Iraq's Post-December 1963 History Revisited: Part 5

(See parts 1-4 below)

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 150,000 U.S. occupation troops and 200,000 private contractors. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq.

But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in 2009.

After the U.S. government and Israeli government-backed Shah of Iran's regime seized the Arab island of Abu Musa in November 1971, the post-1968 Ba'th regime in Iraq decided to sign a 15-year treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union.

So at the request of the Shah of Iran (who was later overthrown in early 1979), the Republican Nixon Administration's CIA then began to provide $16 million in covert military aid between 1972 and 1975 to the leaders of the Kurdish campaign for self-determination within Iraq. By providing covert military aid to the Kurdish leaders, U.S. State Department officials like Henry Kissinger apparently also hoped to de-stabilize a Ba'th regime which it now felt was becoming too friendly with the Soviet Union.

Despite the Ba'th Party leadership's previous history of executing Iraqi communist activists, the post-1968 Ba'th regime's domestic policy of social democratic economic reforms and foreign policy shift towards friendship with the Soviet Union, apparently persuaded the surviving Iraq Communist Party leaders to temporarily become supporters of the Ba'th regime. On May 14, 1972, for example, some Iraqi communist activists, as individuals, agreed to take positions within the Ba'th government; and, the following month, Iraqi communist activists were pleased by the June 1, 1972 nationalization by the Ba'th regime of the Iraq Petroleum Company that had previously been owned by UK and U.S. oil companies. Support for the post-1968 Ba'th regime by the surviving Iraqi communist activists continued to increase after September 1973, when the Iraq Communist Party was legalized by this Ba'th regime and allowed to publish its party newspaper openly.

Between 1972 and 1976, however, Ba'th Party activists gained control of the Iraqi trade unions, peasant unions and other mass organizations which had, historically, tended to be led by activists who were sympathetic to the Iraq Communist Party. An agreement with the Shah of Iran in 1975 also made it easier for the Ba'th regime to suppress the Kurdish campaign for self-determination in Iraq in the late 1970s.

Although the Soviet Union shipped $4.9 billion in weapons to the Ba'th regime between 1975 and 1979, by 1978 the anti-communist Ba'th regime leaders, however, were again repressing the surviving Iraqi communist activists. In March 1978, for example, twelve Iraqi communist activists were executed for "conducting non-Ba’thist political activity within the armed forces," according to the Haymarket Books' A People's History of Iraq book by Ilario Salucci. Mass arrests of Iraqi communist activists by the Ba'th regime were also made during the summer and fall of 1978. (end of part 5)

Iraq's Post-December 1963 History Revisited: Part 4

(See parts 1-3 below)

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 150,000 U.S. occupation troops and 200,000 private contractors. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq.

But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in 2009.

In April 1969, tension between the U.S.-government-backed Shah of Iran's regime and the Ba'th regime increased when the Shah declared a 1937 Treaty which gave Iraq control of the Shatt-al-Arab border waterway null and void and ordered Iranian troops to march to the Iranian-Iraqi border in large numbers.

During this same year an alliance developed between the anti-communist Ba'th regime and the pro-Soviet German Democratic Republic [GDR] which led the Ba'th regime to temporarily tolerate the Iraq Communist Party until March 1970.

On March 21, 1970, however, the Ba'th regime arrested the surviving Iraq Communist Party leadership and hundreds of surviving Iraq Communist Party members. Two months before--following an unsuccessful January 1970 Shah of Iran-backed right-wing coup attempt in Iraq--the Ba'th regime had hung or shot 29 Iraqi military officers and 12 Iraqi civilians for allegedly being involved in the coup plot.

The post-1968 Ba'th regime apparently combined its policy of domestic political repression with a policy of democratic economic reform The Ba'th regime prohibited the expulsion of Iraqi peasants from their land, further reduced the maximum amount of land a large Iraqi landlord could own and freed Iraqi peasants from previously required tax payments.

The post-1968 Ba'th regime also introduced national health insurance for all Iraqis, mechanized agriculture, created people's markets and reduced middleman exploitation of the Iraqi peasantry. Minimum wages for Iraqi workers and state subsidies for bread were also increased by the Ba'th regime. In addition, price controls that benefited Iraqi consumers and more extensive social security benefits for Iraqis were established by the Ba'th regime. (end of part 4)

Iraq's Post-December 1963 History Revisited: Part 3

(See parts 1-2 below)

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 150,000 U.S. occupation troops and 200,000 private contractors. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq.

