Iraq's Post-1950 History Revisited: Part 8

(See parts 1-7 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private contractors who are still occupying Iraqi soil (in support of special U.S. corporate interests) to finally be withdrawn from Iraq by Easter 2009.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 September 20, 1959, the Qasim regime then executed 13 anti-Qasim, anti-communist nationalist Iraqi Army officers for their role in the unsuccessful March 1959 Mosul Revolt. Their executions provoked both a wave of anti-Qasim demos and Iraqi communist activist-led counter-demos in support of the Qasim regime on the Iraqi streets.

In addition, between March and October 1959 the Eisenhower Administration's CIA apparently collaborated with anti-communist Ba'th activists like Saddam Hussein in organizing an October 7, 1959 assassination attempt on Qasim which left Qasim badly wounded by machine gun fire and in the hospital for two months. As Rashid Khalidi noted in his 2004 book Resurrecting Empire, "An investigative report based on interviews with a dozen American and British former intelligence officers and diplomats stated that Saddam Hussein was part of a `CIA-authorized six-man squad' that failed to kill Qasim." (end of part 8)