How Saddam Hussein terrorized his own people Essay

How Saddam Hussein terrorized his own people - Essay Example w its hypothesis on the fact that terrorism is not necessary restricted to organized violence between states or regions, but also organized violence that can be committed by a regime to its own population. The first way that Saddam Hussein used against his people was the Anfal campaign. Anfal is an Arab word that means spoils. It was a campaign carried out in the late 1980’s by the Saddam Hussein’s regime against the larger Kurdish population living in the north of Iraq. The campaign was carried out to ascertain the Iraqi control over the area. However, the real agenda behind this type of campaign was to keep the Kurdish population on check. This campaign involved killing of men after being rounded up by the Iraqi troops and their villages raced down, while children and women were taken to camps with deplorable conditions (Ferguson 120). Chemical weapons were also used against the Kurds during the Anfal campaign. The Iraqi used chemical generated weapons to smoke the Kurds out of there homes and villages. These operations were carried out in the morning of March 16, 1988 and continued all night long. The Iraqi’s would deploy bombs filled with a mixture of mustard gas and nerve agent gas. The mixture proved deadly since it had an immediate impact to its victims. The long-term consequences of these weapons included cancer, birth defects and permanent blindness. Short-term effects included vomiting, convulsions, immediate blindness and blisters. Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as Ali Hassan al-Majid directly oversaw this operation against the Kurds after which he earned the famous name of â€Å"Chemical Ali† (Ferguson 130). The second way that Saddam Hussein used to terrorize was through reprisal on Dujail. This occurred in the early 1980’s, when Saddam Hussein was on a visit to a town known as Dujail situated a few miles north of the city of Baghdad. In Dujail, a group of militants known as Dawa shot at his motorcade. In retaliation on what was considered