Iraq's Post-1950 History Revisited: Part 5

(See parts 1-4 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private contractors who are still occupying Iraqi soil (in support of special U.S. corporate interests) to finally be withdrawn from Iraq by Easter 2009.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?

On February 23, 1959, a Ba'th-supported plot in Mosul to overthrow the Qasim regime was discovered by Qasim's Iraqi communist activist supporters in that city.

The 180,000 Iraqis who lived in Mosul in March 1959 were much more anti-communist than the Iraqis who lived in Baghdad. In Mosul, the Ba'th Party had 150 full members, 600 Ba'th supporters and ties to anti-communist and anti-Qasim Iraqi military officers. But only 400 people in Mosul were members of the Iraq Communist Party in early March 1959--although the People's Resistance Force group in Mosul which supported the Qasim regime contained 7,000 members.

To protest the Ba'th-supported plot, the Iraqi communist activist-led Peace Partisans then mobilized 250,000 people, many from Baghdad, to demonstrate in support of the Qasim regime in Mosul on March 6, 1959. But the following day, Ba'thist activists burnt down the leftist bookshops and the Ali al-Khajju coffeehouse in Mosul. The Ali al-Khajju coffeehouse was the Mosul coffeehouse where local Iraqi communist activists hung out in the late 1950s.

The next day, at dawn on March 8, 1959, anti-Qasim Iraqi military officers in Mosul arrested 60 local Iraqi communist activists. Then, at 7 a.m., these Iraqi Army Fifth Brigade military officers broadcast a call to revolt against the Qasim regime over the Mosul radio station.

Qasim loyalists within the military and the Qasim regime's Iraqi communist supporters, however, were able to prevent this Ba'th-supported Iraqi military revolt in Mosul from succeeding in March 1959. But during this unsuccessful Ba'th-supported 1959 Mosul revolt, at least 110 Iraqis were killed and 300 Iraqis were wounded. Of the 110 Iraqis killed, 48 were Ba'th Party activists or allies and 30 were Iraq Communist Party activists. (end of part 5)