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Saddam

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How did the impoverished boy from the middle of nowhere become Iraq's strongest dictator and its most brutal tyrant?

In a wonderful narrative and an attractive style Con Coughling answer this question as more as he sheds light on the life of deposed Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein in his book Saddam Hussein: The Secret Life.

Saddam's life might have been secret for many Westerners and even non-Iraqi Arabs, but for Iraqis, the stories of terror, corruption and palace conspiracies were everywhere. Coughlin did a marvelous job in documenting them and putting them together.

The book highlights Saddam's mastery of fist-fighting at first, which compensated his little intellect and political ability. That was one of the main reasons why the Baath Party's founders and mentors took him under their wing and elevated him to the highest of position: Saddam was ready and willing to terrorize others on behalf of the Baath and impose a harsh rule.

Eventually, Saddam, a hard worker fascinated by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, eliminated his own comrades and even family members. The book shows the downward way of Saddam and his family which ultimately led to their political isolation, the destruction of Iraq and finally hi own deposition.

As the manager of [...] and writer for other sites on Iraq I can say that Coughlin is well connected in the Middle East and his views are worth hearing.

Well, someone had to justify the almost totally unjustifiable (ie a 'liberation mission' for the Iraqis ends up killing over a million, producing mass homelessness and poverty, food and power shortages, etc) Iraq War. Coughlin attempts so here, portraying Saddam as a man just as draconian as Hitler and Stalin, claiming he funded and organised a large part of al-Qaeda and saying a load of other made-up rubbish with the intention of shocking the reader to the degree they would support the Iraq War. Don't read this.

This comprehensive biography takes us from Saddam Hussein's obscure birth in the late 1930's to late 2002, shortly before the 2003 Iraq War that removed the bloodthirsty tyrant from power.
The book reveals Saddam's millitary, logistical and finacial support for Al Qaida in the period before the 911 bombings of the Twin Towers, in New York.
Immediately after the atrocity by Al Qaida Saddam put Iraq on a war footing. Iraq's support for Al Qaida was certainly ample reason to justify a US attack on Iraq.
Saddam had a harsh and deprived childhood, much like fellow mass murderers Stalin and Hitler. He was strongly influenced by his maternal uncle Khairallah Tulfah, with whom Saddam lived for some years from when he was about nine. Khairallah was a strong Nazi sympathizer who was imprisoned for four years following following his part in the failed pro-Nazi coup of 1941.
He clearly was a strong influence on Saddam's political outlook. Khairallah authored a document published on Saddam's orders, many years later, in 1981, entitled "Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies".
The book covers Saddam's early career as a street thug, and his first political murder in 1958.
It also covers important events in Iraq's modern political history, and Saddam's rise to power such as:
*The 1958 Free Officers Revolution, in which the young King Faisel II and his family were massacred, and the monarchy deposed, and General Abdul Karim Qassem installed as dictator, with the support of the Iraqi Communist Party.
* The failed 1959 coup nationalist against Qasem, which led to a brutal orgy of rape, looting and mass murder by the Communists against the nationalists and their families.
* Saddam's exile in Egypt after his attempted assasination of Qassem.
* The 1963 Baathist-suported coup which brought Abdul Salim Arif to power, and led to street battles between the Baathists (of which Saddam was a member) and the Communists.
It was at this time that Saddam returned to Iraq and played a part in the bloody revenge by Baathists against the Communists for the earlier Communist purges.
Saddam's execution of so many Communists makes the support he was to recieve in the 90's and early 2000's from Communists and leftists around the world all the more strange.
* The 1968 coup that finally brought the Baath Party to power, under Ahmad Hassan al Bakr, in the aftermath of Iraq and other Arab Sate's ignominious defeat by little Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
Shortly afterwards there took place public hangings in Baghdad of Jews, who were accused of being 'Zionist spies.
In the early 1970's the Baath regime formed an alliance with Moscow, despite Bakr and Saddam's dislike of Communism. Saddam rapidly rose in power in the Baath regime and took a great interest in Iraq's development of deadly chemical weapons.
The book details his admiration of Hitler and Stalin, and his modelling of his leadership on these tyrants. By 1976 Saddam was the de facto leader of Iraq, and in his quest for chemical weapons, Iraq turned their attention to Germany, described by Coughlin as 'the spiritual home of poison gas'- part of the reason for Iraq's drive for chemical weapons was their desire to destroy Israel. At a meeting with the East Germans an Iraqi official was unapologetic about Iraq's intentions: " You Germans have great expertise in the killing of Jews with gas. This interests us in the same way...How can this knowledge...be used to destroy Israel?"
In 1979 Saddam formally took power, quietly getting rid of Bakr. His rise to power was accompanied by Stalinesque purges.
Grotesque tortures of men, women and children were a common feature throughout Saddam's rule. "There were well documented cases of of women being tortured in front of their families, or of husbands and children being tortured in front of their wives or mothers...Another female survivor of Saddam's torture chamber revealed how sexual torture was commonly used against both women and children, and of children being placed in sacks with starving cats".
The author writes of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)and Saddam's use of chemical warfare against the Iranian population, and the Halbabja Massacre of 1988, in which Saddam butchered thousands of Kurds, with the use of chemical weapons.
The book also details Saddam's construction of masive palces modelled on ancient Babylon and his identification of himself with Nebudchadnezzar and Saladin.
The author also details Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, and the mass murder, rape and torture of Kuwaitis by Iraqi troops.
It also outlines Saddam's suport of international terrorism, his sponsorship of the Abu Nidal terrorist group, and his sponsoring of suicide bombings of civillian tasrgets in Israel.
The book is a chilling portrayal of a bloodthirsty monster and mass murderer in the mould of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Omar El Bashir and Robert Mugabe.
It undoubtedly provides an explanation why this madman had to be removed.