How did Saddam Hussein become the president of Iraq?
It isn’t easy to summarize Saddam Hussein‘s rise to power, so we suggest following the links for a more in-depth perspective. The current leader of Iraq was born in 1937 to a sheep-herding family in the village of al-Auja in north-central Iraq. At age 10, Hussein moved to Baghdad to live with his uncle, Khayrallah Tulfah. It was Tulfah who first introduced Hussein to politics and instilled in the boy a deep bitterness towards Western imperialism. After schooling in Baghdad, Hussein joined the Baath Party, a socialist political group committed to Arab nationalism. In 1956, he took part in an unsuccessful coup attempt against King Faisal II of Iraq. Two years later, a non-Baathist group led by General Abdul Qassim (or Kassem) overthrew the king. In 1959,
