* 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.

* 2003 – U. S. troops capture Baghdad ; Saddam Hussein's regime falls two days later.

A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba ' ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba ' ath Party and its regional organisation Ba ' ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba ' athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.

A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.

The United States now maintains that Saddam ordered the attack to terrorize the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, but Saddam's regime claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for the attack which some including the U. S. supported until several years later.

When later asked why he invaded Kuwait, Saddam first claimed that it was because Kuwait was rightfully Iraq's 19th province and then said " When I get something into my head I act.

Following his capture on 13 December Saddam was transported to a U. S. base near Tikrit, and later taken to the U. S. base near Baghdad.

She was originally the wife of an Iraqi Airways executive, but later became the mistress of Saddam.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter later accused some UNSCOM personnel of spying, and also alleged that the purpose of the spying was to target Saddam in the bombing.

Gegeo had recently introduced Saddam to a younger woman, Samira Shahbandar, who later became Saddam's second wife.

Saddam later appointed Uday head of the Iraqi Olympic committee and soccer federation, and subsequently the head of one of Saddam's security organizations.

Immediately thereafter, Saddam had several top members of the Ba ' ath party arrested and later executed under the allegations of espionage.

Two days later, Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti announced Zubeidi's death at his trial, complaining that they were both suffering from cancer and that he did not want to end up dead like Zubeidi because of what he claimed was poor medical treatment.

The same book was later re-published in Britain with the title Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession.

While only a small proportion of this is alleged to have come from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, it draws particular attention to photographs which it claims WRP members were instructed to take of demonstrations of opponents of Saddam Hussein, and it states were later handed to the Iraqi embassy.

Seven years later, Operation Bramble Bush II once again targeted Saddam.

Until Saddam Hussein rose to power later in the 20th century, Kurds in Iraq were allowed to perform as they wished, so long as music did not encroach on politics.

Two years later, as war with the western powers loomed, Saddam Hussein recognized Iranian rights over the eastern half of the Shatt al-Arab, a reversion to the status quo ante bellum that he had repudiated a decade earlier.

The most well known and highly regarded dissident in Communist Czechoslovakia and later President of democratic Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Václav Havel spoke in favour of a projected American and Allied invasion of Iraq as early as September 2002, stating that " Saddam Hussein's regime poses a major threat to many nations and to his own people ... there should be international intervention.

Ledeen's statements prior to the start of the Iraq war such as " desperately needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein " and " dire need to invade Iraq " make his later statement that he " opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place " to be an " outright lie " to Glenn Greenwald.

Captain Myles Bly Mire, an American Gladiators alumnus, was later involved with the capture of Saddam Hussein's nephew.

Several days later, when it became clear that Saleh had been involved in military actions against Shi ' ites under Saddam Hussein, US forces announced that Muhammed Latif would instead lead the brigade.

( Gelbart 1996: 18 ) Many of the vehicles were later used by Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War.