Review Out Of The Ashes, The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein

Cockburn, Andrew and Cockburn, Patrick, Out Of The Ashes, The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, New York: Harper Perennial, 2000

Out Of The Ashes, The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein was written by the Cockburn brothers Andrew and Patrick. It covered Iraq in the 1990s starting with Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to the Bush administration’s plots against Saddam to the United Nations sanctions and inspectors. The book goes back and forth between the hopes of the Bush and Clinton White Houses to overthrow and contain Saddam to his attempts to hold onto power, which proved quite successful. The Cockburns relied upon both press reports along with extensive interviews with Iraqis both inside and outside of the country to tell this story. As the title suggests, the authors believed that Saddam went from the depths of defeat to be comfortably in power during this decade, but at a heavy cost to his country.

Impact Of The 1991 Uprising On Iraqi Society Interview With Natl Univ of Singapore’s Fanar Haddad

On February 28, 1991 President Bush announced a ceasefire to end the Gulf War. They next day Iraqi soldiers returning to Basra started the revolt against Saddam Hussein, which would quickly spread to all the major cities of southern Iraq. Fanar Haddad in Sectarianism In Iraq argued that the 1991 uprising was a turning point in sectarian relations in the country. Iraq’s communities came to see the events in completely different ways. What follows is an interview with Haddad to help explain how that happened. Haddad is a Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, and can be followed on Twitter at @fanarhaddad.

Saddam’s View Of Iraq’s 1991 Uprising

“The Americans wanted to hurt Iraq by hurting its army. Its army would get destroyed. Such an opportunity was to be … taken advantage of by all the greedy people or the hateful ones or those who had beforehand evil intentions against Iraq, whether they were from outside or inside Iraq. The entire siege, the air bombardment until the land attack began, they were all methods to create the appropriate environment for the operation that took place.”

- Saddam Hussein, April 3, 1991

Starting in March 1991 southern and northern Iraq rose up in rebellion against Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi army had just been defeated in the Gulf War and angry soldiers in the south started a revolt in Basra that quickly spread across the entire south. A few days later the Kurds begin rising up as well seizing the major cities in the north including Kirkuk. By the start of April the government had recovered and most of the Kurds were fleeing to Turkey and Iran, while southerners were driven into Iran and the marshes of Basra and Maysan.

To Saddam this was all part of a plan by the Americans to undermine his rule. On April 3, as the last vestiges of the uprising were being put down in Sulaymaniya, Saddam met with his advisers. He called the revolt “The Page of Treason and Treachery,” and claimed that it was a result of the Gulf War. He declared that the war was really meant to destroy the Iraqi armed forces so that his opponents could take advantage of the situation. He blamed groups based in Iran, probably referring to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq that deployed its Badr Brigade during the period, for starting the fighting in Basra. At the same time, he did acknowledge that there were opponents in the south, but they didn’t want a rebellion. According to him that idea was completely sprung by outsiders. Saddam had a different view of the Kurds. There he said the Kurdish parties wanted revenge for being defeated in the Anfal campaign during the 1980s. The meeting revealed some of the thinking of Saddam. The 1991 revolt solidified his belief that the main threat to his rule came from domestic forces, namely the Shiite Islamists and the Kurds. At the same time, his other major nemesis was Iran, which he had painted as the historical foe of Iraq since the Iran-Iraq War. Together these two groups were consistently plotting against him, and trying to take him down. Saddam saw the Gulf War through this prism, and believed the Americans were simply working with his longtime opponents, completely missing Washington’s response to the invasion of Kuwait.

SOURCES

Woods, Kevin, Palkki, David, and Stout, Mark, The Saddam Tapes, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City: Cambridge University Press, 2011

When The U.S. Helped Start A Rebellion In Iraq That It Didn’t Want

Twenty-five years ago the people of Iraq rose up against Saddam Hussein following the cessation of the Gulf War. The United States played a crucial role in those events calling on Iraqis to overthrow their leader. The Bush administration was hoping to inspire a coup that would have the military replace Saddam, but keep the Baathist government in tact. When a popular rebellion started instead, the White House and its allies panicked fearing that Iraq would break apart and they would be stuck trying to hold the pieces.

In February 1991 President Bush called on the people of Iraq to rise up. He gave a speech telling Iraqis, “To take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside.” During the Gulf War the Americans dropped leaflets over the Iraqi army telling them to rebel. The CIA, Britain and the Saudis also financed the Voice of Free Iraq radio station that encouraged the military to overthrow Saddam. (1) America’s Arab allies such as the Saudis, Egypt and Kuwait all thought that Saddam would quickly fall after the war as well. (2) The president and some of his top advisers were hoping that a coup would get rid of Iraq’s dictator therefore removing the threat of another Middle Eastern war emerging from Iraq. (3) Not all within the administration shared this view. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft warned against getting involved in Iraq’s internal affairs and argued for containment instead. The president’s statement and calls for the military to act against the regime played a crucial role in inspiring Iraqis to rebel. When they did however the U.S. did not welcome them as they expected.

The rebellion in Iraq started spontaneously in the north and south. On March 1 in Basra, it was said that a tank column coming from Kuwait went to the center of the city and fired at a mural of Saddam. The commander then gave a speech, which drew a crowd, and the revolt was on. Demonstrations spread to other southern cities until the whole region was up in arms. In the north, the first fighting broke out in Rania and Chaware Qurna on March 5. That quickly spread as well ending with Kirkuk falling to the Peshmerga on March 20. At its peak, thirteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces had joined the uprising. The U.S. propaganda made the rebels believe that they had Washington’s backing, but they were wrong.

