Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (; Arabic: ""; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism—Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the 17 July Revolution) that brought the party to power in Iraq. As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time
Timeline of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations shared training. We also understood that there had been antipathy between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein was not viewed as being religious. We did understand from people, including al-Fadl—and my recollection is that he would have described this most likely in public at the trial that we had, but I can't tell you that for sure; that was a few years ago—that at a certain point they decided that they wouldn't work against each other and that we believed a fellow in al Qaeda named Mondu Saleem, Abu Harzai the Iraqi, tried to reach a, sort of,