Saddam Hussein

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Saddam Hussein as President of Iraq

Saddam Hussein ( Arabic صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Saddām Husain ʿAbd al-Madschīd at-Tikrītī , DMG Ṣaddām Ḥusain ʿAbd al-Maǧīd at-Tikrītī , Kurdish سەددام حوسێن Sedam Huseyn ; * April 28, 1937 in al-Audscha near Tikrit ; †  December 30, 2006 in al-Kazimiyya near Baghdad ) was President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003 and at the same time Prime Minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and 1994 to 2003 . He ruled the country dictatorially and was later sentenced to death and executed for the massacre of Shiites and Kurds.

Childhood and youth

Saddam Hussein as a toddler (1940)

Saddam Hussein was born in Al-Audscha, a village near Tikrit, on April 28, 1937 into a poor peasant family. His family belonged to the Sunni Arab tribe of the al-Bu Nasir.

His biological father, Hussein al-Majid, died while his mother Subha was pregnant with Saddam. When she was eight months pregnant, Saddam's eldest brother also died of cancer. Subha then attempted suicide, but was prevented and financially supported by a Jewish family. Subha also tried unsuccessfully to abort her unborn son.

Subha gave Saddam after his birth to her brother Khairallah Talfah , who as an officer had a higher social status and money, according to Tikrit . In 1941 Talfah was imprisoned for his involvement in the Ghailani coup , and Saddam was forced to return to his mother. She had meanwhile married a relative named Hassan Ibrahim and had moved with him to Al-Shawish, a poor village near Tikrit. Hassan Ibrahim had bad repute there, his nickname in the village was "Hassan the Liar". Likewise, he probably undeservedly adorned himself with the title of hādj . Most sources describe Saddam's village life as that of an outsider who was socially excluded because of his fatherlessness . Only an official biography describes him as a socially integrated member of the village community. Saddam's desire to go to school was turned down by his stepfather and mother. Instead, he was used to work in the fields and instigated by his stepfather to steal, which earned Saddam a short imprisonment as a child. He was also the victim of physical and psychological violence from his stepfather. According to his own statements, Saddam always carried an iron bar with him to defend himself against the attacks of the other village children.

After the release of his uncle Khairallah Talfah, Hussein left his stepfather's household and fled to his uncle in Tikrit. He made sure that Saddam started school when he was ten. He raised the boy in the spirit of Arab nationalism . At the age of 14, Saddam was suspected of having shot a teacher's brother in revenge . However, the evidence failed, and Saddam was able to graduate from school. After graduating from school, Saddam moved to Baghdad with his uncle, where he attended secondary school and graduated at the age of 18. After finishing school, Saddam Khairallah's eldest daughter, Sadjida, was promised.

Political career

Beginning

Saddam Hussein joined the then banned Baʿth party in 1956 and took part in an unsuccessful attempted coup against the Iraqi King Faisal II in 1957 . In 1958 he supported another group led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim . As a result of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Prime Minister Qasim in October 1959, in which Hussein was injured in the leg, he was forced to flee to Egypt via Syria . He was sentenced to death in absentia. The incumbent leader of the Baʿth party, Fuad ar-Rikabi , was replaced by a distant relative of Saddam Hussein, Majid, because of the failed assassination attempt.

He finished his studies at the Law Faculty of the University of Cairo without a degree. He returned to Iraq on February 8, 1963 after the bloody coup of the Baʿth party and married Sadschida Khairallah. After a renewed change of power , he was sentenced to prison in 1964, but fled with the help of Tahir Yahya in July 1966. In 1968 he supported a successful coup d'état by the Ba undth party and army.

Ascent

Saddam Hussein (1974)

When the Baʿth party came to power in Iraq in 1968, Hussein became deputy general secretary of the Revolutionary Command Council and head of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Propaganda in the new government . In 1969 he became vice president.

On June 1, 1972, he initiated the nationalization of Western oil companies that had an oil monopoly in Iraq. With the oil revenues he developed the country into a regional military superpower. The income from the sale of oil also ensured the prosperity of broader sections of the population. In 1972, Saddam signed a friendship agreement with the Soviet Union in Moscow. On July 1, 1973, he was appointed three-star general in the Iraqi armed forces by the Revolutionary Council. He later appointed himself field marshal . On 6 March 1975 he joined as vice president with the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , the Algiers Agreements on border demarcation in the Shatt al-Arab and mutual non-interference in internal affairs.