One major factor in America’s reluctance to support the rebellion was the involvement of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). SCIRI’s leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim made radio broadcasts from Iran calling for people to join the revolt. (4) It also sent in its Badr Brigade into Najaf and Karbala. Some of its men were carrying Iranian flags and had the armband of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The Supreme Council quickly alienated people by talking like it was leading the revolt, and Badr giving military commands. Badr quickly withdrew its forces, but the damage was done. Arab governments and the U.S. were scared by SCIRI’s actions, because it was a proxy of Tehran. The group had been formed in Iran to try to unite Iraq’s Shiite religious opposition under its tutelage, and Badr was officially part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The last thing the Bush administration and its allies wanted was Tehran to take advantage of the disorder in Iraq.

The fear of Iran’s role, along with concerns that the Shiites and Kurds might tear Iraq apart quickly spread throughout America’s allies in the region. Diplomats told the New York Times that Iran was supporting Iraq’s Shiites. (5) There were stories that Iran might have sent in its forces into southern Iraq. (6) Turkey warned that it would deploy troops to stop Kurdistan from breaking away from the country, and was also concerned about Tehran. The Gulf States were not interested in the break up of the country either. These countries’ all influenced the U.S. as the Bush administration was acutely aware that it had formed a delicate international alliance to expel Iraq from Kuwait. It wanted to keep its allies together, and the rebellion was complicating that.

In less than a week of the Iraqi uprising starting the White House was already turning against it. White House officials began telling the press that if rebels removed Saddam it would destabilize the region, could lead to an Islamic fundamentalist government supported by Iran taking power in Iraq, and the Kurds creating their own country. (7) The U.S. was afraid that it would have to intervene to hold Iraq together, something no one in the administration wanted. That led the president to send a warning to Iran in the second week of March. (8) By the third week of the month, the U.S. was accusing Tehran of sending weapons to the rebels. That changed the whole calculus of the administration. At first, it wanted the military to rise up against Saddam. Then it thought the rebellion might spur the army into action. Later, it came to see the uprising as rallying the Baath Party and security forces around Saddam. (9) That meant by April the U.S. was talking about sanctions rather than any downfall of Saddam. (10) Those sanctions would last all the way until 2003 when the U.S. finally invaded Iraq, something it staunchly avoided in 1991.

The Bush administration always seemed split on its post-Gulf War Iraq policy. As the war was coming to an end, the president took up the coup idea, but had its dissenters. When the revolt started, Vice President Dan Quayle and Defense Secretary Cheney were in favor of it, while Scowcroft, Joint Chiefs head General Colin Powell, and Gulf War commander General Norman Schwarzkopf were all against it. SCIRI and Iran’s role caused concerns, and the U.S.’s allies in the region were all afraid that Iraq was disintegrating. That turned the tide for the White House. Its calls for a rebellion had helped inspire Iraqis to take up arms against their government, but they got nothing in return. Former Secretary of State James Baker later said that the U.S.’s encouraging Iraqis to get rid of Saddam was a huge mistake. A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report argued that the U.S. not helping the uprisings might have actually saved Saddam as the military decided to stand by him and put down the Shiites and Kurds when they saw no American aid coming. In the aftermath, the huge flow of Kurdish refugees into Turkey and Ankara’s please for help led President Bush to establish a no fly zone over the north that allowed the Kurds to create their own autonomous region. The south was not as lucky as a no fly zone was created there, but the government was free to hunt down the rebels, and carried out a number of counterinsurgency campaigns and forced relocations to pacify and punish the south. That left many Shiites to feel betrayed by Washington that lasts with some up to the present day.

FOOTNOTES

1. Sciolino, Elaine, “Radio Tied to U.S. Urges Iraqi Revolt,” New York Times, 4/16/91

2. Seib, Gerald, “How Miscalculations Spawned U.S. Policy Toward Postwar Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 5/31/91

3. McManus, Doyle and Kempster, Norman, “U.S. Hopes to Provoke Coup,” San Francisco Chronicle, 2/27/91

4. Al-Kifaee, Fadel Reda, “The Role of the Hawza of Najaf and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Restructuring the Iraqi Governance System in Post-Ba’athist Iraq,”

5. Apple, R.W., “Iraqi Clashes Said To Grow As Troops Join Protests; First Allied Captives Freed,” New York Times, 3/5/91

6. Lakes, Gary, “Behind the Battle for Power in Iraq – Who’s Who,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/7/91

7. Gerstenzang, James and Ross, Michael, “Saddam’s Ouster Could Destabilize Mideast Politics,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/6/91

8. Seib, Gerald, “Bush Warns Iran Not to Make Attempts To Pull Away Parts of Troubled Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 3/14/91

9. Rennert, Leo, “Iraq rebellions aided Saddam, U.S. says,” Sacramento Bee, 4/12/91

10. Seib, Gerald, “Bush Is Returning To Previous Policy Of Iraq Sanctions,” Wall Street Journal, 4/22/91

SOURCES

Aaron, Daniel Meyers, Marisa, “Cost of Exile: The Role of the Returning Exiles In Post-2003 Iraq,” The Institute for Middle East Studies, The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, May 2014

Apple, R.W., “Iraqi Clashes Said To Grow As Troops Join Protests; First Allied Captives Freed,” New York Times, 3/5/91

Associated Press, “CIA Reportedly Got OK to Help Iraqi Rebels,” San Francisco Chronicle, 4/4/91

