The man in the photo is known to everyone, he is Saddam Hussein, the president of the Republic of Iraq, the tyrant of the Middle East world. He had placed twenty million Iraqis under a reign of terror for twenty-four years. He fought two wars that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
After his death, someone shot in the streets of Baghdad to celebrate the end of Saddam's era. But ten years later, some say that If Saddam Hussein were alive, Iraq would be better off than it is today. Even U.S. President Donald Trump says that only Saddam Hussein knows the right posture to deal with terrorism.
What kind of person is Saddam Hussein? There is no doubt that this is a fierce character. However, many people do not know how hard he can be. Today, let's look at one of the things that happened to Saddam Hussein in his rise to supremacy. I believe that after reading it, you will know what kind of person Saddam Hussein is.
At the beginning of 1979, although Saddam Hussein was vice president of Iraq and vice chairman of the Revolutionary Council, he was in fact the number one real power figure in Iraq. In that year, Saddam Hussein decided to break through this last layer of window paper. Under his threat, Al-Bakr, the iraqi president and chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, voluntarily resigned, ceding the two positions to Saddam Hussein.
According to the thinking of ordinary people, Saddam Hussein has successfully climbed to the top of the pyramid of power, and he should be satisfied. But Saddam Hussein was no ordinary man. Not only was he content to receive the presidency, he wanted to make sure that all men remained unconditional, one hundred percent loyal and reverential to him.
On July 22, 1979, saddam Hussein, a few days into office, invited all members of the Revolutionary Committee and other political figures to a congress in Baghdad. Before the conference began, Saddam Hussein ordered people to install cameras in the venue to record what happened next.
After the conference began, Saddam Hussein, with a serious expression, stepped up to the podium and announced: "There is a very unfortunate thing to tell you. We have just cracked a conspiracy. There are traitors among us. ”
After saying this, Saddam Sat directly behind a table on the podium. Just like a show, the curtain on the podium opened, and Mashadi, the secretary general of the Revolutionary Committee, suddenly appeared on the rostrum. Mahshadi stood behind the microphone on the podium, crying and stuttering, admitting that he was the initiator of the conspiracy.
Saddam Sat on the podium with a thick cigar in his hand. He announced that there were others involved in the conspiracy. And these traitors are now sitting among us.
As the crowd erupted into a commotion, Saddam Began to pronounce the names of the traitors one by one. According to the description in the Discovery Channel documentary, Saddam Hussein did not directly read out the name of the traitor. He deliberately wanted everyone present to taste that kind of fear from the bottom of their hearts.
Faced with more than 200 of Iraq's highest-ranking political elite present, Saddam Hussein read out their names one by one:
"Is A a traitor?"
Silence for five seconds.
"No, A is not a traitor. So, is B a traitor? ”
Silence for five seconds.
"No, B is not a traitor either. So, what about C? Is C a traitor? ”
Silence for five seconds.
"Yes! C is a traitor! ”
The man accused of being a traitor would be immediately taken away from the venue by the secret police. Everyone knows what fate awaits this man.
As you can see from the video, everyone present is sweating profusely and fidgeting. The sound of people coughing and clearing their throats was constantly heard in the venue. Everyone's heart went up to the throat eye, waiting for the moment when their name was read, and then waiting in despair for Saddam's verdict.
Someone took out a handkerchief and kept wiping sweat:
Someone cried:
As more and more people were taken away, the nerves of those who remained in the venue became more and more nervous. Finally, one man could not sit still, and he suddenly stood up and raised a hand and shouted in a slightly crying voice:
According to a translation from the Discovery Channel, the man shouted: "Long live the Baath Party!" Long live Saddam Hussein!! After he finished shouting these words, there was a warm applause at the scene.
Then the second man stood up:
Then there's the third one:
Everyone chanted slogans with some tremor in their voices, perhaps out of love for Saddam Hussein or out of the suffocating fear of the venue.
By the end of the meeting, a total of 66 senior Iraqi officials at the scene had been taken away from the scene. Saddam Hussein congratulated the rest, none of whom were traitors. At least not today.
