Saddam, his path to power etc

[puke on cops]

Who can tell me just how much of his weaponry was sold to him by the western states? A friend of mine [who incidentally supports the war] says that Britain and America collectively gave him less than 2% of his guns, bombs and planes.

Also, whenever I try to look for sites on Saddam's early political career and the coup/revolution/whatever, I can only find sites that look like they were made by people who think that the moon landings were faked and that Kennedy was shot by a lizard.

Finally, and this is more philosophically based, how does one argue the moral implication of installing a capitalist-imperialist regime when there was fuck all communist power over there and Saddam was, umm, a really bad person. :blushing:

Oh and I already know, opposition to capitalism must come first blah blah, but if one does take that line, how do you not come across as someone who is ready to sit by and wait til the class in Iraq is conscious enough of its own brutal existence and fuck shit up?

[revolution inaction]

Who can tell me just how much of his weaponry was sold to him by the western states? A friend of mine [who incidentally supports the war] says that Britain and America collectively gave him less than 2% of his guns, bombs and planes.

Also, whenever I try to look for sites on Saddam's early political career and the coup/revolution/whatever, I can only find sites that look like they were made by people who think that the moon landings were faked and that Kennedy was shot by a lizard.

Finally, and this is more philosophically based, how does one argue the moral implication of installing a capitalist-imperialist regime when there was fuck all communist power over there and Saddam was, umm, a really bad person. :blushing:

Oh and I already know, opposition to capitalism must come first blah blah, but if one does take that line, how do you not come across as someone who is ready to sit by and wait til the class in Iraq is conscious enough of its own brutal existence and fuck shit up?

did the invasion make things better for Iraqis or did it make them worse and kill loads of people?
for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties

[revolution inaction]

Who can tell me just how much of his weaponry was sold to him by the western states? A friend of mine [who incidentally supports the war] says that Britain and America collectively gave him less than 2% of his guns, bombs and planes.



i don't know what proportion of weapons Iraq got from Briton and America, have you looked at these
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_combatants_in_the_Iran%E2%80% 93Iraq_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2% 80%93Iraq_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack#International_sources_fo r_technology_and_chemical_precursors

[Sasha]

Also, whenever I try to look for sites on Saddam's early political career and the coup/revolution/whatever, I can only find sites that look like they were made by people who think that the moon landings were faked and that Kennedy was shot by a lizard.

try to get the miniseries "house of sadam" by BBC/HBO somewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saddam

it was pretty o.k.

[Red Commissar]

Saddam may've had anti-capitalist inclinations and the said the Ba'ath had a claim of "Arab socialism", but I would take that at face value. If anything his dictatorship was more of a nationalist one, and he actively flushed out socialist and communist groups from Iraq, often selling them out to the CIA in the process.

The Ba'ath Party had come to power like most other authoritarian regimes in the Middle-East. A corrupt and complacent democracy and economic mismanagement. The Ba'ath had failed once in a coup and ended up getting Saddam jailed (at the time, he was but a member). When the Ba'ath finally succeeded in the 1960s, Saddam began working with his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali) to rise through the ranks of Ba'ath. One of the ways the Ba'ath secured power was mainly playing between the USSR and USA, and there wasn't necessarily an ideological aim beyond a pan-Arab state, rather than a genuine concern for workers. Saddam's image of prosperity was only apparent because he focused the wealth in areas with "pure" Arabs, while denying said wealth to the rest of the population. In short, he was a manipulative man who was focused on the longevity of his government rather than the people.

As for foreign aid to Iraq, there is an issue which clouds American involvement. The Americans provided material and credit aid to fund Iraq's war effort, but avoided selling him American products out of fear of causing international outcry. To this end, a so-called "Bear spares" program was initiated, where the United States facilitated arms transfer between Iraq and Egypt, which had a lot of excess Soviet arms. Even Israel got in on the action by selling of captured soviet arms which were common among middle-eastern nations.

For example, in this court transcript, where a former NSA member, Howard Teicher, says clearly what had occurred during this
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq61.pdf

[T]he United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required. The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat... The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq...

