Saddam : His Rise and Fall (11 page)

Khairallah Tulfah was detained during this time, even though he was not a member of the Baath Party. For a period Allawi shared the same cell as
Saddam's uncle, and it was not an enjoyable experience. According to Allawi, Khairallah was a “tall, well-built man who was very aggressive, and whose language was littered with expletives.” Khairallah, apparently, was incensed by his arrest, and complained bitterly to the guards. “Why have they imprisoned me?” he would shout at the guards. “I am not against the regime.” Khairallah was visited by Sajida, his daughter, who had just given birth to Saddam's first child, Uday. Apart from bringing food and books to Khairallah, she would visit Saddam who was held at a different prison. According to Saddam's biographers, Sajida would bring him messages from Bakr, who had been released from prison, that were hidden in baby Uday's clothes, which enabled Saddam to keep abreast of Baath Party affairs.

Saddam's second period of incarceration (the first had been for murdering Saadoun al-Tikriti in 1958) ended on July 23, 1966, when, together with two Baathist colleagues, he managed to escape. The official account of his escape
⁴¹
claimed that Saddam had befriended the guards to the extent that he was able to persuade them to stop at a restaurant for lunch while transporting him between the prison and the court, where he was being tried for attempting to overthrow the regime. Once inside the restaurant, Saddam and his accomplices, who included Shaikhly, were able to escape through a back door to a waiting car driven by Saadoun Shakir, an army deserter from Baghdad who had befriended Saddam, in which they then sped off while the guards were waiting for them outside the front entrance. Another version of the event, which has since become firmly enshrined in the heroic myth of Saddam, was that the escape took place when Saddam and Shaikhly feigned illness in the prison, and persuaded the guards to take them to a nearby hospital for treatment, where they made good their escape with Saadoun Shakir's assistance. The ease with which Saddam and Shaikhly escaped raised the obvious question of whether it was a genuine escape, or whether the authorities were complicit. Whatever the truth, his escape meant that Saddam was now free to start working on his next plan to overthrow the government and seize power.

The coup of 1968, which finally brought the Baath Party to power in Iraq, was, by comparison with the violent bloodletting that had accompanied previous changes of government in Baghdad, a relatively civil affair. The secret password given to those who were to participate in the historic events of that night was
rashad,
or “guidance.” In the early hours of the morning of July 17, a number of military units, accompanied by civilian Baath Party activists, seized several key military and government installations, including the television and radio stations, the electricity station, the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, all the city's bridges, and a number of army bases around the capital. All telephone lines were cut and at 3
A.M
. precisely the order was given to move on the Presidential Palace. A number of tanks then rumbled into the palace courtyard, and came to a halt beneath the windows where the president was fast asleep in bed. Sitting astride the lead tank dressed in the uniform of an Iraqi army lieutenant, his pistol in his hand, was none other than Saddam Hussein.

One of Saddam's fellow conspirators that night was Saleh Omar al-Ali. In 1968 Ali, like Saddam, was a member of the Baath leadership in Iraq, and had been involved in all the secret meetings leading up to the coup attempt. Having worked with Saddam since 1964 and shared a jail cell with him, Ali had formed a high opinion of Saddam's ability. “He had a self-confident air about him. He was brave and courageous,” Ali recalled.
¹
The plotters were broken up into different cells that were assigned different tasks. Ali was in the same cell as Saddam, which was given responsibility for capturing the
Presidential Palace. The Baath leadership had insisted that civilian activists assume this responsibility to avoid a repetition of the 1963 coup where the military, having taken a leading role in overthrowing the Qassem government, took control of the government and forced the civilian Baathists to assume a secondary role.

Having collected weapons that had been kept at secret locations, Saddam's group drove to the palace in private cars. Although the cell was predominantly civilian in makeup, the group was accompanied by General Hardan al-Tikriti, the former air force commander who in late 1963 had helped President Arif suppress the Baathists (see Chapter Two), who still commanded respect within the military establishment. On the way to the palace the group met up with army sympathizers, who provided them with armored cars. They then proceeded to the military headquarters at the side of the palace, where they were met by Saadoun Ghaydan, who was in charge of palace security and, although not a member of the Baath, was sympathetic to the coup. The military headquarters contained a number of tanks and the plotters, having dressed themselves in army uniforms, took control of the tanks and maneuvered them into position around the palace. “Saddam was in a very excited state,” said Ali. “This was the moment we had been waiting for, and Saddam was keen to be involved in every stage of the operation.”
²

