Episode Details

Saddam Hussein with nothing. Born to a poor peasant family in a mud-brick village. Abandoned by his father before he was born. Raised by an abusive uncle who beat him daily.

By thirty, he was an assassin. By forty, he controlled one of the world's most oil-rich nations. By fifty, he was called the "Butcher of Baghdad." How does someone climb from absolute obscurity to absolute power? How do you build a dictatorship in a world that's supposed to have moved on from strongmen and tyrants?

Today we're going back to the beginning. From Saddam's brutal childhood to the 1968 Ba'athist coup. From his CIA connections to the 1979 purge that cemented his reign of terror.

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