THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WORLD LEADERS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

S·addām effectively held power in Iraq along with the head
of state, President Ah·mad H·asan al-Bakr, and in 1972 he
directed the nationalization of Iraq’s oil industry.
S·addām began to assert open control of the government
in 1979 and became president upon Bakr’s resignation. He
then became chairman of the Revolutionary Command
Council and prime minister, among other positions. He
used an extensive secret-police establishment to sup-
press any internal opposition to his rule, and he made
himself the object of an extensive personality cult among
the Iraqi public.
S·addām launched an invasion of Iran’s oil fields in
September 1980, but the campaign bogged down in a war
of attrition. The cost of the war and the interruption of
Iraq’s oil exports caused S·addām to scale down his ambi-
tious programs for economic development. The Iran-Iraq
War dragged on in a stalemate until 1988, when both
countries accepted a cease-fire that ended the fighting.
Despite the large foreign debt with which Iraq found
itself saddled by war’s end, S·addām continued to build up
his armed forces.
In August 1990 the Iraqi army overran neighbouring
Kuwait. S·addām apparently intended to use that nation’s
vast oil revenues to bolster Iraq’s economy, but his occupa-
tion of Kuwait quickly triggered a worldwide trade
embargo against Iraq. He ignored appeals to withdraw his
forces from Kuwait, despite the buildup of a large U.S.-led
military force in Saudi Arabia and the passage of United
Nations (UN) resolutions condemning the occupation
and authorizing the use of force to end it. The Persian Gulf
War began on Jan. 16, 1991, and ended six weeks later when
the allied military coalition drove Iraq’s armies out of
Kuwait. Iraq’s crushing defeat triggered internal rebel-
lions by both Shī‘ites and Kurds, but S·addām suppressed