175,000 Iraqis were taken prisoner and about 85,000 died. As part of the cease-fire agreement, Iraq agreed to get rid of all poison gas and germ weapons, and to allow UN observers to inspect the sites.
All of the different religions and the violence the war had created caused after-war rebellions. After the war, fighting between Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units was bad. This was a problem to Saddam's rule. Saddam acted by stopping all rebellions in their tracks, especially in the North.
Before the war ended, the United States had encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. However, when the Shi'ites, Kurds, and dissidents did rise up against Saddam, the United States did not support them.
Without United States support for these rebellions, Saddam survived them. He was then left completely in control of Iraq. The country's economy and army never recovered from the Gulf War. However, Saddam often claimed that Iraq had won the Gulf War, and the United States had lost. This made Saddam popular in many parts of the Arab world.
Saddam liked to show himself as a strict Muslim. This was to calm down the religious parts of the society. He brought back some parts of Sharia law. This included the 2001 law that said homosexuality could be punished by the death penalty. The phrase "Allahu Akbar" (""God is great""), in Saddam's handwriting, was added to the Iraq national flag.
Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense after the Gulf War. In 1993, the United States decided to attack Iraq, because it thought evidence showed Iraq had sponsored a plan to kill former President George H.W. Bush. On June 26, 1993, the United States launched a missile attack aimed at Iraq's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.
The United Nations placed a trade embargo on Iraq, blocking Iraqi oil exports. This caused hardship in Iraq and almost destroyed the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure. Only smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid kept Iraq from crisis. Later, limited amounts of income from the United Nations oil-for-food program started flowing into Iraq. On December 9, 1996, the United Nations allowed Baghdad to begin selling limited amounts of oil for food and medicine.
U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the Gulf War's cease-fire agreement, by developing weapons of mass destruction and other banned weapons, and by violating the UN-imposed sanctions and "no-fly zones." Isolated military strikes by U.S. and British forces continued on Iraq, the largest being Operation Desert Fox in 1998.
After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in February 2001.
Saddam's base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members, and other supporters was divided after the war and in the following years. This added to the regime's increasingly repressive and arbitrary nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq grew worse, and Saddam's sons, Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out a private reign of terror. They likely had a leading hand when, in August 1995, two of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law, who held high positions in the Iraqi military, defected to Jordan. Both were killed after returning to Iraq the following February.
In 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq. The main reason for the invasion was President George W. Bush's claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Bush argued that this made Saddam a major threat to Western allies, such as oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Israel; to Western oil supplies from the Persian Gulf states; and to Middle East stability in general. The President before Bush, Bill Clinton (1993-2001), maintained sanctions and made occasional air strikes in the "Iraqi no-fly zones" or other restrictions, in the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by his many political enemies. However, this never happened.
Things changed in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In his January 2002 State of the Union Address to the United States Congress, President Bush said that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were an "axis of evil." Bush also argued that Iraq had supported Al-Qaeda, the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11.
As the war was looming on February 24, 2003, Saddam Hussein talked with CBS News anchor Dan Rather for more than three hours—his first interview with a U.S. reporter in over ten years. CBS aired the taped interview later that week.
The Iraqi government and military collapsed within three weeks after the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion on March 20. The United States tried at least twice to kill Saddam with targeted air strikes, but both failed to hit their target. By the beginning of April, Coalition forces controlled much of Iraq. The resistance of the much-weakened Iraqi Army either crumbled or shifted to guerrilla tactics, and it appeared that Saddam had lost control of Iraq. He was last seen in a video which showed him in the Baghdad suburbs surrounded by supporters. When Baghdad fell to the Coalition on April 9, Saddam was nowhere to be found.
Even when Baghdad was taken over, and most of the fighting had stopped, people still did not know where Saddam was. For a few weeks, some people said they saw Saddam, and some videotapes of Saddam talking came out, but still nobody knows if they were true or not.
Although Saddam was placed at the top of the "most-wanted list," he could not be found, even when the other leaders of the Iraqi regime were arrested. His sons and political heirs, Uday and Qusay, were killed in July 2003 in a clash with U.S. forces after a tip from an Iraqi.
On 14 December 2003, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) of Iran first reported that Saddam Hussein had been arrested. These reports were soon confirmed by other members of the Governing Council, by U.S. military sources, and by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Shortly afterwards, the U.S. Civil Administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, held a press conference in Baghdad. He officially announced Saddam's capture by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" United States soldiers found Saddam around 8:30 PM Iraqi time on 13 December, in what was called Operation Red Dawn. Saddam was hiding in an underground "spider hole" at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr, near his hometown of Tikrit.
The first photos taken of Saddam after the soldiers found him did not look like the photos taken when he was President of Iraq. He had grown long hair and a long beard. Later on, he shaved his beard to confirm his identity. DNA tests proved that he really was Saddam Hussein. People who talked with him after the soldiers found him said he was healthy, and wanted to talk to people and do what they told him to do. Paul Bremer said that Saddam would have a trial, but that he did not know yet what kind of trial.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal was in charge of Saddam Hussein's trial, and the trials of some people that helped him to be President of Iraq.
In November 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of 148 murders. On December 30, 2006, he was put to death. The hanging was recorded by officials of the government. A witness also secretly recorded the hanging with a cell phone camera, which included sound. The recording showed Saddam being calm as he was prepared for his final moments. Witnesses and executioners could be heard teasing Saddam as the rope was placed on his head, and he was put on the trap door. He was in the middle of a prayer when the trap door beneath him opened, and he was killed. Later, pictures and live video of Saddam's taunting and execution, and of his dead corpse were shown on many Internet sites.
Saddam was buried in his hometown, Al-Awja, Iraq, the next day.