But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in 2009.

The Ba'th Party remained in control of the Iraqi government until the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the Republican Bush Administration. And by 1976, the number of Ba'th Party activists in Iraq had increased to 10,000 and the number of Ba'th Party supporters in Iraq had jumped to about 500,000.

In 1967, the Democratic Johnson Administration had sent former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson to Baghdad to assist the Ba'th Party, according to a December 24, 2003 column by Larry Everest which was posted on The Athens News website. Reuters also reported in an April 20, 2003 article, titled "Ex-U.S. Official Says CIA Aided Ba'thists," that former U.S. State Department official and National Security Council staff member Roger Morris revealed that in 1968 "the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Ba'th party elements." According to Morris, the post-July 1968 Ba'th regime "was unquestionably midwifed by the United States, and the [CIA's] involvement there was really primary."

Although still denying the Iraq Communist Party legal status, the post-July 1968 second Ba'th regime pardoned all Iraqi political prisoners in September 1968; and it allowed exiled Iraq Communist Party activists to return to Iraq.

But in 1969, at least 20 members of the Iraq Communist Party faction that had split off to form the "Iraq Communist Party-Central Command" group were arrested by the regime and killed by torture. After breaking down under torture, the surviving leader of the Iraq Communist Party-Central Command faction, Aziz al-Hajj, was put on Iraqi television by the Ba'th regime to call on his followers to cooperate with the Ba'th regime. In addition, 53 Iraqis were also executed on alleged spying charges by the Ba'th regime in 1969. (end of part 3)

Iraq's Post-December 1963 History Revisited: Part 2

(See part 1 below)

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 150,000 U.S. occupation troops and 200,000 private contractors. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq.

But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in 2009.

The Ba'th Party was repressed within Iraq between November 18, 1963 and July 1968 by the Aref brothers' nationalist, yet anti-communist, military regime.

But Ba'th activists of Shiite religious backgrounds were apparently repressed more severely by the Aref regime's police (who were primarily of Sunni religious background) than were the Ba'thists of Sunni religious background. So the apparently CIA-backed Ba'thists of Sunni religious background from Takrit were thus able to reorganize the Ba'th Party in 1964 under the leadership of the then-40-year-old Said Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr and the then-27-year-old Saddam Hussein.

And by July 1968, the Ba'th Party was able to return to power in Iraq by means of two coups--which were each supported by the U.S. oil companies that were angered by the Rahman-Aref regime's oil deal with the Soviet Union.

In the first July 1968 coup, an alliance of Ba'th Party leaders and a clique of palace officers who were Rahman-Aref's closest advisors overthrew the Rahman-Aref regime.

At 2 a.m. on July 17, 1968 the head of the Ba'th Party's Republican Guards, Abd-uf-Rahman ad-Daud, occupied the Broadcasting House in Baghdad with a number of tanks and Republican Guard battalions. Simultaneously, the head of the Rahman-Aref regime's military intelligence network, Abd-u-Razzaq an-Nayet, took control of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and arrested Iraqi Premier Taher Yahaya.

Ba'thist tanks then encircled the Iraqi presidential palace at 3:30 a.m. and Rahman-Aref was arrested.

At 7:28 a.m., the new pro-Ba'thist coup regime leaders then broadcast a proclamation; and by 9:30 a.m. the ousted Rahman-Aref had been flown to the UK.

A second coup was then initiated by the apparently CIA-backed Ba'thist leaders on July 30, 1968 to remove the close advisors of Rahman-Aref who had supported the July 17, 1968 coup from their positions of power. After additional Iraqi military officers had been won over by the Ba'th leaders for this follow-up coup, the Iraqi Army's Tenth Brigade's tanks moved into Baghdad. The Rahman-Aref regime's military intelligence network head who had aligned with the Ba'th leaders to pull the July 17, 1968 coup, Abd-u-Razzaq an-Nayet, was then sent into exile.

The Iraqi head of state prior to the 2003 U.S. military occupation of Iraq (who was captured by U.S. troops on December 13, 2003 and later executed on December 30, 2006), Saddam Hussein, had headed the apparently CIA-backed Ba'th Party's National Security Bureau prior to the July 1968 Ba’th Party coups. And following the July 30, 1968 coup, Saddam Hussein was then given control of the second Ba'th regime's Internal Security and Military Intelligence government operations. (end of part 2)

Iraq's Post-December 1963 History Revisited: Part 1

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 150,000 U.S. occupation troops and 200,000 private contractors. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq.

