BAGHDAD, Sept 4: For decades he ruled with an iron fist, his image ominipresent and his very name a source of fear. But ousted military dictator Saddam Hussein is now a pale reflection of the figure who stared out of every Iraqi schoolbook for two generations.

Since he first appeared in court in July last year, images of Saddam as a gaunt and greying prisoner have been splashed across the world.

Saddam, who has been in custody since December 2003, is now to face trial on October 19 on charges over the massacre of 143 people in the village of Dujail, where he once faced an assassination attempt.

The despot held the power of life and death over his subjects during his long years in power, and will now depend on their mercy if he is convicted of crimes against humanity — charges that carry the death penalty.

Saddam has continued to exert a profound influence over his people even after his fall on April 9, 2003, eluding US-led forces for months as many ordinary Iraqis shrank from cooperating with the occupier for fear of his return.

But the poor boy born in a mud hut village, who came to live in the grandest of palaces, was finally found cowering at the bottom of a hole on an isolated farm near his hometown of Tikrit after defying the US might.

He had paid the ultimate price in defeat and disgrace, his statues trampled into the dust, his ubiquitous gloating portraits torn to shreds and set ablaze after the occupation of his capital.

It was a stunning reversal of fortunes for the 68-year-old Arab nationalist, who declared his determination to die at home and taunted enemies with outrageous bravado.

US soldiers who have spent time guarding him in prison told a US magazine in July he was an “oddly endearing crazy man” who still called himself the president of his country and remained convinced the Iraqi people still loved him.

Those years after he took absolute power in 1979 saw a modern Arab state reckoned the cradle of civilisation transformed into an impoverished pariah, its fabulous oil wealth squandered.

Supported in his military adventures when the target was Iran’s clerical regime, the tide turned against him in the West when thousands of Kurds were gassed to death 15 years ago in the Kurdish city of Halabja.

Saddam guided Iraq through the 1980-1988 bloodbath with Iran and the rout of the 1991 Gulf war over Kuwait, emerging each time to claim Pyrrhic victories over the corpses of his people.

He defied attempts through the United Nations to ensure his disarmament, crushing UN sanctions and four nights of US and British missile strikes in December 1998.

A lust for power matched only by a ruthless streak had brought Saddam to the helm he determined never to leave, whatever the cost.

He first made a name trying to murder Iraqi leader Abdul Karim Kassem in 1959.

Wounded in the leg, he fled abroad but returned four years later and was jailed in 1964. Within two years he had escaped and resumed clandestine work for the Baath party cause.

In 1968 he took part in the coup which brought the party to power, marking the start of his affair with brute force.

As party deputy secretary general and vice president of the all-powerful Revolution Command Council (RCC), he was already considered the real power behind the throne under president Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr.

Bakr lost his grip over the next decade as Saddam strengthened his own and the president finally retired for health reasons.

Saddam seized the mantle on July 16, 1979, becoming state president, general secretary of the party and president of the RCC.

“He who inspires fear”, but once failed to win a place for officer training, assumed all the trappings of state, taking the title of field marshal and commander-in-chief of an army he led to decimation.

He brooked no dissent, extending frequent purges of senior figures to family and friends. Those who failed to make it into exile were detained, murdered and buried in the mass graves that have been uncovered across the country since his fall.

The cruelty of the state is amply documented by rights groups. Informers were encouraged, the media muzzled

and few if any dared voice criticism.

His feared sons Uday and Qusay were killed in a ferocious gunbattle in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003.—AFP