Saddam : His Rise and Fall (14 page)

Ayad Allawi, who was a young medical student and head of one of the Baath Party cells in Baghdad, believed that the decision by key military commanders to support the coup was the crucial factor in the revolution passing off peacefully. “We had the commanders of the Republican Guard and military intelligence behind us, as well as the commanders of key military units in and around Baghdad. At least 25 percent of the officer corps were members of the Baath Party, and their support meant that the coup attempt, when it came, worked like clockwork.” Allawi was in charge of one of three cells that carried out the coup on the morning of July 17. One cell, mainly comprising the Republican Guards but also including some Baathists, including Saddam, was responsible for taking
the Presidential Palace while another, led by the 10th Armored Brigade, was to take control of central Baghdad. A third group was detailed to take control of the television and broadcasting centers and the main bridge crossings into Baghdad. “The reason there was so little opposition is that nearly everyone knew that the revolution was going to happen, it was simply a question of when.”
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The morning after the coup Allawi ran into Saddam, who was on his way to make a broadcast and was brimming with excitement. “In hindsight we all underestimated Saddam,” said Allawi, who headed the Baath Party's students committee. “We thought Saddam was the weakest link in the leadership and that he would soon be sidelined. Indeed none of us took the Tikriti crowd seriously. Our priority was to build a modern, democratic Iraq. It never entered my mind at that stage that Saddam would play a critical role in Iraq. There were far better candidates who were experienced in politics and government.” Such was the general mood of idealistic euphoria among the young Baathists that they made no objection when Bakr proposed carrying out the “correctional coup” to remove Nayif. According to Allawi's recollection of events, the “correctional coup” was Bakr's idea, although the proposal enjoyed widespread acceptance within the party. “Bakr masterminded the whole affair,” insisted Allawi. “He liked to present himself as a decent, moderate guy. But in reality he was two-faced. He was a first-class conspirator.” For the Baathists the arrangement with Nayif and the other non-Baathist military officers had been a marriage of convenience, and now the time had come for the divorce. As the old Iraqi saying goes: It is better that you have your enemy for lunch so that they don't have you for dinner. Allawi said there was another reason that the Baathists were keen to distance themselves from Nayif. “It was generally believed that Nayif worked with the Western powers and that, if we were to win the respect of the Iraqi people, he had to go.”

This obsession with the CIA and “foreigners,” such as Jews, was to be one of the main distinguishing characteristics of the Baath regime after the “correctional coup” of July 30 had consolidated the power base of Bakr and his fellow Tikritis. It was a development that appalled the young, idealistic Baathists, such as Allawi, who had naively supported the July Revolution in the belief that they would turn Iraq into a modern country. “The Baath Party before the coup wanted nothing to do with violence,” said Allawi, who later became the head of one of the main opposition groups, the Iraqi National Accord. “The only violence we contemplated was a war at some stage against the Israelis.” But the new ruling elite, of whom Saddam was a key member, had
other ideas, and it was not long before, with Saddam's help, the high ideals that had inspired the July coups were corrupted with violence and bloodshed.
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Saddam was suspected of involvement in the only killing that took place on July 17, the day of the original coup. Four months later he was implicated in yet another murder, this time the killing of Nasir al-Hani, who had briefly served as Nayif's foreign minister in the summer of 1968. Hani was a career diplomat of no particular political orientation. After his removal from office and replacement by Saddam's longtime fellow conspirator, Abdul Karim al-Shaikhly, Hani became vociferous in his criticism of the new government, which he felt was not observing the promises on which it had been brought to power. He, like Nayif, was suspected of having close contacts with the CIA, which, after all, was still keen to ensure that the new Iraqi government, irrespective of its politics and personalities, did not fall under the influence of the Soviets. Iraqis are deeply suspicious of any politician with foreign links, and if Hani had links to the CIA, then he may well have been in a position to shed some light on Saddam's own dealings with the Americans, both during his sojourn in Cairo and beyond. Whatever his motives, Saddam was determined to rid himself of Hani, and so on the night of November 10, Hani was abducted from his house by an armed gang and stabbed to death.

