Friends in need, foes to heed: The Iraqi military in politics

Middle East Policy

Volumn 7, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 130-140

  Parasiliti, Andrew ^a   Antoon, Sinan ^b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034361335     PISSN: 10611924     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4967.2000.tb00184.x     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Parts of this article have been taken and adapted from Andrew Parasiliti, " Lessons Learned: The Military in Iraqi Politics, " in Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States, ed. Joseph A. Kechichian, forthcoming.
2. It is important, as will be shown later, not to view the Iraqi military of the last few decades as a cohesive and unified institution. Aside from the obvious difference between regular army units and the Republican Guards, recent years have witnessed the creation of other military and paramilitary structures and units whose power and influence outweigh that of the army and whose interrelationships are complex.
3. See A. Abbas, "The Iraqi Armed Forces, Past and Present, " in Saddam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction? (London: Zed Books, 1989), pp. 203-224.
4. Fadhil al-Barrak, Dawr al-Jayshal-Iraqi fi Hukumat al-Difa al-Watani Sanat 1941: Dirasa Tahliliyya wa Naqdiyya wa Mukarina lil Khalflyyat al-Ijtimaiyya lil Qiyadat al-Siyasiyya wal Askariyya (The Role of the Iraqi Army in the National Defense Government and the War against Britain in 1941: An Analytical, Critical and Comparative Study of the Social Backgrounds of Political and Military Leaders) (Baghdad: al-Dar al-Arabiyya, 1979), p. 132.
5. Abbas, op. cit., p. 213.
6. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Baathists, and Free Officers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 601.
7. This point is made in Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 177-79.
8. See Ofra Bengio, Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 146-147. Saddam's intellectual debt to Shawkat is never acknowledged publicly. Bengio attributes this to his defection from the nationalist camp in 1941.
9. Reeva S. Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Creation and Implementation of a Nationalist Ideology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 127-30.
10. David Finnie, Shifting Lines in the Sand: Iraq's Elusive Frontier with Kuwait (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 106-113.
11. For an account of the Assyrian Affair, see Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, Iraq, 1900 to 1950: A Political, Social, and Economic History (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 229-37; and R.S. Stafford, The Tragedy of the Assyrians (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1935), esp. pp. 159-81.
12. For an account of the Assyrian Affair, see Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, Iraq, 1900 to 1950: A Political, Social, and Economic History (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 229-37; and R.S. Stafford, The Tragedy of the Assyrians (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1935), esp. pp. 159-81.
13. See Batatu, op. cit.
14. Of the rebellions and disturbances quelled by the army between 1933 and 1941: al-Rumaytha and Suq al-Shuyukh in May of 1935, Barzan/Mosul in August 1935, the Yazidis' rebellion against conscription in October 1935, the Basrah rebellion in September 1935, al-Rumaytha in spring of 1936 and al-Diwaniyya in 1936. See al-Barrak, op. cit., p. 56.
15. al-Khalil, Republic of Fear, pp. 166-76.
16. Falih Abd al-Jabbar, al-Dawla, al-Mujtama al-Madani wa al-Tahawwul al-Dimuqratifi al-Iraq (State, Civil Society and Democratic Transition in Iraq) (Cairo: Markaz Ibn Khaldoun, 1996), p. 80.
17. Batatu, op. cit., pp. 1088-93.
18. On the first Baath regime, see ibid., pp. 1003-26 and Hani al-Fukayki, Awkar al-Hazimah: Tajribati fi Hizb al-Baath al-Iraqi (Dens of Defeat: My Experience in the Iraqi Baath Party) (London: Riyad al-Rayyes, 1993).
19. On the first Baath regime, see ibid., pp. 1003-26 and Hani al-Fukayki, Awkar al-Hazimah: Tajribati fi Hizb al-Baath al-Iraqi (Dens of Defeat: My Experience in the Iraqi Baath Party) (London: Riyad al-Rayyes, 1993).
20. The 1968 Revolution in Iraq: Experience and Prospects: The Political Report of the Eighth Congress of the Arab Baath Socialist Party in Iraq, January 1974 (London: Ithaca Press, 1979), p. 103.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., p. 105.
