Edit[r’s note: This story was originally published on Dec. 13, 2024.

A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.

On Dec. 13, 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit.

Per Associated Press reports, Saddam was seized by U.S. troops and displayed on television screens worldwide, a humiliating fate for one of history’s most brutal dictators.

The man who waged and lost two wars against the United States and its allies was armed with a pistol when captured in a Styrofoam-covered underground hideout but did not resist, the U.S. military said.

Three years later, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century, was taken t

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