But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in 2009.

The first post-Ba'th regime in Iraq was headed by Abdel Salem Aref from November 18, 1963 until his death in a helicopter crash on April 13, 1966. At first, the anti-communist, but pro-Nasserist, pan-Arab nationalist Iraqi activists exercised a special influence on the post-Ba'th regime's policies; and Aref's government nationalized all Iraqi banks, all Iraqi insurance companies and 32 large Iraqi industrial and commercial firms on May 26, 1964.

But by July 1965, the political influence of the pro-Nasserist Iraqi activists had declined; and following their failed attempt to seize political power in Iraq in September 1965, the leading pro-Nasserist, pan-Arab nationalists fled the country.

The Iraqi activists who were leaders of the Iraq Communist Party branch in Kurdistan managed to escape execution or imprisonment between February and November 1963, during the first anti-communist Ba'th regime. And, initially, these surviving party leaders in Kurdistan expressed support for the anti-communist, but pro-Nasserist Aref regime--especially, in light of the 1964 improvement in relations between Nasser's government in Egypt and the USSR government (which the Iraq Communist Party considered to be its international political ally).

But after the Aref regime ordered the Iraqi military to continue to wage war in Kurdistan in opposition to Kurdish self-determination demands and began pursuing a less pro-Nasserist policy, the surviving Iraq Communist Party leaders began to characterize the Aref regime as dictatatorial. So on April 5, 1965, the Iraq Communist Party then called for the overthrow of the Aref regime.

By the spring of 1965, two-thirds of the Iraqi Army was bogged down in the Iraqi government's attempt to militarily suppress the Kurdish campaign for self-determination in Iraq. The membership of the Iraq Communist Party, meanwhile, was still about 5,000 at this time--despite the executions during the February 1963-November 1963 first era of of Ba'th Party rule in Iraq.

After Abdel Salem Aref's death in the 1966 helicopter crash, his brother--Major Abdel Rahman-Aref--succeeded him as Iraq's president. The following year, the Iraqi military only suffered casualties of 10 killed and 30 wounded, when it ineffectively supported the unsuccessful attempt by the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies to block the Israeli government's seizure of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, during the June 1967 "Six-Day War". And on July 10, 1967, an Iraqi politician named Taher Yahaya was chosen as the Rahman-Aref government's premier and asked to form a new cabinet.

Between April 1966 and June 1967, meanwhile, the Iraq Communist Party opposed Rahman-Aref's anti-communist and anti-Nasserist regime in Iraq; and--influenced by Che Guevara's writings on the Cuban Revolution--apparently considered adopting a political strategy of guerrilla warfare in Iraq. And by September 17, 1967 a faction within the Iraq Communist Party, the "Iraq Communist Party -Central Command," had split from the main party and was calling for armed struggle in Iraq, a unitary Arab-Jewish democratic state in Palestine and an Arab people's liberation war against all the other undemocratic, repressive Arab states.

Yet on December 24, 1967, the Rahman-Aref regime in Iraq, under Taher Yahaya's premiership, seemed to be seeking closer economic ties to the Soviet Union. And an agreement was reached for the Soviet Union to furnish Iraq with oil drilling machines for use in its North Ramallah oil field and to help the Iraqi government market the oil of Iraq's state-controlled Iraq National Oil Company--despite the fact that the Iraq Communist Party regarded the Rahman-Aref regime that the Soviet Union was doing business with as an oppressive government (end of part 1).

Iraq's Post-1950 History Revisited: Part 17

(See parts 1-16 below)

Most people in the United States would like to see the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops and 200,000 private contractors who are still occupying Iraqi soil (in support of special U.S. corporate interests) to finally be withdrawn from Iraq by Easter 2009. But the Democratic Obama regime is still not willing to immediately bring U.S. troops and private contractors in Iraq back home; and the Obama regime apparently plans to leave between 30,000 and 50,000 U.S. occupation troops stationed in Iraq as "military advisors" until January 1, 2012.

Yet if the Obama Administration officials responsible for authorizing the use of U.S. armed forces in Iraq--like U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--had known more about Iraq's post-1950 history, perhaps U.S. troops and private contractors would not still be spending another Easter in Iraq in 2009?