Broder, Jonathan, “U.S. policy on Iraqi chaos: Cold, hard – and wistful,” San Francisco Examiner, 3/31/91

Bush, George H.W. and Scowcroft, Brent, A World Transformed, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998

Cowell, Alan, “Iranian Leader Calls on Saddam To Step Down,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/9/91

Gerstenzang, James and Ross, Michael, “Saddam’s Ouster Could Destabilize Mideast Politics,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/6/91

Haberman, Clyde, “Worried Turks Prefer Iraq to Remain Whole,” New York Times, 3/6/91

Ibraim, Youssef, “Iran Organizing Hussein’s Foes, Arab and Foreign Diplomats Say,” New York Times, 3/20/91

Jabar, Faleh, The Shi’ite Movement in Iraq, London: SAQI Books, 2003

- “Why the Uprisings Failed,” Middle East Report, May/June 1992

Kamen, Al and Devroy, Ann, “Saddam’s Grip on Iraq Looks Firmer Than Ever,” San Francisco Chronicle, 4/20/91

Al-Kifaee, Fadel Reda, “The Role of the Hawza of Najaf and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Restructuring the Iraqi Governance System in Post-Ba’athist Iraq,” Masters Thesis American University of Cairo, May 2010

Lakes, Gary, “Behind the Battle for Power in Iraq – Who’s Who,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/7/91

Lane, Charles with Warner, Margaret Garrard and Waller, Douglas, Marshall, Ruth, Nordland, Rod, Liu, Melinda, Katel, Peter and Manegold, C.S., “’His Head on a Plate,’” Newsweek 3/4/91

MacLeod, Scott, “With His Country in Ruins, How Long Can Saddam Hang On?” Time, 3/11/91

Mathews, Tom with Warner, Margaret Garrard, and DeFrank, Thomas, Waller, Douglas and Barry, John, “A Quagmire After All,” Newsweek, 4/29/91

McManus, Doyle and Kempster, Norman, “U.S. Hopes to Provoke Coup,” San Francisco Chronicle, 2/27/91

Mylroie, Laurie, “Led Astray by the Saudis in Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 4/10/91

Packer, George, The Assassins’ Gate, America In Iraq, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

PBS Frontline, “interview: james baker,” October 2001

Reed, Stanley and Rossant, John, with Burrus, Amy, “The Latest Threat To The Gulf: A Defeated Iraq,” Business Week, 3/18/91

Rennert, Leo, “Iraq rebellions aided Saddam, U.S. says,” Sacramento Bee, 4/12/91

Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco, New York: Penguin Press, 2006

Rosenthal, Andrew, “Aides Discuss Pressing For Hussein’s Removal,” New York Times, 2/25/91

- “U.S. Expecting Hussein To Be Out by Year’s End,” New York Times, 3/18/91

San Francisco Chronicle, “Iraqi Troops Reportedly Unable to Quell Unrest,” 3/13/91

Sciolino, Elaine, “Kurds Alone Viewed as Unlikely to Oust Hussein,” New York Times, 3/20/91

- “Radio Tied to U.S. Urges Iraqi Revolt,” New York Times, 4/16/91

Seib, Gerald, “Bush Is Returning To Previous Policy Of Iraq Sanctions,” Wall Street Journal, 4/22/91

-“Bush Warns Iran Not to Make Attempts To Pull Away Parts of Troubled Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 3/14/91

- “How Miscalculations Spawned U.S. Policy Toward Postwar Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 5/31/91

Al-Shamrani, Ali, “The Iraqi Opposition Movement: The Post-Gulf War Era 1990-1996,” Department of War Studies, King’s College, 2001

Waller, Douglas, “Bush’s Rude Surprise,” Newsweek, 4/22/91

Watson, Russel with McDaniel, Ann, Barry, John and Warner, Margaret Garrard and Moreau, Ron, “Unfinished Business?” Newsweek, 4/8/91

Wawro, Geoffrey, “Desert Storm Turns Twenty: What Really Happened in 1991, and Why it Matters, Part II of II,” Huffington Post, 1/22/11

Remembering The 1991 Uprising In Iraq

25 years ago the people of Iraq rose up against the government of Saddam Hussein. Following the cessation of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers in Basra began firing on Baath party offices starting a revolt that spread across southern Iraq. Four days later Kurds started their own uprising in the north. The rebellion was short lived, put down in bloody fashion, led to thousands being executed in retaliation afterward, and hundreds of thousands being displaced. In 1992, Human Rights Watch documented those days in a report that contained dozens of first hand accounts. Here is a selection of those interviews that portrays some of the events that occurred back in 1991 and its aftermath.

The rebellion in southern Iraq started on March 1, 1991 in Basra, and quickly spread to other cities like Najaf. On March 3 demonstrations started in that latter city against the government of Saddam Hussein. A resident recalled:

At about 3pm a popular demonstration began. Men, women and children marched on the main streets shouting slogans against Saddam. … There were no more than 500 demonstrators at the beginning, but their numbers grew as the march proceeded, and they began pouring into adjacent streets as well.

By the next day Najaf fell to the rebels. A woman told Human Rights Watch that there were attacks upon Baathists and members of the security forces afterward.

Saddamists who resisted were killed. Those who did not resist were taken prisoner, and then killed when the army attacked. About 500 security people [were] killed in al-Najaf. … Many [were] killed by knives by people who were avenging killed relatives.

A similar situation played out in Karbala according to a lawyer from there.