In 1979, at the age of 42 , President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr appointed Hussein as the party's chairman and successor. On July 11, 1979 he became general secretary of the Baʿth party, and on July 16, 1979 he took power as president and head of government . In this position, Saddam publicly defamed members of the Baʿth party, whereupon they were sentenced to death without trial and immediately liquidated. Other party members were sworn by this example to the line of Saddam, which also prevented the planned merger with the likewise Baʿthist regime of Syria .

Yet Saddam Hussein's authority was still limited. After exchanging his office with al-Bakr, he remained in fact Vice-President until his death in April 1982. Saddam Hussein used this first turning point in an expansion of power in July for a momentous solo effort: he gave the order to withdraw the Iraqi troops at a crucial phase in the Gulf War against Iran. The second turning point was in 1989. With the death of the Baʿth party founder and Vice President Michel Aflaq and the death of Chairallah Talfah, who had become popular as Minister of War in the Gulf War, in an unexplained helicopter crash in the same year, there was no rival moral authority other than the president, who could have influenced his decision to go to war against Kuwait.

Saddam used to be called "al-qaid ad-daruri" (irreplaceable leader). He saw himself as the actual successor to the King of Babylon and founder of the New Babylonian Empire Nebuchadnezzar II. Saddam Hussein is responsible for numerous crimes against humanity that were committed during his reign, including mass murders of Kurds and Shiites.

The first Gulf War

Saddam Hussein with Donald Rumsfeld (1983)
Saddam Hussein's Presidential Palace (2003)

About a year after the revolution in Iran against the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Saddam Hussein terminated the Algiers Agreement on September 17, 1980, which Iran had previously declared to be no longer binding. Iraq then refused to clear the border areas ceded in 1975, which had been under Iranian fire since August 4th. On September 22, 1980, Hussein ordered the Iraqi army to attack Iran with nine of a total of twelve divisions on a 600 km wide front. This marked the beginning of the First Gulf War , which lasted almost eight years .

Various Western states also played a leading role, which gave Iraq massive support because of the impending defeat against Iran, such as France and Germany as arms exporters and suppliers of nuclear reactors and chemical plants ( pesticides and poison gas ). The main supporters of Iraq were the Soviet Union, France and the People's Republic of China, which, however, also supplied Iran. In an overview drawn up by the Stockholm SIPRI Institute , the USA only comes in eleventh place, although Washington also supplied both sides. The Sunni and Wahhabi Gulf States continued to have a special significance as lenders and financiers of the First Gulf War. The inability to repay the loans is widely considered to be one of the reasons for Iraq's attempted annexation of Kuwait . Hundreds of thousands lost their lives during the war, several thousand as a result of Saddam Hussein's use of poison gas alone. The assumptions that the US secret service made satellite images of the Iranian positions available to Iraq and the reluctance and sometimes tacit approval of a large part of the international community are viewed very critically.

On July 18, 1988, Iran agreed to the ceasefire terms of UN Resolution 598, which Saddam Hussein had previously accepted. Ayatollah Khomeini commented on this with the addition "more bitter than poison". A ceasefire agreement was signed on August 8, 1988 and entered into force on August 20, 1988. A peace treaty has not been concluded since then.

Anfal surgery

Towards the end of the war in 1988, Hussein ordered the Anfal operation in northern Iraq, thereby intensifying the Arabization policy against the Kurds that had existed since the mid-1970s. Ali Hasan al-Madschid , a cousin of Hussein, who became known as Chemical-Ali ( Kurdish Eliyê Kîmyawî , "Chemical Ali") through the use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish population, took over the implementation . As part of this genocide, according to Human Rights Watch , up to 100,000 Kurds were systematically murdered between February and September 1988 and an unknown number were deported to southern Iraq . In addition, the infrastructure of around 2,000 villages and 20 small towns, including the city of Qeladizê with its then 70,000 inhabitants, was destroyed. The Kurds themselves estimated the number of disappeared people at 182,000 and the destroyed villages at 4,000. In contrast to previous uses of poison gas, the poison gas attack on Helepçe was noted with horror and indignation by the Western press. State sides remained cautious. German companies were largely involved in the production of the poison gas.

The second Gulf War

Saddam Hussein 1990 with ex-Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt and Sadoun al-Zubaydi (center)

On August 2, 1990, two years after the ceasefire, Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait on the grounds that it was illegally tapping into Iraqi oil fields. The occupation came after Kuwait increased oil production and lowered oil prices . Iraq had strong interests in a lucrative oil business, especially as the country was in the process of rebuilding after the First Gulf War.

