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Iraq
Index
In early 1988, the Baath Party continued to stress
parallelism focused on "regional" (qutri) and "national"
(qawmi) goals, following the Baath doctrine that the
territorially and politically divided Arab countries were merely
"regions" of a collective entity called "The Arab Nation." Hence
the Baath movement in one country was considered merely an aspect
of, or a phase leading to, "a unified democratic socialist Arab
nation." That nation, when it materialized, would be under a
single, unified Arab national leadership. Theoretically,
therefore, success or failure at the regional level would have a
corresponding effect on the movement toward that Arab nation.
Moreover, the critical test of legitimacy for any Baath regime
would necessarily be whether or not the regime's policies and
actions were compatible with the basic aims of the revolution--
aims epitomized in the principles of "unity, freedom, and
socialism."
The Baath Party in Iraq, like its counterparts in other Arab
regions (states), derived from the official founding congress in
Damascus in 1947. This conclave of pan-Arab intellectuals was
inspired by the ideas of two Syrians, Michel Aflaq and Salah ad
Din al Bitar, who are generally regarded as the fathers of the
Baath movement. Several Iraqis, including Abd ar Rahman ad Damin
and Abd al Khaliq al Khudayri, attended this congress and became
members of the party. Upon their return to Baghdad, they formed
the Iraqi branch of the Baath. Damin became the first secretary
general of the Iraqi Baath.
From its early years, the Iraqi Baath recruited converts from
a small number of college and high school students,
intellectuals, and professionals--virtually all of whom were
urban Sunni Arabs. A number of Baath high school members entered
the Military College, where they influenced several classmates to
join the party. Important military officers who became Baath
members in the early 1950s included Ahmad Hasan al Bakr, Salih
Mahdi Ammash, and Abd Allah Sultan, all of whom figured
prominently in Iraqi political affairs in later years.
During the 1950s, the Baath was a clandestine party, and its
members were subject to arrest if their identities were
discovered. The Baath Party joined with other opposition parties
to form the underground United National Front and participated in
the activities that led to the 1958 revolution. The Baathists
hoped that the new, republican government would favor pan-Arab
causes, especially a union with Egypt, but instead the regime was
dominated by non-Baathist military officers who did not support
Arab unity or other Baath principles. Some younger members of the
party, including Saddam Husayn, became convinced that Iraqi
leader Abd al Karim Qasim had to be removed, and they plotted his
assassination. The October 1959 attempt on Qasim's life, however,
was bungled; Saddam Husayn fled Iraq, while other party members
were arrested and tried for treason. The Baath was forced
underground again, and it experienced a period of internal
dissension as members debated over which tactics were appropriate
to achieve their political objectives. The party's second attempt
to overthrow Qasim, in February 1963, was successful, and it
resulted in the formation of the country's first Baath
government. The party, however, was more divided than ever
between ideologues and more pragmatic members. Because of this
lack of unity, the Baath's coup partners were able to outmaneuver
it and, within nine months, to expel all Baathists from the
government. It was not until 1965 that the Baath overcame the
debilitating effects of ideological and of personal rivalries.
The party then reorganized under the direction of General Bakr as
secretary general with Saddam Husayn as his deputy. Both men were
determined to return the Baath to power. In July 1968, the Baath
finally staged a successful coup.
After the Baath takeover, Bakr became president of the
regime, and he initiated programs aimed at the establishment of a
"socialist, unionist, and democratic" Iraq. This was done,
according to the National Action Charter, with scrupulous care
for balancing the revolutionary requirements of Iraq on the one
hand and the needs of the "Arab nation" on the other. According
to a Baath Party pronouncement in January 1974, "Putting the
regional above the national may lead to statism, and placing the
national over the regional may lead to rash and childish action."
This protestation notwithstanding, the government's primary
concerns since 1968 have been domestic issues rather than pan-
Arab ones.
In 1968 the Baath regime confronted a wide range of problems,
such as ethnic and sectarian tensions, the stagnant condition of
agriculture, commerce, and industry, the inefficiency and the
corruption of government, and the lack of political consensus
among the three main sociopolitical groups--the Shia Arabs, the
Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds. The difficulties of consensus
building were compounded by the pervasive apathy and mistrust at
the grass-roots levels of all sects, by the shortage of qualified
party cadres to serve as the standard-bearers of the Baath
regime, and by the Kurdish armed insurgency. Rivalry with Syria
and with Egypt for influence within the Arab world and the
frontier dispute with Iran also complicated the regime's efforts
to build the nation.
