- Ruled as a ruthless dictator
- He was the president, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), Prime Minister, and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces all at the same time
- He learned to rule like Stalin and was very similiar to him as well
Purges
- After Saddam became president, he immediately set out to remove anyone who threatened or were against him
- Mashadi was the most prominent of the people opposing Saddam, being the Secretary General of the RCC who demanded a vote on whether or not Saddam's succession was valid
- Mashadi was thrown out of the government for the supposed reason that he was plotting to overthrow the government
- On 22 July 1977, Saddam met with high-ranking party members where Mashadi had to confess his made-up crimes and named 66 people he was supposedly plotting with. 55 were found guilty, with 22 executions and 33 prison sentences
- In addition to this, hundreds of military officers and the people all across Iraq were purged and even executed, with the constant fear of being falsely accused of crimes
War on his own people
- Saddam aimed to unify Iraq, which was difficult because the Kurds (20% of the population) in the north wanted independence and the Shiites (60% of the population) were hostile to the predominantly Sunni Islamic regime (who had different Islamic beliefs)
- Saddam used a mixture of diplomacy and military force like the previous governments, just with more brutal methods
- He launched campaigns against the Kurds and were the most brutal in 1987-8 and 1991. These were some of the effects
- He launched campaigns against the Kurds and were the most brutal in 1987-8 and 1991. These were some of the effects
- Thousands of Kurds were killed with chemical weapons (mustard gas and cyanide)
- 1,000,000+ people were forced to leave their homes, many fleeing to Iran or Turkey and others living in concentration camps with harsh conditions in the desert
- The attack on Halabja (town) in March 1988 was devastating, with poison gas released by planes killing 5,000 people and injuring a further 10,000
- He then launched campaigns against the Shiites in 1991, which were also very brutal
- Revolts had spread from Basra to other cities, the holy Najaf and Karbala
- The Republic Guard executed and arrested protestors after breaking into their bases and shot them down on the street. This included women and children
- Civilians were tied to tanks so that their bodies could cruelly protect the tanks
- The Marsh Arabs in south-east Iraq were attacked in 1991 as well
- Saddam wanted to build a new waterway at the cost of destroying the wetlands and forcing the people to move
- Some Marsh Arabs moved on their own will, while those who didn't starved as their food sources were destroyed and were attacked by gas weapons
- The population of Marsh Arabs went from 250,000 to around only 30,000
Saddam's Personality Cult
- Saddam realised that he needed popularity from the people and not just terror to ensure that his reign lasted for long
- He made efforts to portray himself as a father-like and powerful leader with propaganda
- A permanent exhibition dedicated to Saddam was set up in Baghdad
- Newspapers, magazines, and films often highlighted his life story and early life
- Short film "The Long Days" was made by the Ministry of Information which talked about the story of Saddam's attempted assasination against Abdul Karim Qaseem
- The press, radio, and TV highlighted Saddam and his achievements
- Portraits of Saddam filled the streets and offices and murals, paintings, and status made it even more clear that Saddam was the leader of the country
- Streets and squares were named after Saddam
- By early 1980s, around 200 songs were made praising Saddam and the news on TV would play one of these
- Saddam often disguised himself and visited the people to see their views on him and their policies. The people he visited pretended not to have known he was Saddam and talked about how wonderful his rule was until Saddam revealed his identity
- Later on, in order to attend events, Saddam used lookalikes who were trained to act like Saddam visit the people instead
Modernisation
- After the oil industry was nationalised in 1972, revenues increased greatly from $476M to $26B from 1972 to 1980
- Finances were improved a lot, and were able to afford resources needed to launch campaigns to modernise the economy, facilities, and institutions
- The wealth also contributed to increasing wages, lowering taxes, and the funding of food industries to keep prices low
- More improvements included...
- More electrification: Access to electricity even reached rural areas and villages, and poor families even recieved TVs and fridges as gifts
- Heavy Industry: Saddam developed heavy industry involving steel, petrochemicals (chemicals made from petroleum and natural gas), and coal. Big industrial facilities were st up at al-Zubair and Basra
- Railroads and oil pipelines: Railroads and oil pipelines were constructed connecting across the country which ends of the railway in Syria and Turkey
- Media: New radio and TV network was set up and further spread government propaganda
- Social change: Schools, houses, and hospitals were built on a large scale and much more people enrolled schools and university. This campaign aimed to end illiteracy among adults, and treatment in hospitals became free.
- These changes caused Saddam to be supported by the people
- However, in the early 1980s, military was the priority of spendings as Iraq became involved in the Iran-Iraq War
Military expansion
- The oil revenues were not only able to help modernise the country, but also make Iraq a strong military power
- Iraq received conventional arms (weapons not aimed for mass destruction) mainly from the USSR and France, but also many other European powers in addition to Yugoslavia and Brazil
- Saddam used revenues to buy tanks, bombers, helicopters, transport aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, artillery, and electronic equipment
- With these additions, the army increased from 10 to 12 divisions
- Saddam wanted to gather a large collection of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, which are weapons aiming for mass destruction
- The first chemical warfare plant was created nea Akashat on July 1979
- During 1980s, Distilled Mustard (a gas causing pain in the skin, eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, stomach...), Tabun and VX (chemicals attacking the nervous system) were produced at large quantities with the support of companies overseas
- The biological weapons industry increased greatly and were made to spread anthrax, typhoid, and cholera
- The nuclear campaign was less successful as the Osiraq research reactor bought in 1976 had been demolished during an Israeli bombing raid in June 1981. Development of nuclear weapons after this was ineffective because of Allied bombing raids in the Gulf War in 1990
Totalitarianism
- Saddam succeeding in his aim to achieve absolute power in Iraq
- Saddam's government controlled almost everything in Iraq
- Children in schools and the members of the many Baath Party Youth organisations were taught to worship Saddam and Baath ideas were instilled in the children
- Views criticising Saddam were censored through tight control over communications. It was also a capital offence (meaning crime punishable by death) to criticise the government or oppose it in an opposition party
- The verdicts of special courts (running under the president) would be approved by Saddam
- The economy consisted of both state and privately controlled enterprises. However, all production geared towards what the state needed
- To enter a university or college of higher education or to have a career in the army or of the civil service (those employed by the government considered to have an essential civilian job), you had to have membership in the Baath Party
- He ruled together with a small amount of others which consisted of trusted members of the party and his relatives
- Opponents were exterminated
- Saddam was presented as a role model who cared for his family greatly
- His rule brought stability domestically, at the cost of the threat and terror of being deemed a criminal for even a small remark
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