Jul 30, 2008
Saddam, frustrated step-son of a sadistic peasant, was the deputy of the Iraqi president, number two in a revolutionary regime that modernized the former British-protected kingdom. When his faction of the ruling Baath Party opposes the president's plan for a union with neighbor Syria, Saddam is able to seize power, and immediately proceeds to unprecedented purges, practicing blatant nepotism -especially Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti as security chief- and a reign of terror based on waves of executions of the 'guilty', the lukewarm and some others thrown in for good ...