The first that President Abdul Rahman Arif knew of the coup was when he heard some of the more exhuberant members of the Republican Guard firing their weapons in the air in a premature gesture of triumph. Saddam's mentor, General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who had mastermined the plot and who oversaw the operation from military headquarters, used the military communications network to make contact with the president, informed him that his government had been overthrown, and invited him to surrender. Arif asked for time to consider the request and contacted other military units to see if anyone was willing to come to his aid. He soon discovered that his position was hopeless and that he had no alternative other than to surrender. He telephoned Bakr and offered to stand down, in return for which Bakr said he would guarantee his safety. Bakr then deputed Hardan al-Tikriti and Ali to enter the palace and escort the president off the premises. “I am empowered to inform you that you are no longer President,” Tikriti dryly informed him. “The Baath Party has taken control of the country. If you surrender peacefully, I can guarantee that your safety will be ensured.” Arif, a weak man who had only become president after his brother, Abdul Salam Arif, was killed in a helicopter crash in 1966,
accepted the coup as a fait accompli. His only demand was that the coup plotters spared his life and that of his son, who was a serving army officer. Throughout the whole episode Saddam's role was to keep guard over the palace and make sure that none of the soldiers loyal to Arif attempted to intervene.

General Tikriti and Ali then escorted Arif to Tikriti's house in Baghdad. By 3:40
A.M
. the coup had been completed without the loss of a single life, which, by Iraqi standards, was quite an achievement. As the Baathists had no great argument with Arif, they were able to conclude the affair in an almost gentlemanly fashion. Tikriti went out of his way to make Arif comfortable at his home, making him coffee and urging him to lie down and rest before his flight to London, where he was to join his wife who was receiving medical treatment. After a few hours' rest, Arif is quoted as saying, “I bade farewell to all the officers and wished them every success.”
³
Later that morning the Iraqi people awoke to discover they had a new government. A Baath-sanctioned radio broadcast announced that the party “had taken over power and ended the corrupt and weak regime, represented by the clique of the ignorant, the illiterate, the profit-seekers, thieves, spies and Zionists.”

Saddam's version of his role in the events of July 17, needless to say, is rather more action-packed. He claimed that, in the heat of the battle for control of the Presidential Palace, he learned how to fire the gun on top of his tank. He has deliberately embellished the role of Barzan al-Tikriti, his half brother, who he claims was riding on the same tank as Saddam (a considerable number of those who participated in the July 17 coup were, like Saddam, Tikritis). According to others who took part in the occupation of the Presidential Palace, just two tank rounds were fired following a false report that Arif intended to resist. For the rest of the proceedings the only gunfire came from overexcited soldiers who, in keeping with the Arab custom, fired their guns in the air to celebrate the coup's success.

The explanation for Saddam's appearance that day, dressed in military fatigues and riding on a tank, lies in the Baath Party's concern that its civilian leaders, and not the military, should be installed in power if the coup succeeded, the opposite of what had happened during the 1963 coup. Ideally Saddam and his Baathist colleagues would have preferred to carry out the coup on their own, but in the crucial weeks leading up to Arif's overthrow it became clear that they would need the support of the military if they were to succeed. Saddam's Jihaz Haneen, the secret security force set up to combat what it described as “the enemies of the people,” was proficient at employing bullyboy
tactics to intimidate Saddam's enemies, but it had neither the muscle nor the expertise to take over the country. The Baath leaders therefore made contact with military commanders thought to be sympathetic to their cause. Some, like Hardan al-Tikriti, were already members of the Baath, and so were prepared to oblige. Others took more persuading. Two of the key converts to the cause were Abdul Razzak Nayif, the deputy head of military intelligence, and Colonel Ibrahim Daud, the commander of the Republican Guard. Although their cooperation was crucial to the coup's success, neither of them was particularly committed to the Baathist cause, and their support was determined more by opportunism than ideology. With a president as weak as Arif in office it was clear that the regime would not survive for long. Nayif and Daud were also well aware that the coup stood little chance of success without them and, in return for lending their support, Nayif demanded that he be rewarded with the office of prime minister, and Daud that of defense minister.

The conspiratorial nature of Baghdad café society meant that even someone as disconnected from the political currents of the day as President Arif became aware that trouble was brewing. The Baathists' carefully laid plans for the coup were thrown into considerable disarray when, on the afternoon of July 16, Arif summoned Nayif and Daud to the Presidential Palace, where he asked them if there was any truth in the rumors of the impending coup. Both men tearfully denied knowing anything about a coup attempt and, to demonstrate their loyalty to Arif, they fell to their knees and kissed his hand.

When the Baathists heard what had happened, Bakr convened an emergency meeting of the Baath leadership at his house that evening. It was clear that the Baathists needed to act quickly if their plans were not to be exposed. It was equally clear that they would need the support of Nayif and Daud, as well as other key military commanders, if they were going to succeed. Thus while the Baathists were not exactly enthusiastic about the demands made by Nayif and Daud, they nevertheless agreed to them. Saddam, who claims to have been present at the meeting when the decision was made to form a tactical alliance with the officers, reached an equally cynical conclusion about the merits of the alliance. In a speech to his fellow Baathists at Bakr's house, he declared, “I am aware that the two officers have been imposed on us and that they want to stab the Party in the back in the service of some interest or other, but we have no choice now. We should collaborate with them but see that they are liquidated immediately during, or after, the revolution. And I volunteer to carry out this task.”
⁴
Stalin himself could not have put it better.