If the "Bear Spares" were manufactured outside the United States, then the U.S. could arrange for the provision of these weapons to a third country without direct involvement. Israel, for example, had a very large stockpile of Soviet weaponry and ammunition captured during its various wars. At the suggestion of the United States, the Israelis would transfer the spare parts and weapons to third countries... Similarly, Egypt manufactured weapons and spare parts from Soviet designs and provided these weapons and ammunition to the Iraqis and other countries....

The US also had links to the Cold War arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian, who gave them some way to have plausible deniability. Soghanalian had access to both Soviet Arms and French Arms, which were easily obtainable at the time.


The most prominent [arms merchant] was Sarkis Soghanalian, a Miami-based former CIA contractor who brokered tens of billions of dollars' worth of military hardware for Iraq during the 1980s, reporting many of his transactions to officials in Washington. Soghanalian ... was close to the Iraqi leadership and to intelligence officers and others in the Reagan administration. In many respects he was the living embodiment of plausible deniability, serving as a key conduit for CIA and other U.S. government operations.

There was also the Italian banking firm Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, which had been making loans to Iraq for the Iran-Iraq War efforts, backed and secured by American capital.

The Chemical Weapons program in Iraq also relied on foreign aid. Much of the material necessary for the chemical weapons was reliant on aid from American and European firms. Hell, the CIA ended up passing off the Halabja Chemical Weapons attack as an act by Iran in order to protect Iraq's reputation..

Look at the links radical posted, which has a good analyzation of all this.

In summary, US is very much responsible for the creation of that brutal dictator. He was able to do most of his excess against groups like the Kurds because of the support he was given by the west. Of course this doesn't justify with the way the invasion was handled (the Americans didn't call out Saddam for any of his actions until he began to threaten the balance of power in the region), but don't get deluded into thinking Saddam was a revolutionary of our kind.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I don't mean to praise Saddam, he has done some terrible things.

However, his leadership led to more secularization; Saddam's government gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law.

All in all, was Saddam's actions of bad over 20 years as bad as that of US allies who still publicly execute people who have committed victimless crimes? No.

One of many reasons I view the invasion of Iraq as illegitimate. Apart from the obvious.

I bet that at least 50% of Americans think that Saddam was the same as the Taliban and not secular at all (for the region even).

[Glenn Beck]

There's no point in defending Saddam who is dead and discredited, though many of his transgressions are exaggerated by warmongers his transgressions are still many. What I take issue with is the implication that US imperialism has any interest whatsoever, even by accident, in bringing "progressive" change and development to any other country. The US is at the head of the world capitalist/imperialist system and as such has a vested interest in keeping oppressed nations from liberating themselves and developing into independent poles of capital accumulation, much less revolutionary socialist states. Any "development" that takes place is "development" as an appendage of US imperialism, and not genuine capitalist development that will bring a country forward in terms of human development and democracy, much less socialism.

Look at it this way: the US has attempted to install a free market, pro-US liberal "democracy" in Iraq, for freedom, and for the benefit of the Iraqi people. The US installed a free market, pro-US military dictatorship in Chile (and various other countries). For freedom, and for the benefit of the Chilean people. What is the commonality here? The economic and geopolitical interests of US imperialism. The crushing of middle income developing countries developing a political system, which, whatever our stance towards it as socialists, represents an independent pole within the capitalist system and thus a potential threat to US dominance.

As socialists, we don't need to support Allende, Saddam, Nasser, or any other 'progressive' nationalist figure or government (though we may, depending on the circumstances. But we sure as hell don't need to support the expansion and reinforcement of imperialism, no matter how ugly the regime of the particular nation that happens to be in the crosshairs this time looks. The socialist position is always against imperialist war and in favor of imperialist defeat, no matter whether we support the other side of the war or not.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Oh and I already know, opposition to capitalism must come first blah blah, but if one does take that line, how do you not come across as someone who is ready to sit by and wait til the class in Iraq is conscious enough of its own brutal existence and fuck shit up?
I think it's worth bearing in mind that class consciousness in Iraq isn't as distant as it might seem - 12 years before the invasion, there was a popular uprising against Saddam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq) (admittedly a nationalist/religious one, but still). The US encouraged the uprising before it happened and then abandoned it because they thought that having Saddam stay in power was more stable and predictable than the threat of popular democracy in Iraq.
Fun quotes from US leaders:


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.

