Before bringing war, Saddam brought stability

updated 4:18 p.m. ET Oct. 18, 2005

Just over two years ago, he was likening himself to an ancient emperor and urging Iraqis to hold their swords high to resist invasion. Now, sitting in a prison cell, Saddam Hussein faces the start of a public trial Wednesday that could lead to his execution.

Saddam has been a consummate survivor in Iraq’s cutthroat politics, but even his staunchest supporters no longer harbor much hope of bringing him back.

Some of his fellow Sunni Arabs complain that his trial — pushed by the now-governing Shiites and Kurds that the dictator often persecuted — is designed mostly to settle old scores, and the proceeding could further inflame Iraq’s sectarian tensions.

Saddam himself was always quite willing to do so.

During his 23 years in power, he ruled brutally, displaying a savage willingness to crush anyone who questioned his position or even just displeased him.

He challenged the world community repeatedly, but went too far in a final showdown with the United States. He ended up with U.S. troops not only in his capital, but living in the palaces he built to glorify his rule.

In eight months as a fugitive, Saddam taunted American soldiers in audiotapes carrying exhortations to his people that helped fuel the start of the insurgency. That ended near his hometown of Tikrit when U.S. troops found him hiding in a cellar with unkempt hair and beard.

Since then, he has been seen mostly in humiliating photos taken in jail and leaked to the media — or in brief court sessions where he has shown defiance while denying charges leveled against him.

From rags to ruling
Saddam was born April 28, 1937, a fatherless peasant boy who clawed and killed his way up from poverty to power.

In 1959, he was on an assassination team that ambushed Iraqi strongman Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem in Baghdad, wounding him. Saddam, himself wounded in the leg, fled Iraq. But he returned after the Arab Baath Socialist Party killed Kassem in a 1964 coup he helped organize.

Saddam quickly became the power behind the country’s new leader, a cousin on his mother’s side, and eventually pushed the cousin aside in July 1979. After the ouster, Saddam had 22 high officials executed, participating in the firing squad himself.

AP file Saddam in 1971, shortly after he initiated social, educational and economic reforms in Iraq.

He established a ruthless dictatorship, dominating through fear and murder even as he portrayed himself as the loving father of a nation.

During his bloody 1980-88 war with Iran, he persecuted groups in his own country for dealing with the neighboring country. Campaigns to suppress rebellious Kurds in the 1980s left 180,000 people missing and presumed dead. Saddam also used chemical weapons to kill 5,000 Kurds in the north and sent tanks to crush dissent among Shiite Muslims in the south.

Stories of abuse, such as children being tortured in front of their parents, were rife.

But his rule also brought the longest period of internal stability to his coup-plagued country, which was created by the British after World War I with a volatile mix of Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Kurds and minority tribes.

MORE FROM CONFLICT IN IRAQ

Conflict in Iraq Section Front

Iraq reacts sharply to U.S. spying report   VP candidates' sons headed to Iraq U.S. spied on Iraqi leaders, book says   Bush set to announce Iraq troop levels Obama: Iraq surge exceeds expectations Abu Ghraib museum to ignore U.S. abuse Conflict in Iraq Section Front   Add Conflict in Iraq headlines to your news reader: