17 July Revolution in the context of "Purge"

Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the president of Iraq from 1979 until he was overthrown in 2003 during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He previously served as the vice president from 1968 to 1979 and also as the prime minister from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. A leading member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, he was a proponent of Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. The policies and ideologies he championed are collectively known as Saddamism.

Born near the city of Tikrit to a Sunni Arab family, Saddam joined the revolutionary Ba'ath Party in 1957. He played a key role in the 17 July Revolution that brought the Ba'athists to power in Iraq and made him vice president under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. During his tenure as vice president, Saddam nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company, diversified the economy, introduced free healthcare and education, and supported women's rights. He also presided over the defeat of the Kurdish insurgency in the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War and signed the Algiers Agreement with Iran in 1975, thereby settling territorial disputes along the Iran–Iraq border. Following al-Bakr's resignation in 1979, Saddam formally took power. During his presidency, positions of power in the country were mostly filled with Sunni Arabs, a minority that made up only about a fifth of the Iraqi population.

Ba'athist Iraq, officially the Iraqi Republic (1968–1992) and later the Republic of Iraq (1992–2003), was the Iraqi state between 1968 and 2003 under the one-party rule of the Iraqi regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The regime emerged as a result of the 17 July Revolution which brought the Ba'athists to power, and lasted until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Ba'ath Party, led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, came to power in Iraq through the bloodless 17 July 1968 Revolution, which overthrew president Abdul Rahman Arif and prime minister Tahir Yahya. By the mid-1970s, Saddam Hussein became the country's de facto leader, despite al-Bakr's de jure presidency. Saddam's new policies boosted the Iraqi economy, improved living standards, and elevated Iraq's standing within the Arab world. However, several internal factors were imminently threatening Iraq's stability; the Sunni-dominated Ba'athist government faced Shia religious separatism and Kurdish ethnic separatism. The Second Iraqi–Kurdish War was of great concern to the government as Kurdish rebels received extensive support from Iran, Israel, and the United States. Following the 1974–1975 Shatt al-Arab clashes, Saddam met with Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and signed the 1975 Algiers Agreement, ceding territory to Iran in exchange for an end to Kurdish support. With the Kurdish rebellion subsequently disadvantaged, the Iraqi military reasserted the federal government's control over Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region (Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي في العراق, romanized: Ḥizb al-Ba‘th al-'Arabī al-Ishtirākī fī al-'Irāq), officially the Iraqi Regional Branch, was the Iraqi regional branch of the pan-Arab Ba'ath Party, founded in the early 1950s and officially brought to power through the 1968 coup d'état. Rooted in the ideology of Ba'athism, the party combined Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, republicanism, and anti-imperialism, though it developed a distinctive Iraqi character under Saddam Hussein's leadership, often referred to as Saddamist Ba'athism.

From 1968 to 2003, the Ba'ath Party dominated Iraq's political landscape, exerting total control over state institutions, the military, and society through an extensive and often brutal internal security network. It facilitated Saddam Hussein's rise to absolute power in 1979 and played a central role in shaping Iraq's domestic and foreign policies, including the Iran–Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait, and the Gulf War.Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Ba'ath Party was officially banned by the Coalition Provisional Authority, and thousands of its members were purged from public life in a controversial policy known as de-Ba'athification. Despite the ban, remnants of the party reorganized underground and splintered into factions, most notably those led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed.

The November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état took place between November 13 and November 18, 1963, when, following internal party divisions, pro-Nasserist Iraqi officers led a military coup within the Ba'ath Party. Although the coup itself was bloodless, 250 people were killed in related actions.

The government subsequently lasted until the 17 July Revolution in 1968.

The Revolutionary Command Council (Arabic: مجلس قيادة الثورة- قطر العراق) was the ultimate decision-making body in Ba'athist Iraq. Established after the 1968 Iraqi coup, It exercised both executive and legislative authority in the country, with the Chairman and Vice Chairman chosen by a two-thirds majority of the council. The Chairman was also then declared the President of Iraq and he was then allowed to select a Vice President. After Saddam Hussein became President of Iraq in 1979 the council was led by deputy chairman Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri, deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, who had known Saddam since the 1960s.

The legislature was composed of the RCC, the National Assembly and a 50-member Kurdish Legislative Council which governed the country. During his presidency, Saddam was Chairman of the RCC and President of the Republic. Other members of the RCC included Salah Omar Al-Ali who held the position between 1968 and 1970, Abd al-Khaliq al-Samarra'i who was a Council member between 1968 and 1973, one of Saddam's half-brothers, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Taha Yasin Ramadan, Adnan Khairallah, Sa'adoun Shaker Mahmoud, Tariq Aziz Isa, Hasan Ali Nassar al-Namiri, Naim Hamid Haddad and Taha Muhyiddin Maruf. It was officially dissolved in 2003 by Paul Bremer per Order Number 2 of the Coalition Provisional Authority.