The intifada began at 2:30pm. Earlier that day the soldiers had arrived in Karbala, and it felt as if the city suddenly had been occupied. Some of the opposition groups distributed pamphlets. We were expecting it to erupt from hour to hour. It all broke out when youths fanned out throughout the city, firing the fifteen or so Kalashnikovs they had. Then people began coming out into the streets of the city to do battle with “white weapons” [knives] against the Saddamites.

By March 7 the government was retaliating and began artillery and rocket fire on Najaf to retake the city. Four days later the actual assault upon the city began, and the defenses quickly collapsed. A Najaf refugee recalled how the government told people to flee the city, but they were fired upon when the tried to do so.

People were told on the loudspeakers to evacuate the city within 24 hours for their own safety and head north, in the direction of Karbala. When thousands of people had gathered in the northern outskirts of the city it was afternoon already, around 3 o’clock, and they were mostly women and children. Helicopters opened fire from machine guns at them. Between 250 and 300 were killed.

Afterward the security forces carried out a wave of arrests in Najaf including Grand Ayatollah Abu Qassim Khoei.

I watched from a nearby house as some soldiers captured the Imam [Ayatollah Khoei], four members of the leadership, and some of the rebels. They forced the Imam, who is over 90 years old, to walk without assistance, and since he cannot he fell to the ground. Then his son helped him up and all were taken away. The army started sealing up area after area, and looking for men. Everyone they found, youths, men, foreigners, they took to the sports stadiums, and from there, in large convoys, to Baghdad. The operations went on until I left [on April 10]. … We don’t know what has happened to them since.

A similar series of events played out in Karbala after that city was retaken.

Once in control of the city, the army encircled each district looking for young men. At first they shot whomever they saw. After a day or so, they arrested every male over 15. They took them, there were thousands by the time I left to Baghdad and nobody knows what has happened to them. The soldiers were looting the shops all over the city. When they caught a youth under suspicion, they had informers who pointed them out, they would take all that was in his house in army trucks, then they’d blow up the house. I know of tens of houses demolished in this way.

Many of those taken away were later executed and dumped in mass graves across the country. Their fate would not be discovered until after the 2003 invasion.

The uprising in Kurdistan took a similar path. After cities and towns were taken there were revenge attacks upon regime elements. A Kurdish English teacher told Human Rights Watch:

Took three hundred Baathist prisoners. … We punished those who had martyred our brothers and looted our homes. We killed them without trial. … During the first days after the peshmerga took over, some escaped. We caught many and killed them by shooting them and with axes. The mothers of martyrs killed twenty-one escaping soldiers with axes and stones.

An Arab dentist in Sulaymaniya added:

The bodies of security agents and Baathists were torn apart, and revenge was wrought for the Saddamist butchery that happened in Halabja and elsewhere. … The main battle was fought against the Security Directorate, which put up stiff resistance for 48 hours. It was well-fortified, like a citadel. Many senior officials were in there. In the end, the fortification was pierced, and the masses entered in order to smash and kill everything before them. The torture chambers were like nothing I had ever seen or heard of in my life. We walked on top of the bodies of those who had been burned and killed: 700 from the Security Service, both officials and agents. … Their sentences were carried out by the people with iron saws and knives, while [their victims] were screaming and crying.

In Kirkuk the Iraqi forces arrested civilians when the Peshmerga began attacking the city. A barber recalled how he was picked up, taken to Ramadi, and told that he could never go back to his home.

On March 11, after the peshmerga began attacking Kirkuk from the north, the army seized as hostages Kurdish boys and men aged 14 and older, from the neighborhoods of Shurjeh, Imam Qasim, Tepee, Iskan Jedid, Rahimawa, Almas, and Huriyya.

At Tubzawa, there were about 1,000 to 1,500 detainees. We were placed in rooms about 25 meters square. Everyone had to sit with his knees together. There were guards outside the rooms. We spent the first night without food or water. The next day, they took us to an infantry training camp on the Tikrit-Baiji road. We spent the next 15 days there, in one large hall. There were 1,220 of us, all from Kirkuk. I know the number because they counted us. The hall had been used during the Iran-Iraq war for Iranian prisoners. No interrogations were carried out. For one week, we did not receive any blankets. We slept two to a mattress. There were no toilets. For two weeks we had to relieve ourselves in the corner. The guards told us to go smell the shit. They were from Baghdad and Tikrit. We got hard rolls and a little rice to eat, to drink, a little water. From this place we were transported by a covered truck to a place in al-Ramadi that had also been used previously for Iranian prisoners. During the long trip we received no water or food.

After nearly five weeks at al-Ramadi, most of us were released. However, those Kurds who had been serving in the army were not released. One day before letting us go, a major came to us and said we had to choose between Suleimaniya and Irbil. When we asked why, he answered simply, “no one is going to Kirkuk.”

Security forces also destroyed houses as a university student from Kirkuk said.

Troops came to Arassa, a neighborhood that is strongly pro-peshmerga. They took the women to Kara Angir [a town north of Kirkuk], and told them, “Go to the peshmerga.” The next morning, the forces demolished the houses. Arassa is totally destroyed, all the houses have been destroyed.

Attack helicopters played a crucial role in retaking towns in both the north and south. A store owner form Tuz Kharmato explained:

The rebels fired back at the tank fire using mortars. They also had five tanks they had captured from the government. The principle problem was the helicopters that began flying over the city on the fourth or fifth day…dropping napalm bombs and destroying homes. … The resistance tried to hit the helicopters, and the peshmerga surrounding the city kept the army at bay [but] still the principal problem was the helicopters.

