Saddam Hussein

British

/ sæˈdæm /

noun

See Hussein

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Hussein, Saddam Cultural

Dictator of Iraq who seized power in 1979. With the intent of making Iraq the dominant power in the oil-rich Persian Gulf, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. The latter invasion provoked a military response from the United Nations, led by the United States, which drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. (See Persian Gulf War.)

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Although widely loathed outside the Arab world and feared by most Arab governments, Hussein retains some of his appeal to the Arab masses because of his resolute defiance of the United States and western Europe.

Hussein's cruelty and deviousness have become legendary. He has ruthlessly suppressed both Shi'ite Muslims and Kurds within Iraq; in 1987 and 1988 he authorized poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages.

Example Sentences

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And 35 years ago, oil prices had their biggest single-day drop in history just after coalition forces began bombing Saddam Hussein’s military—a conflict affecting at least three major crude exporters.

From The Wall Street Journal

For years, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein sealed off Iranian influence in his country, viewing Tehran as a threat.

From Los Angeles Times

Iran kept hostile forces away from its soil for decades after the 1980-1988 war with Iraq—which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including from chemical weapons deployed by Saddam Hussein.

From The Wall Street Journal

Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, feared that Khomeini's Islamic revolution would spread abroad and undermine his own regime.

From BBC

In August it re-established the National Defense Council under the Supreme National Security Council, a body that existed during the long conflict with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

From Barron's

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023