In the Second Gulf War , the Iraqi army was almost completely defeated by the US-led coalition in early 1991. The advance of American units towards Baghdad , which had already begun , was stopped because the mandate of the UN resolution, which only provided for the liberation of Kuwait but not a regime change in Iraq, had been fulfilled and the US allies were unwilling to support further measures. The uprising of the Shiites in southern Iraq against Hussein, which was encouraged by Western forces, was suppressed by the Iraqi government troops, which were still superior in military terms, despite the establishment of a no-fly zone .

Further political activity

Saddam Hussein survived numerous coup attempts and assassinations, including by foreign intelligence services. As Latif Yahya claims, he had two doppelgangers. Faoaz Al-Emari and a second who was killed in an attack in 1984.

He actively promoted the modernization of the Iraqi economy and the development of industry, administration and police. Hussein led the development of the Iraqi country, the mechanization of agriculture and land reform as well as popular education. Furthermore, he promoted the complete reorganization of the energy industry, the public service as well as the transport and education systems. Under his rule, a national literacy campaign began and compulsory schooling was introduced. Before 1990 the literacy rate among girls rose to over 90 percent, after the destruction of schools in the two Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003 it fell again to 24 percent, according to UNESCO .

Since May 29, 1994, Hussein was again Prime Minister after he gave up this post after the end of the Gulf War in 1991. In addition, he held the office of chairman of the Baʿth party and was commander in chief of the army. In October 1995 he was officially elected president with 97 percent of the votes cast, unopposed. Congratulations from former President Abd ar-Rahman Arif made this election almost legitimate. In 1995, Saddam's sons-in-law as well as the secret service chief and his brother fled to Jordan because of differences of opinion . Allegedly pardoned by Hussein , they returned to Iraq, where they were detained in February 1996 and shot three days later.

The United Nations had imposed an uninterrupted trade embargo on the country since the Second Gulf War. In 1996 the Iraqi parliament accepted the UN Security Council's “ Oil for Food ” plan , which allowed Iraq to sell limited amounts of petroleum to meet urgent humanitarian needs. In 2000, Hussein announced that he would sell crude oil for euros as part of the “Oil for Food” program and began converting his national foreign exchange reserves to euros (“Petro-Euro”).

In October 2002, Saddam Hussein was confirmed as leader of the country for another seven years in an apparently bogus election with almost 100 percent of the vote.

The Iraq War

Computer-generated image of the alleged mobile plant for the production of chemical warfare agents, presented by the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council in February 2003 to legitimize the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Iraq war.

In 2003 the Iraq war finally began . United States and United Kingdom forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Iraqi army was defeated and the country was completely occupied. The US justified this with the fact that Iraq was allegedly violating the UN resolutions imposed on it by developing and possessing "weapons of mass destruction" and that Hussein supported terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda . Both allegations were false and were subsequently refuted in the USA by the secret service committee of the US Senate. Depending on the estimate, between 115,000 and 600,000 civilians died as a result of the Iraq war alone. Both Americans and British deployed hundreds of tons of uranium-containing ammunition . The number of genetic diseases and cancer cases increased dramatically in the years to come.

On April 9, 2003, the fighting ended with the fall of Baghdad and the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. A $ 25 million bounty was placed on Hussein and a number of government leaders following the fall of the regime . They were also searched for by means of a card game that was brought into circulation , in which the wanted represented the ace of diamonds, the king of hearts, etc. Hussein's sons Udai and Qusai , who were feared for their cruelty, were killed on July 22, 2003 in a US attack on their shelter in Mosul after fierce fighting. His third and youngest son Ali Saddam went into hiding.

Prosecution

Saddam Hussein's arrest

Saddam Hussein after his arrest

On December 13, 2003, Saddam Hussein was arrested by US occupation forces. According to the American account, he was captured by American soldiers in the village of Ad-Dawr around 15 kilometers from his hometown of Tikrit after a betrayal by a former henchman, a former Iraqi secret service agent . According to this, the once most powerful man in the country had recently hid in a narrow, brick hole in front of a poor hut. When the soldiers inspected the hole in the ground at gunpoint, Saddam Hussein surrendered to them tiredly and without a fight. With him cash to the value of about 750,000 US dollars have been found. Saddam Hussein's lawyer as well as himself contested the course of the arrest, which was spread by the US-American leadership. The former US soldier Nadim Abou Rabeh said in March 2005 that the scene with the so-called hole in the ground had been set, Saddam Hussein had lived in a house and the US soldiers had encountered resistance when they were arrested. In any case, Saddam Hussein was completely unharmed when he was captured and looked shabby, as shown by photos during the first medical examination after his imprisonment.

