1968 coup In contrast to previous coups d'état in Iraq's history, the 1968 coup, referred to as the
17 July Revolution, was, according to
Con Coughlin, "a relatively civil affair". The coup started in the early hours of 17 July, when a number of military units and civilian Ba'athists seized several key government and military buildings; these included the
Ministry of Defence, the electricity station, radio stations, all the city's bridges and "a number of military bases". All telephone lines were cut at 03:00, by which time several tanks had been commanded to halt in front of the Presidential Palace.
Abdul Rahman Arif, the then-
President of Iraq, first knew of the coup when jubilant members of the
Republican Guard started shooting into the air in "a premature triumph".
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the leader of the operation, told Arif about his situation through military communication hardware at the base of operations. Arif asked for more time, during which he contacted other military units to seek support. As he soon found out, the odds were against him, and he surrendered. Arif telephoned al-Bakr and told him that he was willing to resign; to show his gratitude, al-Bakr guaranteed his safety. al-Bakr's deputies,
Hardan al-Tikriti and
Salah Omar al-Ali, were ordered to give Arif this message in person. Arif and his wife and son were quickly sent on the first available flight to London. Later that morning, a Ba'athist broadcast announced that a new government had been established. The coup was carried out with such ease that there were no deaths. The coup succeeded because of contributions made by the military; the
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was not strong enough to take power by itself. The Ba'ath Party managed to make a deal with
Abd ar-Razzaq an-Naif, the deputy head of military intelligence, and Ibrahim Daud, the head of the Republican Guard. Both Naif and Daud knew that the long-term survival of Arif's and
Tahir Yahya's government looked bleak, but also knew that the Ba'athists needed them if the coup was to be successful. For his participation in the coup, Naif demanded to be given the post of Prime Minister after the coup as a reward, and a symbol for his strength. Daud was also "rewarded" with a post; he became Minister of Defence. However, not everything was going according to Naif's and Daud's plan; al-Bakr had told the Ba'ath leadership in a secret meeting that the two would be liquidated either "during, or after, the revolution". al-Bakr, as the leader of the coup's military operation, retained his position as Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party, and was elected to the posts of Chairman of the
Revolutionary Command Council, President and Prime Minister. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, a power struggle developed between al-Bakr and Naif. In all practicality, Naif should have had the upper hand; he was a respected officer and was supported by the common soldiers. al-Bakr, however, proved to be more cunning, persuasive and organised than Naif, Daud and their supporters. One of al-Bakr's first decisions in office was to appoint over 100 new officers to the Republican Guard.
Saddam Hussein worked, in the meantime, to establish the party's security and intelligence organisation to combat its enemies. On 29 July, Daud left for a tour to Jordan to inspect the Iraqi troops located there following the
Six-Day War with Israel. The following day, Naif was invited to eat lunch at the Presidential Palace with al-Bakr, during which Saddam burst into the room with three accomplices and threatened Naif with death. Naif responded by crying out; "I have four children". Saddam ordered Naif to leave Iraq immediately if he wanted to live. Naif complied, was exiled to
Morocco. An assassination attempt in 1973 was unsuccessful, but he was assassinated in London on the orders of Saddam in 1978. Daud shared a similar fate, and was exiled to
Saudi Arabia. The Ba'athists were by no means ensured of victory; if any of Naif's supporters had known of the operation against him, Baghdad could have become the centre, in the words of journalist Con Coughlin, "of an ugly bloodbath".
