Hussein's Ba Athism Analysis

Iraq’s destabilization became prominent after American intervention removed Saddam Hussein from power. Since Hussein’s termination, the region of Iraq has been unable to piece together a government strong enough to maintain control over civilian behavior, social infrastructure, or the co-related increase in the influence of sectarian militias and terrorist groups in the region. Regardless of what was gained or lost by removing Hussein from power, the greater problems with the U.S.’s intervention arose from the proceedings of our continued occupation. Through removing many of the government functions that had existed under Hussein in a massive purge of individuals who had once associated themselves with Hussein’s Ba’athist party (a process

appropriately named de-Ba’athification), Iraq lost the security provided by a functional government, the reestablishment of which has still not been completely attained. While some might consider the first half of the war a victory in terms of humanitarian motivation, where did the U.S. go wrong in their attempt to reestablish government, and how can we learn from such mistakes in order to make better decisions in the future? Despite de-Ba’athification’s goal of promoting social progress towards a functional democratic state, most Ba’athist party members within Iraq’s social infrastructure had not joined the party because of ideological reasons, but rather as a necessary means by which to increase their professional opportunities in life. Thus, through the unnecessary removal of all Ba’athist party members from the broad range of government ministries that they had previously occupied, Iraq was left with a social structure that greatly lacked the skills and expertise that supposed “Ba’athists” had previously provided, rendering the reconstruction of a stable society virtually impossible.
Ba’athism, a term which means “renaissance” in Arabic, is an intellectual and political ideology that seeks to promote a resurrection of Arab culture values, nationalism, and ultimately, the creation of a unified Arab state.

The political movements that Ba’athism has inspired have resulted in the creation of secular one-party states, characterized by socialist economics, and hierarchical government organization. In 1951, Ba’athism was brought to Iraq by Fuad al-Rikabi, who established the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party (Polk, 2006). After Iraq’s 1968 revolution, Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and his cousin Saddam Hussein became president and vice president, respectively. Both of them were active members of the Ba’athist Party, and thus, Iraq’s new government was shaped to embody Ba’athist political ideals (Associated Press, 2006). Through their placement of Ba’athist ideology at the center of Iraqi government, Iraq’s new leaders effectively established a hierarchical structure of authority and an internal security apparatus that permeated all corners of Iraqi society. In 1979, Saddam Hussein became the president of Iraq, and through abuse of the dictatorial power provided to him by the hierarchical system of Iraq’s Ba’athist government, ultimately committed countless atrocities, ranging from the selective kidnapping and killing of political rivals to using chemical weapons against his own citizens (Kirby,

2002).
Despite the governmental abomination that it ultimately became, Ba’athism in Iraq was not always so despotic. In fact, in its early years Iraq’s Ba’athist government was considerably progressive, as evidenced in the 1970’s, when Saddam Hussein “advocated the rights of women and encouraged them to be active in education and jobs” (Wing, 2013). Perhaps Ba’athism’s initially positive presence in the lives of its citizens catalyzed the process of the widespread self-declaration of party membership by Iraqi citizens, but further analysis of Iraq’s social mechanics show that there were institutional sources of pressure on citizens that ultimately led to the prevalence of Ba’ath-Party membership among Iraq’s citizenry.
Under the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, many people “joined” the party as a way to improve their options in life, rather than for ideological reasons. As a result of Iraq’s socioeconomic structure under Ba’athism, declaration of party allegiance was ultimately a relative prerequisite for university admission. For instance, a common benefit of party membership that Iraqi citizens sought out was an automatic and significant increase in points “earned” on exams that determined the academic path that Iraqi students could follow, offering huge socioeconomic benefits for the children of party members. In fact, to gain admission to Baghdad University’s College of Medicine, the scores required to be earned on such exams were so high, that “students from non-Ba’ath party families [were] automatically excluded”, thus placing a lot of pressure on the parents of aspiring students to declare their allegiance to the party (Baran, Sandford, 2002). While it was not formally required of Iraqi citizens to be members of the Ba’athist party, it was certainly considered a requirement in order to be employed in most government jobs, which spanned throughout all reaches of the socialized society. It was said of civilian and military personnel that they “cannot be promoted to high-ranking positions unless they are Party members” (Refworld, 1992). Furthermore, citizens who received formal requests to join the party and refused would face punishment, the type of which would depend on the class of such a citizen and their role within society. Such punishments often took the form of denial of employment; however, the sources reporting on this phenomenon have been “unable to provide additional information on other likely types of punishment” (Refworld, 1992). As a result of such imposition of socioeconomic pressure and even direct fear, it stands to reason that Iraqi citizens would formally declare themselves as Ba’athist party members, regardless of their actual ideological standing with Ba’athism, or their views on the actions of the Iraqi government under Hussein’s regime. Thus, every corner of Iraqi society became supported by “Ba’athists” who were in fact just well educated technocrats, rather than supporters of Hussein’s regime.
After the American occupation of Iraq and removal of Hussein from power, the Coalition of Provisional Authority, led by Paul Bremer, sought to remove remaining Ba’athists from power in order to construct a new democratic state in Iraq and to prevent the rebirth of the dangerous government system associated with Hussein’s regime.

