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50 free Saddam Hussein trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Saddam Hussein trivia for history buffs, politics students and anyone who watched the Gulf Wars unfold on television. The quiz follows the man from a village outside Tikrit, through the botched 1959 ambush of Prime Minister Qasim, exile in Cairo, the 1968 Ba'athist coup and eleven years as the real power behind President al-Bakr, to the videotaped purge of July 1979 that opened his presidency. The middle rounds cover the eight-year war with Khomeini's Iran, the Israeli strike on the Osirak reactor, the Anfal campaign and the gassing of Halabja, the invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm, the uprisings and sanctions of the 1990s, the Faith Campaign and the Blood Quran, and the show referendum that reported 100 percent approval. It ends with the 2003 invasion, the deaths of Uday and Qusay, Operation Red Dawn and the spider hole near ad-Dawr, the Dujail trial and the execution on the first day of Eid al-Adha in 2006. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Iraq, Gulf War, Cold War and 20th-century history quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Saddam Hussein was born in 1937 in a village near which Iraqi city?
Tikrit
He was buried in the same village, al-Awja, the day after his execution in 2006.
Q 02What does the name Saddam mean?
The fighter who stands steadfast
His father died before he was born, and he was raised largely by an uncle.
Q 03Which uncle became a father figure to Saddam and later mayor of Baghdad?
Khairallah Talfah
He was a veteran of the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War and the father of Saddam's first wife.
Q 04In which year did Saddam drop out of law school to join the Ba'ath Party?
1957
The party had fewer than 300 members in Iraq two years earlier.
Q 05Which Egyptian leader's pan-Arab nationalism profoundly influenced the young Saddam?
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Saddam later claimed his mantle, alongside those of Nebuchadnezzar and Saladin, during the Gulf War.
Q 06Which Iraqi prime minister did Saddam help try to assassinate on Al-Rashid Street in October 1959?
Abdul-Karim Qasim
Saddam, meant only to give cover, opened fire early and the target survived with wounds to the arm and shoulder.
Q 07After the failed 1959 assassination, Saddam eventually fled to which city?
Cairo
He finished high school there in 1961 and had a go at a law degree before returning to Iraq in 1963.
Q 08Who led the bloodless July 1968 coup that made Saddam vice president?
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Saddam handled the follow-up purge, reportedly marching Prime Minister an-Naif to a plane at gunpoint.
Q 09Which enterprise did Saddam nationalise while vice president?
The Iraq Petroleum Company
The oil money paid for free healthcare and schooling and a wave of infrastructure.
Q 10The 1975 agreement Saddam signed with Iran to settle border disputes was reached in which city?
Algiers
The deal ended Iranian support for the Kurdish insurgency Saddam had been fighting.
Q 11On what date did Saddam formally become president after forcing al-Bakr to resign?
16 July 1979
Al-Bakr had been negotiating a union with Syria that would have sidelined Saddam behind Hafez al-Assad.
Q 12How many alleged conspirators were removed at the videotaped Ba'ath assembly six days into his term?
68
Twenty-two of them were sentenced to death, and other senior party members formed the firing squad.
Q 13Which minority filled most senior posts under Saddam despite being about a fifth of Iraqis?
Sunni Arabs
Key security posts were often reserved for his own relatives from around Tikrit.
Q 21Which numbered UN Security Council text did Iran finally accept in July 1988, ending the war?
Resolution 598
Hostilities formally ended on 20 August 1988 after perhaps half a million deaths.
Q 22The Anfal campaign against the Kurds took its code name from what?
A chapter of the Quran
Chapter 8, al-Anfal ('the spoils'), lent its name to attacks that Human Rights Watch calls genocide.
Q 23Which Kurdish town was attacked with mustard gas and nerve agents on 16 March 1988?
Halabja
Between 3,200 and 5,000 people died, most of them civilians.
Q 14Saddam received an award from which UN agency for Iraq's public-health and literacy campaigns?
UNESCO
Electricity reached nearly every city and free schooling ran up to university level.
Q 15Which US city gave Saddam a ceremonial key in 1980 after he donated to a local church?
Detroit
The gift of nearly half a million dollars went to a Chaldean-Catholic congregation.
Q 16Where had Ayatollah Khomeini lived in exile in Iraq before Saddam expelled him in 1978?
Najaf
The Shia holy city gave Khomeini a following that Saddam tolerated until the Shah pushed for his removal.
Q 17On what date did Iraq invade Iran, starting the eight-year Iran-Iraq War?
22 September 1980
Airstrikes hit Tehran's Mehrabad Airport before troops moved into oil-rich Khuzestan.
Q 18Which oil-rich, Arab-minority Iranian province was Iraq's initial objective in 1980?
Khuzestan
Iraq had seized more than 25,900 square kilometres of Iranian territory by December that year.
Q 19Who destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in an air attack on 7 June 1981?
Israel
The strike set back Saddam's nuclear ambitions during the second year of the war with Iran.
Q 20Which waterway dividing Iraq and Iran was the subject of the skirmishes that preceded the war?
Shatt al-Arab
The 1975 Algiers Agreement had supposedly settled its status.
Q 24Who headed the Anfal campaign, earning the nickname 'Chemical Ali'?
Ali Hassan al-Majid
He was Saddam's cousin.
Q 25Roughly how much war debt did Saddam ask Kuwait to waive after the Iran-Iraq War?
$30 billion
Kuwait refused and then led OPEC opposition to the production cuts Saddam wanted.
Q 26Which US ambassador's 'no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts' remark was read as a green light to invade Kuwait?
April Glaspie
The emergency meeting took place on 25 July 1990, eight days before the invasion.
Q 27On what date did Iraq invade Kuwait?
2 August 1990
By 28 August Kuwait had been declared Iraq's 19th governorate.
Q 28Kuwait was formally annexed as which numbered governorate of Iraq?
19th
Saddam insisted the emirate had only ever existed because of British interference.
Q 29The coalition air campaign against Iraq in the Gulf War began on which date?
16 January 1991
The ground offensive that followed ejected the Iraqi army from Kuwait in February.
Q 30Approximately how many Iraqi soldiers were taken prisoner in the Gulf War?
175,000
Saddam nonetheless publicly claimed victory and later cited his survival as proof Iraq had won.