There was another round of applause in the venue. Everyone present knew what they should do in the days to come.
Saddam Hussein must have enjoyed the feeling of stomping the whole world on the soles of his feet at this point.
Of the 66 people taken away that day, many were shot a few weeks later. Mashadi, who publicly confessed to being a traitor under duress, did not receive Saddam's forgiveness. He was also shot together.
Of those 66, a few were released. Saddam Hussein wanted them to have a chance to tell the living what kind of torture they had suffered.
As for the videotape of the conference, Saddam Ordered it to be distributed throughout the country for people to view.
On July 22, 1979, Saddam Hussein told all Iraqis in this way who was the country's boss.
2
After seizing absolute power, Saddam Hussein completely trampled the law under his feet and did whatever he wanted. In Iraqi soil, from then on people can only obey the will of one person and listen to the voice of one person.
When Saddam Hussein expressed his opinion, the people around him could only take out a notebook to carefully record it, and no one dared to express a different opinion. For those who speak disrespectfully about Saddam Hussein in private, the punishment that awaits them is the death penalty – usually their tongues are cut off before execution.
When a person can decide the life and death of his own kind at will, it is difficult for him to put himself in a position of equality with others. He will feel like a god who can change the course of history by his own will alone.
Saddam Hussein's ambitions began to swell. Saddam Hussein once said, "I don't care what people say about me now, I care about what people think of me 500 years from now." "He is no longer content to be the master of Iraq, but wants to be the hegemon of the entire Persian Gulf region."
As you can see from the map of the Middle East below, the circle of countries surrounding the Persian Gulf includes many oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and so on.
These Gulf States, of course, also include Iraq. However, as you can see from the map, Iraq is different from other Gulf states: Iraq has only a small piece of land connected to the Persian Gulf. Zoom in on the map to see it more clearly:
As you can see, Iraq's sea outlet to the Persian Gulf is almost a point, only 48 kilometers wide. An important route from the interior of Iraq to this outlet is the Shatt al-Shatt al-Shatt.
Saddam Hussein was very upset that the last stretch of the Shatt al-Arab happened to be the dividing line between Iraq and Iran, and that there had been a long-standing dispute over the sovereignty of the river, making Iraq's oil transportation very unsafe.
Now let's go back and look at the panorama of the Persian Gulf:
The Persian Gulf is shaped like a long, narrow pocket, and the red arrow in the picture points to the exit of this pocket: the Strait of Hormuz. The strait's narrowest point is only 54 kilometers, and Iran could easily seal it off if needed, giving the Iranians a natural strategic advantage in the struggle for supremacy in the Persian Gulf.
Once the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, other Gulf states may also have the option of going to sea from other ports, but Iraq will only be completely trapped in the Persian Gulf.
Let's zoom in further on the Strait of Hormuz. In the map above, there are three small islands (Lesser Tunb, Greater Tunb, Abu Musa) in red letters, which are located right in the channel of the Strait of Hormuz, which is simply the three unsinkable forts set up by nature here.
Controlling these three small islands is equivalent to controlling the Strait of Hormuz, and it is Iran that controls these three small islands. Iraq has always hoped that Iran will return sovereignty over these three small islands to the Arab countries on the southern shore of the Gulf, and Iran will naturally not easily cede such an important strategic point to others.
Saddam Hussein was upset that the river leading to the only outlet was disputed with Iran over sovereignty, and the Strait of Hormuz was firmly in Iranian hands.
He felt as if a rope had been put around his neck, and the other end of the rope was in the hands of the Iranians. With a gentle pull, Iraq's economy will be strangled by the Iranians.
In the same year that Saddam Hussein became president, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran and the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown. After a referendum, Iran became a theocratic Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, with Khomeini as the country's supreme leader.
Saddam Felt His Chance Had Come. The chaotic situation in Iran, which has just undergone revolution, and the large-scale purging of the military, are the perfect time for Iraq to seize hegemony in the Gulf.
On September 22, 1980, under saddam Hussein's orders, Iraq launched a surprise attack on Iran, and the Iran-Iraq War broke out. Iraq at this time used petrodollars to build 12 mechanized divisions equipped with the latest Soviet weapons.
