Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was a significant geopolitical entity that ultimately faced overthrow by a coalition of American and allied forces in 2003. His leadership and the subsequent intervention had profound consequences for Iraq and global politics.

Rule and Ideology

Saddam Hussein's political alignment was rooted in a right-wing Ba'athism, which was characterised by a strong nationalist stance. Ba'athism itself is an Arab nationalist ideology that envisions a pan-Arabist arrangement, akin to a European Union for Arab states, built upon a revolutionary socialist project with Ba'athists as the vanguard.

During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Syria, under Hafez al-Assad, a fellow Ba'athist regime, took the side of Iran against Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime.

International Perception and Pretexts for War

In the period following the September 11th Attacks, the perception of figures such as Saddam Hussein was significantly simplified. He was portrayed as an evil tyrant and an arch-criminal leading a rogue state, akin to a movie villain seeking to terrorise the world. This narrative presented him as the "next Muammar Gaddafi".

The prevailing idea was that the removal of such tyrannical leaders would lead to the grateful populace of their countries naturally transitioning to democracy, free from evil.

Justifications for military intervention against Saddam Hussein included preventing his regime from developing and deploying advanced weaponry, specifically chemical and biological weapons, and acquiring nuclear weapons technology, which was feared could be used to blackmail "freedom-loving countries".

Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell publicly maintained that they genuinely believed the intelligence they received and did not intentionally mislead the public regarding these threats.

However, intelligence surrounding Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes was later revealed to have been manipulated. In September 2002, the head of MI6 reportedly informed Prime Minister Blair that a source had confirmed Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons programme was actively producing vast quantities of VX and Sarin nerve agents, to be loaded into hollow glass spheres.

This detailed description, however, was noted by an MI6 analyst to be identical to scenes from the 1996 motion picture The Rock. This specific narrative was deliberately planted in public discourse.

The 2003 Invasion and Aftermath

In April 2003, American and Coalition forces successfully ousted Saddam Hussein's regime. The subsequent objective was to establish a new, free society and democracy in Iraq.

This ambition was pursued through a policy termed "shock therapy". Paul Bremer, appointed as the head of the Provisional Authority, arrived in Iraq with a plan devised by a radical group of economists, a strategy considered more extreme and utopian than measures previously attempted in Russia.

The implementation of this plan involved several key actions:

• The liberation of the Iraqi populace from all forms of state control.
• The immediate sacking of all members of the Ba'ath Party, which had governed Iraqi society. This drastic measure was a revolutionary act that effectively dismantled the country's existing civic structure overnight.
• An attempt to engineer a perfect market economy, predicated on the belief that this would automatically foster a new democracy.
• The immediate privatisation of all industries and public services.
• The country was opened to international corporations, granting them the right to withdraw 100% of their profits untaxed.
• Notably, the only one of Saddam Hussein's laws to remain intact was that which restricted trade unions.

The outcome of these policies was widespread chaos and significant corruption. Audits revealed that over 10% of the more than $350 billion allocated for reconstruction either disappeared or was siphoned off by American corporations through corrupt overpricing.