There is no move on the [part of] U.S. forces...to let any weapons slip through, or to play any role whatsoever in fomenting or assisting any side.

I made clear from the very beginning that it was not an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

[Devrim]

I think it's worth bearing in mind that class consciousness in Iraq isn't as distant as it might seem - 12 years before the invasion, there was a popular uprising against Saddam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq) (admittedly a nationalist/religious one, but still). The US encouraged the uprising before it happened and then abandoned it because they thought that having Saddam stay in power was more stable and predictable than the threat of popular democracy in Iraq.

I don't understand what connection you see between class consciousness and nationalist/religious uprisings.

Devrim

[revolution inaction]

Its been a wile since i read it but this (http://libcom.org/library/1991-kurdish-uprising) article appears to say the uprising was not a nationalist/religious uprising.

[Devrim]

Its been a wile since i read it but this (http://libcom.org/library/1991-kurdish-uprising) article appears to say the uprising was not a nationalist/religious uprising.

Yes, I am very doubtful about this interpretation of events, bıt TUF above identifies it as a nationalist uprising anyway.

Devrim

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I'll admit to not being well-informed enough on the subject to say whether the BM blob/combustion version or the more mainstream one is more reliable. Also I'll admit that I probably mixed up my terminology horribly in the previous post, and I probably meant something completely different - the point I was making is that POC's pro-war friend seemed to be trying to present a dichotomy where either you supported the war or you supported Saddam's regime just going on forever, or at least until it was toppled by some incredibly distant global communist revolution. I was saying that things aren't that simple, and that Saddam could've plausibly fallen as something other than the result of an invasion. Whether you'd support that uprising or not is up to you.

In a vague attempt to defend my claim about class consciousness, I'd say that a class that is conscious of its power to transform society, even if it's only acting to transform society in the interests of one section or another of the bourgeoisie, is more conscious than one that's not aware of its power to transform society at all, and sees the current state as being all-powerful. No?

[Uppercut]

All I know is that prior to the coup, the CIA was working with Saddam, and that his chemical weapons were sold to him by a western chemical company (I forget the name).

[Red Commissar]

All I know is that prior to the coup, the CIA was working with Saddam, and that his chemical weapons were sold to him by a western chemical company (I forget the name).

The materials Saddam Hussein used in his weapons were given by a number of western firms. These were under the guise of "research" and vaccine production.

As for the coup, I'm not sure whether the second coup was backed by the CIA, but the first one where they overthrew Qassim probably had some CIA involvement. Either way, the Ba'ath of Iraq were more favorable in American policy to countering radical groups in the Middle-East. Despite the Ba'ath's noise about "Arab socialism", they were nationalists first and foremost, and no danger to the economic establishment at the time.

[Devrim]

I'll admit to not being well-informed enough on the subject to say whether the BM blob/combustion version or the more mainstream one is more reliable. Also I'll admit that I probably mixed up my terminology horribly in the previous post, and I probably meant something completely different - the point I was making is that POC's pro-war friend seemed to be trying to present a dichotomy where either you supported the war or you supported Saddam's regime just going on forever, or at least until it was toppled by some incredibly distant global communist revolution. I was saying that things aren't that simple, and that Saddam could've plausibly fallen as something other than the result of an invasion. Whether you'd support that uprising or not is up to you.

In a vague attempt to defend my claim about class consciousness, I'd say that a class that is conscious of its power to transform society, even if it's only acting to transform society in the interests of one section or another of the bourgeoisie, is more conscious than one that's not aware of its power to transform society at all, and sees the current state as being all-powerful. No?

