-war debt of roughly $75 billion. Saddam encouraged Kuwait to forgive its $30 billion share of the debt due to his role in “saving” Kuwait from Iranian domination. Kuwait refused and also turned down his request to cut back oil production to raise prices. The situation escalated as the US gave conflicting responses to an Iraq-Kuwait boundary dispute. In August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait. Although the US president George Bush snr initially wavered on a response, their hand was forced by British PM Margaret Thatcher. Britain was a close ally of Kuwait. Thatcher’s famous reaction the day after the invasion was “Don’t go wobbly on me, George”. Saddam ignored a Security Council resolution on a withdrawal. The US responded with air strikes on Iraq in January 1991. Ground forces from a US-led coalition invaded Kuwait in February and the war was over by early March. Although the Americans encouraged the Iraqi population to “rise up” against Saddam, they offered no substantial aid other than enforce no-fly zones. Turkey opposed Kurdish independence and the Saudis did not want to see another Iranian-style Shia revolution on their border. The UN placed sanctions on Iraq before the war blocking oil exports and they remained in place after the war.

Saddam was repeatedly charged throughout the 90s of violating the ceasefire by developing chemical weapons. After September 11, 2001, the new George W Bush administration increased its focus on Iraq and attempted to document what were, at best, tenuous links between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. The US “coalition of the willing” (which did not have as many willing participants as Gulf War 1) invaded without UN approval in March 2003 and the Iraqi government collapsed three weeks later. Hussein went into hiding and played a game of cat-and-mouse with American authorities for the remainder of the year. He was finally captured in his hometown of Tikrit in December. He was held at the high-security Camp Cropper detention centre near Baghdad airport until his trial.

The first legal hearing took place in July 2004. Seven preliminary charges were read out. Saddam was combative and referred to himself as “Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq”. The Iraqi Tribunal formally charged him a year later with the mass killings of the inhabitants of the village of Dujail in 1982 after a failed assassination attempt against him. The trial proceeded slowly through 2005 punctuated by the slaying of two of his lawyers and complaints from Saddam about the lack of a fair trial. In June this year, Iraqi prosecutors recommended that he receive the death penalty. In his final appearance on July 26, Saddam seemed to accept this outcome when he told the court “"I ask you, being an Iraqi person, that if you reach a verdict of death, execution, remember that I am a military man and should be killed by firing squad and not by hanging as a common criminal.” The verdict will be laid down on October 16. A second trial starts next week and the US has not ruled out a posthumous trial in the event he is executed for the Dujail charges.