Since 1968 the Baath has attempted to create a strong and
unified Iraq, through formal government channels and through
political campaigns designed to eradicate what it called "harmful
prerevolutionary values and practices," such as exploitation,
social inequities, sectarian loyalties, apathy, and lack of civil
spirit. Official statements called for abandonment of traditional
ways in favor of a new life-style fashioned on the principles of
patriotism, national loyalty, collectivism, participation,
selflessness, love of labor, and civic responsibility. These
"socialist principles and practices" would be instilled by the
party's own example, through the state educational system, and
through youth and other popular organizations. The Baath
particularly emphasized "military training" for youth; such
training was considered essential for creating "new men in the
new society" and for defending the republic from the hostile
forces of Zionism, imperialism, anti-Arab chauvinism (e.g., from
Iran), rightists, opportunists, and reactionaries
(see Paramilitary Forces;
Internal Security
, ch. 5).
The Baath's major goal since 1968 has been to socialize the
economy. By the late 1980s, the party had succeeded in
socializing a significant part of the national economy
(see The Role of Government
, ch. 3), including agriculture, commerce,
industry, and oil. Programs to collectivize agriculture were
reversed in 1981, but government investment in industrial
production remained important in the late 1980s. Large-scale
industries such as iron, steel, and petrochemicals were fully
owned and managed by the government, as were many medium-sized
factories that manufactured textiles, processed food, and turned
out construction materials.
The Baath's efforts to create a unified Arab nation have been
more problematic. The party has not abandoned its goal of Arab
unity. This goal, however, has become a long-term ideal rather
than a short-term objective. President Saddam Husayn proclaimed
the new view in 1982 by stating that Baathists now "believe that
Arab unity must not take place through the elimination of the
local and national characteristics of any Arab country. . . . but
must be achieved through common fraternal opinion." In practice
this meant that the Iraqi Baath Party had accepted unity of
purpose among Arab leaders, rather than unification of Arab
countries, as more important for the present.
As of early 1988, the Baath Party claimed about 10 percent of
the population, a total of 1.5 million supporters and
sympathizers; of this total, full party members, or cadres, were
estimated at only 30,000, or 0.2 percent. The cadres were the
nucleus of party organization, and they functioned as leaders,
motivators, teachers, administrators, and watchdogs. Generally,
party recruitment procedures emphasized selectivity rather than
quantity, and those who desired to join the party had to pass
successfully through several apprentice-like stages before being
accepted into full membership. The Baath's elitist approach
derived from the principle that the party's effectiveness could
only be measured by its demonstrable ability to mobilize and to
lead the people, and not by "size, number, or form."
Participation in the party was virtually a requisite for social
mobility.
The basic organizational unit of the Baath was the party cell
or circle (halaqah). Composed of between three and seven
members, cells functioned at the neighborhood or the village
level, where members met to discuss and to carry out party
directives. A minimum of two and a maximum of seven cells formed
a party division (firqah). Divisions operated in urban
quarters, larger villages, offices, factories, schools, and other
organizations. Division units were spread throughout the
bureaucracy and the military, where they functioned as the ears
and eyes of the party. Two to five divisions formed a section
(shabah). A section operated at the level of a large city
quarter, a town, or a rural district. Above the section was the
branch (fira), which was composed of at least two sections
and which operated at the provincial level. There were twenty-one
Baath Party branches in Iraq, one in each of the eighteen
provinces and three in Baghdad. The union of all the branches
formed the party's congress, which elected the Regional Command.
The Regional Command was both the core of party leadership
and the top decision-making body. It had nine members, who were
elected for five-year terms at regional congresses of the party.
Its secretary general (also called the regional secretary) was
the party's leader, and its deputy secretary general was second
in rank and in power within the party hierarchy. The members of
the command theoretically were responsible to the Regional
Congress that, as a rule, was to convene annually to debate and
to approve the party's policies and programs; actually, the
members were chosen by Saddam Husayn and other senior party
leaders to be "elected" by the Regional Congress, a formality
seen as essential to the legitimation of party leadership.