According to US sources, Hussein's identity was verified by a DNA test and by means of teeth and scars. The official confirmation of the arrest was given on December 14, 2003 at around 1 p.m. CET by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and shortly afterwards in a press conference by Paul Bremer , the US civil administrator in Iraq.

The ex-dictator was imprisoned at Camp Cropper maximum security prison. On January 10, 2004, the US government announced that he was now an official US prisoner of war . The status of the prisoner of war made it possible, among other things, for independent observers and aid organizations, e.g. B. the Red Cross , with whom the ex-dictator could get in contact in order to get an idea of ​​his integrity and the prison conditions. On the same day, the Iraqi Governing Council asked the United States to turn Hussein over to Iraqi justice as a criminal. This took place on June 30, 2004, two days after the US officially transferred power to the Iraqi interim government.

The accusation

Saddam Hussein (2004)

A special tribunal dealt with Saddam Hussein and eleven other politicians and soldiers in Iraq. In a first hearing without a lawyer on July 1, 2004, which was broadcast largely without sound on television because of US censorship , Saddam denied any guilt and did not recognize the tribunal. He continued to see himself as president. He remained under the guard of the USA. Under Iraqi law, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was tried before the tribunal. With the exception of this, the attack on Iran in 1980 should not be negotiated as a war of aggression. The Iranian government intended to sue in Baghdad because Saddam Hussein started the war against Iran in 1980 and used chemical weapons . Saddam Hussein was charged with the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in these wars . Up to 290,000 people were murdered, according to Human Rights Watch . The investigation was led by the FBI and a unit of the US Department of Justice , according to the New York Times . The Iraqi lawyers received support from foreign experts. Salam Chalabi, the court director, was trained in the United States.

The Kurdish leader and later Iraqi President Jalal Talabani spoke out against the death penalty for Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, he does not doubt his guilt: Saddam Hussein “massacred” and “burned down and destroyed our cities”. The new Iraq, which is just emerging, must therefore respect the rights of the Kurdish people: "If Iraq does not recognize this obligation, it will be the end of Iraqi unity."

The process

The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants began on October 19, 2005. In the first instance, a chamber of five judges ruled, with Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman presiding after the court's original presiding judge Rizgar Muhammad Amin resigned. Nine judges decided on the appeal. The court had jurisdiction over genocide , crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as three other crimes derived from Iraqi law, including unauthorized interference in the judiciary that occurred during Hussein's presidency from 1979 until the coalition troops began occupation in 2003 were committed.

The first charge before the court related to a retaliation allegedly committed following the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein in the city of Dujail in 1982. 148 men and boys were executed or died during "interrogation" by state authorities. The other twelve charges ranged from the poison gas attack on Kurds in the so-called Anfal campaign and the attack on the city of Halabja in 1988 to the killing of tens of thousands of Shiites after their uprising in 1991. Seven other people were on trial with Saddam Hussein. Among them were Taha Yassin Ramadan , the former Vice President of Iraq, Barzan Ibrahim at-Tikriti , a younger half-brother of Saddam and former director of the Mukhabarat security service , and Awad al-Bandar , former chairman of the Revolutionary Court, who, among other things, is responsible for the death sentences in Jajail was.

After two defense attorneys of Hussein's co-defendants fell victim to attacks, a murder plot against investigating judge Dschuhi was uncovered and an attack on the courthouse was foiled, and some defense attorneys withdrew for this reason, then chairman Amin decided to transfer the trial to the less unstable Kurdish regions. However, the trial continued in Baghdad. The US attorney Ramsey Clark , former US attorney general and a prominent opponent of the Iraq war, was also part of the team that defended Hussein in the trial. He had already defended Slobodan Milošević . Ayesha al-Gaddafi , the daughter of the Libyan head of state at the time, Muammar al-Gaddafi, also belonged to the defense team . Another of Saddam Hussein's lawyers, Najib al-Nawimi , a former Qatari Justice Minister, tried to question the legitimacy of the court, since large parts of its statute were written during the US occupation. Lawyer Curtis Doebbler even appealed to the United States Supreme Court on the grounds that the right to a fair trial had been seriously violated.

In Baghdad, the trial was held under the strictest security precautions. Witnesses against Saddam Hussein were granted anonymity because of their fear of attacks. The trial was interpreted by supporters of Saddam Hussein and voices critical of the US as a show trial and as a judiciary . Human rights organizations questioned the legal establishment of the tribunal. Human Rights Watch also stressed that the defendants' rights would be curtailed. A United Nations human rights observer said the court was failing to meet international standards for such trials. Saddam Hussein started a hunger strike on July 7th to protest the lack of security for his lawyers . As of July 23, he was force-fed in a hospital as a result .

