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
Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations On the other two occasions, the Committee concluded, Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qaeda operative. The intelligence community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al-Qaeda and Iraq. On the more specific question of whether Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of September 11, 2001, the consensus view is that there is no credible evidence of his government's involvement. On March 20, 2006, President Bush made clear that his administration did not have any evidence to prove Saddam played a role in those attacks. The Bush Administration sought to link the Iraqi dictator to Islamist radicals