Ex-leader of Baath Party, Born to a poor farming family in Tikrīt, a town north of Baghdad, Hussein was raised by his widowed mother and other relatives. He moved to Baghdad in 1955 and became involved in politics, joining the opposition Baath Party, an Arab nationalist movement. Hussein rose quickly within the party and in 1959 helped organize an assassination attempt on Abdul Karim Kassem, the military president of Iraq. Both Kassem and Hussein...
