Question: Iraq consists of 19 governorates, also known as "provinces",former President Saddam Hussein divided the country into eighteen governorates in the 1970s for reasons of ethnic manipulation, Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti,  was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until which date? 

 Former President Saddam Hussein divided the country into eighteen governorates in the 1970s for reasons of ethnic manipulation. Iraq consists of 19 governorates ("muḥāfażah" in Arabic), also known as "provinces".  A portion of the Kurdish-inhabited area of the country was granted autonomy in 1970.  In 2003, after opposition from Kurdish people regarding the division of Kurdistan into governorates, the autonomous standing of only three Iraqi Kurdish provinces was re-confirmed in 2005 in the constitution of Iraq, leaving out many other Kurdish majority regions, such as Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Sinjar and Mandali-Badra, outside the autonomous Kurdish region.  In 2014 the decision was made to create the Halabja Governorate out of the Halabja District of Sulaymaniyah Governorate. <SEP> Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations were made by the U.S. government officials who claimed that a highly secretive relationship existed between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the radical Islamist militant organization Al-Qaeda from 1992 to 2003, specifically through a series of meetings reportedly involving the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS).  In the lead up to the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush alleged that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and militant group al-Qaeda might conspire to launch terrorist attacks on the United States, basing the administration's rationale for war, in part, on this allegation .  The consensus of intelligence experts has been that these contacts never led to an operational relationship, and that consensus is backed up by reports from the independent 9/11 Commission and by declassified Defense Department reports as well as by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, whose 2006 report of Phase II of its investigation into prewar intelligence reports concluded that there was no evidence of ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.  Critics of the Bush Administration have said Bush was intentionally building a case for war with Iraq without regard to factual evidence.  On April 29, 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on "60 Minutes", "We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America, period." <SEP>  A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism—Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the 17 July Revolution) that brought the party to power in Iraq. Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti ( ; Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي "Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī "; 28 April 1937  – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. <SEP> The Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council was established after the military coup in 1968, and was the ultimate decision making body in Iraq before the 2003 American-led invasion.  It exercised both executive and legislative authority in the country, with the Chairman and Vice Chairman chosen by a two-thirds majority of the council.  The Chairman was also then declared the President of Iraq and he was then allowed to select a Vice President.  After Saddam Hussein became President of Iraq in 1979 the council was led by deputy chairman Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri, deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, who had known Saddam since the 1960s.  The legislature was composed of the RCC, the National Assembly and a 50-member Kurdish Legislative Council which governed the country.  During his presidency, Saddam Hussein was Chairman of the RCC and President of the Republic.  Other members of the RCC included Salah Omar Al-Ali who held the position between 1968 and 1970, one of Saddam's half-brothers, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Taha Yasin Ramadan, Adnan Khairallah, Sa'adoun Shaker Mahmoud, Tariq Aziz Isa, Hasan Ali Nassar al-Namiri, Naim Hamid Haddad and Taha Mohieddin Maruf.  It was officially dissolved on 23 May 2003 by Paul Bremer per Order Number 2 of the Coalition Provisional Authority.