Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي c. 1937-2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 1979 until 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization the Iraqi Ba'ath Party-which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism-Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the 17 July Revolution) that brought the party to power in Iraq.