Editing Saddam Hussein (section)

=== Political program ===
[[File:Saddam Hussein and Hassan al-Bakr 1978.jpg|thumb|Saddam and al-Bakr]]
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, formally al-Bakr's second-in-command, Saddam built a reputation as a progressive, effective politician.<ref>{{cite web |website=CNN |title=Hussein was a symbol of autocracy, cruelty in Iraq |date=30 December 2003 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/29/hussein.obit/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240301122020/http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/29/hussein.obit/index.html |archive-date= 1 March 2024 }}</ref> At this time, he moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country's major domestic problems and expanding the party's following.

At the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector.<ref>{{Cite web |date=3 June 2003 |title=Iraq's economy: Past, present, future – Iraq |url=https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraqs-economy-past-present-future |access-date=16 February 2024 |website=ReliefWeb |language=en}}</ref> A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the [[1973 energy crisis]], and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.<ref name="cbc">{{Cite news |title=The price of oil – in context |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/oil/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609145246/http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/oil/ |archive-date=June 9, 2007 |access-date=May 29, 2007 |work=CBC News}}</ref> Saddam subsequently implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Role in the Middle East |url=https://ripsaddamhussein.weebly.com/role-in-the-middle-east.html |access-date=2025-04-11 |website=Saddam Hussein}}</ref> Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, and many outlying areas.<ref name=":6" /> Before the 1970s, most of Iraq's people lived in the countryside and roughly two-thirds were peasants. This number would decrease quickly during the 1970s. He nationalized independent banks, eventually leaving the banking system insolvent due to [[inflation]] and bad loans.<ref name="economist2004">{{cite news |date=24 June 2004 |title=Banking in Iraq&nbsp;– A tricky operation |url=http://www.economist.com/node/2792407?story_id=2792407 |newspaper=[[The Economist]]}}</ref>

Saddam focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athists in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the countryside, mechanizing agriculture on a large scale, and distributing land to peasant farmers.<ref>Khadduri, Majid. ''Socialist Iraq''. The Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C., 1978.</ref> The Ba'athists established farm cooperatives and the government also doubled expenditures for agricultural development in 1974–1975.  

By the late 1970s, Iraq had experienced significant economic growth, with a [[Bank reserves|budget reserve]] surpassing US$35 billion. The value of 1 Iraqi dinar was worth more than 3 dollars, making it one of the most notable economic expansions in the region. Saddam Hussein's regime aimed to diversify the Iraqi economy beyond oil. The government invested in various industries, including petrochemicals, fertilizer production, and textile manufacturing, to reduce dependence on oil revenues and promote economic self-sufficiency.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Iraq's economy: Old obstacles and new challenges |url=https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/iraqs-economy-old-obstacles-and-new-challenges-121426 |access-date=16 February 2024 |website=ISPI |language=en-US}}</ref>

The oil revenue benefited Saddam politically.<ref name="economist2007">{{cite news |date=4 January 2007 |title=Saddam Hussein&nbsp;– The blundering dictator |url=http://www.economist.com/node/8492668 |newspaper=[[The Economist]]}}</ref> According to ''[[The Economist]]'', "Much as [[Adolf Hitler]] won early praise for galvanizing German industry, ending mass unemployment and building autobahns, Saddam earned admiration abroad for his deeds. He had a good instinct for what the "[[Arab street]]" demanded, following the decline in Egyptian leadership brought about by the trauma of Israel's six-day victory in the 1967 war, the death of the pan-Arabist hero, [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]], in 1970, and the "traitorous" drive by his successor, Anwar Sadat, to sue for peace with the Jewish state. Saddam's self-aggrandizing propaganda, with himself posing as the defender of Arabism against Zionist or [[Iran|Persian]] intruders, was heavy-handed, but consistent as a drumbeat. It helped, of course, that his [[Iraqi Intelligence Service|mukhabarat]] (secret police) put dozens of Arab news editors, writers and artists on the payroll."<ref name="economist2007" />