Saddam Hussein was so confident of victory that he intended to defeat the enemy quickly on the battlefield and then force the Iranians to sit at the negotiating table and accept Iraq's territorial terms.
Sure enough, the Iraqi army marched straight in after the start of the war, controlling a large area across the Shatt al-Shatt Alto in less than a month. But to Saddam's surprise, the Iranians gradually stabilized their positions after resisting the first wave of Iraqi attacks, and began a gradual counter-offensive in January 1981.
The Iranians were inferior to their enemies in terms of the quantity and quality of their weapons and equipment, but they compensated for this with human-sea tactics and religious fanaticism. In the counterattack, the Iranians used a brutal human-flesh charge tactic, they let teenage children rush through the mine array first, detonated the mine with their flesh, and then let the regular army pass. A reporter reported seeing thousands of children tied together in groups of twenty with ropes and then driven towards enemy mine formations.
This suicidal charge with religious fanaticism had a great psychological impact on the Iraqi army. Some Iraqi soldiers recalled years later that when you saw a group of children rushing toward you, it was very difficult to pull the trigger at them.
An officer, unwilling to let his men shoot at the children, was brought before Saddam Himself. Saddam Hussein is said to have executed the officer on the spot in front of everyone.
Next, the Iranians launched more human charge in counterattacks, sometimes killing thousands just to advance 100 meters. The two sides formed a stalemate on the battlefield, and the war soon turned into one of the bloodiest wars of World War II.
The Iraqis' disillusionment of a quick fight was shattered. At this time, Saddam Hussein showed the world the fierce and aggressive side of his personality. As long as he can force the Iranians to the negotiating table, there is nothing he can't do.
In May 1981, Iraq declared that all ships entering and leaving Iranian ports, regardless of nationality, would be targeted by Iraq. Saddam Hussein did this in order to cut off Iran's trade with the outside world and destroy the enemy's economy;
The second is to pull the Western countries into the water. If the Persian Gulf could not carry out normal oil exports, Western countries would naturally put pressure on Iran to negotiate peace with Iraq sooner.
On May 30, 1982, a Turkish tanker was sunk by Iraq. In June, Iraq attacked a Greek cargo ship, killing all its crew. In August, Iraq sank another Greek cargo ship.
In the face of frequent attacks by Iraq, Iran has also launched a counterattack, starting to attack Kuwaiti and Saudi oil tankers. This indiscriminate attack on cargo ships from all countries in the Gulf is known as the Tanker War.
While engaged in a tanker war with Iran, Saddam Hussein lowered his posture on June 20, 1982, and offered to signal to Iran that he was willing to cease fire and withdraw his troops from Iran within two weeks. But Iran's supreme leader, Khomeini, is a tough one, and he replied to Saddam's request that Iran would never accept an armistice unless Saddam Hussein stepped down.
Khomeini's translation is: "Saddam You go and die." ”
After Saddam Hussein's request for a ceasefire was rejected, at a cabinet meeting in Baghdad, Iraq's health minister cleverly gave Saddam Hussein an idea. He suggested that Saddam Hussein could pretend to step down for the time being and wait until peace with Iran was restored before returning to power.
After hearing this brilliant idea, Saddam Hussein asked the cabinet members present: "Is there anyone else who agrees with the Minister of Health?" ”
No one raised their hands.
Saddam Hussein took the minister of health to the next room, shot him with his own hands, and then returned to the cabinet meeting to continue the meeting.
After the peace talks proposal was rejected, Saddam Hussein began using chemical weapons on the battlefield, including mustard gas and nerve gas, in order to bring the Iranians to their knees.
Wait, aren't Americans most taboo about dictators having weapons of mass destruction? So what were the Americans doing when Saddam Hussein dropped a large number of poison gas bombs on Iranian territory?
This was rumsfeld's visit to Iraq in 1983 as President Reagan's special envoy. During the Iran-Iraq War, although the United States did not directly participate in the war, it has been secretly providing support to Iraq.
