* 1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western " guests " ( actually hostages ) to try to prevent the Gulf War.

* 1980 – The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein kills philosopher Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Bint al-Huda after three days of torture.

* 2003 – 2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad falls to American forces ; Saddam Hussein statue topples as Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader, pulling down the statue and tearing it to pieces.

During major breaking news events, the BBC News Channel has been broadcast on BBC One ; examples of special broadcasts include the 11 September 2001 attacks, 7 July 2005 London bombings, the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the death of Osama bin Laden.

Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is currently experiencing the transition from a command economy under Hussein to a free market economy.

Saddam Hussein at his Trial of Saddam Hussein | trial in 2004.

* 2006 – Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi Dictator, ( executed for war crimes ) ( b. 1937 )

* 2003 – Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit ( see Operation Red Dawn ).

Ba ' ath Party founder Michel Aflaq ( left ) with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ( right ) in 1988.

Ba ' athist heads of state such as Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein created personality cults around themselves portraying themselves as the nationalist saviours of the Arab world.

Ba ' athist Iraq under Saddam Hussein pursued ethnic cleansing or liquidation of minorities, pursued expansionist wars against Iran and Kuwait, and gradually replaced pan-Arabism with an Iraqi nationalism that emphasized Iraq's connection to the glories of ancient Mesopotamian empires, including Babylonia.

Historian of fascism Stanley Payne has said about Saddam Hussein's regime: " There will probably never again be a reproduction of the Third Reich, but Saddam Hussein has come closer than any other dictator since 1945 ".

The CIA's Special Activities Division created successful guerrilla forces from the Hmong tribe during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, from the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan in 2001, and from the Kurdish Peshmerga against Ansar al-Islam and the forces of Saddam Hussein during the war in Iraq in 2003.

The Republic was controlled by Saddam Hussein from 1979 to 2003, into which period falls into the war with Iran and the Gulf War.

Saddam Hussein was deposed following the 2003 US-led invasion of the country.

When Saddam Hussein failed to comply with this demand, the Gulf War ( Operation " Desert Storm ") ensued on January 17, 1991.

Although they presented a serious threat to the Iraqi Ba ' ath Party regime, Saddam Hussein managed to suppress the rebellions with massive and indiscriminate force and maintained power.

Saddam Hussein, who vanished in April, was captured on December 13, 2003.

There have been concerns that the country has become condemned " to repeat the undemocratic cycle which began in the 1920s and eventually produced the Saddam Hussein regime.

Before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Ba ' ath Party officially ruled.

* Soon after the arrest of the Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat who has been convicted of complicity in war crimes for selling raw materials for the production of chemical weapons to Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein, Dutch newspapers reported that Van Anraat had been an informer of the Dutch secret service AIVD and has enjoyed AIVD's protection.

It was reported that the check was hand-delivered to Mr. Strong by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who in 2006 was convicted in New York federal court of conspiring to bribe U. N. officials to rig Oil-for-Food in favor of Saddam Hussein.

Seven people have been awarded the key to the city of Detroit: Santa Claus ( given annually at the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade ), actor James Earl Jones, Sesame Street character Elmo, neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson, football star Jerome Bettis, businessman and sports team owner Mike Ilitch, and — in 1980, in recognition of large donations to a church — former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

* Qusay Hussein, Iraqi businessman, second son of Saddam Hussein

He resigned as Co-Chairman of Freedom Works in March 2005 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) questioned his ties to Samir Vincent, a Northern Virginia oil trader implicated in the U. N. Oil-for-food scandal who pled guilty to four criminal charges, including illegally acting as an unregistered lobbyist of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.

His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam, which in Arabic means " One who confronts "; he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements.

He never knew his father, Hussein ' Abid al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born.

Saddam, who would prove to be a skilled organiser, revitalised the party.

Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, an Iraqi general and friend of Saddam who defected in 1991, has alleged that the Soviet Union covertly assisted the Iraqi Ba ' athists in gaining and holding onto power in the sixties.

In 1991 Saddam threatened to expose those who had taken largesse from him: " From Mr. Chirac to Mr. Chevènement, politicians and economic leaders were in open competition to spend time with us and flatter us.

However, after Saddam had negotiated the 1975 treaty with Iran, the Shah withdrew support for the Kurds, who suffered a total defeat.

However, when Khomeini began to urge the Shi ' ites there to overthrow Saddam and under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in 1978 to France.

The only exception was the Soviet Union, who initially refused to supply Iraq on the basis of neutrality in the conflict, although in his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev claimed that Leonid Brezhnev refused to aid Saddam over infuriation of Saddam's treatment of Iraqi communists.

As one U. S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about Saddam's record and concentrated on America ... Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct him.

The international community, especially the U. S., continued to view Saddam as a bellicose tyrant who was a threat to the stability of the region.

Iraqis and Americans who spoke with Saddam after his capture generally reported that he remained self-assured, describing himself as a " firm, but just leader.

:* Uday Hussein ( 18 June 1964 – 22 July 2003 ), was Saddam's oldest son, who ran the Iraqi Football Association, Fedayeen Saddam, and several media corporations in Iraq including Iraqi TV and the newspaper Babel.

INA membership consisted largely of military and security personnel who had defected from the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein's rule.

The expression was used at least once, though, by Vice President Dick Cheney, in a June 2003 speech in which he said, " If there is anyone in the world today who doubts the seriousness of the Bush Doctrine, I would urge that person to consider the fate of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

During the Gulf War, he visited Baghdad to persuade Saddam Hussein to release the hostages who had been captured.

Saddam Hussein's government detained hundreds of citizens of Western countries who were in Iraq for use as human shields in an attempt to deter nations from participating in military operations against the country.

On March 12, 2009, Gaffney appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and accused former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of being involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing, " There is also circumstantial evidence, not proven by any means, but nonetheless some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence of Saddam Hussein's Iraq being involved with the people who perpetrated both the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and even the Oklahoma City bombing.

Saddam ( Arabic: صدام, Ṣaddām ; ) is an Arabic name which means " One who confronts ", other meanings include: " One who frequently causes collisions ", " Powerful collider ", " One who causes a collision that had bad results ", " Powerful confronter ", " One who frequently crashes ", or " Powerful commander ".