Professor Joseph Sassoon was originally born in Baghdad, and
later moved to England where he received his education. He is currently a
Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arabic Studies at Georgetown
University. In 2012, he published Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party, Inside an Authoritarian Regime. Using thousands
of Iraqi documents seized by Kurds after the 1991 Gulf War, and the U.S. led
Coalition following the 2003 invasion, along with interviews of former Iraqi
officials Professor Sassoon was able to study the intricate party apparatus of
the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein. He noted how Saddam studied the
previous Iraqi governments so as to not repeat their mistakes, and also used a
carrot and stick approach of not only threats and repression, but incentives
and rewards to maintain control of the country. Below is an interview with
Professor Sassoon about his book, and his thoughts on Baathist Iraq.
1. It’s always been
said that Saddam Hussein had a keen understanding of Iraqi politics and
society, which allowed him to stay in power for so long. Part of that was due
to Saddam’s studying of Iraqi history. You wrote that he looked at the previous
Iraqi governments, and the failed 1963 Baathist Coup. What lessons did her
learn from them?
Saddam Hussein was determined that no opposition would be
able to reach power. After the rise of the Baath in 1963 and their ousting nine
months later, the Party dedicated significant efforts to understand the reasons
for failure. Controlling the security apparatus; infiltrating the army, and to
a certain degree weakening it, and owning the resources to allocate rewards to
supporters were all part of the lessons learnt.
2. Was the Iraqi
public also shaped by this history of coups, and what role did that play in Saddam’s
dictatorship?
In July 1968, when the Baath came for the second time to
power, the Iraqi public was desperate for security and stability as the country
witnessed multiple coups d’état and disturbances throughout the 1960s. Thus,
the public was initially receptive to the notion that there would be continual
stability and economic growth as promised by the Baath leadership.
3. Saddam eventually
put the lessons he learned into practice. One result was the Baath Party’s penetration
of society. Can you explain how it went about doing this, and perhaps provide
some anecdotal stories?
The Party was the main vehicle for penetrating society. The
penetration took numerous forms: on one hand recruiting as many new members,
particularly young men and women was made a top priority, and indeed it was
successful as there were branches in every corner of the country and a wide
range of activities for members at all levels. But penetrating society meant
also controlling it, and this took the form of written forms that every citizen
had to fill in about himself/herself and their families which were later stored
in their files. Military officers and even security officers had to receive
approval before marrying, which gave the security apparatus the ability to
collect more information about the spouses and their respective families.
4. Another issue was
the Baath Party’s ability to recruit people throughout different generations. You
found some records from 2002 just before the U.S. invasion about party
membership. What was Iraq’s population at that time, how many were in the Baath
Party, and how many had real authority?
A
great deal of pressure was brought to bear on citizens to join the party and some
became members under duress, but many joined voluntarily, through conviction or
from a desire to benefit from being a Baathist. The documents abound with
evidence of citizens applying to join or rejoin the party. The vast majority of
party affiliates, however, played little active role because of the party’s
rigid hierarchy; only the top three levels of membership were effectively
involved in executing policies. Active members were subjected to frequent
evaluation, and promotion required passing special “training” courses,
immersion in the “cultural” aspects of the party, and demonstrating the
potential to serve in a more senior rank. Even so, a complex web of checks and
counterchecks ensured that the privileged few could not become too powerful.
The number of party card holders reached about 4 million by the end of 2002.
Thus, out of an estimated population of 25 million in 2002, those affiliated
with the Baath Party constituted about 16.5 percent, a very high number indeed
especially compared to Communist countries where the average membership was
between 8 to 10 percent. But, a closer look at the statistics shows us a
fundamentally different conclusion: the upper echelons of the party represented
only 14.5 percent of the overall affiliates and about 2.4 percent of the
overall population in 2002.
5. Saddam also
singled out women to be recruited into the party. Why did he do this, what kind
of rights did he give them, and how did that eventually change over time?
Saddam Hussein was secular, and this is important to keep in
mind. In the 1970s, he advocated the rights of women and encouraged them to be
active in education and jobs. He wanted to get their support as they
constituted half the population. Indeed, women progressed and achieved almost
the highest standard in education in the 1970s. During the 8 year war against
Iran (1980-1988), women assumed important functions as many men were recruited
to the front. Unfortunately by the end of the war, two events shaped his
attitude: the rise of unemployment and the delisting of more than half a
million soldiers and their return to the civilian life; and more importantly
the rise of Islamism and Khomeinism. Saddam decided to accommodate both factors
at the expense of the rights of women.
6. That ties into another
of Saddam’s tactics, the use of carrots and sticks and divide and conquer
policies. The repressive measures were what Iraq was famous for, but Saddam
could not rule simply through that. Can you give some examples of the rewards
that the party offered, which led to so many people supporting the government?