For the weapons of mass destruction used by Saddam Hussein on the battlefield, the Americans not only pretended not to see them, but even secretly sold Saddam Hussein raw materials for making chemical weapons.
Of course, this is not to say that Americans are hypocritical. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, relations between Iran and the United States deteriorated rapidly. At the end of the year, Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage until 444 days later.
For americans, the enemy of the enemy is the friend, so it is normal for them to fall to the Iraqi side in the Iran-Iraq War. After all, the U.S. government is to serve the national interest.
Saddam Hussein not only used poison gas on Iranian soldiers, but also on his own civilians. On March 16, 1988, in order to punish his own Kurds who had supported Iran during the war, Saddam Hussein ordered the Air Force to drop poison gas bombs in a Kurdish village called Halabja.
More than 5,000 civilians were gassed during the attack, and many villagers fell to the ground before they could escape their yards. Iranian journalists who came to the scene afterwards filmed the tragic situation at that time:
This is still true for his own nationals, and it is conceivable that Saddam Hussein will not have any scruples about using poison gas against the Iranians.
However, after the brutal tanker war and the poison gas war, Khomeini still had no intention of negotiating peace with Iraq. Saddam Hussein's encounter with Khomeini is also a chess opponent: one is a powerful dictator, the other is a religious leader with tens of millions of fanatical believers, and neither of them will easily show weakness.
Khomeini, in particular, has a great momentum that will never admit defeat even if Iran is pierced and destroyed, and all Iranians die.
By 1988, Saddam Hussein finally couldn't stand it. The war, which was planned to be fought only for a few months, is now in its eighth year. Eight years of war dragged down Iraq's economy, and the country's military spending once accounted for more than half of GDP.
In addition to this, the Iraqi Government owes a lot of debt internationally. Thirty thousand Iraqis lost their lives on the battlefield, which is equivalent to 30 million people killed in a war in China today, in proportion to the population.
So, an angry Saddam Hussein threatened Iran that if the Iranians did not negotiate peace, he would launch a full-scale poison gas war against Iranian civilians. According to Saddam Hussein's character, if he was really pushed to be in a hurry, it would be impossible to throw poison gas bombs into the densely populated areas of Tehran.
To prove to the Iranians that he was serious, Saddam Hussein dropped gas bombs in the small Iranian city of Osmanavieh, killing and injuring more than 2,000 civilians.
In July 1988, Saddam Hussein used poison gas bombs in more than a dozen other Iranian towns and villages, causing more civilian casualties. With regard to Saddam's behavior, the United States Government has adopted an attitude of turning a blind eye and has even obstructed the United Nations from condemning it.
Also in July, the U.S. government refused to apologize for the fact that a U.S. warship capsized in the Persian Gulf with a ground-to-air missile that shot down an Iranian civil aviation plane, killing all 290 people on board.
None of this, of course, can shake Iran's leader, Khomeini's determination to continue fighting. However, some people within the Iranian government began to lose their breath at this time.
They are soberly aware that the entire Western world and the Arab world are on the side of Iraq, and if this battle continues, they are afraid that Iran will really perish the country and the species. It took them a lot of effort to finally convince Khomeini to accept the ceasefire negotiations.
On July 20, Khomeini announced on the radio that Iran would accept a ceasefire. In his speech, he said: "Those who have sacrificed their lives for the country are happy. Those who die on the battlefield are happy. And I can only live here unfortunately, drinking this cup of poison. ”
In August 1988, a ceasefire between Iran and Iraq was achieved, and the two sides returned to their respective borders.
After expending countless fortunes and sacrificing countless lives, the eight-year war changed almost nothing. Perhaps the only difference is that there are a million more mothers in the world who have lost their sons.
3
The eight-year Iran-Iraq war left Saddam Hussein with a massive army of 1 million men, but it also left him with a whopping $100 billion in foreign debt (compared to $3.3 billion in China's foreign exchange reserves in 1988). In addition to feeding his army and paying off his debts, he needs money to repair infrastructure that has been badly damaged during the war.
