Standard: American English
Language level: Advanced
Saddam Hussein
By Aamer Madhani
His regime murdered at least 300.000 of his countrymen, according to estimates by human-right groups. But Saddam also left a legacy in his country as a sort of Mesopotamian revolutionary: a nationalist leader who stood up to the American superpower.
He was born April 28, 1937, to a poor family in the village of al-Awja, near the city of Tikrit. His father died before he was born, and he was sent to live with his maternal uncle.
In 1957, he joined the Baath Party. Two years after, he was found complicity in a failed assassination attempt against President Abdul Karim Qasim, and was forced to flee to Egypt. He returned to Iraq in 1963 after the country’s first Baathist Regime took power in a coup. Five years later, a relative of Saddam’s became president of the Revolutionary Command Council and he took charge of the nation’s security apparatus. On July 15, 1979, Saddam forced Al-Bakr to retire and was sworn in as Iraq’s president.
From his ascension to the presidency, western governments including the United States –recognized Saddam as a ruthless strongman, but someone they could do business with. During the 1980s, the U.S. government tolerated Saddam because they had a common enemy in the Shiite theocracy that ruled Iran. In September 1980, Saddam launched an invasion, setting off an eight year war in which the U.S. supported his country by providing satellite intelligence and refusing to sell the Iranian military spare parts for its mostly American made weaponry.
In August 1990, Saddam’s troops invaded another oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait. That was when the U.S. government stopped supporting him. From 1991 to the end of Saddam’s regime in April 2003, Iraq lived under paralyzing United Nations sanctions that turned the oil-rich country into a Middle East backwater. But it wasn’t until the September 11th, 2001 attacks that the U.S truly focused on ousting Saddam. After the Taliban was ousted, Bush cited evidence that Iraq had attempt to buy weapons grade uranium in Africa, underscoring the need to take with action against Saddam. The allegation later proved to be unfounded.
Without U.N. backing and with a relatively small band of allies, the U.S. began the air assault on Baghdad on March 20, 2003. For more than eight months, Saddam remained on the lam. On December 13th, 2003, U.S. Army soldiers caught him crouched in a hole dug in the floor of a mud hut where he hid with a a pistol and several hundred thousand dollars in cash. He was executed on December 30th 2006 for the homicide of 148 Shiites in 1982. AE.
Vocabulary:
Stood up to: To resist or refuse to be cowed by somebody or to refuse to back down; remain solid.
Baath Party: The Arab Socialist Party was founded in 1947 as a radical, secular Arab-Nationalist Political Party.
Complicit: Involved in something illegal or wrong.
Flee: To escape by running away, especially because of danger or fear.
Apparatus: An organization or system, especially a political one.
Sworn in (Phrasal verb,participle of swear) in: To induct into office by administration of an oath.
Ruthless: Without mercy or pitty.
Shiite: A member of the second largest religious movement within Islam, which is based on the belief that Ali, a member of Mohammed’s family, and the teachers who came after him, were the true religious leader.
Theocracy: Government of a state by immediate Divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided.
Set (ting) off: Set in motion or cause to begin.
Crouch (ed) Regular verb: With our knees bent so that you are close to the ground a leaning toward slightly.
Mud hut: Temporary military shelter made of soft wet earth.