The Iraqi attorney general called for Saddam Hussein to be sentenced to death for the Dujail massacre . Former Vice President Taha Jassin Ramadan and Hussein's half-brother Barsan Ibrahim al-Tikriti should also be executed, the prosecutor demanded in his closing speech . He applied for imprisonment for four other defendants.

The judgment

Saddam Hussein was born on 5 November 2006 by Judge Ra'uf Rashid Abd ar-Rahman to death by the strand convicted. He did not want to rise to the verdict before the special tribunal, but gave in when he was finally threatened with coercion. Saddam's personal wish not to be hanged "like a simple criminal" but to be shot was not granted.

Amnesty International's Middle East Director Malcolm Stuart stated on November 5, 2006: “Everyone who has been accused has the right to a fair trial, regardless of the extent of the charges against him. [...] An opportunity has been missed here, and the death penalty makes it worse. "

The appeal hearing in the Appeals Chamber of the Special Tribunal, which is automatically ordered for every death sentence, finally confirmed the judgment on December 26, 2006. A swift execution within a maximum of 30 days, i.e. H. until January 25, 2007, was also required. A final attempt to postpone the execution on a petition from his attorneys in a US district court in Washington was denied.

execution

The verdict against Saddam Hussein was carried out by hanging on December 30, 2006 shortly after 6:00 a.m. local time (4:00 a.m. CET) in al-Kazimiyya , a neighboring city in northeast Baghdad . The entire execution was officially filmed and photographed by the Iraqi authorities. Corresponding recordings, which show the last minutes of Hussein, but not the execution, were seen a little later in countless media around the world. According to official reports, the execution went quickly and smoothly. Hussein made no comment while being led to the gallows. Before the execution he had spoken the Sunni - Islamic creed .

However, an amateur recording of the execution circulating on the Internet refutes this account. It can be heard that people in the area berated Saddam Hussein that he would “go straight to hell”, to which he replied: “Iraq is nothing without Saddam”. The radical Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr , one of Saddam Hussein's greatest opponents, is also cheered by the unknown people. Already standing on the trap door with the noose around his neck, Saddam Hussein then spoke his last words, the two-line Shahada of the Sunnis: “There is no deity but Allah. Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah. ”During the first repetition, the trap door opened when he pronounced the word Mohammed . Contrary to the official film, the unofficial film also shows how Saddam Hussein dies from a broken neck and hangs on the gallows immediately after the execution.

Reactions to the execution

The chosen date of execution has been sharply criticized in the Islamic world because it was carried out on an Islamic holiday, the Festival of the Sacrifice . There were also fears of terrorist attacks in response to the execution of Hussein, as the November verdict had already sparked violence in parts of the country.

The unofficial video of the execution, published on the internet, sparked dismayed media coverage. For the BBC, World Affairs Editor John Simpson described the process as "ugly and degrading". It is reminiscent of public executions in the 18th century. Prosecutor Munkith al-Farun, who was present at the execution, said on January 2, 2007 that high-ranking Iraqi government officials had illegally filmed the recording on a cell phone. In the days that followed, the video of the execution became a bestseller, particularly in southern Baghdad, where numerous Shiites live. Saddam Hussein's lawyers thereupon demanded an investigation in a letter to Ban Ki-moon on January 3, 2007 and again referred to the Geneva Conventions , which had repeatedly not been applied to the prisoners of war. The letter also suggested that some of Saddam's worst enemies "may have been given the privilege of lending a hand in the killing themselves in a bad deal with the occupying forces." It should therefore also be investigated who the hooded executioners were. Other Iraqi observers also criticized the process.

EU Development Aid Commissioner Louis Michel indirectly condemned the execution as "barbaric" on the same day. He also feared that the execution of the sentence could turn Hussein into a martyr . Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner commented on the verdict on behalf of the European Commission : “While the EU is fundamentally opposed to the death penalty, the trial and punishment of Saddam mean that those who commit crimes against humanity do not benefit from justice The death of Saddam Hussein closed a “long and painful chapter in the history of Iraq”. His career and legacy show the "futility of a politics of violence and terror".