I think that the version peddled by Blob and the GCI is highly dubious.

Also, I don't think that your argument about class consciousness really works. You could make the same argument about soldiers voluteering to fight against fascism in the Second World War, and end up with the nationalistic "It was a working class war" line.

I think that class consciousness is about the working class becoming as Marx said "a class for itself", not for different bourgeois factions.

Devrim

[RadioRaheem84]

Saddam Hussein was supported by the US throughout his reign and even a bit before ascending to power, up until the first Gulf War. The US doesn't mind nationalists as long as they're nationalist in spirit and not economic nationalists but when Saddam decided to annex (not just invade) Kuwait, he took an economic nationalist approach that messed up US political/economic interests. Remember that the Cold War was never about capitalism/democracy vs. Communism, it was always about defending US interests (political or economic) abroad and it didn't matter if the regime was communist, nationalist or theocratic.

I used to be a pro-war lefty and I've researched tons of information that tried to disprove the economic ties with the US and Saddam's Iraq pre-Gulf War and all I found was evidence that if it wasn't for the US, Saddam would've been toppled by the Iranians in the first year of the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam owed his Party's life, as well as his own to the Reagan Administration.

All pro-war people can do is wave this period off as a necessary deterrent against Iran. But they leave out the detailed information that the US played a pivotal road in helping Saddam maintain a strong grip in the area.


The whole two percent chart thing came from an institute called the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It said that well over half of Saddam's weapons came from the Soviet Union. Well not only is this research skewered as nearly the whole globe purchased Soviet guns because they were cheaper and better, but this also accounts for the shady dealings the US did to not have their guns register on any chart. The US used shady brokers to bring in guns made in France and the USSR to reach Iraq. The US also took guns from the Israelis who confiscated Soviet weapons from opponents in their regional conflicts. The data the pro war crowd is pitching is actually misguided as the US took the pre-caution of using proxy states to deliver the weapons. Even then the Stockholm study doesn't differentiate between conventional weapons trade and illegal trade. The info provided in this report: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq61.pdf (http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq61.pdf) about such shady funneling matches the touted statistics of the pro war camp:



The CIA including both director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of and assisted in the sale of non-US origin military, ammunition, and vehicles to Iraq.

http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html

http://www.solport.com/resources/Iraqi%20Weapons.JPG

[Red Commissar]

That is often what the apologists point to, saying that since the US didn't directly sell weapons they weren't complicit, and rather France and the USSR should be (two objects of American hatred right there :lol:).

The quote you had there refers to the bear spares program, of which more and more information is coming out about.

[Barry Lyndon]

It is true that many of Saddam's conventional weapons came from the Soviet Union(Ak-47s and tanks), but his unconventional weapons(ie chemical and biological), were sold to him by corporations in the United States, Britain and West Germany. These weapons were crucial because Saddam resorted to using poison gas against Iranian troops and rebellious Kurds when his conventional forces were losing ground to Iranians. As others had pointed out, this crucial American diplomatic and military support ensured that the Iraqi war effort didn't completely collapse and guaranteed that Saddam would remain in power.
Saddam Hussein was a valuable ally of Washington for two major reasons, his position as a strategic bulwark against Iran obviously, but also because of his repression of Iraq's communists. The Iraqi Communist party, although never a mass force in Iraqi politics, weilded a disproportionate influence through their position of leadership in the trade unions. They participated in the Baathist government beggining in 1968, because of its policies of nationalizing the oil and expanding women's rights, among other progressive policies. With Washington's approval, however, Saddam Hussein violently purged his government of Marxists-the Soviet ambassador to Iraq at the time estimated that 15,000 communists were murdered under the Baathist regime. I am a quarter Iraqi, and my grandfather's best friend was one of the communists who was killed. He was in the Justice ministry, and one day he was abducted and tortured to death by Saddam Hussein's secret police, the Mukhabarat. My parents visited Iraq three times in the 1980's, and one time actually saw a CIA official on Iraqi national television, a guest of the regime, praising Saddam because 'he killed a lot of communists'.

