SADDAM HUSSEIN - TYRANT READY TO SACRIFICE HIS PEOPLE

ZAGREB, March 20 (Hina) - Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president of the last 24 years, is a tyrant ready to sacrifice his own people to remain in power. #L# Saddam has created a personality cult and has ruled his country using methods of intimidation and brutal force. The Iraqi citizens listen every day to the slogans of Saddam's triumphalism and lauds that describe him as a noble knight leading the Arabs in the fight against atheists. The truth, however, is that the state is bankrupt and the economy and infrastructure are ruined due to long-lasting sanctions imposed by the U.N. Such a reality cannot damage Saddam's own image of greatness, as he lives isolated from his own people, surrounded by few confidential advisers. Saddam Hussein was born in April 1937 in Al-Awja, a small village not far from Tikrit, north of Baghdad. He started with political activities at a very young age, as a member of the socialist Ba'as party. In 1959 he was an accomplice in an attempt to murder Prime Minister Abdel-Karim Qasim and had to flee the country. Nine years later, Saddam and his party came to power and he became a member of the highest state body - the Revolutionary Command Council. In 1979 he officially became Iraq's ruler and had dozens of his political opponents killed. His cruelty was demonstrated with attempts to pacify the Kurds using chemical weapons. He destroyed whole cities fighting the rebel Shiite tribes in the south of the country. Saddam's rule is marked by two wrong political assessments. One was his decision to attack Iran in order to occupy Shatt al-Arab. This adventure turned into an exhausting eight-year war, resulting in hundreds of thousands killed and huge debts. In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in order to resolve an oil- price dispute. He provoked the Gulf war and was defeated, but he continued to claim that Iraq had won the war. Saddam Hussein boasted that Iraq could resist any military attack from the West. (hina) sb