The July Revolution was a classic military coup, a coup d'état rather than a popular revolution, and the Iraqi public remained wary. Iraqis had not forgotten the orgy of violence that had proceeded from the last Baathist takeover of the country in 1963, and few people were inclined to be too enthusiastic about the new regime until they had a good idea about who was in government, and how good were its prospects of survival. Over the next two weeks, however, it became clear that the military takeover was merely a prelude for a more far-reaching change of regime. Having ridden on a tank to the Presidential Palace to make sure that the Baathists' military collaborators did not depart from the agreed script, Saddam and his fellow conspirators lost no time consolidating their position in the new government. The services of Nayif and Daud were required to gain power, and once that had been achieved the Bakr/Saddam Hussein alliance was determined to get rid of them, a sentiment that was warmly reciprocated by Nayif and Daud. Immediately after the coup, General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr was appointed president, while Nayif and Daud assumed the portfolios of prime minister and defense minister respectively. Bakr, who remained secretary-general of the Baath Party, also became chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the body set up the morning after the coup that assumed supreme executive and legislative authority. For a party that had made its name fighting communism, the Baath Party in power quickly acquired all the attributes needed to govern a one-party state. Saddam, a high-ranking member of the Baath, might have been disappointed not to have figured in the new cabinet, but he was given responsibility for national security, a position that would be crucial to the new government's survival. Saddam was ideally suited for the position, having served his apprenticeship setting up the Jihaz Haneen paramilitary organization, which was dissolved once the Baathists came to power to be replaced by more formal security structures. Even though he did not enjoy official recognition, Saddam had a far more important power base that would ultimately deliver him the presidency.

Within days of the coup a bitter power struggle developed between Bakr and Nayif for control of the country, with both men believing that they could now dispense with the services of the other. Technically Nayif and Daud, who were both career officers, should have had the upper hand, as they were well-known and respected figures within the Iraqi military establishment. Bakr had demonstrated considerable political cunning in persuading Nayif and Daud to help the Baathists overthrow Arif. He had gotten Hardan al-Tikriti and
Saadoun Ghaydan, two of the Baath's leading military figures, to employ their powers of persuasion. Tikriti and Ghaydan had persuaded them that the new government would be run by the military, with the Baath playing a secondary role, and it was on this basis that they had participated in the coup. But once Bakr was established in power, he was determined to bring the Baath into the government at the expense of Nayif and Daud, who had underestimated the Baathists' superior organizational skills. Bakr was prepared to allow military officers who were also Baath members, such as Hardan al-Tirkiti, to participate in the new government, and in the days following the coup he increased the Baathists' military influence by appointing more than 100 Baathist officers to positions in the Republican Guards and other key units. Saddam, meanwhile, was busy helping to organize the Baathists' security apparatus and paramilitary units, which he believed were essential for keeping the Baath in power. On July 29, Daud, completely misreading the situation in Baghdad, left for a tour of inspection of Iraqi troops that were stationed in Jordan, part of the garrison that had been sent to reinforce the Jordanian border following the Six Day War with Israel. While Daud was away from Baghdad, Bakr, with Saddam's assistance, was able to strike. As one of Saddam's official biographers commented: “He [Saddam] felt that Abdul Razzak Nayif's participation [in the government] was an obstacle.”
⁵

Given the dire threats Saddam had made at Bakr's house on the eve of the coup, Nayif's removal was a relatively civilized affair. On July 30, the day after Daud went to Jordan, Nayif was invited to lunch with Bakr at the Presidential Palace. As the lunch drew to a close, Saddam, acting in his new position as the country's head of internal security, burst into Bakr's room brandishing a gun and accompanied by three accomplices. When Nayif saw the revolver pointed at him, he put his hands over his eyes and cried out, “I have four children.” Saddam, according to the official biographers, was conciliatory. “Do not be afraid,” he replied. “Nothing will happen to your children if you behave sensibly.” Saddam then proceeded to give Nayif a short lecture on why he was being deposed from office: “You know you forced your way into the revolution, and that you are a stumbling block in the way of the Party. We have paid for this revolution with our blood, and now it has come out. The decision of the Party is that you should be put out of the way. You should leave Iraq immediately.”
⁶
Precisely whose decision it was to remove Nayif is debatable. Saddam's biographers give the impression that it was all Saddam's doing, but most of the surviving participants say the decision was made by Bakr, who
then gave Saddam the order to intervene. Nayif was persuaded to accept an ambassadorial post, and Saddam personally escorted him to the airport to catch his flight. As they left the palace, Saddam kept a concealed gun in his pocket to make sure Nayif did not try to make contact with any of the guards, some of whom would have been loyal to him.