"Saddam", The Man who Confronted an Empire

As a typical example of a person who was exploited by the “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and later executed, Saddam deserves a fair amount of praise for his 30 year long rule in IRAQ.

At the Age of 21, Saddam joined the Baath Party and later, backed by the US, made an attempt to assassinate the leader Qaasim. He was shot in the leg, but managed his escape getting help from CIA again, to Tikrit his birthplace.

The growing fondness of Iraqi rulers to Communists was already unnerving the CIA, and so Iraq saw a coup by the Baath party overthrowing Qaasim. In no time, Saddam rose to the position of the Vice President of Iraq.

The year 1973 saw an energy crisis and resulted in skyrocketing of oil prices. This led to a phenomenal increase in revenues from oil trade, and Saddam used this to thrust his socialist agenda in Iraq. He led a campaign for “Compulsory Free Education in Iraq”, and many other programs aimed at modernizing the Iraqi society. He earned an award from UNESCO for giving Iraq one of the most modernized public health systems in the Middle East.

Saddam became personally associated with Ba'athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, widening his appeal both within his traditional base and among new sectors of the population. These programs were part of a combination of "carrot and stick" tactics to enhance support in the working class, the peasantry, and within the party and the government bureaucracy.

Saddam was a secular leader and did his best to thwart the ethnic crisis between the Shias and Sunnis in Iraq. In a bid to deal with the Kurdish separatists in the country Saddam strained his relations with Iran. The Kurds enjoyed the support of the Iranian Shah, which was withdrawan after Saddam entered into a treaty with Iran in 1975.

The Islamic republic in Iran led by Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shi’ite leader had a big following in the Sh’ite dominated areas in Iraq. The mounting tensions between Saddam and Ayatollah led to a full blown war between Iraq and Iran stretching over a period of 8 yrs.

In 1988,The Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or seriously debilitating 10,000 more. 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 and the US supported the claim until the early 1990s.

Also to raise money for postwar reconstruction, Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back oil production. Kuwait refused to cut production. In addition to refusing the request, Kuwait spearheaded the opposition in OPEC to the cuts that Saddam had requested. Kuwait was pumping large amounts of oil, and thus keeping prices low, when Iraq needed to sell high-priced oil from its wells to pay off a huge debt.

This was closely followed by the Gulf war and the rest of the story is known by the whole world.
The execution of Saddam, by far the goriest act of procaliming supeiority by the States over the rest of the world, has no wonder, raised voice of protests all over the world.

Saddam was a person who promulgated “Personality Cult”, rather than quarelling over religion. The reform measures initiated by him for Iraq, a Third World country like India, were unprecedented and unseen in the Middle East. He was unaffected by radical Islamic beliefs and supported India’s cause of Kashmir on all world forums.

Truly, a man of such deeds and such a stature, desereved a fair trial. He lies only to be written in the annals of world history,as another sacrifice on the altar of vested US interests.