About a hundred unsuspecting Ba'athist party members sat listening to their newly installed president, Saddam Hussein , denouncing a conspiracy against him.
Suddenly a man was brought before the conference, bearing the marks of torture and the vacant expression of a broken mind and soul. One by one, 50 names were called out, each man escorted from the room by uniformed guards.
It was a chilling sight. The remaining members, now visibly afraid, started chanting vociferous allegiance to Saddam in the hope of avoiding the fate of their colleagues. Journalist Christopher Hitchens compared the shocking scene to the Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany, when Hitler ordered a similar purge of his own perceived opponents in There were comparisons with Joseph Stalin , due to the way he moulded the Iraqi political structure into a one-party system, ruled by a small elite comprising close friends and family.
But his penchant for public violence would remain a notable difference. Unimpeachable ignorance and no moral compass. Trump does that so good. Contact us at letters time. Trump, roughly: Saddam Hussein was thiiiiiiiiis good at killing terrorists.
TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Related Stories. Already a print subscriber? Go here to link your subscription. Need help? Visit our Help Center. Go here to connect your wallet. By early August , hundreds of Saddam's political foes had been executed. The same year that Saddam ascended to the presidency, Ayatollah Khomeini led a successful Islamic revolution in Iraq's neighbor to the northeast, Iran.
Saddam, whose political power rested in part upon the support of Iraq's minority Sunni population, worried that developments in Shi-ite majority Iran could lead to a similar uprising in Iraq. In response, on September 22, , Saddam ordered Iraqi forces to invade the oil-rich region of Khuzestan in Iran. The conflict soon blossomed into an all-out war, but Western nations and much of the Arab world, fearful of the spread of Islamic radicalism and what it would mean to the region and the world, laid their support firmly behind Saddam, despite the fact that his invasion of Iran clearly violated international law.
During the conflict, these same fears would cause the international community to essentially ignore Iraq's use of chemical weapons, its genocidal dealing with its Kurdish population and its burgeoning nuclear program. On August 20, , after years of intense conflict that left hundreds of thousands dead on both sides, a ceasefire agreement was finally reached. In the aftermath of the conflict, seeking a means of revitalizing Iraq's war-ravaged economy and infrastructure, at the end of the s, Saddam turned his attention toward Iraq's wealthy neighbor, Kuwait.
Using the justification that it was a historical part of Iraq, on August 2, , Saddam ordered the invasion of Kuwait. A UN Security Council resolution was promptly passed, imposing economic sanctions on Iraq and setting a deadline by which Iraqi forces must leave Kuwait. When the January 15, deadline was ignored, a UN coalition force headed by the United States confronted Iraqi forces, and a mere six weeks later, had driven them from Kuwait. A ceasefire agreement was signed, the terms of which included Iraq dismantling its germ and chemical weapons programs.
The previously imposed economic sanctions levied against Iraq remained in place. Despite this and the fact that his military had suffered a crushing defeat, Saddam claimed victory in the conflict. The Gulf War's resulting economic hardships further divided an already fractured Iraqi population.
During the s, various Shi-ite and Kurdish uprisings occurred, but the rest of the world, fearing another war, Kurdish independence in the case of Turkey or the spread of Islamic fundamentalism did little or nothing to support these rebellions, and they were ultimately crushed by Saddam's increasingly repressive security forces. At the same time, Iraq remained under intense international scrutiny as well.
In , when Iraqi forces violated a no-fly zone imposed by the United Nations, the United States launched a damaging missile attack on Baghdad. In , further violations of the no-fly zones and Iraq's alleged continuation of its weapons programs led to further missile strikes on Iraq, which would occur intermittently until February Members of the Bush administration had suspected that the Hussein government had a relationship with Osama bin Laden 's al Qaeda organization.
In his January State of the Union address, U. President George W. Bush named Iraq as part of his so-called "Axis of Evil," along with Iran and North Korea, and claimed that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism. Later that year, UN inspections of suspected weapons sites in Iraq began, but little or no evidence that such programs existed was ultimately found.
Despite this, on March 20, , under the pretense that Iraq did in fact have a covert weapons program and that it was planning attacks, a U. Within weeks, the government and military had been toppled, and on April 9, , Baghdad fell.
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