Human rights in pre-Saddam Iraq in self-defence and for liberation. In the decade following the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, various regimes ruled the country, each responsible for the government's treatment of its citizens and for protecting citizens, until the 1968 coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power with Saddam Hussein as one of the coup leaders: The second regime of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party began with a coup in July 1968, with Saddam Hussein, one of the leaders of the coup, growing in power and eventually assuming the presidency of the country in 1979. He was overthrown in the United
Interrogation of Saddam Hussein became President, and Saddam became his deputy. In 1979, Saddam Hussein displaced General Bakr, and a little more than a year later, he ordered Iraqi troops to invade Iran, starting the Iran–Iraq War that would continue until 1988. Iraq's 1990 Invasion of Kuwait led to the 1991 Gulf War. In 1998, Saddam halted Iraqi cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission weapons inspections imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War, and kept U.N. inspectors out until 2002. In March 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq that quickly toppled the government. Saddam fled the capital of Baghdad shortly