Wake up . Under Saddam Iraq was a little heaven
The truth hurts but it is there to see .
Saddam's rise to power:
"Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon accumulated a powerful circle of support within the party.
Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.
Saddam claimed to have found a fifth column within the Ba'ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators.
The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently tried together and found guilty of treason. 22 were sentenced to execution. Other high-ranking members of the party formed the firing squad. By 1 August 1979, hundreds of high-ranking Ba'ath party members had been executed."
Saddam's Ideals:
"Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia courts."
Saddam's Politics:
"Domestic conflict impeded Saddam's modernizing projects. Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity"
Saddam's Fears:
"In 1979 Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The influence of revolutionary Shi'ite Islam grew apace in the region, particularly in countries with large Shi'ite populations, especially Iraq. Saddam feared that radical Islamic ideas—hostile to his secular rule—were rapidly spreading inside his country among the majority Shi'ite population."
Saddam's Solutions:
"Saddam sought to combine pan-Arabism and Iraqi nationalism, by promoting the vision of an Arab world united and led by Iraq.
As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam's personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq.
Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca... but also appeared in Western suits..."
Saddam's War:
"Iraq was also stuck with a war debt of roughly $75 billion[citation needed]. Borrowing money from the U.S. was making Iraq dependent on outside loans, embarrassing a leader who had sought to define Arab nationalism."
Saddam's Embarrasment:
"Saddam also borrowed a tremendous amount of money from other Arab states during the 1980s to fight Iran, mainly to prevent the expansion of Shiite radicalism. However, this had proven to completely backfire both on Iraq and on the part of the Arab states, for Khomeini was praised as a hero for managing to defend Iran and maintain the war with little foreign support against the heavily backed Iraq, and only managed to boost Islamic radicalism in the Arab states."
The Gulf War:
"On 2 August 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, thus sparking an international crisis.
Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the brutality of the conflict that this had engendered, laid the groundwork for postwar rebellions. In the aftermath of the fighting, social and ethnic unrest among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units threatened the stability of Saddam's government. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish north and Shi'a southern and central parts of Iraq, but were ruthlessly repressed.
The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, did nothing to assist the rebellions."
The U.S. continued to view Saddam as a bellicose tyrant who was a threat to the stability of the region. Saddam, meanwhile, was embittered by the aftermath of the Gulf War, which he viewed as a betrayal by a nation that once considered him an indispensable ally"
Saddam's Flip Flop:
"Saddam increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), in Saddam's handwriting, was added to the national flag."
Saddam's Last Words:
"Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will send it to heaven with the martyrs, or, He will postpone that ... so let us be patient and depend on Him against the unjust nations.
God is Great ... God is great ... Long live our nation ... Long live our great struggling people ... Long live Iraq, long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine ... Long live jihad and the mujahedeen"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein