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Iraq’s new leader faces triple challenge

by Open-Publishing - Monday 19 July 2004

Wars and conflicts International

by David Hirst

With the "resignation" of President Hassan al-Bakr of Iraq, Mr Siddam (sic) Hussein Takriti, long the "strongman" of the Ba’athist regime, has finally emerged as its uncontested master. But the Government as a whole is almost certainly the weaker for it.

Whether or not the 67-year-old President resigned for health reasons, his removal will have important, and potentially disruptive repercussions within the ruling hierarchy. Both Mr Bakr and his Vice-President, the 42 year old Mr Siddam, are from Takrit, a small town on the Tigris. Takrit has furnished Ba’athism with an extraordinarily high proportion of its leaders and cadres - and with that narrow, regional, family based solidarity which is the main reason for its survival.

For 11 years, the unique relationship between the two men survived intact, a key prop of the whole Ba’athist edifice, amid all the vicissitudes that have affected it from within and without. Mr Bakr, originally an Army officer, played a key role in ensuring the loyalty of the Army. Mr Siddam rose through the Party and his efforts to set it above the Army prompted the opposition of officers who resented encroachments on their power.

In formally assuming all of President Bakr’s titles - from President downwards - Mr Saddam has completed a process which was already far advanced. It has been accompanied by a greater reliance, not so much on Takritis in general, but on members of his own immediate family, and in particular his cousin, the Minister of Defence.,General Adnam Khairallah Talfah. The General now becomes Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces, a new position.

Mr Saadoun Shaker, also related to Mr Siddam, becomes Minister of the Interior, and his place as Chief of General Intelligence will presumably be taken by his deputy, Mr Barzan Takriti, the new President’s brother.

It is doubtful whether the advantages of this unique concentration of personal powers will long outweigh the disadvantages of the shock it will administer to the whole system. Mr Saddam can ill afford fractional rivalries in his own house when it is beset by such a gathering storm of external perils.

The Ba’athists are trying to throw off the "radical" reputation which they have earned in the West, and trying to present themselves as a bastion of stability and moderation, friendly with Saudi Arabia, Europe and (surreptitiously) the United States. But as Western countries - Britain, Germany and above all France - respond to their overtures, it is difficult to hide the intrinsic vulnerability of the regime.

It stems mainly from three sources - the Communists, the Kurds and the Shi’ites. The Iraqi Communist Party has now all but declared open war on its former allies. It has withdrawn from the Ba’athist led National Front and called on all opposition forces to join it in a new front, the main aims of which would be the establishment of "democratic freedoms" in the country - and "self-rule" for the Kurdish minority in the North.

Party cadres have fled the country, but many of the Kurds among them have now joined the guerrilla campaign in the North. "The Ba’athists have left us little choice," explained an exiled leader. "Either we are liquidated in the towns or we fight in the mountains."

The Communists’ military role is much less important than their political and moral one. They endeavoured to preserve their special relationship with the Ba’athists, maintaining it even during the last Kurdish uprising. That they have been obliged, despite Soviet reservations, to go into outright opposition will generate unrest everywhere.

The Kurdish Suerya campaign appears to be gaining momentum. The newly elected leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party, Mr Masud Barazani, the son of the late, legendary leader Mustafa Barazani - was reported last week to have hundreds of his followers across the Iranian frontier into mountains of northern Iraq.

Lesser Kurdish groups, rivals of the Barazanis, are also active in the North, amid signs of attempts at a general co-ordination of the military struggle.

The other great, post-Khomeini threat, from the Shi’ites of the South, shows no sign of abating. There are frequent demonstrations in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala, as well as Kazimain, near Baghdad.

What the Ba’athist regime most fears is that Kurds and Shi’ites will join forces in an organised way. In the last Kurdish uprising, the heavy casualties which the Army suffered failed to encourage a Shi’ite revolt. After Khomeini, the chances of combined aggression are much greater.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999421,00.html