As Kurdish towns were retaken it set off a wave of displacement. The store owner from Tuz continued:

85 or 90 percent of the population took the road into the mountains. They had to cross a river near Tuz, which cars cannot cross. The river is 20 to 25 meters wide. They took this route because the Iraqis were in control of the bridge and the road to Kifri, and the main road was under the control of the Mujahidin-e-Khalq [the Iranian opposition group that was assisting the Iraqi loyalist forces]. A couple of children drowned crossing the river. Wounded persons remained in their homes. People couldn’t take them along when they fled. Later, the Saddamites gathered up 500 of the old people who had remained and kicked them out, telling them, “Go to Jalal Talabani.” Some people hid in the city and then escaped one by one. Some were caught and arrested.

Those attempting to flee were often attacked as a man from Irbil remembered.

As we were leaving, helicopters attacked the road we were on, the Irbil-Kuysanjaq road. I saw 25 bodies on the road. People [were] trying to leave Irbil, but no one could help the wounded. They used napalm. I know this because of the brown burns on the bodies. Some of the 25 had burns. I also saw hands and legs separated from bodies.

Humanitarian agencies believed that after the 1991 uprising was put down 1.4 million Iraqis fled to Iran, 450,000 to Turkey, 35,000 to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and smaller numbers to Syria and Jordan. By June 1992 only 100,000 were still refugees, but an estimated 600,000 were displaced within Iraq. Many Kurds coming back from foreign countries were protected by a no fly zone created by the United States and its allies, and found homes in areas under the control of the Kurdish parties and peshmerga. In the south, things were much harder with some 50,000-250,000 hiding out in the southern marshes. Saddam would respond by draining the water from those areas and forcing out most of the population. When some returned they found that they were arrested, and faced forced relocations. A rebel in Basra told of what happened to him after the Republican Guard arrested him:

They took us to a security headquarters in the city. I spent one day there, with about 90 other men and women. Both the men and the women were beaten with cables and the butts of guns. They did not interrogate us. The next day, they took us to an Army security office (Amn al-Failaq al-Thaalith) which the army command was using as its headquarters in Basra. They interrogated us about who had participated in the intifada. The interrogators beat us with cables. They also used electric shock on me, powered by a 60-watt hand-operated electric generator, with wires attached to my genitals. I was interrogated like this over the next seven days. During this time, they executed 12 from our group.

There were also massacres by Saddam’s forces. According to a Basra businessman:

[They] shot a lot of women and children who went down to the river to get water. They had soldiers on the roofs of high buildings who would shoot. I saw many bodies by the river, and they shot people who tried to take the bodies back too. But still women would go to the river – there was no other choice.

We went into a house, near al-Watani Street. I was looking for my own family. In the living room, there were the bodies of two young girls, completely naked, hung from the fan that was suspended from the ceiling. … In another room was the rest of the family, at least eight bodies, including a child under the age of two. The bodies were bloated, it had been at least two days. The streets of the neighborhood were full of bodies, lying in heaps. I saw whole families cut to pieces, arms, hands, legs.

A refugee from Basra had a similar story.

On March 29, I saw Republican Guard capture 50 unarmed people in Tanuma and take them to the Shatt al-Arab. I was near Khaled Bridge. The Guard had come with tanks. There were 200-300 soldiers. They tied their victims’ hands behind their backs and tied their feet with cloths, to which they attached heavy rocks. They then took them out to the middle of the Shatt al-Arab and threw them in the water, where they drowned.

Although it was short lived for a few days in March 1991 the majority of Iraq’s provinces rose up in open rebellion. Initially it seemed that Saddam might be forced from power, but he had kept his elite forces out of the Gulf War, and with the aid of local allies and attack helicopters they were eventually able to put down all of the rebels. The costs were staggering as thousands were killed in the aftermath, and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes. When those people tried to go home, many were not allowed to return in a forced relocation program to punish the areas that opposed the government. Victims of this period are still discovered each year in mass graves across Iraq. The memories shape present politics in Iraq as well, as the Kurds are always weary of a central government, and Shiites are still afraid of Baathists. The one positive to come from these events was the creation of the northern no fly zone, which allowed Kurdish parties to carve out their own autonomous region, and allowed many refugees to return without fear of retribution from the Baath.

SOURCES

Human Rights Watch, “Endless Torment, The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath,” June 1992

Selected Timeline of The 1991 Shiite and Kurdish Uprisings In Iraq

Mar 1 Pres Bush said Iraqi people should overthrow Saddam

- Iraqi army units and civilians in Basra and Suq al-Shuykh begin revolt against govt

Mar 2 Nasiriya joins revolt

- Rebels attack military intelligence headquarters in Basra

Mar 3 Demonstrations against Saddam start in Najaf

Mar 4 Fighting breaks out against govt in Najaf

Mar 5 Kurdish revolt starts in Rania

- Karbala joins Shiite revolt

- Sec of Def Cheney said US would not be able to hold coalition together if it moved on Saddam

- US Gen Brandtner said US would not let weapons go to Shiite rebels in southern Iraq

- Ayatollah Khoei called on people to protect holy places and property during uprising

