“Saddam Hussein and the Arab Baath Socialist Party had held power in Iraq for twenty-three years, and everyone had learned to say the right thing with a straight face. It was any number of hanging offenses to say anything the Leader might object to. The criminal code listed twenty death-penalty ‘security’ crimes, including Article 225, which prescribed execution for anyone who blatantly and publicly insulted Saddam Hussein, the Baath Party, or the government leadership. The state employed five East German-trained security forces, the principal one being the huge Mukhabarat, or General Intelligence Bureau. The party permeated and controlled every government agency, university department, professional organization, and trade union. Almost everybody was spied upon by someone close at hand, or at least that is what everybody thought.”—Michael Kelly, Martyrs’ Day: Chronicle of a Small War (1993)
Saddam Hussein had served as Vice-President of Iraq under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, his Tikriti cousin, gradually assuming power as al-Bakr became increasingly infirm. Then, on this date in 1979, the power behind the throne decided to cut out the middleman. Though al-Bakr offered declining health as the reason for his resignation, rumors soon spread that he had been maneuvered out by Hussein under threat of force.
Without any impediment to power now, Saddam began to assemble the totalitarian state described briefly by American journalist Michael Kelly in Martyrs’ Day, an account of the first Gulf War. Within a year, the dictator had also involved his country in an eight-year war with Iran that may have resulted in as many as a million and a half casualties.
Kelly would go on to serve as editor of The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly. In 2003, he became the first American reporter to die in the more recent Iraq conflict.
Saddam Hussein had served as Vice-President of Iraq under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, his Tikriti cousin, gradually assuming power as al-Bakr became increasingly infirm. Then, on this date in 1979, the power behind the throne decided to cut out the middleman. Though al-Bakr offered declining health as the reason for his resignation, rumors soon spread that he had been maneuvered out by Hussein under threat of force.
Without any impediment to power now, Saddam began to assemble the totalitarian state described briefly by American journalist Michael Kelly in Martyrs’ Day, an account of the first Gulf War. Within a year, the dictator had also involved his country in an eight-year war with Iran that may have resulted in as many as a million and a half casualties.
Kelly would go on to serve as editor of The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly. In 2003, he became the first American reporter to die in the more recent Iraq conflict.
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