[spaßmaschine]

Yes, I am very doubtful about this interpretation of events, bıt TUF above identifies it as a nationalist uprising anyway.


I think that the version peddled by Blob and the GCI is highly dubious.

Devrim, I have little knowledge of these matters, but I'm interested to hear, what is it about the Blob pamphlet and the GCI's accounts of the uprisings that you are dubious about? Are they based on dodgy sources, or otherwise inaccurate? It's been a while since I read them, but if i recall correctly, the GCI claimed to have actually had a comrade participating in them.

[Devrim]

Devrim, I have little knowledge of these matters, but I'm interested to hear, what is it about the Blob pamphlet and the GCI's accounts of the uprisings that you are dubious about? Are they based on dodgy sources, or otherwise inaccurate? It's been a while since I read them, but if i recall correctly, the GCI claimed to have actually had a comrade participating in them.

It has been a long while since I read them too. For those who don't know what we are talking about, it is the reports that there was a 'workers' uprising' in Iraq after the Gulf War in 1981. Some samples can be found here in the Libcom library:

Blob: http://libcom.org/library/1991-kurdish-uprising
Wildcat: http://libcom.org/history/1991-the-south-iraq-and-kurdistan-uprisings
GCI: http://libcom.org/library/journey-to-iraq-testimony-kurdish-icg
http://libcom.org/library/class-struggle-in-iraq-icg

I think that there all come originally from the same source, or at least people who knew each other, and I know that the Wildcat and GCI ones do.

The GCI certainly had contacts in Northern Iraq, and had at least one member in Europe who had come from there. I am not claiming that these people were deliberately lying, but I think that the GCI had/has a big tendency to get excited by violence, and could certainly write the story from its own perspective. For example, the term 'Shura' can mean 'Soviet', but it can also mean any type of council. I don't think that they really understand what a workers movement is.

Another example could be the 'workers' uprising' that they talk about in Albania in 1997: http://libcom.org/library/albania-1997-class-struggle-icg

I find it quite strange that the GCI was the only group in the world who noticed these workers' uprisings. I could go into more detail if you wanted.

Devrim

[spaßmaschine]

I find it quite strange that the GCI was the only group in the world who noticed these workers' uprisings. I could go into more detail if you wanted.

Devrim
Thanks for your response, Devrim. If you'd like to go into more detail, that'd be great, as I said I know little about the 1991 uprisings and am keen to learn more. Would you also view the uprisings in Southern Iraq as being nationalist/populist in content?

I take it by "the only group in the world who noticed these workers' uprisings" you mean that GCI were the only ones to class them as "worker" uprisings. That seems fair call to make, and on the Albanian one at least, there have been more sober/less excitable accounts, for example by the Greek group TPTG.

[baboon]

Devrim, forgive me, I have only just seen this message. I am severely computor challenged.
The thing I remember about the west providing arms for Saddam for the Iran/Iraq war was that it was done through intermediaries. There was also the help given by the US and Britain through intelligence and from the positioning of the US 6th Fleet (I think) in the Gulf. There was also the supply of weaponary from Britain which wasn't called weaponary. For example, artillery supplied by British firms, negotiated with British intelligence, which was called "pipework". Also ICI provided Saddam with a "fertilizer factory" which had all the components for the chemical warfare which was undertaken. The Germans also provided something similar.
Once again sorry for the unforgivable delay but I find it difficult to keep abreast of the technology. I hope you're well. Regards, baboon.

[Dimentio]

About Ba'ath and Arab Socialism...

In the third world, except for maybe in certain areas of Latin America, it is politically impossible to win popular support on a liberal, conservative or traditional fascist platform. That is both because the cultures of the Middle East and Africa are traditionally collectivist and because of the experience of having been raped by western colonial powers, leading to a natural embrace of socialism.

The communists were really popular in Iraq in the 1950's and 1960's, so someone got the wonderful idea of combining Arab nationalism with socialism in order to prevent a communist takeover.

Essentially, Ba'athism is fascism.