The Baath
managed to co-opt a large number of individuals by making it advantageous, both
to those who became part of the organization and even to those who were outside
it, to continue supporting the regime. This system co-opted a large segment of
the population into dependence on rewards. Tens of
thousands of Iraqis were the recipients of different medals, badges,
certificates, and insignias during the Baath rule. All signified status and privileges, which
in turn corresponded to whatever medals or badges the recipient had, and the more medals accumulated, the higher the rewards. The most coveted medal or identity card, however, was
called “Identity Card of the Friends of Mr. President Leader Saddam Hussein,
May God Protect him.” The front of the card displayed the holder’s personal
details, but intriguingly, the back featured a headline called imtiyazat (privileges),
followed by seven items such as adding five points to the average of
examinations of the friend’s children; help in getting accepted to universities
for the member and his family; easier access to deal with government
bureaucracy, and last but not least an annual gift
of two summer suits, and two winter suits to be made available from the
presidency of the republic!
7. It’s also
important to not forget how ruthless the Baathist government could be. Could
you explain how the regime used collective punishment as one means to deter
dissent and resistance?
Given the numerous real and imaginary enemies that flourished
under systems like the Baath,
a central task of the leadership was to decide who its enemies were. During the Baath
regime’s thirty-five-year rule, its enemies ranged from communists, Kurds,
Iranians or those of Iranian origin to members of the Dawa Party, prominent Shia religious leaders,
ex-Baathist
Party members, and Baath members who at some point had planned or
conspired to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Whether
in Iraq or similar dictatorships, the regimes “sought
merely not to restrain or annihilate their actual enemies, but to destroy even
the potential for resistance and dissent.” Instilling
fear, however, was the fundamental condition for
success. Fear was cultivated through sending a plethora of
messages, to the party elite as well as to the population at large, that
dissent would not be tolerated. The Iraqi people were keenly
aware of the repercussions of resisting the regime. As in Stalinist Russia,
Mao’s China, or North Korea, family members were considered guilty by association,
and were used to inculcate fear or to break down the
will of opponents or those considering opposing the regime. Families of
“traitors” were severely punished either directly or indirectly through rejection
from military colleges, universities, jobs, or even denial of requests to
travel abroad.
8. Another issue was
coup proofing the regime. How was that done?
Coup proofing was done
by creating a system, along the lines of Stalinism, of political commissars who
were part of every military unit, and acted as the eyes and ears of the regime.
They even intervened in military decisions to the frustration of professional
soldiers and officers. But the system worked: the army was prevented from
launching any coup, and most senior officers were shuffled regularly to prevent
them from accumulating any power.
9. The government was
always afraid of plots, internal opposition groups, and foreign influences. It
tried to counter them with the security services, and informers. How extensive
was this system?
The system of
informants is very much alike any other authoritarian regime. Gathering information on as many people as
possible was an important element in creating the impression of ubiquity of the
security apparatus. There were four main agencies of security in addition to a
few smaller and specialized ones. There was an overlapping in the functions of
these services to prevent any specific service from accumulating too much
power.
10. Many people have
called Baathist Iraq a totalitarian regime, but you disagree. Can you explain
why?
The Baath regime in
Iraq shares many characteristics of a totalitarian regime, but I do not believe
it was totalitarian. First, unlike other totalitarian regimes, there was no
real control of the economy as the private sector functioned, and even thrived
for most of the period under study. There was no massive industrialization or
dramatic changes to the allocation of economic resources. Furthermore, unlike
Nazism or Stalinism, the Baath ideology was very weak, and in fact one could
argue that from the mid-1980s until the 2003 invasion, the cult of personality
of Saddam Hussein was the main thrust of the ideology.
11. Many in the West
used to compare Saddam and the Baath Party to Hitler and the Nazi Party
claiming that Baathist ideology originally took a lot from Germany. You noted
that the party was actually more like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Can you elaborate upon that?
Saddam Hussein, similar
to other tyrants, learnt from each other. He was very impressed by Stalin. He
copied many of his methods and believed, like Stalin that people respect power,
and no one apart from him should control power. Both tyrants rotated many of
their senior colleagues and aides whenever they suspected them of gaining too
much influence.
12. That ties into
contemporary times with deBaathification. Some have argued that the Baath Party
is inherently evil and any kind of affiliation with it should be the basis for
exclusion in the new Iraq, while others have argued that working with the Baath
Party was a necessity of succeeding in Iraqi society under Saddam. What is your
opinion on the matter?
There is no doubt that
the senior leadership of the Baath committed many crimes against the Iraqi
people. The problem, post the 2003 invasion, was that deBaathification
encompassed large segments of the population. This in turn led to the collapse
of the state as many of those Baahists occupied senior positions in the
government bureaucracy. Iraq lost its senior managers, and then lost its middle-class
mangers with the deBaahification leading to chaos and insecurity.
