From: Paul Bullock (paulbullock@EBMS-LTD.CO.UK)
Date: Fri May 02 2003 - 17:40:54 EDT
Subject: CIA Lists Provide Basis for Iraqi Bloodbath > CIA Lists Provide Basis for Iraqi Bloodbath > By Hanna Batatu > The following is an excerpt from The Old Social Classes and the > Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University > Press, 1978). > In this excerpt, Hanna Batatu describes the ferocious violence of the > Ba`athists when they came to power in their first coup in Iraq in > early 1963. Some reliableOf special interest is his mention of the lists, which he > believes U.S. intelligence provided to the coup-makers. Evidently, > the CIA helped bring Saddam Hussein's thuggish party to power and > fatally weakened the prospects for Iraqi democracy. > sources believe that more than ten thousand were killed and more than > a hundred thousand arrested in the coup and the bloody weeks that > followed, described by historians Peter and Marion Sluglett as "some > of the most terrible violence hitherto experienced in the postwar > Middle East." > > > > (pp. 985-987) > > On the reckoning of the Communists, no fewer than 5,000 "citizens" > were killed in the fighting from 8 to 10 February, and in the > relentless house-to-house hunt for Communists that immediately > followed. Ba`athists put the losses of their own party at around 80. > A source in the First Branch of Iraq's Directorate of Security told > this writer in 1967 that some 340 Communists died at the time. A > well-placed foreign diplomatic observer, who does not wish to be > identified, set the total death toll in the neighborhood of 1,500. > The figure includes the more than one hundred soldiers who fell > inside the Ministry of Defense and "a good lot of Communists." > > At any rate, the wound to the Community party was severe and, insofar > as its members were concerned, proved to be only the prelude of a > seemingly unending year of horror. The new rulers had a past score to > settle and, in their revengeful ardor, went to unfortunate extremes. > This districts that had risen against them were treated as enemy > country, Nationalist Guardsmen and units of the armed forces spread > through them combing houses and mud huts. Upon the slightest > resistance or on mere suspicion of an interest to resist, Communists > - real or hypothetical - were felled out of hand. The number of those > seized so taxed the existing prisons that sports clubs, movie > theaters, private houses, an-Nihayah Palace and, in the first days, > even a section of Kifah Street, were turned into places of > confinement. The arrests were made in accordance with lists prepared > beforehand. It cannot be unerringly established where these lists > came from or who compiled them, but in this connection something that > King Husain of Jordan affirmed seven months later in a tête-à-tête > with Muhammad Hasanein Haikal, chief editor of Al-Ahram, at the Hotel > Crillon in Paris, is well worth quoting: > > > You tell me that American Intelligence was behind the 1957 events in > Jordan. Permit me to tell you that I know for a certainty that what > happened in Iraq on 8 February had the support of American > Intelligence. Some of those who now rule in Baghdad do not know of > this thing but I am aware of the truth. Numerous meetings were held > between the Ba`ath party and American Intelligence, the more > important in Kuwait. Do you know that . . . on 8 February a secret > radio beamed to Iraq was supplying the men who pulled the coup with > the names and addresses of the Communists there so that they could be > arrested an executed. [Al-Ahram, 27 September 1963] > It is not clear what prompted Husain to say these things. He had, of > course, never been a friend of the Ba`ath party. But his observations > should be read in the light of the recent revelation that he has been > since 1957 in the pay of the C.I.A. It is perhaps pertiment to add > that a member of the 1963 Iraqi Ba`ath Command, who asked anonymity, > asserted in a conversation with this writer that the Yugoslav embassy > in Beirut had warned certain Ba`athi leaders that some Iraqi > Ba`athists were maintaining surreptitious contacts with > representatives of American power. The majority of the command in > Iraq was, it would appear, unaware of what was said to have gone on. > Be that as it may, it is necessary, in the interest of truth, to > bring out that, insofar as the names and addresses of Communists are > concerned, the Ba`athists had ample opportunity to gather such > particulars in 1958-1959, when the Communists came wholly into the > open, and earlier, during the Front of National Unity Years - > 1957-1958 - when they had frequent dealings with them on all levels. > Besides, the lists in question proved to be in part out of date. They > at least did not lead the Ba`ath immediately to the Communists of > senior standing. Some of the latter were, anyhow, out of the country. > 'Abd-us-Salam an-Nasiri was in Moscow on an undisclosed mission. > 'Aziz al-Hajj in Prague on the staff of the World Marxist Review. > Zaki Khatiri had been in People's China and, returning at this > juncture, sought refuse with Tudeh. 