The State of Iraq — Part 4: Saddam
The Great Dictator
Continued on from The State of Iraq — Part 3: Arab Cold War
Saddam is pivotal to the conversation about the War in Iraq. In fact, you could call him the antagonist in the entire thing, but that would mean that the US-Led forces were the protagonist, and we all know it’s not as black and white as that.
The regime was known for its brutality, but Saddam was more than a sadistic dictator - how did Iraq shape and change in politics from 1960 till the 2000s? From socialism to Islam, from an ally to a tyrant, what made Saddam the target of the invasion?
Malevolent Dictator
Born in the Kingdom of Iraq during the reign of King Ghazi, Saddam grew up as a ward of his uncle, Khairallah Talfah, who was one of the first Iraqi Ba’ath Party members. In 1957, at the age of 20, Saddam also joined this fledgling branch of the growing Arab movement. At the party, he made close friends with his cousin Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who was a Colonel in the Army. In 1958, Hassan al-Bakr was one of the officers who aided in General Abd al-Karim Qasim’s coup against the monarchy. Whilst Saddam and the Ba’ath party had a role in the new government, Qasim’s refused to join the Pan-Arab Egyptian movement of Gamal Nasser, which ostracised the Ba’athists. In 1959, Saddam bungled an assassination attempt on Gen. Qasim and fled to Syria. He worked his way up the Ba’ath political ladder in Syria and Egypt and moved back to Iraq in 1963 after Abdul Salam Arif ousted Qasim.
Saddam remained in Iraq and survived imprisonment to later be a part of his cousin’s coup and installation of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party in 1968. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became president of Iraq and appointed Saddam as his Vice President. Saddam planned and carried out the subsequent purge of the non-Ba’athist Iraqi factions and for over ten years gradually usurped power from his cousin. He galvanised his base through brutality and patronage — punishing outsiders harshly and rewarding insiders greatly — which is a common tactic of tyrants. Saddam became personally wealthy as he siphoned funds from the growing list of nationalised enterprises including the previously British Iraqi Petroleum Company. Hassan al-Bakr aged poorly and became less able to carry out his duties, leaving Saddam to step up in internal and external affairs. Saddam was already the architect of Iraq’s foreign policy by the mid-70s but in 1979, Hassan al-Bakr stepped down leaving Saddam to officially take the position of President. Hassan al-Bakr died in 1982 of unknown causes.
As President, Saddam maintained the Iraqi Ba’ath party as a political ideology, but it was no longer the same Ba’ath party that overthrew General Qasim in 1963. He moved Iraqi society away from secular Ba’athism but migrated socialist aspects of it to keep loyalty in the population. Saddam’s nationalisation of IPC wealth and distribution of resources, such as food, housing, and jobs to reward loyalists began a cult of personality around him. He portrayed himself as a strong and decisive leader who was essential to the stability and security of the country. He commissioned numerous portraits and statues of himself, and his giant image was displayed prominently throughout the country — page one of a totalitarian handbook. In 2003, these stone and bronze effigies were destroyed by the Iraqis so they could psychically and conceptually cleanse themselves of Saddam.
As dictator, Saddam established a pervasive security apparatus that monitored the activities of Iraqi citizens and suppressed dissent. He targeted minority groups in Iraq such as Kurds, Assyrians, Yezidis and Jews. The Marsh Arabs, a community of Shia Arabs who lived in the marshlands of southern Iraq were desolated by a campaign to forcibly relocate them.
Return to Faith
In the 1970s, Saddam was a Sunni Muslim who rose to rule an increasingly Islamic Sunni government over a Shia majority population. He was fearful of Iranian interference and immediately after the Iranian revolution in 1979, cracked down on Shia political movements in Iraq. Self-defence from Shia militantism was one of his main justifications for invading Iran and starting the Iran-Iraq War in 1980.
Saddam was not a Sunni extremist, his regime’s brutality transcended religion and was known for its repression of political dissent and opposition, regardless of the ethnic or religious background of those targeted. Sunni Islam was used to generate popular support amongst the population of Iraq, and in an increasingly Islamic Arab world it was beneficial for making friends with Saudi Arabia, the chief regional financier. During the war with Iran, Iraq incurred a massive debt to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who rather liked to watch him keep the Iranian regime busy for most of a decade.
Saddam added the phrase “Allāhuʾakbaru” to the Iraqi flag in 1991 and in 1993 he began a campaign called the Return to Faith Campaign. This pursuit of a more Islamist agenda gave greater freedoms and resources to Islamist groups, and a greater emphasis was put on Islam in all sectors of Iraqi life.
Although useful in the conflict against Shia Islam, Saddam was an affront to the Sunni Arab world and other Arab states. In the late 1990s, Saddam commissioned a copy of the Quran to be written using his blood; an utter sin, and exactly the sort of activity that one would expect of a megalomaniacal brute.
So What?
Saddam was truly Orwellian in every sense of the word. Media control, savagery and brutality kept people fearful and loyal that they and their families could be next. He created a divided ‘us and them’ society by persecuting minorities and rewarding blind loyalty. His security forces tortured and raped those who opposed his rule, and they used chemical weapons to indiscriminately kill not only in battle but against civilians.
He was a useful ally to Saudi Arabia and the US. In 1983, the American special envoy to the Middle East; Donald Rumsfeld privately offered assistance and publically sided with Iraq in the “desire to diminish the influence of Iran and Syria.” Saddam was supported because he was a useful enemy of Iran and a foil to the USSR’s influence in the region, and his violence against his own people, the Shia and the Kurds, was tolerated.
At the end of the Cold War, Iraq became a less vital ideological battleground to stop communism, and soon Saddam invaded Kuwait on a war debt issue, which led to the Gulf War. Saddam was not removed from power after this, and he was left to continue his brutal regime until 2003 when he could no longer be tolerated.
We will argue about the reasons behind the US invasion and the 2003 War, and we can argue about tactics and strategy (and we will in Parts 5 and 6), but Saddam’s defeat was a moral necessity. The destruction of the regime was vital to remove the shackles of oppression from Iraq and the long-suffering people who live there.
This article was written utilising ChatGPT.
Continue the journey with The State of Iraq — Part 5: The Psyche For War