Above the Regional Command was the National Command of the
Baath Party, the highest policy-making and coordinating council
for the Baath movement throughout the Arab world. The National
Command consisted of representatives from all regional commands
and was responsible to the National Congress, which convened
periodically. It was vested with broad powers to guide, to
coordinate, and to supervise the general direction of the
movement, especially with respect to relationships among the
regional Baath parties and with the outside world. These powers
were to be exercised through a national secretariat that would
direct policy-formulating bureaus.
In reality, the National Command did not oversee the Baath
movement as a whole in 1988 because there continued to be no
single command. In 1966 a major schism within the Baath movement
had resulted in the creation of two rival National Commands, one
based in Damascus and the other in Baghdad. Both commands claim
to be the legitimate authority for the Baath, but since 1966 they
have been mutually antagonistic. Michel Aflaq, one of the
original cofounders of the Baath Party, was the secretary general
of the Baghdad-based National Command, and Saddam Husayn was the
vice-chairman. In practice, the Syrian Regional Command, under
Hafiz al Assad, controlled the Damascus-based National Command of
the Baath Party, while the Iraqi Regional Command controlled the
Baghdad-based National Command.
Theoretically, the Iraqi Regional Command made decisions
about Baath Party policy based on consensus. In practice, all
decisions were made by the party's secretary general, Saddam
Husayn, who since 1979 had also been chairman of the RCC and
president of the republic. He worked closely with a small group
of supporters, especially members of the Talfah family from the
town of Tikrit
(see The Emergence of Saddam Husayn, 1968-79
, ch.
1); he also dealt ruthlessly with suspected opposition to his
rule from within the party. In 1979 several high-ranking
Baathists were tried and were executed for allegedly planning a
coup; other prominent party members were forcibly retired in
1982. Saddam Husayn's detractors accused him of monopolizing
power and of promoting a cult of personality.
Data as of May 1988
Tahrir Square, Baghdad, showing the Monument of Liberty
Courtesy United Nations
The Baath Party
In early 1988, the Baath Party continued to stress
parallelism focused on "regional" (qutri) and "national"
(qawmi) goals, following the Baath doctrine that the
territorially and politically divided Arab countries were merely
"regions" of a collective entity called "The Arab Nation." Hence
the Baath movement in one country was considered merely an aspect
of, or a phase leading to, "a unified democratic socialist Arab
nation." That nation, when it materialized, would be under a
single, unified Arab national leadership. Theoretically,
therefore, success or failure at the regional level would have a
corresponding effect on the movement toward that Arab nation.
Moreover, the critical test of legitimacy for any Baath regime
would necessarily be whether or not the regime's policies and
actions were compatible with the basic aims of the revolution--
aims epitomized in the principles of "unity, freedom, and
socialism."
The Baath Party in Iraq, like its counterparts in other Arab
regions (states), derived from the official founding congress in
Damascus in 1947. This conclave of pan-Arab intellectuals was
inspired by the ideas of two Syrians, Michel Aflaq and Salah ad
Din al Bitar, who are generally regarded as the fathers of the
Baath movement. Several Iraqis, including Abd ar Rahman ad Damin
and Abd al Khaliq al Khudayri, attended this congress and became
members of the party. Upon their return to Baghdad, they formed
the Iraqi branch of the Baath. Damin became the first secretary
general of the Iraqi Baath.
From its early years, the Iraqi Baath recruited converts from
a small number of college and high school students,
intellectuals, and professionals--virtually all of whom were
urban Sunni Arabs. A number of Baath high school members entered
the Military College, where they influenced several classmates to
join the party. Important military officers who became Baath
members in the early 1950s included Ahmad Hasan al Bakr, Salih
Mahdi Ammash, and Abd Allah Sultan, all of whom figured
prominently in Iraqi political affairs in later years.
