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WEDNESDAY
19th February 2003
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WALDEN ON VILLAINS

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After the Baathists, working in league with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), overthrew the pro-Moscow Qasim in February 1963, Saddam returned home. He married Khairallah's daughter, Sajida, a primary school teacher. He graduated to full membership of the Baath (i.e. Renaissance), now 1,000 strong. He successfully urged the Baathist leaders to put him in charge of the party's internal security agency, popularly known as Jihaz al Haneen (the Instrument of Yearning). Armed with the list of the Iraqi Communists supplied by the CIA, the Jihaz arrested and tortured them under his supervision.

the Baathist rule ended in November 1963, and the party reverted to an underground existence. Saddam moved up the party ranks and joined its Regional Command, where 50-year-old General Ahmad Hassan al Bakr, a cousin of Khairallah and a founder-member of the Baath, played a leading role.

Because of his involvement in a failed Baathist coup attempt, Saddam was jailed in October 1964. He escaped in July 1966. Elected assistant secretary-general of the (clandestine) Baath, he spent the next two years building up the Jihaz (where he trained hand-picked recruits) and the party militia.
ADOLF HITLER
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
NERO
JOSEPH STALIN
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