What was Saddam Hussein doing to stay in power?
463324
Well, he came to office after be a strong arm guy for the bath (my spelling is porbibly wrong) party.  When he came to power he said there were traders among the government.  He singled out people, they beat them, and amde them sign confessions.  Then they killed them.  some time after that, The kurdish population, (I think it is in the north), was attacked and many were gassed to death with chemical weapons. (he standing trial for that now).  So he killed anyone that he saw as against him.  He also controlled all the media, so he can blame anyone he wants, America israel iran Kwait.  No one liked him, except those he grew powerful by him.  He waged war against his neighbooring countries, gassed his own people, and try to have Bush I assassignated.
680058
I think he's trying to create confusion in the UN to buy time to get weapons ready.  His behavior is remarkably like the behavior Saddam Hussein displayed in the late 90's that ultimately led to his removal.
1096640
1. Balance the tax table\n2. Press the Iraqis to get their government on track\n3. Furiously promote alternative fuels\n4. Cut the military budget to a realistic amount\n5. Enforce anti-trust laws.
1082310
Many members of Bush's administration were also members of his father's administration.  They considered Iraq to be 'unfinished' business from the first Gulf War, and intended to push Saddam Hussein out of power at the first opportunity.  9-11 gave them the opportunity.\n\nThey have believed for 15 years that if they got Saddam out of power. Iraq would become a western-favoring 'foothold' in the middle-east.  Since the Saudi royal family has a difficult time holding on to power without the Wahhabi fundamentalists that want the US out of their country --  this new foothold would replace the base that was taken out of Saudi Arabia.\nSo far - it's been a complete flop.
1182805
I wouldn't say Baker gave Saddam permission.  It was more of a the US will look the other way.
788431
Before we invaded, Saddam kept things prettry well locked down.  But the idiot neo-cons who run our foreign policy just had to take him out.  Since we invaded, it has become a training ground for terrorists from all over the world.  And, the government is equivalent to a house of cards as far as maintaining order, which could spread to neighboring countries.
841781
Yes, the United States of America and her allies must all pitch in and help rebuild Iraq. When Saddam Hussein first came into power, he was Mr. Nice Guy but once the 1980's came around, he went from being Mr. Nice Guy to becoming Mr. Not So Nice Guy and started to build palaces for himself and had his people live in ruins. Not that Hussein is no longer the President, Iraq is moving everyday towards democracy. If you want to hear the Truh of the Democracy taken shape in Iraq, I recommend that you watch a show titled The 700 Club.
836520
some people amaze me .Its a long known fact that Saddam only got the power he had by being helped by the US , its also a long known fact that the weapons he had which he used to attack Kuwait and also to kill his own people were sold to him by the US and Europe Its another fact that the nuclear knowledge Iraq had was given by those i`ve already mentioned If the Kurds hadn`t stood up against Saddam which they only did because America gave them the impression they were going to join in and help them (which they had no intention of doing )they wouldn`t have been slaughtered for their punishment  Iraqi`s didn`t ask for their country to be destroyed, news programs on TV have interviewed countless Iraqi`s who say how much worse it is now than with Saddam The threat to America came because of decades of interference in the middle east . According to international law the Iraq invasion is illegal and an act of hostility
927117
Because of all the WMDs that Saddam had.\nNo, wait a minute, because we wanted to spread democracy.\nOn second thought, it was to pursue the War of Terrorism.\nWait, it was because we went in and we have to stay the course.\nHang on, gimme a sec... \n\nI don't really know.
321730
The war was for regime change, it was always for regime change, not to catch Saddam, and not to find WMD. There is not a stable new government in place yet, so it's not time to leave yet: that has been the plan all along.\n\nWe are no longer fighting a war there, we are in a peacekeeping role, yes, against an insurgency. And we are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and under a UN mandate, and both the invitation and the mandate get renewed every year. So the whole world pretty much agrees that we should be there, except you :)\n\nThe "we are there for the oil" argument is total BS and always has been. Iraq under Saddam wanted to sell their oil. We were the ones that said "no". If we wanted their oil so much, all we had to do was lift the embargo, which is what France wanted to do. So why don't you accuse France of wanting Iraq's oil? We were the ones who would not let Iraq sell it. \n\n(Please, if you want to make an argument, at least make it consistent with the history)
614984
Saddam Hussein was a young man who was angry at the Iraqi monarchy (installed by the british).  He hooked up with the socialist Ba'ath party based in syria.  The Ba'athists were devout anti imperial and anti-communist.  The USA, fearing communist influence in iraqi politics after the toppling of iraq by general Qassim, trained and funded a group of Ba'athist members including Saddam, and helped them execute a bloody coup that killed Qassim.  They were chased out of Iraq by an angry populace in 1963 and regrouped later in 1968 and finally managed to take power during iraq's turbulent years.  Saddam was only VP at the time but was the main power base of iraq.  In 1973 Saddam angered the USA by participating in the oil embargo after the yom kippur war, but quickly became friends again after the Iranian Revolution toppled the Pro-USA Shah Pahlavi.  Saddam Hussein saw the disorganization of the Iranian Revolutionary Government and saw it as an opportunity to defeat Iran, which was the biggest military power in the middle east at the time, even bigger than israel.   Saddam Hussein had taken power as president in 1979 and went on an internal purge of suspected anti-baath elements.  Dozens of iraqi lawmakers were killed or jailed.  The Iran-Iraq war went on for nearly a decade from 1980-1988.  The United States had a hand in making sure neither side won because of concerns about a power vacuum.  Early in the war the USA helped iraq with intelligence and shipments of chemical weapons precursors.  later on the USA began selling spare parts and advanced missiles to Iran.  This was called the "Reagan Iran-Contra Scandal" where the president sold advanced american missiles to iran, took the profits and illegally funnelled them to the contra terrorists in central america.  Both sides used chemical weapons, and both regularly attacked each others cities with ballistic missiles.  After the end of the war, iraq was a broken, debt riddled nation.  Iraq's reason for invading kuwait in 1990 was complaints of kuwait overselling oil and slant-drilling into iraqi oil fields (both true).  The USA tricked saddam into attacking kuwait by proclaiming they had no special defence agreemnent with kuwait.  The USA went to war with iraq in hopes of toppling saddam and restoring the kuwaiti dictatorship.  12 years of postwar UN sanctions followed, and in 2003 George W. Bush decided to attack iraq without provocation, giving false justification of WMD as a reason.  The war continues to this day and the insurgency grows.  American soldiers are dying at a rate of 2 to 3 per day and the country is riddled with ethnic divisions and a looming civil war.   Saddam was captured but it has had no effect on the growing rebellion.