“The gang that committed the murder was the same gang that was run by Saddam Hussein,” said Allawi, who himself has been subjected to several assassination attempts by Saddam's henchmen. “The Baath Party was outraged by the murder of this man. We wanted to build a new country, not return to the violence of the past. But with people like Saddam in charge, it was clear that this was not going to happen.”
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Although Saddam was never prosecuted for the murder, it was generally accepted in Baghdad that he was responsible, and that he had ordered Hani's murder “because he knew too much.” Saddam's own denial of involvement in the killing is singularl y unconvincing. When challenged about the murder his reply was merely rhetorical: “Who was Nasir al-Hani and what danger did he constitute for the regime and the party? He was neither a politician nor a competitor of ours…. Why should we kill him at all?”
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Whatever the reason for the murder, Saddam Hussein's violent repression of anyone who stood in his way was gradually laying the foundations for the reign of terror that was to become the hallmark of the new Iraqi government.

As a publicity stunt, the public execution of fourteen spies took some beating. On the morning of January 27, 1969, the day the hangings were due to take place, the police withdrew from the center of Baghdad, leaving the streets under the control of gangs of Baath Party activists. Directed by Baath-appointed commissars, groups of volunteers constructed the gibbets at intervals of seventy meters around Liberation Square. Nine of the condemned men were Iraqi Jews, and their trial, at which they were accused of spying for Israel, had been the most sensational in Iraqi history. The authorities were consequently expecting huge crowds to turn out for the hangings, and they wanted to make sure that everyone in the audience had a good view of the spectacle. A national holiday had been proclaimed, and the government had helpfully arranged transportation for an estimated one hundred thousand “workers and peasants” to be bussed in for the event. By the time the condemned men were led out to meet their fate, an almost carnival-like atmosphere had taken hold over the city. In Liberation Square itself, entire families had spread out on the flower beds for a picnic. For those who were unable to attend, the whole event was broadcast live on Iraqi television and radio. Just as the executions were about to commence, President Bakr and Saddam Hussein, his able deputy, drove around Liberation Square in an open-topped limousine to the acclaim of the Baathist students who lined the streets.

This gruesome affair continued for twenty-four hours. After the executions had been carried out, the bodies—including that of a sixteen-year-old
boy—were left hanging for all to see. One eyewitness who was present in Liberation Square on the day of the hangings recounted how he was pushed up against the bodies by the crowd four hours after the executions had taken place. “You could see that their necks had been broken and they had been stretched to about a foot long.” Film footage of the event, which was shown on Iraqi television, showed crowds of smiling militiamen and supporters dancing and cheering in front of the cameras. Later in the day Bakr climbed onto a platform and made a rabidly anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist speech before a cheering crowd, with the corpses of the recently executed “spies” dangling behind him. “We shall strike mercilessly with a fist of steel at those exploiters and fifth columnists, the handmaidens of imperialism and Zionism.” Other leading luminaries of the Baath addressed the crowd, whipping the audience of bemused peasants into a chanting, spitting, stone-throwing frenzy. A good example of the rhetorical flourishes emanating from the podium was provided by Saleh Omar al-Ali, who had accompanied Saddam on a tank into the Presidential Palace during the July 17 coup the previous year (see Chapter Three). The revolution had been good to Ali who was now the Baathist “minister of guidance” and the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) official to whom had been entrusted the successful prosecution of the “Israeli ring of spies.” Ali had personally supervised the interrogations and helped arrange the show trials. “Great People of Iraq! The Iraq of today shall no more tolerate any traitor, spy, agent or fifth columnist! You foundling Israel, you imperialist Americans, and you Zionists, hear me! We will discover all your dirty tricks! We will punish your agents! We will hang all your spies, even if there are thousands of them!…Great Iraqi people! This is only the beginning! The great and immortal squares of Iraq shall be filled up with the corpses of traitors and spies! Just wait!”
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Saddam's comment was brief and to the point. The spies had been hanged “to teach the people a lesson.”

The infamous trial of the “Israeli” spies was a graphic illustration of what can only be described as the Stalinization of Iraq in the aftermath of the 1968 revolution. Saddam might have been imbued with a deep hatred of communism, but he undoubtedly owed a great debt to Stalin for providing him with the means to create and maintain a one-party state. The Baath Party that assumed power in 1968 was based on the traditional Marxist-Leninist model in terms of organization, structure, and its methods; hierarchy, discipline, and secrecy were its dominant characteristics. As in Soviet Russia, the party
became the government. All promotion was channeled through the ranks of the party, which had a pyramidic structure. At the base was the individual cell, or neighborhood unit. These reported in turn, in order of seniority, to the division, the section, and finally the branch, of which by 1968 there were twenty-one (one for each of Iraq's eighteen provinces and three for Baghdad). At the top of the pyramid was the Regional Command Council, the highest executive and legislative body of the state. According to the new constitution that was enacted by the Baathists in 1970, the Revolutionary Command Council (in effect, the ruling clique of Baathists who headed the Regional Command Council), of which Saddam was vice president, became “the supreme body of the state.” The RCC was empowered unilaterally to promulgate laws and decrees, to mobilize the army, to approve the budget, to ratify treaties, to declare war, and to make peace. The RCC also took charge of all aspects of national security. The constitution stipulated that the RCC was to be self-selecting and self-perpetuating; it alone could choose and discharge its members, and all new members were to be selected from the Regional Command Council. Saddam was unique among the members of the new Baath government in that he had not worked his way up through the party machinery; his rise to prominence was entirely due to the patronage of Bakr, who had appointed him to key positions in the party.

