WHadi al-Amiri is the head and secretary general of the Badr Organization, a Shiite organization, considered a terrorist by the United States, sponsored by Iran and based in Iraq. Born in Diyala province in 1954. A member of the United Iraqi Alliance, he heads the Shiite political organization Badr and his armed group, the Badr Brigade.
WTariq Aziz was Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister (1979–2003) and Foreign Minister (1983–1991) and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He was both an Arab nationalist and an ethnic Assyrian, and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
WMasoud Barzani is a Kurdish politician who has been leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) since 1979, and was President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 2005 to 2017. Barzani was born in the self-declared Republic of Mahabad, and succeeded his father Mustafa Barzani as leader of the KDP in 1979.
WIzzat Ibrahim al-Douri was an Iraqi politician and Army Field Marshal. He served as Vice Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and was regarded as the closest advisor and deputy under former President Saddam Hussein. He led the Iraqi insurgent Naqshbandi Army.
WAyatollah Abdul Aziz al-Hakim was an Iraqi theologian and politician and the leader of Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a party that has approximately 5% support in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. He also served as the President of the Governing Council of Iraq
WSayyid Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, also known as Shaheed al-Mehraab, was a senior Iraqi Shia cleric and the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Al-Hakim spent more than 20 years in exile in Iran and returned to Iraq on 12 May 2003. Al-Hakim was a contemporary of Ayatollah Khomeini, and The Guardian compared the two in terms of their times in exile and their support in their respective homelands. After his return to Iraq, al-Hakim's life was in danger because of his work to encourage Shiite resistance to Saddam Hussein and from a rivalry with Muqtada al-Sadr, the son of the late Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who had himself been assassinated in Najaf in 1999. Al-Hakim was assassinated in a bomb attack in Najaf in 2003 when aged 63 years old. At least 75 others in the vicinity also died in the bombing.
WQusay Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician and heir. He was the second son of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He was appointed as his father's heir apparent in 2000. He was also in charge of the Republican Guard.
WAli Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician and military commander under Saddam Hussein who served as Defence Minister, Interior Minister, and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. He was also the governor of Kuwait during much of the 1990-91 Gulf War.
WMassoud Rajavi is the leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), alongside his wife Maryam Rajavi. After leaving Iran in 1981, he resided in France and Iraq. He disappeared in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and it is not known whether he is still alive.
WTaha Yasin Ramadan al-Jizrawi was an Iraqi-Kurdish politician and military officer who served as one of the three Vice Presidents of Iraq from March 1991 to the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
WSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 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 that brought the party to power in Iraq.
WJalal Talabani was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the sixth President of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as the President of the Governing Council of Iraq. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq. He is known as Mam Jalal in the Middle East.