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed that the German government rejects the death penalty:

“Saddam Hussein has been convicted by an Iraqi court and the sentence has been carried out. We respect this judgment. But the federal government is known to be against the death penalty. On a day like this, my thoughts go primarily to the many innocent victims of Saddam Hussein. I wish the Iraqi people that they can go their way without violence and in peace. "

For the German federal government, Gernot Erler ( SPD ), Minister of State in the Foreign Office , showed understanding for the consent of the Iraqis concerned, but added on the RBB information radio: "But we are against the death penalty, no matter where it is used."

The execution was also strongly condemned by the Vatican . Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said it was "tragic news" and used the word "assassination". He went on to say that "there is a risk that this will stir up the spirit of vengeance and sow new violence." The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace , Curia Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino , told Vatican Radio : “I had been hoping for the past few days that it would be considered appropriate not to carry out the death sentence. I hope and pray that this last act will not contribute to worsening the already critical situation in Iraq, a country marked by many divisions and fraternal struggles. "

US President George W. Bush , on the other hand, praised the execution of Saddam Hussein as a “just punishment”. The execution was the result of a jurisprudence that the Iraqi ex-president withheld "the victims of his brutal regime", said Bush that night at his country residence in Texas.

The British government in turn criticized the execution on grounds of principle. "We advocate the global abolition of the death penalty, regardless of the crime," said Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett . Britain has made its rejection of the death penalty "very clear to the Iraqi government, but we respect their position," added the minister.

Russia has warned against the deterioration of the situation in Iraq because of the execution of Saddam Hussein. At the same time, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow regretted that international requests to suspend the execution had gone unheeded. "Like many other countries, Russia is in principle against the death penalty, for whatever motive it may have been imposed," the statement said.

Ban Ki-moon , the United Nations Secretary -General , surprisingly caused a scandal by declaring in a statement on the execution that a country was free to decide on executions. At a press conference, an employee promptly stated that executions were still being rejected by the United Nations. In Ban's home country, South Korea , the death penalty is used, but death sentences have not been carried out since 1998.

The execution of the death sentence in Iran and Kuwait was expressly welcomed , while a representative of the Palestinians spoke of political murder and the Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar al-Gaddafi ordered a three-day state mourning for his country. Israel’s Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres compared Saddam’s execution with the end of Adolf Hitler . The death of the ex-dictator, who represented a threat to the Middle East and world peace, was as predictable as Hitler's.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was angry at the international criticism: "The Iraqi government should perhaps reconsider its relations with those governments that do not respect the will of the Iraqi people."

FBI interrogations

In July 2009, FBI interrogations from 2003-2004 were published by the National Security Archive . Saddam Hussein named Iran and al-Qaeda as his enemies and the regime in North Korea as potential allies . As a big mistake he named u. a. the destruction of the weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s, which he otherwise could have used in the 2003 Iraq war. Hussein also gave details of the Gulf Wars. The FBI reports, however, did not include statements about the Iraq-US relationship in the 1980s, the chemical weapons attacks, and the CIA's role in the rise of the Ba'ath Party .

Personal

Resting place

The body was buried in Saddam Hussein's birthplace, the village of al-Audscha near Tikrit . Around 100 people attended the funeral, including the governor of Salah ad-Din province . The burial took place within 24 hours of death in accordance with Islamic beliefs. Hussein was buried under the dome of a tomb that he had built for himself and is right next to the Saddam mosque named after him. His two sons Udai and Qusai , who were killed by American soldiers in a battle in 2003, are buried nearby . Demonstrations for Hussein took place in the provincial cities. However, Iraqi police prevented the population from driving to the grave. The Saddam family wants to build a library and a Koran school near the mosque. The tomb was destroyed in the fighting between ISIS and Iraqi armed forces in March 2015, and Saddam Hussein's body was reburied in an unknown location by his supporters in 2014.

family

Buildings initiated by Saddam Hussein

filming

  • al-Ayyam al-tawila (The Long Days), 1980, Iraq, 6-hour epic about the life of Saddam Hussein
  • In 2008, the British miniseries House of Saddam (Eng. "The Husseins - In the Center of Power"), which is about the rise and fall of the Iraqi dictator, was created. The Israeli actor Jigal Naor can be seen in the lead role .
  • The Devil's Double , 2011, Belgium / Netherlands, literary film adaptation. He is played by Philip Quast .