Immediately Bakr's position as head of the new Baath government was secure, Saddam's task was to make sure not only that the Baath Party survived in power in Iraq, but that it was the only party in Iraq. Even after its success during the coups of 1968, the Baath was by no means a populist movement; most estimates put the total party membership in late 1968 at no more than five thousand. And given the narrow tribal and geographical base of the leadership, which was drawn from a small number of Sunni Muslim families based around Tikrit, the likelihood of it becoming a party of genuine mass appeal was distinctly remote. Saddam was well aware of the party's limitations, and once he was established as Bakr's right-hand man, it became his personal mission both to eradicate any potential enemies of the party, and any potential rivals to his own position. Contemporaries from this period ascribe to Saddam numerous quasi-Stalinist maxims, such as “Give me the authority and I will give you a party capable of ruling this country,” which is what he is supposed to have told Bakr after his appointment as vice president of the all-powerful RCC, or “Mr. Deputy” as the title-conscious Saddam now preferred to be known. A more telling exposition of Saddam's authoritarian vision of Iraq's political system was
provided in one of the first public pronouncements he made after the Baathists came to power. “The ideal revolutionary command should effectively direct all planning and implementation. It must not allow the growth of any other rival centre of power. There must be one command pooling and directing the subsequent governmental departments, including the armed forces.”
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Iraq might not have been a communist state, but the methods employed by the Baathists to impose their will on the country were almost identical to those used by the Soviets, and perfected by Stalin. The masses had to be “reeducated” and incorporated into the party's organizational machinery. Rivals were to be eliminated and a deep sense of fear and respect had to be struck into the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis. Saddam, as head of the Baath's security apparatus, was ideally suited for the task. It was also an opportunity for him to excel at the expense of the army officers who were competing against him for promotion within the party. Purges, propaganda, and indoctrination are not skills that come naturally to men of action; they tend to be more the preserve of backroom apparatchiks such as Saddam.

The sensational trial of the ringleaders of what the government claimed was a major Zionist spying ring, which finally got under way in January 1969, was an example of how the new Baathist regime intended to adopt the concept of the show trial as a means of persecuting its enemies and instilling fear among the population at large. In the years immediately following Israel's success in the Six Day War, anti-Zionist sentiment was rampant throughout the Arab world. The Iraqi armed forces based in Jordan were frequently involved in skirmishes with the Israelis, from which they mostly emerged second best, and the government rarely missed an opportunity to blame the country's woes on Zionist spies and fifth columnists. When, for example, sixteen Iraqi soldiers were killed in an Israeli air attack in December 1968, Bakr personally addressed an anti-Israeli demonstration held outside the Presidential Palace at which the bodies of the dead Iraqis were paraded through the streets. “We face treacherous movements of a rabble of fifth columnists and the new supporters of America and Israel,” he declared. “They are hiding behind fronts and slogans which the people have seen through and exposed.” Every so often Bakr would interrupt his speech to ask the crowd, “What do you want?” To which they would reply, “Death to the spies, execution of the spies, all the spies, without delay!”
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The atmosphere of mass hysteria being created by the Baathists played perfectly into Saddam's hands. As head of the Baath Party's security apparatus
it was his job to track down and destroy what were described in Baathist literature—with no conscious acknowledgment of Stalin—as the “enemies of the state.” In October 1968 the regime claimed it had compelling evidence of this international treachery when it revealed that it had broken a Zionist spy ring based in Basra. The “discovery” of the spy ring was actually part of a carefully prepared scheme Saddam had devised for eliminating some of his principal rivals. Saddam's plot, as opposed to the Zionist's alleged misdeeds, went back two years to the time when a genuine Israeli agent had been killed in the Hotel Shattura in Baghdad. An incriminating notebook, containing the names of several leading Iraqis, was found on the dead Israeli. Saddam did not do anything with it at the time, but after the Baath came to power the notebook was again produced, only this time many other names had been added, most of them people whom Saddam wanted removed, including Saadoun Ghaydan, the commander of the Presidential Guard's tank battalion, which had participated in the July coup.

