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Saddam said, but they also were closely allied with Syria. Over the
next two weeks, dozens of government officials and accused traitors
were executed. President al-Bakr quietly slipped from the political
scene, claiming ill health.
Saddam’s authority soon became total. The people who were
loyal to him were promoted to powerful positions in the govern-
ment. In exchange, they agreed with him and supported his power
grab. Saddam’s most trusted officials were those who came from
his hometown, Tikrit, and were members of his own family or tribe.
Saddam dealt strongly with any opposition. When Shiite Muslim
religious leaders in southern Iraq encouraged resistance to the gov-
ernment, Saddam had some leading clerics killed and many others
arrested. He accused numerous Shiites of supporting Iraq’s rival,
Iran, and thousands were forced to leave the country and move into
Iran. After their deportation, their homes and belongings were sold.
Saddam had reason to be concerned about affairs in Iran. The
pro-Western government of the shah had been overthrown in early
1979 by supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. Khomeini had instituted a theocratic Shiite Muslim gov-
ernment. In the wake of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, he encouraged
Shiites in other countries to revolt against their leaders. Saddam
Hussein’s concern about the loyalty of his own Shiite population
was warranted—he had ruthlessly oppressed the Shiites. Even
before the Baath Party came to power, however, Shiites had been
second-class citizens in Iraq, and they resented repression by the
country’s secular governments.
The Sunni-Shiite split was not the only dimension to the ani-
mosity between Iran and Iraq. The people of Mesopotamia had been
at odds with the many Persian peoples to their east for millennia.
And there was a personal element as well—Khomeini hated
Saddam Hussein and his secular regime, while Saddam detested
the ayatollah and his theocratic rule. Perhaps most important,
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