Saddam Hussein deputy leader in a union, and this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency. Saddam convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on 22 July 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped, Saddam claimed to have found a fifth column within the Ba'ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators. These members were labelled "disloyal" and were removed from the room one by one and taken into
Iraqi nationalism a common Mesopotamian heritage; this view was promoted by Abd al-Karim Qasim, who was of mixed Arab-Kurdish descent. The second variant is a dual nationalism combining Iraqi nationalism alongside Arab nationalism, that supports Iraqi nationalism for matters involving Iraq and Arab nationalism for issues involving Arabs as a whole. Saddam Hussein believed that the recognition of the ancient Mesopotamian origins and heritage of Iraqi Arabs was complementary to supporting Arab nationalism. The Ba'athist regime officially included the historic Kurdish Iraqi Muslim leader Saladin as a patriotic symbol in Iraq, Saladin led Muslim and Arab forces during the Crusades. Iraqi nationalism