Saddam, A Retrospective

"There are those that say Saddam died when he was captured by the Americans, others that say he died four years ago after losing the war. They are both wrong. In reality it was somewhere around the mid eighties.

You have to understand that the top Baathists were so hated they already saw themselves as dead in the sense that once they loosen their hold on the reigns of power just a little they will all be killed by the people. So, to see when Saddam really died one must understand when he lost full control of power in Iraq.

Saddam may have been an American agent, trained by the CIA and shoehorned into power in Iraq but it was not the Americans that kept him there. That credit must go to the military class that kept Iraq under control for centuries under the Ottoman empire. It was the same military class that backed up the British imposed Monarchy. And the same military class that stopped the Iraqi republic of 1958 creating a popular government. And the same military class that led Iraq into its devastsating war with Iran in 1980."
Asterism