'Amer 'Abdullah lived in exile in > Bulgaria, by order of the party. Baha-ud-Din Nuri was recuperating > from an illness somewhere in Eastern Europe. Other Communist leaers > had slipped into Kurdistan or had changed their addresses. However, > Hamdi Ayyub al-'Ani, a member of the Baghdad Local Committee, fell > into the net that the Ba`ath had cast. Losing courage under > examination, he gave away party secretary Hadi Hashim al-A`dhami, > from whose lips more secrets were forced, but only after he had been > laid limp with a broken back. Ultimately, on 20 February, First > Secretary Husain ar-Radi himself was taken. Although various means > were employed to make him speak, he did not yield. Four days later he > died under torture. When eventually the new government gave notice of > his death, it circumstanced the facts after its own manner: on 9 > March it announced that ar-Radi, together with Muhammad Husain > Abu-l-`Iss, an ex-member of the Politbureau, and Hasan `Uwainah, a > worker and a liaison member of the Central Committee, had been > condemned on the firth to be handed until they were dead for bearing > arms "in the face of authority" and inciting "anarchist elements to > resist the revolution" and that the sentences had been carried out on > the morning of the seventh. > > One adversity after another now pounded the party. It was the 1949 > ordeal reenfacted, but on a wider and more intense scale. The hurt to > the cadre went this time very deep. Not a single organization in the > Arab part of Iraq remained intact. Violence was perpetrated even upon > the women. Executions by summary judgment grew rife. Sympathizers > were paralyzed by despondency. The influence of fear became extreme. > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Peter and Marion Sluglett, in their authoritative book Iraq Since > 1958 (London, I.B. Taurus, 1990) have this to say about these events: > > (p. 86) > > Although individual leftists had been murdered intermittently over > the previous years, the scale on which the killings and arrests took > place in the spring and summer of 1963 indicates a closely > coordinated campaign, and it is almost certain that those who carried > out the raid on suspects' homes were working from lists supplied to > them. Precisely how these lists had been compiled is a matter or > conjecture, but it is certain that some of the Ba`athist leaders were > in touch with American intelligence networks, and it is also > undeniable that a variety of different groups in Iraq and elsewhere > in the Middle East had a strong vested interest in breaking what was > probably the strongest and most popular Communist Party in the > region. > > (p. 117) > > The Communists . . . were astonished to find themselves offered three > ministerial portfolios at the beginning of August [1968]. This was > all the more remarkable, as [Le Monde correspondent] Eric Rouleau > comments, since al-Bakr, who was now 'extending the hand of > friendship to them, was the same man who, in 1963, had presided over > a government responsible for the death of tens of thousands of > sympathisers or militants of the extreme left and the arrest of more > than a hundred thousands other.' The Communists refused to > participate unless full civil liberaties were restored, political > parties legalised and democratic elections held, demands to which the > Ba`ath was either unable or unwilling to respond. > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > A Tyrant Forty Years in the Making > By Roger Morris* > New York Times > March 14, 2003 > > On the brink of war, both supporters and critics of United States > policy on Iraq agree on the origins, at least, of the haunted > relations that have brought us to this pass: America's dealings with > Saddam Hussein, justifiable or not, began some two decades ago with > its shadowy, expedient support of his regime in the Iraq-Iran war of > the 1980's. > > Both sides are mistaken. Washington's policy traces an even longer, > more shrouded and fateful history. Forty years ago, the Central > Intelligence Agency, under President John F. Kennedy, conducted its > own regime change in Baghdad, carried out in collaboration with > Saddam Hussein. > > The Iraqi leader seen as a grave threat in 1963 was Abdel Karim > Kassem, a general who five years earlier had deposed the > Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. Washington's role in the coup went > unreported at the time and has been little noted since. America's > anti-Kassem intrigue has been widely substantiated, however, in > disclosures by the Senate Committee on Intelligence and in the work > of journalists and historians like David Wise, an authority on the > C.I.A. > > >From 1958 to 1960, despite Kassem's harsh repression, the Eisenhower > administration abided him as a counter