23. al-Barrak, op. cit., p. 216.
24. Bengio, op. cit., p. 147.
25. See Arab Baath Socialist Party, Iraq, The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress, June 1982, trans. SARTREC, Lausanne (CH) (Baghdad: January 1983), pp. 204-9.
26. The estimates of active members are from Christine Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984), pp. 99-100, based upon her interview with Taha Yasin Ramadan. The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress, June 1982, cites a figure of "120, 00 fighters" involved in the battle with Iran; see p. 207. Also see Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear, pp. 29-33.
27. The estimates of active members are from Christine Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984), pp. 99-100, based upon her interview with Taha Yasin Ramadan. The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress, June 1982, cites a figure of "120, 00 fighters" involved in the battle with Iran; see p. 207. Also see Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear, pp. 29-33.
28. The estimates of active members are from Christine Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984), pp. 99-100, based upon her interview with Taha Yasin Ramadan. The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress, June 1982, cites a figure of "120, 00 fighters" involved in the battle with Iran; see p. 207. Also see Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear, pp. 29-33.
29. See Isam al-Khafaji, "War as a Vehicle for the Rise and Demise of a State-controlled-society: The Case of Baathist Iraq, " Amsterdam Middle East Papers, No. 4, December 1995, pp. 9-11; and Amazia Baram, "The Ruling Political Elite in Baathi Iraq, 1968-1986: The Changing Features of a Collective Profile, " International Journal of Middle East Studies, No. 21, 1989, pp. 447-93.
30. See Isam al-Khafaji, "War as a Vehicle for the Rise and Demise of a State-controlled-society: The Case of Baathist Iraq, " Amsterdam Middle East Papers, No. 4, December 1995, pp. 9-11; and Amazia Baram, "The Ruling Political Elite in Baathi Iraq, 1968-1986: The Changing Features of a Collective Profile, " International Journal of Middle East Studies, No. 21, 1989, pp. 447-93.
31. Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, p. 1079.
32. Arab Baath Socialist Party, Iraq, The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress, p. 40.
33. Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Co., 1981), p. 355.
34. Frederick W. Axelgard, A New Iraq? The Gulf War and Implications for U.S. Policy (New York and Washington, DC: Praeger and Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1988), pp. 48-55.
35. Ibid., p. 29.
36. It was around this time that the government began a ridiculously inflated tradition of wholesale medal-awarding as a transparent means of providing incentive and reward during a seemingly endless war. By the end of the war, some generals had tens of medals, too many to fit on their uniforms.
37. See Bengio, op. cit., p. 151.
38. For more, see ibid., pp. 148-153. The 1982 Baath Party Report states that "the penetration of military terms into everyday language, giving way to a love of militarism. making young people in uniform highly-regarded.".
39. See Andrew T. Parasiliti, Iraq's War Decisions, Ph.D. Dissertation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1998), esp. pp. 7-56.
40. Sad al-Bazzaz, Al-Janiralat Akhir man Ya'lam (The Generals are the Last to Know), (London: Dar Al-Hikma, 1996), p. 43.
41. The best account to date of the Anfal is in Human Rights Watch/Middle East, Iraq's Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1995).
42. The dire straits of Iraq's battlefield situation, especially between 1982 and 1986, encouraged improvements in professionalism and adaptability in military command decisions. Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 412-13.
43. Edward R. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Penguin, 1980), p. 29.
44. al-Bazzaz, op. cit., pp. 22, 136, 140, 141, 136.
45. See, for example, Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 218-30; and Amatzia Baram, Building Toward Crisis: Saddam Hussein's Strategy for Survival (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), pp. 47-9.
46. See, for example, Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 218-30; and Amatzia Baram, Building Toward Crisis: Saddam Hussein's Strategy for Survival (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), pp. 47-9.