Salah Omar Al-Ali (born 17 July 1938) was a member of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, Iraqi Minister of Culture and Information from 1968 to 1970, and subsequently ambassador to Sweden, Spain and the United Nations from 1973 to 1981. He is currently a leading member of the Iraqi opposition. Although he was formerly a leading member of the Ba'ath Party, and was therefore very close to individuals such as Saddam Hussein who were subsequently accused of having committed a number of atrocities. Al-Ali is popular in Iraq, he resigned twice from high ranking governmental positions in protest. Early years Al-Ali was born in Salah ad Din Governorate, in a village near the city of Tikrit. His father, Omar, was a small landowner who was involved in agricultural production. Al-Ali eventually migrated to Baghdad where he attended law school and became active in politics. At the time, the two major political parties that were popular amongst Iraqi youth were the Iraqi Communist Party and the Ba'ath Party, both of which expounded leftist principles relating to the redistribution of wealth and the eradication of the old social classes that dominated Iraqi society at the time, and both of which were violently opposed to the British. In that context, Al-Ali joined the Ba'ath party. His activism generated a certain amount of hostility from the government. Years in Government By 1968, Al-Ali was a leading member of the Ba'ath Party. When the Ba'ath seized power in the July Revolution of 1968, Al-Ali was appointed to the Iraqi Revolution Command Council (the "RCC"), a group of six leading Baath party officials who held joint executive authority over the entire country. Each member of the RCC also held governmental posts; Al-Ali was appointed Minister of Culture and Information. As such, Al-Ali was responsible for cultural affairs and for managing the government's official information campaign. Exile in Lebanon A number of differences emerged between Al-Ali and the rest of his ministerial colleagues, in 1970, Al-Ali resigned from his governmental positions as a result of these differences, and was sent into exile to Egypt. Al-Ali remained in Egypt for some time and eventually moved to Lebanon, where he remained until 1973. Years in diplomacy In 1972 and 1973, two major events greatly affected Iraq's geopolitical position. Firstly, in 1972, the Ba'athist government decided to put an end to British interests in Iraq's oil industry and nationalised all