Shortly after the discovery of the Zionist conspiracy, Saddam set up a special “Revolutionary Court” to try “spies, agents and enemies of the people.” The court consisted of three military officers with no legal training; no one appearing before such a tribunal could expect a fair and impartial hearing. Indeed, the lawyer representing the seventeen Zionist plotters who went on trial in January 1969 actually opened the defense by apologizing to the prosecution for having to defend the “spies,” stating for the record that “he would not like to see the traitors go unpunished.”
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As the hearing got under way the defendants were publicly humiliated when their “not guilty” pleas were subjected to derisive peals of laughter from the press benches. At the end of the two-week trial fourteen of the accused were convicted of espionage and sentenced to hang.

The carefully stage-managed executions in Liberation Square that were carried out within days of the verdicts being delivered were Saddam's way of whipping up public support for the Baathists. Baghdad Radio summoned people to “come and enjoy the feast,” and called the hangings “a courageous first step towards the liberation of Palestine.” In a retort directed at international criticism of the hangings, Baghdad Radio declared: “We hanged spies, but the Jews crucified Christ.” The only criticism of the executions in the Arab world came from the Egyptian newspaper
al-Ahram,
which commented: “The hanging of fourteen people in the public square is certainly not a heartwarming sight, nor is it the occasion for organizing a festival.”

The trial of the so-called Zionist spy ring set the tone for a nationwide purge of any opponents suspected of posing a challenge to Saddam and the Baath Party, which lasted for most of the next twelve months. Further public executions of the regime's opponents took place on February 20, April 14 and 30, May 15, August 21 and 25, September 8, and November 26. Executions became so commonplace in Liberation Square that it became known colloquially as “the Square of the Hanged.” Victims were brought before the Revolutionary Court, where they were obliged to confess their crimes in front of a televised audience before being escorted off to face the firing squad or, in civilian cases, the hangman's noose. If Saddam thought it unlikely that a confession would be forthcoming, opponents were dealt with by his gangs of paramilitary thugs, as happened to Nasser al-Hani, the former foreign minister in the first cabinet of the July revolution. The only significant difference between Saddam's purges and Stalin's terror is that in Iraq there were no gulags; with few exceptions, Saddam's intended victims stood no chance of survival. The purges basically fell into two categories: first, those constituencies, such as the Kurds, communists, Shiites, and even left-leaning Baathists, who were considered hostile to the Bakr regime; second, any member of the Iraqi government or military establishment who posed a threat to Saddam.

Until the Baath Party came to power in 1968, the army had been the mainstay of the repressive regimes that had ruled Iraq since 1958, and had overseen the detention and interrogation of political opponents. Once established in the Presidential Palace Saddam used his experience of running the Baath Party's Jihaz Haneen security operation to undertake a substantial reorganization of the country's intelligence infrastructure, which placed him firmly in control of all aspects of national security. Jihaz Haneen was replaced by a security structure consisting of three main elements: the Amn al-Amm, or State Internal Security, which oversaw domestic security and dated back to the monarchy; the Mukhabarat, which started its existence by the unlikely name of the Public Relations Office but later became known as either Party Intelligence or the General Intelligence Department, and was the Baath Party's security arm, and by far the most powerful and feared agency; and the Istikhbarat, or military intelligence, which, apart from keeping the military in check, also undertook operations abroad, in particular the assassination of foreign dissidents.
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Later in his career Saddam would set up yet another body, the Amn al-Khass, or Special Security, which superseded the Mukhabarat and reported directly to the president's office and was to become Saddam's personal
secret police. To ensure he maintained total control over the Baath's new security apparatus, Saddam mainly appointed close family members or trusted friends to head either the Mukhabarat or Amn al-Khass. The first head of the Mukhabarat was Saadoun Shakir, the Baath colleague who had helped him to escape from prison in 1966 and who had helped him to run Jihaz Haneen. Saddam trusted no one, and so he made Barzan al-Tikriti, his half brother, Shakir's deputy. Barzan later took charge of the Mukhabarat between 1974 to 1983, and Saddam's other half brother, Sabawi, ran the organization from 1989 onward. After Saddam was made president, Amn al-Khass was headed by Hussein Kamel Hassan, Saddam's son-in-law.