The 17 July Revolution was a bloodless coup in Iraq in 1968, led by General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, which brought the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power. Both Saddam Hussein, later President of Iraq, and Salah Omar al-Ali, later a Ba'athist dissident, were major participants in the coup. According to historian Charles R. H. Tripp, the coup upset the "US-sponsored security system established as part of the Cold War in the Middle East. It appeared that any enemy of the Baghdad regime was a potential ally of the United States." The Ba'ath Party ruled from the 17 July Revolution until 2003, when it was removed from power by an invasion led by American and British forces. Iraq then came under a military occupation by a multinational coalition. (The 17 July Revolutio