Al-'Uqaili was born in Mosul, a Northern city of Iraq in 1919. He graduated from Royal Military Academy in Baghdad in January 1938, and Staff Military College in 1945. Al-'Uqaili started studying law in 1946 and graduated from Law college in 1950. After the Iraqi Ba'ath Party Government overthrow by Abdul Salam Arif in November 1963, Al-'Uqaili was assigned to be Director of Iraqi ports in the Basra in the south of Iraq from 1963 until 21 September 1965. He later served as Minister of Defense from 1965 to 1966. Ba'athism caught him two months after they came to power on July 17, 1968. The revolution court sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1970 and he died in prison on May 7, 1981.