13. Some have argued
that Saddam didn’t really rule through the Baath Party as much as he did
through his family and tribe from his home province of Salahaddin. Was that a
true characterization of the situation?
For Saddam, the most
important factor was complete loyalty to him. He was willing to rely on anyone
who showed that kind of loyalty. Yet, at the same time, there was no mercy for
anyone showing any inclination of disloyalty, be it from his own family, his
tribe or his party. The party apparatus played a critical role in maintaining
the regime for 35 years.
14. Sectarianism
plays a large role in Iraqi politics today, and many point to Saddam Hussein’s
rule as the origins of it. Do you believe that to be true?
One could say that the Shi‘is have always been
discriminated against by Iraqi governments since the creation of the state in
1932. Under the Baath, this took a different character first with the expulsion
of many Shi‘is to Iran in the 1980s,and then culminating in the terrible
revenge taken by the Republican Guard after the 1991 intifada in the South.
Having said that, and in spite of the fact that the Baath party was obsessive
about collecting information on every citizen, yet, there was one question that
was never asked on any form and that was about sect. Forms tended to ask two
questions: religion and nationality, so you could be a Muslim and Kurd or
Christian and Arab. I think that it is important to understand that Saddam
Hussein’s regime defined Iraqis not as much by their religion, but more by
their support and loyalty to the party unlike the situation after 2003. Kurds,
Shi‘is, and Christians were all part of the system, and were involved in its
operations and intelligence services. Therefore, while sectarianism existed
under Saddam Hussein’s regime, particularly after 1991, it never became part
and parcel of daily life as it is currently in Iraq.
15. Saddam eventually
developed a cult of personality around himself. When and why did that come
about?
The cult of personality
played an important role in the durability of the regime. It allowed Saddam to
detach himself from the responsibility of any failures, and created an aura the
great leader, the father of the nation, and the leader that the people of Iraq
waited for hundreds of years. The cult began in the late 1970s, gathered
momentum in the 1980s and throughout the 1990s until the collapse of the regime
in 2003, was the dominant ideology in the country.
16. Part of Baathist
ideology was to create a socialist state. That didn’t quite happen. What kind
of economic system did develop in Iraq?
Socialism is one of the
mottos of the Baath Party both in Iraq and in Syria, but it was not seriously
implemented. Economic management was focused on dealing with the immediate
issues rather than planning for a long term. One has to recall that the 1970s,
Iraq was enjoying tremendous growth, oil prices quadrupled after the 1973
October War, and accumulated large reserves. The 1980-88 war depleted Iraq of
its reserves, and turned it into a debtor country with weak infrastructure.
Then came the First Gulf War (1990-91), which decimated the country, and this
was followed by severe sanctions. Thus the leadership was intent on facing
those serious economic issues, and the private sector was allowed to grow to
overcome those economic difficulties.
17. The sanctions
imposed on the country after the 1990 invasion of Iraq devastated the economy.
How did Saddam use it to his advantage?
Although the Iraqi
population at large suffered from the sanctions, the regime was not seriously
affected. In essence, the sanctions probably expanded the role of the Iraqi
state and increased regime stability. As a result of the success of the rationing
system, the Baath party managed to increase its support and
empathy among the civilian population during the thirteen years of harsh
sanctions.
18. Today Iraq is
ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. There was a lot of
corruption in the 1990s under sanctions as well. Can you explain what the
government’s stance towards it was?
In the dire
circumstances of the sanctions in the 1990s, corruption spread into every facet
of life, particularly after 1996, when Iraq began selling oil under the U.N.’s
Oil-for-Food Programme. Estimates of illicit income from surcharges on oil
sales and bribery ranged from $270 million to more
than $7 billion. Today, in Iraq, while violence has been reduced to a level
that allows a semblance of normality, Nouri al-Maliki’s government, according to a recent report of International Crisis Group (ICG), has “allowed corruption
to become entrenched and spread throughout its institutions.” As the
ICG Report clearly indicates, the Iraqi government’s interference in and
manipulation of corruption cases for its own political advantage has led to a
serious deterioration in the running of government institutions. The Report
characterized the spread of corruption within the country’s institutions as a
virus, and warned that the government’s paralysis is contributing to “the
proliferation of criminal elements and vested interests throughout the
bureaucracy.” Today, corruption permeates every facet of decision-making in Iraq, thus
preventing the country from taking advantage of the huge oil wealth accumulated
in the last few years due to rising oil prices. Corruption existed in Iraq
under Saddam Hussein’s Baath party and gained momentum during the sanctions.
But at no point during the thirty-five years of authoritarian regime was
corruption as rampant and endemic as it is today.
SOURCES
Sassoon, Joseph, Saddam
Hussein’s Ba’th Party, Inside an Authoritarian Regime, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape
Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City: Cambridge University
Press, 2012
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