to Washington's Arab nemesis > of the era, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt - much as Ronald Reagan and > George H. W. Bush would aid Saddam Hussein in the 1980's against the > common foe of Iran. By 1961, the Kassem regime had grown more > assertive. Seeking new arms rivaling Israel's arsenal, threatening > Western oil interests, resuming his country's old quarrel with > Kuwait, talking openly of challenging the dominance of America in the > Middle East - all steps Saddam Hussein was to repeat in some form - > Kassem was regarded by Washington as a dangerous leader who must be > removed. > > In 1963 Britain and Israel backed American intervention in Iraq, > while other United States allies - chiefly France and Germany - > resisted. But without significant opposition within the government, > Kennedy, like President Bush today, pressed on. In Cairo, Damascus, > Tehran and Baghdad, American agents marshaled opponents of the Iraqi > regime. Washington set up a base of operations in Kuwait, > intercepting Iraqi communications and radioing orders to rebels. The > United States armed Kurdish insurgents. The C.I.A.'s "Health > Alteration Committee," as it was tactfully called, sent Kassem a > monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief, though the potentially lethal > gift either failed to work or never reached its victim. > > Then, on Feb. 8, 1963, the conspirators staged a coup in Baghdad. For > a time the government held out, but eventually Kassem gave up, and > after a swift trial was shot; his body was later shown on Baghdad > television. Washington immediately befriended the successor regime. > "Almost certainly a gain for our side," Robert Komer, a National > Security Council aide, wrote to Kennedy the day of the takeover. > > As its instrument the C.I.A. had chosen the authoritarian and > anti-Communist Baath Party, in 1963 still a relatively small > political faction influential in the Iraqi Army. According to the > former Baathist leader Hani Fkaiki, among party members colluding > with the C.I.A. in 1962 and 1963 was Saddam Hussein, then a > 25-year-old who had fled to Cairo after taking part in a failed > assassination of Kassem in 1958. > > According to Western scholars, as well as Iraqi refugees and a > British human rights organization, the 1963 coup was accompanied by a > bloodbath. Using lists of suspected Communists and other leftists > provided by the C.I.A., the Baathists systematically murdered untold > numbers of Iraq's educated elite - killings in which Saddam Hussein > himself is said to have participated. No one knows the exact toll, > but accounts agree that the victims included hundreds of doctors, > teachers, technicians, lawyers and other professionals as well as > military and political figures. > > The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later > used against the same Kurdish insurgents the United States had backed > against Kassem and then abandoned. Soon, Western corporations like > Mobil, Bechtel and British Petroleum were doing business with Baghdad > - for American firms, their first major involvement in Iraq. > > But it wasn't long before there was infighting among Iraq's new > rulers. In 1968, after yet another coup, the Baathist general Ahmed > Hassan al-Bakr seized control, bringing to the threshold of power his > kinsman, Saddam Hussein. Again, this coup, amid more factional > violence, came with C.I.A. backing. Serving on the staff of the > National Security Council under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in > the late 1960's, I often heard C.I.A. officers - including Archibald > Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and a ranking C.I.A. > official for the Near East and Africa at the time - speak openly > about their close relations with the Iraqi Baathists. > > This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though > few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it. Yet > these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed > with some cynicism abroad. George W. Bush is not the first American > president to seek regime change in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his advisers > are following a familiar pattern. > > The Kassem episode raises questions about the war at hand. In the > last half century, regime change in Iraq has been accompanied by > bloody reprisals. How fierce, then, may be the resistance of hundreds > of officers, scientists and others identified with Saddam Hussein's > long rule? Why should they believe America and its latest Iraqi > clients will act more wisely, or less vengefully, now than in the > past? > > If a new war in Iraq seems fraught with danger and uncertainty, just > wait for the peace. > > *About the Author: Roger Morris, author of "Richard Milhous Nixon: > The Rise of an American Politician," is completing a book about > United States covert policy in Central and South Asia. > >
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