Al-Bakr's rule and Saddam's rise to power (1968–1979) was
de jure leader of Iraq from 1968 to 1979.|alt=Black-and-white photo of middle-aged, mustachioed man in suit al-Bakr strengthened his position in the party with the help of Saddam's newly established party security apparatus and the intelligence services. Most of 1968 was used to repress non-Ba'athist thought and groups; for instance, a campaign against
Nasserists and
communists was initiated under Saddam's command. Several spy plots were created by the government; spies who were "caught" were accused of being a part of a
Zionist plot against the state. The
Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) was skeptical of the new Ba'athist government, as many of its members remembered the anti-communist campaign launched against them by the Ba'athist government of 1963. After taking power, al-Bakr offered the ICP cabinet positions in the new government; the ICP rejected this offer. al-Bakr responded by initiating a systematic campaign against the ICP and communist sympathisers. However, as historian
Charles Tripp notes in
A History of Iraq, the campaign started "a curious game" whereby the government alternately persecuted and courted the party until 1972–1973, when the ICP was offered, and accepted, membership in the
National Progressive Front (NPF). The reason for this "curious game" was the Ba'ath Party's belief that the ICP was more dangerous than it really was. When Aziz al-Haji broke away from the ICP, established the Iraqi Communist Party (Central Command) and initiated a "popular revolutionary war" against the government, it was duly crushed. By April 1969 the "popular revolutionary" uprising had been crushed, and al-Haji recanted his beliefs publicly. Another reason for this anti-communist policy was that many Ba'ath Party members openly sympathised with communists or other socialist forces. However, at this stage, neither al-Bakr nor Saddam had enough support within the party to initiate a policy unpopular within it; at the Seventh Regional Congress of the Ba'ath Party, both al-Bakr and other leading Ba'athists expressed their support for "radical socialism". During the 1970s, military officers unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the Baathist regime on at least two occasions. In January 1970, an attempted coup led by two retired officers, Major General
Abd al Ghani ar Rawi and Colonel
Salih Mahdi as Samarrai, was thwarted as the conspirators entered the
Republican Palace. In June 1973, a plot by
Nazim Kazzar, a
Shia and the director of internal security, to assassinate al Bakr and Saddam Husayn was also thwarted. Both coup attempts were followed by summary trials, executions, and purges of the military. By the mid-to-late 1970s, Saddam's power within the Ba'ath Party and the government grew; he became
de facto leader of the country, although al-Bakr remained as president, Ba'ath Party leader and Revolutionary Command Council chairman. In 1977, following a wave of protests by
Shias against the government, al-Bakr relinquished his control over the Ministry of Defence;
Adnan Khairallah Tulfah, Saddam's brother-in-law, was appointed defence minister. This appointment underscored the clannish character of the Ba'ath Party and the government. In contrast to Saddam's fortunes, those of al-Bakr's were on the wane. Rumours of al-Bakr's bad health began to circulate in the country. By the end of 1977, al-Bakr had little control over the country through his office as president. The reason Saddam did not become president until 1979 may be explained by Saddam's own insecurity. Before making himself
de jure head of state, Saddam initiated an anti-communist campaign; the ICP had no real power, and most of its leading officials had left the country or been imprisoned or executed by the Ba'ath government. The campaign was not centered on the ICP, but also Ba'athists who did not support Saddam. Saddam had initiated a similar campaign in 1978, that time to check where the loyalties of certain left-wingers were: Ba'athism or socialism. Following the campaign, Saddam entered the Arab-world stage for the first time under the banner of
Nasserism and
Gamal Abdel Nasser by criticising the
Camp David Accords between
Anwar Sadat of Egypt and the state of
Israel. It was in this situation that Saddam took over the offices of president, Ba'ath Party leader and Revolutionary Command Council chairman.
Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri was promoted to the office of vice-chairman (equivalent to the post of vice-president in the West). There were also rumours within the top echelons of power that al-Bakr (with the assistance of Iraqi Ba'athists who opposed Saddam) was planning to designate
Hafez al-Assad as his successor. Immediately after Saddam seized power, over 60 members of the Ba'ath Party and the government leadership were charged with fomenting an anti-Iraqi Ba'athist plot in collaboration with al-Assad and the
Damascus-based Ba'ath Party.