Mar 6 State Dept said foreign powers should not get involved in Iraq uprising

Mar 7 Bush admin warned Iraq not use WMD against Shiite and Kurdish rebels

- Govt forces began artillery barrage on Najaf

- Peshmerga attack Sulaymaniya

Mar 8 Peshmerga capture Sulaymaniya

Mar 10 Peshmerga begin attack on Tuz Kharmao

- Govt imposes curfew on Kirkuk to try to stop unrest

Mar 11 Govt forces retake Hillah from rebels

- Massoud Barzani offers amnesty to Iraqi soldiers that surrender to Peshmerga

- Peshmerga attack Kirkuk

Mar 12 Govt forces retake Najaf

Mar 13 Pres Bush said Iraqi helicopters should not be used to put down revolts

Mar 15 Saddam declared southern revolt over

Mar 17 Govt forces kill 250-300 civilians in Najaf

- Kurds begin fleeing Tuz Kharmato as govt forces try to retake town

Mar 19 Govt forces recapture Karbala

- Govt arrests Ayatollah Khoei along with 105 relatives staff students and clerics in Najaf

Mar 20 Peshmerga capture Kirkuk

- Kurdish leaders declare that all of Kurdistan liberated from govt

- Ayatollah Khoei appears on state TV with Saddam to denounce southern revolt

- Khoei then placed under house arrest in Najaf

Mar 21 Govt forces began op to retake Kirkuk

Mar 26 J. Talabani returns to Iraq after 3 years in exile to join rebellion

Mar 29 Govt forces retake Kirkuk

Mar 30 Govt forces recapture Dohuk and Irbil

Mar 31 Govt forces move on Sulaymaniya

Apr 1 Govt forces retake Zakho

Apr 2 State Dept said that US never said it was for removing Saddam

- Turkey said that 30,00 Kurds had entered country and 220,000 more were coming after rebellion being crushed

Apr 3 Govt retakes Sulaymaniya

Apr 5 Saddam declares Kurdish and Shiite rebellions over

- UN resolution 688 condemns Iraq's repression of civilians

Apr 7 Sec of State baker condemns Iraq crimes against its people but said US would not get involved

Apr 13 Pres Bush said US would send humanitarian aid to Iraq and condemned govt attacks on civilians but US would not get more involved

Apr 16 Pres Bush said US would set up relief camps for Kurdish refugees

Apr 18 Saddam agreed to UN setting up offices to help displaced following crushing of uprisings

AHULBAYT VIDEO: The Story Behind The 1991 Uprising In Iraq

Badr Organization A View Into Iraq’s Violent Past And Present

 

The Badr Organization is the oldest of Iraq’s militias, and is currently taking the lead in the fighting in the country. It was the creation of the Iranian government during the Iran-Iraq War as the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and has kept up those ties with Tehran since then. After the overthrow of Saddam, Badr attempted to seize power, carried out assassinations of former regime members, and then started sectarian attacks upon Sunnis in retaliation for the insurgency. Eventually it broke from ISCI, and became a major ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It then went on to fight in Syria, only to return to Iraq to battle the insurgency there. Badr represents the violent politics of Iraq’s recent history.

Badr members undergoing military training in Iran. Tehran was and is Badr’s main benefactor (Global Security)

The Badr Organization emerged out of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. In 1983 the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) created Badr as the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). (1) The two forces fought alongside each other during the war. Badr was made up of Iraqi exiles and captured soldiers, some of which were forced to join. Its origins with the Iranian government would lead to criticisms when Badr and ISCI returned to Iraq after 2003 as they were labeled Iranian puppets and were attacked for leaving the country during the Saddam period.

Badr was made up of Iraqi POWs and exiles (Iranian Historical Photograph)

In the 1990s, Badr continued its opposition to the Iraqi regime. It moved into Najaf, Karbala and Basra during the 1991 uprising following the Gulf War as the Supreme Council attempted to appropriate the revolt. When the Iraqi army rallied to put down the rebellion Badr retreated back into Iran, which caused much resentment against the group. Tehran too was disappointed in Badr’s performance and tried to change its emphasis from a conventional armed force into a covert one. A special unit was created under the control of the IRGC Quds Force to carry out secret operations within Iraq. From 1999-2001 it was responsible for several attacks, such as a May 2000 rocket barrage upon the presidential palace in Baghdad. Many of the networks created to move men and material back and forth between Iran and Iraq have been maintained until this day, and were used for example to smuggle explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) to militias aligned with Iran during the U.S. occupation.

When the U.S. invaded in 2003 Badr saw another opportunity to return to Iraq. In February it deployed several thousand fighters to Sulaymaniya where it was hosted by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The United States was concerned about this mobilization, and warned that Badr would be attacked if it entered Iraq. That was ignored and in Mach 2003, Badr moved into Diyala and Wasit with some 10,000 men. The U.S. tried to hold them in place with Special Forces and peshmerga, but Badr went on to clash with Baathists, Sunni tribes, and the Iranian dissident group Mujahadeen e-Khalq in Diyala, while a Badr member declared himself mayor of Kut in Wasit. Washington was concerned that Badr was working with Iran to seize Iraqi territory in the post-war chaos. It therefore moved to try to block the group, but that failed.

The Supreme Council attempted to heal this riff as it decided to work with the United States. In May, Badr said that it was giving up its weapons. In September it changed its name to the Badr Organization, and in October ISCI leader Abdul Aziz Hakim announced that the militia was being turned into a civilian organization. Unlike other Shiite religious parties such as the Dawa and the Sadrists, the Supreme Council cooperated with the Americans as a way to ensure its place in post-invasion Iraq. It made these moves with Badr to try to show that it was committed to a peaceful transition in the country, but it was all for show as Badr remained its armed wing.