479626
A year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abdul Karim Qassim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in 1959, Saddam was involved in the attempted US backed plot to assassinate Prime Minister Qassim. He was sentenced to death, in absentia. Saddam studied law at the Cairo University during his exile.\n\nTorn by factionalism, however, the new government was ousted within eight months. Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964 when an anti-Ba'ath group led by Abdul Rahman Arif took power. He escaped prison in 1967 and quickly came to be a leading member of the party. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions within the first Ba'athist government, which informed his measures to promote party unity as well as his ruthless resolve to maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.\n\nIn July 1968 a second coup brought the Ba'athists back to power under General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a Tikriti and a relative of Saddam, who by this time had become an interrogator and torturer at the infamous "Palace of the End," the cellar of the former palace of King Faisal II. The Ba'ath's ruling clique named Saddam vice-chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council and vice president of Iraq.\n[edit]\n\nConsolidation of power\nSaddam Hussein talking with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr\nEnlarge\nSaddam Hussein talking with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr\n\nIn 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces. He rapidly became the strongman of the government. At the time Saddam was considered an enemy of communism and radical Islamism. Saddam was integral to U.S. policy in the region, a policy which sought to weaken the influence of Iran and the Soviet Union. As Iraq's weak and elderly President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became increasingly unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de facto ruler of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon gained a powerful circle of support within the party.\n[edit]\n\nModernization\n\nSaddam consolidated power in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and economic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant. Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required the improvement of living standards. Saddam moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country's major domestic problems and expanding the party's following.\n\nSaddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.\n\nAt the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On June 1, 1972, Saddam Hussein oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, had a monopoly on the country's oil. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 world oil shock, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.\n\nWithin just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and cont
867694
He was a despotic leader of a socialist party (the Baathist party) who hated communists. I've always suspected that Hussein's line about hating communists was simply to keep the CIA supporting him.\n\nThe irony has always puzzled me.
1050293
the previous answerer is giving you the liberal spin.  Everyone believed Saddam had WMDs.  They believed it because he was no longer allowing UN inspectors into Iraq to make sure they were all gone.  His not allowing UN inspectors was a violation of the peace agreement that ended the fighting from Gulf War I, giving the US every right to resume military action.  Saddam definitly had WMDs (weapons of Mass Destruction) at a previous time because satalite intel picked up their use against Iran in the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s and against Kurds in the North of Iraq.  What he did with the WMDs is unknown.  Did he run out, did he ship them out before the invasion (we gave him plenty of time), did he bury them?  We don't know.  It is on record that Bill Clinton bombed Bagdad stating that Saddam had weapons or was developing weapons of mass destruction.  Saddam, himself, is an insane meglomaniac, and was a brutal leader.  His goal in life was to be seen as a great Arab leader and his choice of fame was to destroy Israel.  I would not say he had any chance of accomplishing that, but any attempt would have created a conflict that dwarves what is happening now.  Saddam was a time bomb that needed defusing, WMDs or no.\n\nIf you don't believe this guy was crazy, know that he starred in a TV piece instructing Iraqis on how to vacuum their carpets.
1116569
Have the Iraqi's formed a democracy of their own choosing? Yes. Is Saddam removed from power and on trial for his horrible crimes? Yes. Is Iraq forming its own military and police forces to be able to protect itself? Yes. Sounds like we are winning to me.
1149483
I'm sure somebody used em to describe Vietnam.   I think, though, that the issue they're talking about is our responsibility to provide stability in government. The removal of Saddam created a very real power vaccume in Iraq. (question of right/wrong in doing so aside) Simply leaving after getting Saddam, would have drawn even more condemnation from the world. The world would  be screamin at us for NOT doing something to help them. As it is, they're screaming at us FOR doing somehthing. Whether or not what we're doing is effective, is another story.
834093
He doesn't want to be President-his current job is much better. He's in Saudi Arabia as we speak, being wined & dined by the King & the Prince while assuring them they're safer than than their fellow Sunni, Saddam. And there's absolutely they'll be burned alive like the Sunni clerics the other day. As long as the oil keeps coming...(Saddam cut off the oil-this from Feb 2003 in Oil & Gas magazine: The Iraqi oil is classified as a “non-secure” source, yet the US is the largest consumer of Iraqi oil. )