Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime

by Joseph Sassoon

• ISBN13: 9780521149150
• ISBN10: 0521149150
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 U.S. invasion. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence and an extraordinary surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured by the United States after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how it operated via its network of informers, and how the system of rewards functioned. Saddam Hussein's authority was dominant. His decision was final, whether arbitrating the promotion of a junior official or the death of a rival or a member of his family. As this gripping portrayal of Saddam Hussein's Iraq demonstrates, the regime was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China and some of the regimes in the Arab world who are witnessing upheavals, are not not dissimilar from the Ba'th regime.

Author Biography

Joseph Sassoon is Adjunct Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arabic Studies at Georgetown University and Senior Associate Member at St. Anthony's College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Note on Transliteration	p. xiii
List of Abbreviations	p. XV
Glossary	p. xvii
Map	p. xxi
Introduction	p. 1
The Rise of the Ba'th Party	p. 16
Party Structure and Organization	p. 34
The Party Structure	p. 34
The Party's Functions	p. 38
Party Discipline	p. 42
Membership and Recruitment	p. 45
Age and Gender in the Ba'th Party	p. 53
Life of a Member	p. 57
Party Political Education	p. 61
The Ba'th Party Branches	p. 71
Tasks of Branches	p. 72
Competition among Branches	p. 87
Life of a Party Unit	p. 90
Security Organizations during the BaÆth Era	p. 95
Jihaz al-amn al-khass (the Special Security Organization [SSO])	p. 98
Gathering Information	p. 112
Informers	p. 122
The Ba'th Party and the Army	p. 129
Al-makatib al-'askariyya (Military Bureaus)	p. 130
Military Colleges and Ba'thification	p. 133
Saddam Hussein as a Military Leader	p. 137
Rewards and Punishment	p. 139
Surveillance and Monitoring	p. 143
Special Armies	p. 145
Deserters, Prisoners of War, and Martyrs	p. 152
The 2003 Invasion	p. 159
The Personality Cult of Saddam Hussein	p. 162
Saddam Hussein: The Man and the Leader	p. 162
Building the Personality Cult	p. 175
The Role of the Party	p. 186
Control and Resistance	p. 193
Fear and Violence	p. 193
Control	p. 201
Medals and Rewards	p. 206
Punishments	p. 216
Resistance	p. 221
Bureaucracy and Civil Life under the Ba'th	p. 227
Bureaucracy and Decision Making	p. 227
Managing the Economy	p. 236
Unions and Professional Organizations	p. 249
The Ba'th Party and Women	p. 253
The Ba'th Party and Religion	p. 259
Children, Youth, and Students under the Ba'th Party	p. 268
Conclusion	p. 275
Chart of the Structure of the Ba'th Party Secretariat	p. 285
Ba'th Party Statistics as of September 2002	p. 286
Notes on Sources	p. 287
Bibliography	p. 289
Index	p. 301
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.