During the 1950s, the Baath was a clandestine party, and its
members were subject to arrest if their identities were
discovered. The Baath Party joined with other opposition parties
to form the underground United National Front and participated in
the activities that led to the 1958 revolution. The Baathists
hoped that the new, republican government would favor pan-Arab
causes, especially a union with Egypt, but instead the regime was
dominated by non-Baathist military officers who did not support
Arab unity or other Baath principles. Some younger members of the
party, including Saddam Husayn, became convinced that Iraqi
leader Abd al Karim Qasim had to be removed, and they plotted his
assassination. The October 1959 attempt on Qasim's life, however,
was bungled; Saddam Husayn fled Iraq, while other party members
were arrested and tried for treason. The Baath was forced
underground again, and it experienced a period of internal
dissension as members debated over which tactics were appropriate
to achieve their political objectives. The party's second attempt
to overthrow Qasim, in February 1963, was successful, and it
resulted in the formation of the country's first Baath
government. The party, however, was more divided than ever
between ideologues and more pragmatic members. Because of this
lack of unity, the Baath's coup partners were able to outmaneuver
it and, within nine months, to expel all Baathists from the
government. It was not until 1965 that the Baath overcame the
debilitating effects of ideological and of personal rivalries.
The party then reorganized under the direction of General Bakr as
secretary general with Saddam Husayn as his deputy. Both men were
determined to return the Baath to power. In July 1968, the Baath
finally staged a successful coup.
After the Baath takeover, Bakr became president of the
regime, and he initiated programs aimed at the establishment of a
"socialist, unionist, and democratic" Iraq. This was done,
according to the National Action Charter, with scrupulous care
for balancing the revolutionary requirements of Iraq on the one
hand and the needs of the "Arab nation" on the other. According
to a Baath Party pronouncement in January 1974, "Putting the
regional above the national may lead to statism, and placing the
national over the regional may lead to rash and childish action."
This protestation notwithstanding, the government's primary
concerns since 1968 have been domestic issues rather than pan-
Arab ones.
In 1968 the Baath regime confronted a wide range of problems,
such as ethnic and sectarian tensions, the stagnant condition of
agriculture, commerce, and industry, the inefficiency and the
corruption of government, and the lack of political consensus
among the three main sociopolitical groups--the Shia Arabs, the
Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds. The difficulties of consensus
building were compounded by the pervasive apathy and mistrust at
the grass-roots levels of all sects, by the shortage of qualified
party cadres to serve as the standard-bearers of the Baath
regime, and by the Kurdish armed insurgency. Rivalry with Syria
and with Egypt for influence within the Arab world and the
frontier dispute with Iran also complicated the regime's efforts
to build the nation.
Since 1968 the Baath has attempted to create a strong and
unified Iraq, through formal government channels and through
political campaigns designed to eradicate what it called "harmful
prerevolutionary values and practices," such as exploitation,
social inequities, sectarian loyalties, apathy, and lack of civil
spirit. Official statements called for abandonment of traditional
ways in favor of a new life-style fashioned on the principles of
patriotism, national loyalty, collectivism, participation,
selflessness, love of labor, and civic responsibility. These
"socialist principles and practices" would be instilled by the
party's own example, through the state educational system, and
through youth and other popular organizations. The Baath
particularly emphasized "military training" for youth; such
training was considered essential for creating "new men in the
new society" and for defending the republic from the hostile
forces of Zionism, imperialism, anti-Arab chauvinism (e.g., from
Iran), rightists, opportunists, and reactionaries
(see Paramilitary Forces;
Internal Security
, ch. 5).
The Baath's major goal since 1968 has been to socialize the
economy. By the late 1980s, the party had succeeded in
socializing a significant part of the national economy
(see The Role of Government
, ch. 3), including agriculture, commerce,
industry, and oil. Programs to collectivize agriculture were
reversed in 1981, but government investment in industrial
production remained important in the late 1980s. Large-scale
industries such as iron, steel, and petrochemicals were fully
owned and managed by the government, as were many medium-sized
factories that manufactured textiles, processed food, and turned
out construction materials.
The Baath's efforts to create a unified Arab nation have been
more problematic. The party has not abandoned its goal of Arab
unity. This goal, however, has become a long-term ideal rather
than a short-term objective. President Saddam Husayn proclaimed
the new view in 1982 by stating that Baathists now "believe that
Arab unity must not take place through the elimination of the
local and national characteristics of any Arab country. . . . but
must be achieved through common fraternal opinion." In practice
this meant that the Iraqi Baath Party had accepted unity of
purpose among Arab leaders, rather than unification of Arab
countries, as more important for the present.
