20. The Romantic Side of a Brutal Dictator
Saddam Hussein (1937 – 2006), also known as “The Butcher of Baghdad“, ruled Iraq from 1979 until his ouster in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. His years in power were marked by extreme brutality, oppression, and corruption at home, plus costly and failed wars against his neighbors. In a variety of purges and genocides against domestic opponents, real or suspected, at least a quarter of a million Iraqis were exterminated by Saddam’s security services. Hundreds of thousands more Iraqis did not make it through Saddam’s invasions of Iran and Kuwait.
However, the brutal Iraqi tyrant seems to have had a maudlin streak. When not engaged in the wholesale extermination of his people or getting them into wars, Saddam liked to write steamy romance novels. During his years in power, Saddam wrote at least four novels, and a number of poems and poetry collections. Of his novels, Zabibah and the King is the best known, and the most widely lampooned – it was adapted by Sacha Baron Cohen’s in his 2012 comedy, The Dictator.