Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Ba'athist Iraq regime began its rule on the 17th of July 1968 when tanks halted in front of the Presidential Palace in Baghdad. Military units and civilian Ba'athists seized key government buildings including telephone lines, electricity stations, radio stations, and all bridges within hours.
Saddam Hussein became the country's de facto leader by the mid-1970s despite Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr remaining president. In 1979 Saddam succeeded the ailing al-Bakr as president and publicly purged over 60 members of the Ba'ath Party leadership.
The war lasted eight years from September 1980 until it ended in a stalemate in 1988. During the conflict Iraq lost 100,000 soldiers out of one million mobilized and faced foreign debt between 80 and 100 billion dollars by the end of the war.
A United States-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait on the 24th of February 1991 following the invasion that began on the 2nd of August 1990. The Coalition established a no-fly zone to halt the advance of Saddam's forces while thousands fled their homes to Turkey or Iran.
In 1993 the Iraqi regime embarked on the Return to Faith Campaign under the supervision of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. This policy encouraged popular devotion to Islam within Iraqi society and adopted aspects of Shari'ah into the judicial system requiring judges to study Islamic jurisprudence.