As of early 1988, the Baath Party claimed about 10 percent of
the population, a total of 1.5 million supporters and
sympathizers; of this total, full party members, or cadres, were
estimated at only 30,000, or 0.2 percent. The cadres were the
nucleus of party organization, and they functioned as leaders,
motivators, teachers, administrators, and watchdogs. Generally,
party recruitment procedures emphasized selectivity rather than
quantity, and those who desired to join the party had to pass
successfully through several apprentice-like stages before being
accepted into full membership. The Baath's elitist approach
derived from the principle that the party's effectiveness could
only be measured by its demonstrable ability to mobilize and to
lead the people, and not by "size, number, or form."
Participation in the party was virtually a requisite for social
mobility.
The basic organizational unit of the Baath was the party cell
or circle (halaqah). Composed of between three and seven
members, cells functioned at the neighborhood or the village
level, where members met to discuss and to carry out party
directives. A minimum of two and a maximum of seven cells formed
a party division (firqah). Divisions operated in urban
quarters, larger villages, offices, factories, schools, and other
organizations. Division units were spread throughout the
bureaucracy and the military, where they functioned as the ears
and eyes of the party. Two to five divisions formed a section
(shabah). A section operated at the level of a large city
quarter, a town, or a rural district. Above the section was the
branch (fira), which was composed of at least two sections
and which operated at the provincial level. There were twenty-one
Baath Party branches in Iraq, one in each of the eighteen
provinces and three in Baghdad. The union of all the branches
formed the party's congress, which elected the Regional Command.
The Regional Command was both the core of party leadership
and the top decision-making body. It had nine members, who were
elected for five-year terms at regional congresses of the party.
Its secretary general (also called the regional secretary) was
the party's leader, and its deputy secretary general was second
in rank and in power within the party hierarchy. The members of
the command theoretically were responsible to the Regional
Congress that, as a rule, was to convene annually to debate and
to approve the party's policies and programs; actually, the
members were chosen by Saddam Husayn and other senior party
leaders to be "elected" by the Regional Congress, a formality
seen as essential to the legitimation of party leadership.
Above the Regional Command was the National Command of the
Baath Party, the highest policy-making and coordinating council
for the Baath movement throughout the Arab world. The National
Command consisted of representatives from all regional commands
and was responsible to the National Congress, which convened
periodically. It was vested with broad powers to guide, to
coordinate, and to supervise the general direction of the
movement, especially with respect to relationships among the
regional Baath parties and with the outside world. These powers
were to be exercised through a national secretariat that would
direct policy-formulating bureaus.
In reality, the National Command did not oversee the Baath
movement as a whole in 1988 because there continued to be no
single command. In 1966 a major schism within the Baath movement
had resulted in the creation of two rival National Commands, one
based in Damascus and the other in Baghdad. Both commands claim
to be the legitimate authority for the Baath, but since 1966 they
have been mutually antagonistic. Michel Aflaq, one of the
original cofounders of the Baath Party, was the secretary general
of the Baghdad-based National Command, and Saddam Husayn was the
vice-chairman. In practice, the Syrian Regional Command, under
Hafiz al Assad, controlled the Damascus-based National Command of
the Baath Party, while the Iraqi Regional Command controlled the
Baghdad-based National Command.
Theoretically, the Iraqi Regional Command made decisions
about Baath Party policy based on consensus. In practice, all
decisions were made by the party's secretary general, Saddam
Husayn, who since 1979 had also been chairman of the RCC and
president of the republic. He worked closely with a small group
of supporters, especially members of the Talfah family from the
town of Tikrit
(see The Emergence of Saddam Husayn, 1968-79
, ch.
1); he also dealt ruthlessly with suspected opposition to his
rule from within the party. In 1979 several high-ranking
Baathists were tried and were executed for allegedly planning a
coup; other prominent party members were forcibly retired in
1982. Saddam Husayn's detractors accused him of monopolizing
power and of promoting a cult of personality.
Data as of May 1988
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