I think Pipes is a good source of information and analysis. But here's a couple of other sources which depict Saddam as something other than an American puppet as you claim him to be.
news.bbc.co.uk
Saddam Hussein: his rise to power
By Gerald Butt
The path to power
The Iraqi president was born in a village just outside Takrit in April 1937. In his teenage years, Saddam immersed himself in the anti-British and anti-Western atmosphere of the day. At college in Baghdad he joined the Baath party and in 1956 he took part in an abortive coup attempt.
After the overthrow of the monarchy two years later Saddam connived in a plot to kill the prime minister, Abdel-Karim Qassem. But the conspiracy was discovered, and Saddam fled the country.
In 1963, with the Baath party in control in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein returned home and began jostling for a position of influence. During this period he married his cousin Sajida. They later had two sons and three daughters.
But within months, the Baath party had been overthrown and Saddam was jailed, remaining there until the party returned to power in a coup in July 1968. Showing ruthless determination that was to become a hallmark of his leadership, Saddam gained a position on the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.
For years he was the power behind the ailing figure of the president, Ahmed Hassan Bakr. In 1979, Saddam achieved his ambition of becoming head of state. The new president started as he intended to go on - putting to death dozens of his rivals.
megastories.com
In 1959, he was involved in an attempt to assassinate Qassim himself. Iraqi propaganda now portrays Saddam as a fearless and effective commando leader who stitched his own bullet wounds up with his own hand, and covered for his wounded colleagues. As usual, there is another version - that he played only a very minor role and was hardly injured at all.
In any case, he fled to Egypt where he spent four years from 1959 to 1963. He returned to Iraq after a military coup launched the Baath Party into power in a shaky coalition.
They only ruled for nine months before they fell but Saddam got his first prolonged taste of political violence and it obviously appealed to him. He became an interrogator and torturer at the infamous 'Palace of the End', the royal residence in Baghdad which was turned into a torture chamber under the Baathist regime.
Saddam was jailed in October 1964 and remained there until he managed to escape sometime in 1966. By this time he was a leading member of the Baath Party.
Two years later, the Baath Party returned to power. Saddam's cousin General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became president and head of the Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam, aged 31, became deputy chairman of the council. He had earned a fearsome reputation as a political thug and he quickly moved to strengthen his position within the party.
By 1973, Saddam as officially vice-president of Iraq. He was seen by many as the real ruler of the country as Bakr took more and more of a back seat role.
Eventually, on July 16th 1979, Bakr was announced to have retired from public life and Saddam was confirmed Iraq's new president. Six days later, he staged the most extraordinary political spectacle when he condemned at least 20 of the leading members of the party and army officers to death for a conspiracy. |