In the years following the American invasion Badr was used by ISCI to try to seize power when the opportunity presented itself. For example, in February 2005 Badr attacked the headquarters of the Nasiriyah police, and installed their own man as chief. In August, militiamen deposed the mayor of Baghdad and replaced him with a Badr member. Many political parties and their armed wings were taking similar actions after the overthrow of Saddam. Despite the U.S. presence there was still a vacuum in many areas waiting to be filled.

As Interior Minister in 2005 Bayan Jabr (far right) was responsible for recruiting thousands of Badr fighters into the security forces (Time)

When the Jaafari government took office in 2005 the Supreme Council was given the Interior Ministry. That was a coveted office, because the police it controlled gave it a presence throughout the country to be used by whatever party ran the ministry. In April 2005 Bayan Jabr was made Interior Minister after which he immediately began recruiting members of the Badr Brigade into the security forces. Many of those militiamen went into the commandos such as the Wolf, Volcano and Scorpion Brigades. Those units and others under the militia were accused of a number of abuses. In August, the Volcano Brigade took away 36 Sunnis from Baghdad and tortured and killed them before dumping their bodies. In November, a U.S. military unit found a prison in Jadriya, Baghdad with 173 people in it, many with signs of torture. The Secret Investigative Unit ran the facility under the direct command of Minister Jabr. In February 2006, 18 police commandos were caught running a kidnapping ring. The commander of the unit said that he was acting under orders from senior officials in Badr that gave him names of people to abduct. Jabr was eventually pushed out of office in May 2006 under U.S. pressure, and transferred to the Finance Ministry. It would take years to purge and re-train the Badr elements that Jabr brought into the ministry.

Besides its own agenda, Badr continued to work with the Iranians to carry out a number of targeted killings throughout Iraq. In October 2004, the head of Iraq’s national intelligence agency accused the militia of killing ten of his men on orders from Tehran. The agency raided three safe houses and claimed to have found documents linking Iranian agents to Badr members who were carrying out the assassinations. At the time, the intelligence service was staffed by former regime elements, and directed by the CIA, which were both seen as threats by Iran. After the January 2005 elections, there was a wave of murders of former Baathists. There were reports that hit lists were being circulated of party members to kill. Members of Saddam’s intelligence agency and armed forces were also being targeted. For instance, there was a wave of hits against former air force pilots who were veterans of the Iran-Iraq War. Most of these attacks were pinned on the Badr Brigade. In October 2005, the U.S. military reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was directing its militia allies including Badr to assassinate people in Basra. The militias would have their members in the police carry out the shootings. Finally, in March 2007, another U.S. military memo documented how Iranian intelligence was working with Badr to attack members of the Industry Ministry as part of a media campaign orchestrated by Tehran to undermine the Surge. Iran would often work through militia allies to carry out its wishes in Iraq. One of its main targets was Baathists and other members of the former regime, especially those involved in the Iran-Iraq War. Iran had a long memory, and wanted to exact its revenge against these people. Badr was one of their main partners in this assassination campaign given its origins and continued links with Tehran. In return, August 2004 for instance, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service captured Iranian Revolutionary Guard documents showing that it was paying the salaries of up to 11,740 members of the Badr Brigade. In November 2009, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill in a diplomatic memo noted that ISCI and Badr were receiving roughly $70 million a year from Iran. (5)

The militia was not only involved in violence against Saddam’s men, but its main rival as well the Sadrists. In October 2005, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent 2,300 soldiers and police commandos to secure Amarah in Maysan after heavy fighting broke out there between Badr and the Mahdi Army. The fighting would spread to several other southern cities with 30 people killed and another 160 wounded in the process. In the summer of 2007 there were renewed clashes between the two groups in Diwaniya. That would come to a head in another major battle in Karbala in August where 50 civilians died and roughly 200 were wounded. Moqtada al-Sadr declared a cease-fire afterward, but the next month Badr and the Mahdi Army were back at it once again this time in Maysan, Dhi Qar, and Muthanna, and then back to Karbala in October. When Maliki launched his Charge of the Knights campaign against the Sadr movement in Basra, the Mahdi Army retaliated against Badr as well who were seen as aligned with the prime minister. That led to fighting in Sadr City, a rocket attack upon Badr’s offices in Amarah in March, (2) and then an attempted assassination of a local Badr Brigade commander and imam in Baghdad’s Abu Dishr in May that escalated into another gunfight. The Sadrists and Supreme Council were deadly competitors for control of the Shiite polity. The Sadrists were one of those groups that accused ISCI of being Iranian stooges and having abandoned the country for the safety of Iran during the Saddam period. After 2003 the two would take their rivalry into the streets and lead to these incidents and many more.

The death of ISCI head Abdul Aziz Hakim and the ascension to power of his son Ammar would eventually lead Badr to split from the Supreme Council in 2012 (PBS)

By 2011 the relationship between ISCI and its militia were wearing thin. After the death of the party’s leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, his young son Ammar Hakim assumed power in August 2009. Hadi Ameri the head of Badr and others of the old guard opposed this move. By November 2011 there were rumors that the two had split ways, and that was made official in March 2012. Badr then became its own political party, and quickly moved into Premier Maliki’s camp.

Badr and Maliki would form not only political, but military ties as well as the militia would act as enforcers for the prime minister. In December 2011 for instance, the premier was attempting to block Diyala’s move to become a federal region. He sent Badr head Ameri, a Diyala native to talk with local officials there, while his militiamen took to the streets in an act of intimidation against the pro-federalists. (3) Ameri then announced that Badr would run as part of Maliki’s State of Law list in the 2013 provincial and 2014 national elections. The party ended up winning 19 seats in parliament, roughly 20% of State of Law’s total. At this time, the organization was trying to move away from just being an armed group to being a political party. Its actions in Diyala however, showed that the group was still willing to use force to make its point, and had not given up the gun. That was quickly shown when the Syrian civil war started.