Saddam Desperately needed money, lots, lots of money. But at this time, international oil prices have been falling all the way, and Iraq's annual oil revenue has fallen to only about $10 billion. In order to solve Iraq's post-war economic difficulties, Saddam Hussein set his sights on Kuwait, a small oil country south of Iraq.
Kuwait is a country of only 17,800 square kilometers, which is slightly larger than the city of Beijing and accounts for 0.012% of the world's total land area. But under such a small land, there is a disproportionate burial of 8% of the world's total reserves of oil. As you can see from the following map of Kuwait's oil and gas fields, this is basically a country floating on oil:
During the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait provided a lot of help to Iraq, including a $14 billion loan. After the war, Saddam Wanted to get rid of the loan.
His reasoning was that iraqis had shed blood and sacrificed themselves on the front lines, that they had blocked Iran's Islamic Revolution for other Arab countries, that it was only natural for arab brothers to give some money, and that they should no longer ask Iraq for it. However, Kuwait rejected Saddam's request, which led to a rift beginning to emerge between the two countries.
In order to revive the post-war economy, the Iraqi government hopes that OPEC members will cut production in moderation to stimulate depressed oil prices. However, Kuwait has ignored the quotas set by OPEC and continues to dump large amounts of oil at low prices.
Not only that, Iraq believes that Kuwait over-exploited the Rumaila oil field across the border between the two countries, resulting in the loss of significant oil reserves. Iraq's request for compensation from Kuwait was also rejected by Kuwait.
All this annoyed Saddam Hussein, who urgently summoned the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, on July 25, 1990. During the talks, Saddam Hussein complained to Grasspi about Kuwait's actions that undermined Iraq's interests.
Grasspi probably didn't know much about Saddam Hussein and mistakenly thought that Saddam had come to her just to show that Iraq wanted Kuwait to reduce oil production. During the talks, Grasspi told Saddam Hussein: "We have no opinion on the conflict between Arab countries. （We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.）”
Saddam Hussein understood what Grasspi said casually and interpreted it as the attitude of the U.S. government. And Grasspi is naïve enough to think that nothing will happen in the Gulf region in the near future.
With an understanding of the complete opposite of the conversation, both men ended the conversation with satisfaction. Grasspi flew back to Washington D.C. 5 days later and began his long vacation.
On July 31, Iraq and Kuwait held a round of negotiations in the Saudi city of Jeddah. The two sides participated in the negotiations, respectively, Duri, vice chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Committee, and Al-Sabah, Crown Prince of Kuwait.
Duri told the Crown Prince of Kuwait that Iraq had assembled a large number of troops on the Kuwaiti border and would honestly come up with $10 billion to get Iraq to withdraw.
Faced with Iraq's intimidation, Sabah knew he could only obediently pay the money. But as the crown prince of a country, he was really unwilling to pay the ransom in humiliation as a kidnapped hostage on the orders of the kidnappers.
The Crown Prince of Kuwait told Duri that it was okay for him to pay, but only $9 billion. Sabah did this so that the money looked like "the result of negotiations between the two sides" rather than "unilateral Iraqi extortion."
He argues that $9 billion and $10 billion are not fundamentally different for Saddam Hussein, and kuwait needs to use the $1 billion counter-offer to maintain the last shred of dignity.
When the results of the negotiations reached Baghdad, Saddam Hussein had different ideas. In Saddam's eyes, someone dared to bargain with him, which in itself was a challenge to his authority.
Just two days after the negotiations ended, under Saddam Hussein's orders, 100,000 Iraqi troops and 2,000 tanks began their invasion of Kuwait in the early hours of August 2. There was no suspense in the course of the fighting, the Iraqi army crushed the Kuwaiti resistance in 12 hours, and the Kuwaiti royal family fled to Saudi Arabia.
Americans were very surprised by Saddam's behavior. They could not have imagined that Saddam Hussein would be so fierce towards the Arab brothers, especially kuwait that had provided much help to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.
After occupying all of Kuwaiti territory, Saddam Hussein massed a large number of troops on the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. No one knows whether the Iraqi army will continue to move south and occupy the oil fields in Saudi Arabia.