Works

literature

  • Jean-Michel Cadiot: Quand l'Irak entra en guerre, la Qadissiyah de Saddam . L'Harmattan, 2000, ISBN 2-7384-0129-5 .
  • Andrew Cockburn, Patrick Cockburn: L'énigme Saddam - Enquête explosive au cœur du système Iraqi . First, 1999, ISBN 2-87691-446-8 .
  • Con Coughlin: Saddam Hussein. Portrait of a dictator. The biography , List Verlag, Munich, 2002, ISBN 978-3-471-77259-1 .
  • Angeli Mesnier: Notre allié Saddam . Orban, 1992, ISBN 2-85565-658-3 .
  • Mylroie Miller: Saddam Hussein . Presses de la Cité, 1993, ISBN 2-258-03369-1 .
  • Abdul Majid Saman: Les années Saddam . Fayard, 2003, ISBN 2-213-61751-1 .
  • Georges Sada, Jim Nelson Black: Saddam's Secrets. 25 years under a terror regime; as a Christian on the Iraqi General Staff . Brunnen Verlag, Gießen / Basel 2006, ISBN 978-3-7655-1939-0 .
    Title of the original American edition: Saddam's Secrets Verlag Integrity Publishers Brentwood USA
  • Latif Yahya : I was Saddam's son: as a doppelganger in the service of the Iraqi dictator Hussein . Goldmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-442-15249-6 .