To reach its effective goals, de-Ba’athification should have taken the form of a pragmatic vetting of Iraqi leaders, rather than a purge of the experienced officials whose expertise held together the fabric of Iraq’s inherently unstable society. Unfortunately, instead of de-Ba’athification’s proposed actions being drawn from a culturally knowledgeable prospective goal of shaping a successful new government, based on maintaining the already-present occupational roles that served to maintain stability and functionality within Iraqi society, its course of action was modeled based upon the post- World War II proceedings of de-Nazification. While being interviewed for a documentary by PBS Frontline, Paul Bremer explained that because Saddam Hussein had modeled the authoritarian nature of his regime after Adolf Hitler’s model of Nazi Germany, in their efforts to reconstruct an Iraqi government, the Coalition of Provisional Authority should naturally model de-Ba’athification’s operations based on the proceedings of de-Nazification in post WWII Germany (Bremer). However, when viewing such proceedings in hindsight, many see de-Nazification as having been

unsuccessful in its own right, and certainly not directly applicable to the vastly different infrastructure of Iraqi society. In the “purge-like” manner of removing Ba’athists from office that occurred, individuals were not examined on the basis of their functional integrity or personal history (whether or not they led or partook in immoral actions or crimes against humanity during Hussein’s regime), but rather were examined simply on the basis of their party affiliation, thus leading to the discharge of the most skilled leaders and technocrats within all sects of society. In fact, due to the fact that forced dismissals from employment were enacted on a basis of rank, rather than personal conduct, “lower-level Baathists who had violated human rights or engaged in corruption retained their enviable civil service positions, as did other employees who may have been unfit for service, but were not party members” (Sissons and Al-Saiedi, 2013). Ultimately, this achieved an imbalance within the newly formed government, now subject to a fear-induced instability due to concerns over the remaining presence of human-rights violators in government, and the lurking potential of the party’s return.
Today, it is well understood that in order to gain a position in Iraq’s government administration or civil services under Hussein’s rule, citizens needed to identify themselves as members of the Ba’athist party, regardless of their personal views on the malicious actions carried out by Hussein’s regime. In fact, many U.S. intelligence agencies had been aware of this since the beginning of Iraqi intervention. In a 2009 interview, Colonel John Agoglia of the United States Central Command reported that in meetings between the CIA and Paul Bremer, Central Intelligence officials had objected to Bremer’s proposed course of action for de-Ba’athification. Objectors to his plans stated that only the top two tiers of the Ba’athist party needed to be removed from power, as opposed to his proposal to remove the top four tiers from power. Unfortunately, Bremer didn’t cooperate with the protests of other government agencies, and as a consequence of his decision, the number of discharged government personnel expanded from roughly six-thousand to fifty-thousand, leaving Iraq’s government administration significantly deprived of the necessary roles that it needed in order to function and sustain itself as a stable manner (Ferguson, 2009). As reported by Ali al-Lami, a member of the De-Ba’athification Commission, “over 80% of those affected by the De-Ba’athification decree are instructors, teachers and other salaried from the Ministry of Education” (Al-Lami, 2005). Furthermore, after the initial implementation of de-Ba’athification, America placed significant authority over continued operations in the hands of Ahmed Chalabi, who was appointed to head the Iraqi De-Ba’athification Council. Chalabi’s use of this power was by no means objective or unpartisan, and ultimately led to accusations that he had revived his now dormant position in 2010 to target political enemies – a particularly devastating effect being his targeting of Sunnis (“Reopening the Old Sectarian Wounds”). To exacerbate this situation, in 2011, Iraq’s prime minister of the time, Nouri al-Maliki, began yet another round of de-Ba’athification, firing and taking away the pensions of former declared Ba’athists – including those who had been considered “rehabilitated” by the US military (Sly, 2015). As a result of the imbalance established in the new Iraqi state, as well as the widespread unemployment of former Ba’athist party members, festering upon the foundation of Iraq’s weakened and insufficient social infrastructure, the activity and social influence of militant organizations who opposed the new government quickly grew. Many of the technocrats who were removed from their positions of employment were Sunnis, and now faced social oppression as a result of Chalabi and Maliki’s abuse of power. This caused such individuals to associate with growing radicalism, forming sectarian militias who fought against the new government, which was already weakened by its loss of the experts who Iraq’s old government had drawn support from. According to Brigadier General Hassan Dulaimi, who was previously an intelligence officer in the Iraqi army, “The people in charge of military operations in the Islamic State were the best officers in the former Iraqi army, and that is why the Islamic State beats us in intelligence and on the battlefield” (Dulaimi, 2015). In fact, the current leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has made a point of targeting former Ba’athists for recruitment, taking advantage of the socioeconomic pressures facing them since the fall of Hussein’s regime. Ultimately, in reflection upon the consequences of de-Ba’athification, it becomes evident that such problems were not purely related to resultant unemployment, but also by the flawed allocation of authority that the U.S. provided to Iraq’s new leaders, who used de-Ba’athification as a guise to cover their abuses of power.
America’s intervention in Iraq gained inspiration and support due to its apparent goals of promoting social progress in this impaired state. However, beneath the surface of such ambitions laid a deep ignorance of Iraqi culture, the history of their governmental structure, and the social paradigm that its citizens had come to shape their lives around. Ultimately, it was the expanded scope of de-Ba’athification, and the abuse of power by Iraq’s new leaders, which brings us to see the present state of Iraq: weakened in its administrative, utilitarian, and law-enforcement ministries, and subject to the ever-growing prevalence of sectarian violence and Sunni radicalism. Without the expertise of the supposed “Ba’athists” who once supported all corners of Iraq’s social infrastructure, the ability of Iraq to independently quell such chaos seems nearly impossible. While America attempted to move Iraqi society forward, through the complete removal of Ba’athist party members from their occupational roles within the Iraqi society, it appears that we have in fact left Iraq in a worse state than we could have imagined. Looking towards the future of international affairs, if such a caliber of intervention is, in fact, considered necessary again, may the proceedings of such reforms embody greater consideration of the complexities of the affected societies. In our attempts to eliminate enemies, may we not destroy the very thing that we aspire to protect.