If this part of the oil field is also occupied by Iraq, 40% of the world's oil supply will be controlled by Saddam Hussein alone. This is absolutely unacceptable to the United States Government.
On the day of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the United Nations adopted a resolution condemning Iraq's aggression and demanding an unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces. The United States announced a freeze on Iraqi assets abroad and banned all trade between the United States and Iraq.
On August 6, trade sanctions against Iraq were extended to the United Nations level, and UN member states were barred from buying Iraqi oil. In an interview with reporters, President Bush stressed very firmly: "This behavior will not be tolerated." （This will not stand.）”
On the same day, the Saudi king officially authorized U.S. troops to send troops to Saudi Arabia. On August 7, two F15 combat squadrons arrived in Saudi Arabia after a 15-hour non-stop flight after refueling in the air. On August 8, the US 82nd Airborne Division began to arrive in Saudi Arabia.
In the face of the threat of the United States, Saddam Hussein did not budge. The day after the United States sent troops to Saudi Arabia, Saddam Hussein declared Kuwait Iraq's 19th province.
At the same time, Saddam Hussein also took a number of Western hostages, claiming that if Western countries dared to use force, he would place these hostages as human shields on strategic goals. In order to let the world know that he had these hostages in his hands, Saddam Hussein also deliberately "visited" the detained hostages and played the video on television.
When Saddam Hussein entered the room, the hostages were covered with anxiety:
Saddam Hussein pretended to slap a little boy on the head, but the little boy was so frightened that he couldn't even speak:
At this time, Saddam Hussein did not look like a head of state, but more like a gangster boss in a suit and leather shoes.
From today's point of view, it is easy to think that Saddam Hussein's actions are irrational and stupid. But that's just hindsight cleverness. Saddam Hussein would not have been a fool to climb to where he is today.
During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States invested countless manpower and material resources, and finally withdrew from Vietnam at the cost of more than 50,000 deaths.
In the Afghan war of the 1980s, the Soviets spent a decade and had no choice but to withdraw from Afghanistan after the death of more than 10,000 soldiers.
All this proves that even the superpowers may not be able to defeat small states that resist stubbornly in limited conventional wars.
In addition, Saddam Hussein brilliantly summed up the biggest weakness of the US military: the fear of death. He once said with great disdain that American society could not afford the death of even ten thousand soldiers. Saddam Hussein was right in all that if ten thousand soldiers died in Iraq, he probably wouldn't blink an eye.
But if the U.S. military kills 10,000 soldiers in the far Middle East, the United States will lose, regardless of the outcome of the war.
The Americans are certainly well aware of this, but to continue to maintain America's prestige in the world, they must play with Saddam Hussein to the end. President Bush repeatedly assured the people at home that this would not be the Second Vietnam War, and began a military campaign code-named "Desert Shield."
At the time of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the United States had little military presence around Iraq. If there is not enough military power in the Gulf region, the Punishment of Saddam Hussein by the United States can only stop at the level of economic sanctions and verbal condemnation.
Under The Orders of President Bush, the war machine that the U.S. military built for World War III was running at full speed. The U.S. Air Force began using C-141 and C-5 strategic transport aircraft to deliver military personnel and equipment to Saudi Arabia.
The C-141 is a large strategic transport aircraft, each of which can carry 200 heavily armed soldiers.
The C-141 is not small, but the C-5 is much larger than it. In fact, the C-5 was the largest strategic transport aircraft of the U.S. military at the time. The special design allows it to open the nose and tail at the same time, loading and unloading without mistakes.
The other planes look like toys with the C-5:
From main battle tanks to helicopters, this kind of aircraft can carry basically anything:
Both aircraft have aerial refueling capabilities and theoretically have unlimited ranges.
After Operation Desert Shield began, the U.S. military mobilized more than 300 C-141s and C-5s to rapidly masse forces into the Gulf. At Saudi Arabia's Dharan Air Base, one such strategic transport plane lands every seven minutes, day and night.
Twenty-two days after Operation Desert Shield began, the U.S. military airlifted more supplies than it had shipped in the 11 months of Berlin airlift in 1949.
*To be continued...