Interrogation of Saddam Hussein age of 20, Saddam Hussein joined the nascent Ba'ath Party, which was founded on a socialist form of Pan-Arabism. After participating in an unsuccessful 1959 assassination attempt on then Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam became a fugitive, and eventually fled to Syria and then Egypt. Following the Ba'athists overthrow of the prime minister in the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, and the counter-coup half a year later, Saddam was jailed in Iraq from 1964 to 1966. The Ba'ath party returned to power after another successful coup in 1968. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a relative of Saddam Hussein,
Execution of Saddam Hussein host Jim Lehrer, that Saddam's execution "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing." Bush said he was "disappointed and felt like they fumbled the—particularly the Saddam Hussein—execution. It reinforced doubts in people's minds that the Maliki government and the unity government of Iraq is a serious government. ... And it sent a mixed signal to the American people and the people around the world." Execution of Saddam Hussein The execution of Saddam Hussein took place on Saturday, 30 December 2006. Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special