Regards, Ivan
Posted on 05/03/2003 3:28:59 PM PDT by MadIvan
A CAPTURED archive of 500,000 cardboard files meticulously compiled by Saddam Hussein’s ruling Ba’ath party has revealed some of the secrets of a regime so obsessed with loyalty that an officer’s support for the execution of his brother merited promotion.
The archive contains a folder for every officer who served in the Iraqi military. Each military unit had a party representative who recorded and evaluated minute details of every officer’s career and personal life.
The dusty files are a far more accurate testimony of Saddam’s reign than the overblown monuments he wanted to be remembered by. They show he ruled Iraq through information and the ruthless use of the life-and-death power he wielded.
Despite the secrets held on even those closest to him, he seems to have ordered the archive to be hidden and preserved in the misguided belief that he would retain control. “He did not destroy the files because they are his survival,” a former Iraqi officer said.
The Sunday Times reviewed about 10,000 files in the possession of the Iraqi National Congress, the former opposition group, which wants the archive preserved so that future generations will not forget what was endured. The detail is astonishing. Officers’ ranks are turned upside down according to party loyalties. A general’s evaluation is signed by a warrant officer; it is clear who has more power.
All men are weighed and measured annually; it is recorded that Saddam does not want fat officers. A party official notices tears in an officer’s eyes during a broadcast of a religious ceremony for Shi’ites, the branch of Islam out of favour with Saddam’s ruling Sunnis. It is duly noted in his file, and that is the end of his career.
No one was exempt: the most senior members of Saddam’s regime are here. And like all obsessive regimes, Saddam’s kept every scrap of paper, so innocent early evaluations of those who rose to influence are clipped alongside their burnished portraits of later years.
Take for example Kamal Mustafa al-Tikriti, Saddam’s chief of staff, now on the list of the 55 most wanted men issued by the Americans.
In a staff college evaluation in the 1980s, Kamal Mustafa seems a hopeless recruit. To the question “Is he self-reliant?” the handwritten answer is: “No, he needs assistance.” To “Can he hold responsibility?” the answer is: “No, he doesn’t really care about anything.”
Later evaluators are less forthright. As Saddam consolidates power and creates a ruling inner circle of relatives, Kamal Mustafa begins to shine. He is a cousin of the leader, born in Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, and his brother, Jamal, marries Saddam’s youngest daughter. The evaluations become effusive paeans.
By the 1990s, when he reaches the rank of marshal general, his file records his abilities as “far above average”. He is described as popular, always wanting to improve himself and working ceaselessly without “any need to be pushed”.
The stranglehold of the Tikritis on Iraq could not be better documented than in these files. That of Barzan Suleiman al- Majid, another cousin of Saddam and now number nine on America’s most wanted list, records that he began his career as a bodyguard.
By the time he reaches the post of commander of the Special Security Organisation, he has a degree in military science — although there is no evidence he ever went to school — and is the owner of a large farm granted him by Saddam.
Although Tikritis must rise, even the party apparatchiks writing the files sometimes betray exasperation. When Subhy Ahmed al-Tikriti, another relative of Saddam, becomes a colonel, one assessor writes: “He has a lot of problems and is completely unable to do any kind of military work.”
When Subhy is made a general, the party member responsible for his evaluation records petulantly: “He is mentally and psychologically unstable. We tried to put him in an administrative job but he doesn’t fit any place we put him because he is so mentally dull.”
There is even a file on Uday, Saddam’s elder son, whose murderous rages so terrified all who knew him that his own father refused to let him enter his presence with a gun. His fear was not unwarranted: at a party in 1989 Uday beat Saddam’s favourite retainer to death.
In his Ba’ath military file, Uday, who never attended military school, is a brilliant philosopher and military strategist. He attends a party seminar for the military and the file records he has “excellent” persuasive powers, is “very logical and can quickly convince people”.
“He is extremely intelligent and ideal in using his knowledge,” the file says.
In the top secret part of the file, his party evaluator — clearly aware that someone other than his direct superior may read it — writes: “Overall his personality is superior, he is lovable, with a personality that excels in both leadership and negotiations.”
The report concludes: “Uday Saddam Hussein came to us to get knowledge, but in the end he was so brilliant that we learned from him.”
Files also recorded the movements of the most lowly. Everyone had to sign a statement that he had revealed all aspects of his life honestly, even Saddam’s official ironer, who came to the post from the Special Security Organisation.
If you were not an al-Tikriti, Big Brother was watching. Khaled al-Hayani, born in 1950 in Baghdad, was found guilty and suffered what is recorded as military punishment because of an unguarded moment.
At a gathering of officers, he was reported by a fellow officer to have said that a Colonel Ahmed had been discharged from the army “because he was fasting and praying and they don’t want people like that”. Saddam considered religious Muslims a threat because the party was officially secular.
Punishment in Saddam’s military world was brutal. Lieutenant Bassem al-Kassy, a dentist, was convicted of deserting the army in 1995. His file records him as a “dishonoured one” and says that “in addition to having his ears amputated, he has no civilian rights and all of his property is confiscated”.
There is human tragedy written between the driest of lines in these files. Did Captain Muzar Sadiq Sabr, born in 1955, really relish the promotion he received? The file records only: “He was unaffected by the execution of his brother because of his membership in the Dawa party (an Islamic party outlawed in Iraq) and he participated in giving evidence that his brother was a member of this so-called party. When he was informed that his brother had been executed he showed no emotion whatsoever.”
Sabr is sent to Czechoslovakia as a reward and elevated to a superior rank.
The files make it clear that along with Saddam’s relatives, who got virtually automatic promotion, men who were considered unfit by the professional army before his ascent suddenly came into favour.
Brigadier Khaled Mohamedi, who became a commander in the Saddam Fedayeen, is one of many in this category. In 1975, four years before Saddam became president, his military college report reads: “He is quite frankly a bloody bastard. The man who allowed him to enter the military college should be punished.” His main attribute is defined in the single, handwritten word: “Liar.”
Yet, as Saddam rises, so does Mohamedi. By 1982 he is judged “truthful, honest, and a loyal party member and brave military man”.
File after file suggests that Saddam’s fear of betrayal and the priority he gave to loyalty over military effectiveness undermined his objective of creating the most powerful army in the Middle East.
I tracked down a general whose file records that the Ba’ath party military evaluators considered his loyalty “excellent”. He had a distinguished military record, but had risen through the ranks before Saddam came to power.
He smiled rather bitterly when confronted with his file. “Let me explain,” he said. “We had a joke in the military, but you would only share it with friends. At any gathering, everyone in the room is a Ba’athi. When the gathering breaks up and people leave alone, there are no Ba’athis.”
He believes the party’s infiltration of the military destroyed the force, as it did civil society. “In the 1970s you did not really notice the Ba’athis. That was our mistake. By the 1980s they were too powerful to fight. By the 1990s, the Ba’ath party had poisoned the army. Civilians with no military training made the decisions. I retired in 1996.”
Regards, Ivan
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