Early years, Iran–Iraq War and aftermath (1979–1990) , Iraqi Defense Minister, meeting with Iraqi soldiers during the
Iran-Iraq war. Once he assumed the presidency, a
cult of personality was created around Saddam. He was represented as the
father of the nation and, by extension, of the Iraqi people. National institutions (such as the
National Assembly) were established to strengthen the image of him fostered by the Iraqi propaganda machine. The Ba'ath Party also contributed to the cult of personality; by 1979 it was a nationwide organisation, and became a propaganda center for pro-Saddam literature. The propaganda campaign (at least in the beginning) created a common sense of nationhood for many Iraqis. The Shia protests were not quelled by these propaganda campaigns, and the establishment of an
Islamic Republic in Iran after the abdication of Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi influenced many Iraqi
Shia Islamists to stand up against the Sunni-dominated government. At first relations between Iran and Iraq were fairly good, but ideological differences could not remain concealed forever. The new Iranian leadership was composed of Shia
Khomeinists, while the Iraqi Ba'athists were
secular Arab nationalists. Iran had become concerned about the Iraqi government's continued repression against the Iraqi
Islamist Shias. At the beginning of 1980, several border clashes took place between the two countries. Iraq considered the newly established Iran to be "weak"; the country was in a state of continued
civil unrest, and the Iranian leaders had purged thousands of officers and soldiers because of their political views. It was presumed that the
Iran–Iraq War would result in a quick Iraqi victory. Saddam's plan was to strengthen Iraq's position in the
Persian Gulf and on the Arab-world stage. A quick victory would restore Iraq's control over all of
Shatt al-Arab, an area which Iraq had lost to Iran in 1975. Saddam abrogated the treaty of 1975 in a meeting of the National Assembly on 17 September 1980. This abrogation was followed shortly afterwards by several preemptive strikes on Iran and an invasion of Iran. Saddam believed that the Iranian government would have "to disengage in order to survive". Not only was this view faulty, but it overestimated the strength of the
Iraqi military; the Iranian government saw the invasion as a test of the revolution itself and all its achievements. On 18 July 1990 Saddam demanded that Kuwait repay Iraq for the oil it had (according to Saddam) stolen, and nullified Iraq's debt to Kuwait. The Kuwaiti leadership failed to respond, and on 2 August 1990 the Iraqi military began the
invasion of Kuwait. The invasion led to an international outcry; the United Nations, United States and the United Kingdom condemned the invasion and introduced sanctions against Iraq, and the
Soviet Union and several Arab states also condemned the invasion.
George H. W. Bush,
President of the United States, demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait and restoration of the Kuwaiti government; Saddam responded by making Kuwait an Iraqi province. The
Gulf War was initiated by a
United States-led coalition, which succeeded in winning the war in less than a year. On 13 January 1991, the Iraqi flag was modified, adopting its handscript the
takbīr (the phrase Allahu akbar, meaning "God is the greatest" in Arabic), at the instigation of President Saddam Hussein. On the evening of 24 February, several days before the Gulf War
ceasefire was signed in
Safwan, the
Saudi Arabia-based radio station
Voice of Free Iraq (funded and operated by the
Central Intelligence Agency) broadcast a message to the Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam. The speaker on the radio was
Salah Omar al-Ali, a former member of the Ba'ath Party and the ruling
Revolutionary Command Council. Al-Ali's message urged the Iraqis to overthrow the "criminal
tyrant of Iraq". Al-Ali's radio broadcast encouraged Iraqis to "stage a
revolution" and claimed that "[Saddam] will flee the battlefield when he becomes certain that the catastrophe has engulfed every street, every house and every family in Iraq". Believing that the United States was on its side, a
nationwide uprising against Saddam's rule began in March 1991 which was repressed by Saddam's loyalist forces. The
Coalition successfully established a
no-fly zone to halt the advance of Saddam's forces. Instead of occupying
Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish Autonomous Republic was established, with thousands of Iraqi troops stationed at the Iraqi-Kurdish border. The suppression of the rebellion led thousands of people to flee their homes, most to Turkey or Iran. On 2 and 3 April 1991 Turkey and Iran, respectively, raised the issue at the
UN Security Council. The Security Council adopted
Resolution 688, which stated that Iraq had to allow access for international humanitarian organisations and report openly about government repression. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, Iraq became a target by a series of U.S.
cruise missile strikes, in
1993,
1996 and
Operation Desert Fox in 1998. In 1997, Iraq prohibited all weapons inspectors of
UNSCOM from sites declared to be sovereign palaces, which were compounds capable of storing
chemical weapons. Iraq experienced another
period of unrest in early 1999 following the killing of
Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr by Iraqi security forces. In the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks, U.S. president
George W. Bush included Saddam in his
Axis of evil. In 2002 the UN Security Council adopted
Resolution 1441, which stated that Iraq had failed to fulfill its obligations demanded by the UN. The United States and the United Kingdom would use Resolution 1441 as a pretext for war. The
2003 US-led invasion of the country forced the Ba'ath Party and Saddam to go underground. The
fall of Baghdad resulted in the
toppling of his statue at Firdos Square by Iraqi civilians, ending almost 35 years of Ba'athist rule. The
Ba'ath Party was banned by the
Coalition Provisional Authority following Iraq's invasion on 16 May, as part of the
de-Ba'athification policy undertaken to remove Ba'athist influence from Iraqi political society. Saddam was
captured later that year, and was
executed in 2006. ==Politics==