In 2012, Badr would mobilize its men to go fight in Syria. In January, a party official called for an army made up of the Badr Brigade and Mahdi Army to go defend the Syrian government. (4) He said that they were needed to counter Sunni militants from taking power, which was part of a plot orchestrated by Saudi Arabia to destabilize the Assad regime. By October there were the earliest reports of its militiamen fighting in the country, although it was officially denied at the time. A Shiite politician told Reuters that Iran had appointed Badr to lead the Iraqi militias who were involved there. That included groups such as Kataib Hezbollah who along with Badr formed the Kataib Sayid al-Shuhada militia in early 2013. In May Badr started posting pictures of its fighters supporting the Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade in Syria, and in June a Badr militiaman died in the Damascus area. By July the group was open about its commitment to Syria announcing that it had 1,500 fighters there on Facebook. Later that month, Badr began holding public funerals for its losses suffered in the war, and announced a new militia Quwest Shahid al-Sadr that would be deployed there. Hadi Ameri, who was then Transportation Minister, facilitated the flight of Iranians arms and equipment to Damascus through Iraqi air space. Badr and other like minded parties felt that the Syrian rebels were mostly made up of Islamists who were directly threatening Shiites. That was why it always justified its presence in the country as defending the Sayid Zainab shrine in the Damascus suburbs. At the same time, only those groups close to Iran sent their men there, and that was after Tehran and its Quds Force put out the call to its allies for help propping up the Assad regime. The IRGC-QF would direct these militias, and had Badr coordinate its Iraqi brethren.

Badr head Ameri (foreground) and IRGC-QF Commander Gen Suleimani (background) during recent security operations in Iraq (via Twitter)

When the insurgency began regenerating in Iraq, Badr would return to protect the homeland. In July 2013 for instance, Hadi Ameri offered to have his men take over security after the Islamic State carried out attacks upon the Taji and Abu Ghraib prisons. Two months later, Badr repeated the offer saying that it could help quell sectarian violence in the capital and Diyala. In March 2014, Maliki met with his advisers and called for a new security force made up of three militias including Badr, because he was upset with the performance of the army and police. Then immediately after the fall of Mosul, the premier put Ameri in charge of Diyala. As part of this the militia would receive arms and supplies from the government. Since then, Badr has been deployed to all the major battlefronts in Iraq. In July it was fighting in Anbar, and in August it helped relieve the siege of Amerli, Salahaddin. It would then go on to take part in the clearing of the Tuz Kharmato district in eastern Salahaddin, Jurf al-Sakhr in Babil in October, Jalawla and Sadiya in Diyala in November, and then Dhuluiya in Salahaddin in December. Hadi Ameri led many of these operations in conjunction with IRGC-Quds Force commander General Qasim Suleimani. Along the way, Mohammed Ghaban of Badr was named Interior Minister under the new Haider Abadi government in September. Badr was able to gain such a prominent position in the fighting for a number of reasons. First, its alliance with Maliki made it a natural choice when the premier became upset with the ISF. Second, after Mosul Iran stepped in as the main supporter of Baghdad, and put militias it was friendly with in the lead because it too had no confidence in the army and police. Finally, just as in Syria, Tehran would make Badr the head of the irregular forces as the two had the longest relationship.

This would lead to a new round of sectarian attacks by the militia. In June, Badr shot up four cells in the Counterterrorism prison in Ninewa’s Tal Afar killing 51 prisoners before the city fell. That same month Badr and Asaib Ahl Al-Haw fighters shot 43 prisoners in Jumarkhe, Diyala. On October 14, a Badr Commander in Sulaiman Bek, Salahaddin told Rudaw that it had the right to kill any Sunni who fought alongside the Islamic State and take their property. This extended to civilians as the organization was accused of going after them in Jurf al-Sakhr and Sadiya because they were believed to be IS supporters. That included looting and destroying their homes. These were the same kinds of tactics Badr used when it controlled the Interior Ministry in 2005, and continued to use during the 2005-2008 civil war. Then like now the civilian population were considered legitimate targets along with the insurgents because the latter could not operate without the former.

Badr’s history follows much of Iraq’s recent past. From Iraq’s war against Iran to the 1991 uprising to the 2003 invasion and overthrow of Saddam, the militia has been at the forefront of the conflict in the country. It has always wanted power first as part of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and then as its own Badr Organization. It continues to play a prominent role in the State of Law list and the current government. It also maintains its close links with Iran, which has always been its main benefactor since the group’s inception. That’s why Badr leaders such as Hadi Ameri have recently praised Tehran for saving Iraq. At the same time, it has used force more often then not to achieve its goals. In Iraq, those with power are often those with the guns, and Badr is a perfect example of this period of Iraqi history.

FOOTNOTES

1. Abedin, Mahan, “The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI),” Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, October 2003

2. Aswat al-Iraq, “Unknown gunmen attack major Shiite party office in Missan,” 3/28/08

3. Azzaman, “Tribal militia force Maliki and the Badr party to withdraw from the streets of Baquba,” 12/16/11

4. Al-Mada, “Official in Basra calling for the formation of an army of two million to support Assad,” 1/7/12

5. Hill, Christopher, “Iran’s Efforts In Iraqi Electoral Politics,” U.S. Embassy Baghdad, 11/13/09

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