Web links

Commons : Saddam Hussein  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Saddam Hussein  Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IRAQ: The Role of Tribes . cfr.org; accessed on January 28, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c Efraim Karsh. Inari Rautsi: Saddam Hussein - A political biography , New York, 1991, pp. 6-12.
  3. ^ Jerrold M. Post: Saddam Hussein of Iraq: A political profile . In: Jerrold M. Post (Ed.): The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders . Ann Arbor 2005, pp. 325-327.
  4. ↑ Shiva Balaghi: Saddam Hussein - A Biography , London 2006, pp. 1-7.
  5. ^ Friendship agreement with the Soviet Union, SZ, of May 17, 2010
  6. ^ George Black: Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds . Human Rights Watch, 1993, ISBN 978-1-56432-108-4 , pp. 4 ( google.de [accessed December 23, 2015]).
  7. ↑ Kenneth Anderson, Middle East Watch (Organization), Physicians for Human Rights (US): The Anfal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan: The Destruction of Koreme . Human Rights Watch, 1993, ISBN 978-0-300-05757-7 ( google.com [accessed December 23, 2015]).
  8. ↑ Forced Displacement and Arabization of Northern Iraq. The Mass Displacement of the mid-1970s. Human Rights Watch, accessed December 23, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Gillian Duncan, Orla Lynch, Gilbert Ramsay, Alison MS Watson: State Terrorism and Human Rights: International Responses since the End of the Cold War . Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-136-67967-4 , pp. 79 ( google.com [accessed December 23, 2015]).
  10. ^ The Kurdish Genocide - Achieving Justice through EU Recognition. (PDF) In: europarl.europa.eu. Pp. 2, 3 , accessed on December 23, 2015 (English).
  11. ↑ Winfried Sträter: Saddam's poison gas attacks on the Kurds. The Anfal offensive in Iraq in the late 1980s. Deutschlandradio Kultur , November 30, 2010; Retrieved June 7, 2016.
  12. ↑ BBC (ed.): Anfal: Campaign against the Kurds . June 24, 2007 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed December 23, 2015]).
  13. ^ Genocide In Iraq - The Anfal Campaign Against The Kurds. (PDF) Human Rights Watch , 1993, pp. 12, 17 , accessed December 23, 2015 (English, A Middle East Watch Report).
  14. ^ What Happened In The Kurdish Genocide. (No longer available online.) In: uk.gov.krd. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on December 23, 2015 .
  15. ^ Compensation for the victims of the Halabja poison gas massacre in 1988. (PDF) Printed matter 17/837. German Bundestag, March 15, 2010, accessed on May 16, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Iraq, Kuwait and Oil ( Memento from June 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Latif Yahia, Karl Wendel: I was Saddam's son . Munich 2003, p. 50.
  18. ^ The Guardian: Iraq nets handsome profit by dumping dollar for euro , The Guardian, February 16, 2003
  19. ↑ Berliner Zeitung: Saddam Hussein wants the euro , October 28, 2000
  20. ↑ Iraq War Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaida. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 9, 2006, accessed July 11, 2012 .
  21. ↑ First: Uranium Ammunition , February 3, 2013
  22. ↑ The end of the despot . Mirror online
  23. ↑ http://www.nzz.ch/2004/07/04/al/page-newzzDW8WKYZG-12.html In: NZZ , July 4, 2004.
  24. ^ The Mass Graves of al-Mahawil . Human Rights Watch , May 2003
  25. ↑ Saddam's Judges - A Tribunal by the Grace of America. Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 1, 2004, accessed on September 7, 2012 .
  26. ↑ How independent is the special tribunal? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 18, 2005.
  27. ↑ Great security precautions at Saddam trial: Kurdish leader rejects the death penalty for Saddam. Rheinische Post , July 1, 2004, accessed on September 7, 2012 .
  28. ^ Judge Rizgar Muhammad Amin resigns . ( Memento from January 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) In: NZZ , January 15, 2006.
  29. ↑ An impossible family . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 2010 ( online ).
  30. ↑ Right violated: Saddam lawyer turns on the US Supreme Court . news.at, July 9, 2004
  31. ↑ On legal and political problems cf. Stephen Lendman: A Trial Giving Kangaroos A Bad Name . ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) ZNet , November 8, 2006. Kai Ambos , Said Pirmurat: The death sentence against Saddam Hussein . (PDF) In: JuristenZeitung . Vol. 62, 2007, pp. 822-828
  32. ↑ Court sentences Hussein to death by hanging . Spiegel Online , November 5, 2006
  33. ↑ Turbulent negotiations in the Saddam process . ( Memento of March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: NZZ , December 6, 2005.
  34. ↑ Topics: Saddam Hussein . New York Times
  35. ↑ Saddam sentenced to death by hanging . Hamburger Abendblatt , November 5, 2006.
  36. ↑ Bush celebrates "young democracy" . n-tv.de, November 5, 2006.
  37. ^ Hussein executed with 'fear in his face' . CNN.com, December 30, 2006
  38. ^ CNN version of the amateur film with English subtitles , accessed December 31, 2006
  39. ↑ Iraq investigates video of Saddam Hussein's execution . ( Memento of January 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Netzeitung , January 2, 2007
  40. ↑ Hajj pilgrims outraged by execution . In: Der Standard , January 2, 2007.
  41. ↑ Saddam hanged at dawn spiegel.de, December 30, 2006.
  42. ^ John Simpson: Saddam hanging taunts evoke ugly past . BBC World Service , December 31, 2006; accessed January 1, 2007.
  43. ↑ Execution video is a bestseller , Spiegel Online, January 3, 2007.
  44. ^ Saddam Hussein executed, ending era in Iraq NBCnews.com, December 30, 2006.
  45. ↑ a b Joy, Rejection and Flagging of Mourning , Welt Online , December 30, 2006.
  46. ^ Statement by Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner on the passing of Saddam Hussein . Press release from the European Commission, Brussels, December 30, 2006.
  47. ↑ Reactions: Arab world outraged - EU: Saddam not a martyr . In: Der Standard , January 2, 2007.
  48. ^ Press statement by Chancellor Angela Merkel on the death of Saddam Hussein. ( Memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) bundesregierung.de, December 30, 2006
  49. ^ Vatican condemns Saddam's execution kath.net, December 30, 2006.
  50. ↑ Saddam execution: New UN chief because of comments on the death penalty in the criticism spiegel.de, January 3, 2007
  51. ↑ Death sentence carried out - Saddam Hussein executed . faz.net, December 31, 2006
  52. ↑ Iran welcomes execution - Libya proclaims state mourning . 20min.ch, December 31, 2006
  53. ↑ Saddam died with tirades of hate on his lips . In: Berliner Morgenpost , December 31, 2006
  54. ↑ Iraqi Defense: Maliki refuses to criticize Saddam's execution . Spiegel Online , January 6, 2007.
  55. ↑ Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI . gwu.edu
  56. ↑ Saddam already buried . ( Memento from October 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) n24.de, December 31, 2006
  57. ↑ Saddam buried . In: FAZ , January 2, 2006.
  58. ↑ Saddam Hussein's tomb destroyed as battle for Tikrit rages . In: The Guardian , March 16, 2015
  59. ↑ Saddam to be hanged by Sunday. Ex-dictator's execution expected to be carried out by the start of Eid holiday. NBS News . December 28, 2006, accessed June 7, 2016.
  60. ^ This edition also as a special edition of the state center for political education North Rhine-Westphalia with the same ISBN. All editions are abridged versions of The Political Mission of Islam. Programs and Criticism between Fundamentalism and Reforms. Original voices from the Islamic world. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1994. - Hussein's text comes from an original Baghdad source; it is undated.
personal data
SURNAME Hussein, Saddam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hussein Abd al-Madjid at-Tikriti, Saddam (full name); صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي (Arabic)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Iraqi dictator
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH al-Audscha , Salah ad-Din , Iraq
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 2006
Place of death Baghdad , Baghdad Province , Iraq