After undemocratically seizing Iraqi state power in February 1963, the Ba'th Party leaders "discovered that their opposition to" Qasim's "government was the only factor that held them together," according to The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. And divisions between pro and anti-Nasser Ba'th leaders, as well as between right and left pan-Arab nationalist Ba'th leaders, led to the first Ba'th regime in Iraq's collapse in November 1963, while 7,000 Iraqi communists still remained imprisoned.

On November 11, 1963, 15 armed Iraqi Army military officers burst into a Ba'th Congress meeting, seized the Ba'th left nationalist faction leaders at gun point and flew them to Madrid. Then, on November 18, 1963, Abdel Salem Aref, his brother, Brigade General Abdel Rahman and their Iraqi Army supporters suppressed the Ba'th National Guard Militia (which had increased in size from 5,000 to 34,000 between February and August 1963) and bombed the Ba'th National Guard Milita headquarters. The first Ba'th regime was thus overthrown; and a new, pro-Nasserist regime was established with Abdel Salem Aref as Head of State.

Revisiting Iraq’s post-1950s history between 1950 to November 1963 thus indicates that U.S. government involvement in Iraq's internal political affairs led to major human rights violations in Iraq by the first U.S.-supported Ba'th regime in 1963. As the Haymarket Books published A People's History of Iraq by Ilario Salucci noted in its chronology of events:

"[In 1963] The Ba'th Party strengthens its ties with the United States, and the CIA lends its support to the party's repression of more than ten thousand people: the bloodbath of that year is to remain in the memories of the Iraqi people forever."

Opponents of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the Obama-Clinton Regime sometimes claim the U.S. government still has a moral right to attempt to exercise a special influence on Iraqi history, despite the record of human suffering produced by U.S. government intervention in Iraq since 1950.

But U.S. reparations for the Iraqi people, rather than continued U.S. military occupation of Iraq until January 1, 2012, would seem like the more morally appropriate and democratic U.S. foreign policy to implement in 2009. (end of part 17)

Iraq's Post-1950 History Revisited: Part 16

(See parts 1-15 below)

Most people in the United States would like to see the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops and 200,000 private contractors who are still occupying Iraqi soil (in support of special U.S. corporate interests) to finally be withdrawn from Iraq by Easter 2009. But the Democratic Obama regime is still not willing to immediately bring U.S. troops and private contractors in Iraq back home; and the Obama regime apparently plans to leave between 30,000 and 50,000 U.S. occupation troops stationed in Iraq as "military advisors" until January 1, 2012.

Yet if the Obama Administration officials responsible for authorizing the use of U.S. armed forces in Iraq--like U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--had known more about Iraq's post-1950 history, perhaps U.S. troops and private contractors would not still be spending another Easter in Iraq in 2009?

Officially, 149 Iraq Communist Party members were executed between February 8, 1963 and the end of the initial 1960s period of Ba'th Party rule in Iraq in November 1963, including 7 of the 19 members of the Iraq Communist Party's Central Committee. But the actual number of Iraqi communist activists executed after the February 8, 1963 coup was apparently much higher. According to Said Aburish's book, A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite:

"The number of people eliminated remains confused and estimates range from 700 to 30,000. Putting various statements by Iraqi exiles together, in all likelihood the figure was nearer five thousand…There were many ordinary people who were eliminated because they continued to resist after the coup became an accomplished fact, but there were also senior army officers, lawyers, professors, teachers, doctors and others. There were pregnant women and old men among them and many were tortured to death in the presence of their young children…The British Committee for Human Rights in Iraq, one of the few international groups to investigate what happened after the coup, confirmed all this in a 1964 report and compared the Ba'thist hit squads to `Hitlerian shock troops.'"

The CIA-backed Ba'th Party was able to overthrow the Qasim regime and then violate the human rights of thousands of Iraqi leftists in February 1963, despite there only being about 15,000 Ba'thist civilian supporters within Iraqi society at that time. But even after it eliminated its Iraqi communist political opponents and held Iraqi state power for the first time between February and November 1963, "the Ba'th was never able at any time to bring together one-third of the crowds that the Communists attracted in 1959," according to The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq book.

Although the Iraq Communist Party enjoyed much more support in Iraqi society between 1958 and early 1963 than the Ba'th Party, surviving Iraq Communist Party leaders later concluded in a 1967 internal self-criticism document that:

"We gave ourselves up to the delusion that we could preserve the mighty revolutionary army, which we built under the extraordinary revolutionary circumstances of 1958-1959, in a condition of passive defense or passive watchfulness indefinitely."

(end of part 16)