Ba’thist Iraq Through Archives, Reflections, Explorations and Opportunities was the result of a 2023 conference at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University in California where academics and researchers met to discuss the Baathist archives that were captured after the Gulf War and 2003 invasion. Like most anthologies the chapters are a bit varied but there are some very interesting findings given the talent that was assembled.
The first chapter by Marsin Al Shamary and Shamiran Mako talks about the power dynamics that surrounded the research into the files. There were several different sets of documents that were taken by the Kurds, Iraqi opposition figure Kanan Makiya and the United States after the Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq. All of them ended up in the United States. Shamary and Mako discuss how Americans were able to go through them before the Iraqis were. Many Iraqis didn’t even know they existed. Today the hard copies reside in Baghdad where they still have not been publicly released. Who could and could not see the papers and how they ended up in America were all points of contention that researchers still deal with today.
Some of the standout contributors include Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer. There has been a discussion about whether Saddam Hussein was a totalitarian or authoritarian leader. Early books focused upon the former. Braut-Hegghammer argues for the latter. Saddam did not rule with an iron fist for instance. Many times he was ambiguous about his orders apparently on purpose so if something went wrong he would not be blamed. As a result government officials were not always clear about what Saddam wanted and made their own varying interpretations. Sometimes the bureaucracy did not report up the chain of command to avoid getting in trouble. The author gave the example of Iraq and the United Nations weapons inspectors where sometimes scientists turned over papers they weren’t supposed to because they weren’t sure about what was off limits. Braut-Hegghammer highlighted a government full of ambiguity, factions, dysfunction and even independence rather than a republic of fear as it was termed.
Ruiheng Li has a chapter on how the Kurds were a leading issue in Saddam’s rise to power. He was in charge of talks with the Kurds over autonomy in the late 1960s-70s and that helped him secure his position as the successor to President Bakr. He ended up giving control of the Shatt al-Arab waterway to Iran in 1975 to end the Shah’s support of the Kurdish rebellion. This opened him up to criticism within the government and was a driving force for him to invade Iran in 1980. He was also afraid the Iranians would go back to supporting the Kurdish insurgents. These challenge the conventional wisdom that Iraq started the Iran-Iraq War because it was afraid of the Iranian revolution.
David Palkki and Lawrence Rubin cover the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds during the Iran-Iraq War and the Anfal campaign. They found multiple motivations for their deployment. One was that Saddam wanted to intimidate Iran into thinking they were going to be targeted next to get it to end the Iran-Iraq War. Iranian officials such as President Rafsanjani repeatedly said that they were afraid after the gassing of Halabja that Iranian cities would be next and Tehran could do nothing to stop it. That led Iran to agree to a ceasefire in 1988. Second Baghdad wanted to make sure Iran never supported the Kurds again as they did under the Shah and during the war. Third Saddam was afraid Israel and the U.S. would give aid to the Kurds once again and wanted to deter them from doing that. Finally, Iraq considered chemical weapons an integral part of its counterinsurgency campaign. WMD dispersed the Kurds and destroyed their bases so that foreign powers would have no one to align with and the insurgency would end.
Finally, Danie Chardell covers how Saddam viewed the end of the Cold War. It fueled a series of conspiracy theories. He saw the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel as emboldening it to attack Iraq and the Arabs. He was convinced an imminent strike was coming. He also thought the decline of the Soviet Union would open the door to the United States trying to dominate the Middle East. Both of these led him to invade Kuwait because he believed the kingdom was working with the United States to undermine his government. Again, this adds new information to Iraq’s motivations as many have simply focused upon Iraq’s debts after the Iran-Iraq War as the major cause.
Ba’thist Iraq Through Archives is well worth reading. Not all the chapters may be of interest but there are so many topics covered and more importantly new views of Iraq are presented that it is highly recommended.
Link to all of Musings On Iraq’s book reviews listed by topic
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