Coups d’états in Iraq
Fatih Abdulsalam’s 4 part series was published in Al-Zaman newspaper’s English edition between the third and sixth of February. (Links and "teaser" extracts are at the end of this posting.) The articles, as one expects from Fatih Abdulsalam, are well writtenn and worth reading in their entirety. I however want to concentrate upon an essential point:
Not every member of the Baath party was loyal to Saddam Hussein or his policies. There is a big difference between “Saddamists” and “Baathists”. The commission is treating both the same way.
This blunder has made every Baathist a Saddamist whther they like it or not. And who was not a member of the Baath party. Without registering in the Baath party, there was no possibility for getting a job. And the government was almost the sole employer.
Source: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (2)
He is right. This is a monumental blunder and one which, even if reversed, has caused massive damage to our already shredded political and social fabric.
I know all about Saddamists. Like many who write on this site I experienced the Saddamist terror firsthand, I was one of those who rose in rebellion in 1991 and my wife and young family were first tortured and then killed by Saddam’s Mukhabarat. I completely understand the terror and loathing felt for the Saddamists by those now in power. But that does not blind me to the fact that there is an enormous difference between somebody who joined the Ba’ath because they were forced to and a committed Ba’athist who wholeheartedly supported Saddam’s regime of thugs, thieves, and torturers.
In 1991 I was one of those who who was stupid enough to believe the cynical lies of American President President George H. W. Bush who on February 15, 1991, encouraged us to rise and remove Saddam from power saying this :
GEORGE H.W. BUSH: There is another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside, and then comply with the United Nations’ resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.
Source 1 (Text): CNN.com – Transcripts
Source 2 (Text): KurdishMedia.com: The role and diplomacy of non-state actors: Case study on Kurds in Iraq
Source: 3 (Audiovisual): You watch and hear Bush saying it here from 2:33 in the recording.
Bush’s speech is perhaps the best known encouragement from the Americans to us and the Kurds to rise against Saddam but it was only one of many.
American radio stations particularly Voice of America, and the Saudi-based radio station maintained and paid for by the CIA "Voice of Free Iraq" made broadcast after broadcast urgng the Kurds and the Shi’a to rise up against Saddam and promising American support.
Many of us were fooled by this cynical American ploy and rose against the tyrant. We lost. Far from helping us the Americans actively colluded with Saddam. The American general Schwartzkopf allowed Saddam to use his airpower and heavy weaponry against us and with that our defeat and the defeat of the Kurds was a foregone conclusion.
Nobody has ever been able to put reliable figures on how many were killed but at least 100,000 Shi’a were slaughtered and more than a million became refugees. The figures for the Kurds are equally horrific at the very least 100,000 Kurds were killed or "disappeared" and the numbers forced to flee their homes are again at least 1 million. Extrapolating from the numbes of found in mass graves since Saddam’s regime fell it seems that at 300,00 Kurds, Shia Arab Muslims and other dissidents were killed in reprisal for the uprising.
I and many others have very good reason to hate and despise Saddam’s followers.
I was wounded in the fighting and we had learned that I had been recognised and was being sought by officers of the Third Directorate of the Mukhabarat. That I am alive today is because a brave friend hid me, treated my injuries, and then arranged for me to be smuggled out of the country. My wife and young family were not so lucky as me. They were seized by men from the Mukhabarat as they fled from our home, they were tortured by the Mukhabarat and killed. Years later when they had tracked me down, Saddam’s Mukhabarat arranged for a tape of my wife and family’s screams begging their torturers to kill them to be sent to me. I still do not know where they are buried.
I have as I say very good reason to hate and despise Saddam’s followers – and I do. But there is as Fatih Abdulsalam rightly says "a big difference between “Saddamists” and “Baathists”". There is a big difference between Saddamists, (who were mostly secularists), and Sunni Muslims. In any case as anybody with a shred of honesty will tell you many of Saddam’s most ardent supporters were from a Shia background.
For the sake of short term political advantage the current political powers that be are trying to ram through yet another political measure aimed at disenfranchising not so much at Sunni Muslims per se as at secularists who mostly come from a Sunni background. In doing so they risk turning our country into a jigsaw of warring cantons. This is why the conflicts over Kirkuk, Mosul, and the other parts of Irak that are sometimes called "disputed areas" are heating up. Various groups are jostling for advantage in the struggles that will take place when (and if) the Americans leave.
Once withdrawn, local forces will take over, and Iraq’s file will no longer be of international interest. It will be purely a domestic affair.
The possibility of a coup in these circumstances will be even higher. But no plotter and no coup would have the ability to spread control across the country. Coups will only have dominance over certain regions.
Source: Fatih Abdulsalam: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (4)
"Coups will only have dominance over certain regions" or in other words the breakup of my country. The thing that the American invaders have wanted and worked so hard for. It falls to all of us who love our country to prevent this.
Ali
Extracts and Links
- Fatih Abdulsalam: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq?
- "The staging of a coup d’état is still there in the minds of some politicians but the possibility of its success is no longer there in Iraq, a high senior government official has been reported as saying…. read in full 03/02/2010
- Fatih Abdulsalam: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (2)
- The place of military coups in Iraqi political life, as I said earlier, needs more than one article. The reason is the fear that what now looks like a possibility will sooner or later turn into reality.p… read in full 04/02/2010
- Fatih Abdulsalam: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (3)
- Politics is like football. The winner is only declared at the end of the game. But in football, the game is time-limited. In politics it is timeless…. read in full 05/02/2010
- Fatih Abdulsalam: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (4)
- There are two possible scenarios when talking about the specter of a coup in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. occupation of the country…. read in full 06/02/2010
