Chris Alger
03-16-2003, 09:18 AM
A recent piece by historian and former official Roger Morris in the March 14 NY Times illuminates America’s prior history of “liberating” Iraq, notably by helping bring Saddam’s Baathists to power during the Kennedy administration.
In 1963, the Iraqi leader was Abdel Karim Kassem, who in 1958 had deposed the monarchy originally imposed by Great Britain. “From 1958 to 1960,” Morris writes, “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.”
So the CIA tried to assasinate him. When that failed, it instigated a coup in February 1963 dominated by Baath party members, then “a relatively small political faction influential in the Iraqi army,” but suitably authoritarian and anticommunist, whose ranks included the 25-year-old Saddam Hussein.
The liberation of Iraq from Kassam was a great success for the free world, and the Baathists soon received fresh supplies of US arms while US and UK corporations began doing business in Iraq for the first time. The people of Iraq, however, were somewhat less better off:
“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.” Note the obvious point that Morris fails to emphasize: the CIA-supplied lists of “suspected Communists” and “leftists” amounted to a cross-section of Iraq’s ruling and educated elite, probably better described as the usual group of patriotic nationalists opposed to US dominance over their country.
Morris also notes that another CIA-backed coup in 1968 brought Saddam closer to the power he would eventually consolidate in the late 1970's, again underscoring the US commitment to dictatorship in Iraq. “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.” Apart from Morris’s piece, we know now that the “close relationship” remained largely unbroken during Saddam’s worst human rights abuses and purges, including the “gassing of his own people,” an atrocity on par with that of the Turks during the Clinton administration. The relationship proves again what students of the Central American and Vietnam conflicts have learned all too well: there is no limit to the degree of human abuse that a regime can inflict upon its people while remaining compatible with US interests and while retaining US support.
The covert actions that led Saddam to power in Iraq were undertaken by Americans who routinely described themselves as fighting for national security, democracy, freedom and human rights, the same rhetoric invoked by Bush and his warmongering supporters these days. Then, as now, these self-glorifying characterizations remained unchallengeable by the mainstream press and as a result are accepted by most Americans.
The lesson is this: unless we are about to embark on an act of widespread carnage that could lead to an even worse government in Iraq, as we have before, but this time with incalculable risks for the region and the world, the real issue for Americans is not whether Saddam is likely to change his stripes, but whether there’s any evidence that our leaders have changed theirs.
Link to the Morris article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/opinion/14MORR.html?tntemail1
In 1963, the Iraqi leader was Abdel Karim Kassem, who in 1958 had deposed the monarchy originally imposed by Great Britain. “From 1958 to 1960,” Morris writes, “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.”
So the CIA tried to assasinate him. When that failed, it instigated a coup in February 1963 dominated by Baath party members, then “a relatively small political faction influential in the Iraqi army,” but suitably authoritarian and anticommunist, whose ranks included the 25-year-old Saddam Hussein.
The liberation of Iraq from Kassam was a great success for the free world, and the Baathists soon received fresh supplies of US arms while US and UK corporations began doing business in Iraq for the first time. The people of Iraq, however, were somewhat less better off:
“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.” Note the obvious point that Morris fails to emphasize: the CIA-supplied lists of “suspected Communists” and “leftists” amounted to a cross-section of Iraq’s ruling and educated elite, probably better described as the usual group of patriotic nationalists opposed to US dominance over their country.
Morris also notes that another CIA-backed coup in 1968 brought Saddam closer to the power he would eventually consolidate in the late 1970's, again underscoring the US commitment to dictatorship in Iraq. “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.” Apart from Morris’s piece, we know now that the “close relationship” remained largely unbroken during Saddam’s worst human rights abuses and purges, including the “gassing of his own people,” an atrocity on par with that of the Turks during the Clinton administration. The relationship proves again what students of the Central American and Vietnam conflicts have learned all too well: there is no limit to the degree of human abuse that a regime can inflict upon its people while remaining compatible with US interests and while retaining US support.
The covert actions that led Saddam to power in Iraq were undertaken by Americans who routinely described themselves as fighting for national security, democracy, freedom and human rights, the same rhetoric invoked by Bush and his warmongering supporters these days. Then, as now, these self-glorifying characterizations remained unchallengeable by the mainstream press and as a result are accepted by most Americans.
The lesson is this: unless we are about to embark on an act of widespread carnage that could lead to an even worse government in Iraq, as we have before, but this time with incalculable risks for the region and the world, the real issue for Americans is not whether Saddam is likely to change his stripes, but whether there’s any evidence that our leaders have changed theirs.
Link to the Morris article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/opinion/14MORR.html?tntemail1