Editing Saddam Hussein (section)

=== Exile to the United Arab Republic ===
[[Michel Aflaq]], the leader of the Ba'athist movement, organized the expulsion of leading Iraqi Ba'athist members, such as [[Fuad al-Rikabi]], on the grounds that the party should not have initiated the attempt on Qasim's life. At the same time, Aflaq secured seats in the Iraqi Ba'ath leadership for his supporters, one of them being Saddam.<ref>{{cite book |last=Coughlin|first= Con |page=[https://archive.org/details/saddam00conc/page/34 34] |title=Saddam: His Rise and Fall |publisher=[[Harper Perennial]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-06-050543-1 |author-link=Con Coughlin |url=https://archive.org/details/saddam00conc/page/34 }}</ref>

The assassins, including Saddam, all eventually escaped to [[Cairo]], [[United Arab Republic]], "where they enjoyed Nasser's protection for the remainder of Qasim's tenure in power."<ref name="WH2021 1959 2">{{Cite book |last=Wolfe-Hunnicutt |first=Brandon |title=The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-5036-1382-9 |pages=53–54}}</ref> Saddam initially escaped to Syria and then to Egypt itself in February 1960, and he continued to live there until 1963, graduating from high school in 1961 and unsuccessfully pursuing a law degree<ref>{{cite book|author-link1=Efraim Karsh|last1=Karsh|first1=Efraim|last2=Rautsi|first2=Inari|title=Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography|publisher=[[Grove Press]]|year=2002|isbn=978-0-8021-3978-8|pages=15–22}}</ref> at [[Cairo Law School]] (1962–1963).<ref>{{cite web |title=Saddam Hussein |date=29 May 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saddam-Hussein |publisher=Britannica}}</ref> It is possible that Saddam visited the U.S. embassy in [[Cairo]] during his exile,<ref>{{cite book |author-link1=Efraim Karsh |last1=Karsh |first1=Efraim |last2=Rautsi |first2=Inari |title=Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography |publisher=[[Grove Press]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8021-3978-8 |pages=20–21}}</ref> and some evidence suggests that he was "in frequent contact with US officials and intelligence agents."<ref name="Osgood pp. 21–23" /> A former high-ranking U.S. official told historians Marion Farouk–Sluglett and Peter Sluglett that Iraqi Ba'athists, including Saddam, "had made contact with the American authorities in the late 1950s and early 1960s."<ref name="Slugletts p. 327">{{cite book|last1=Farouk–Sluglett|first1=Marion|last2=Sluglett|first2=Peter|title=Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]]|year=2001|isbn=9780857713735|page=327}}</ref>
[[File:Iraq 1963 - Saddam and other Ba'athists.jpg|thumb|Saddam and other Ba'athists posing on top of a tank after a successful coup in February 1963|left]]
Army officers with ties to the Ba'ath Party overthrew and killed Qasim in the [[Ramadan Revolution]] coup of February 1963; long suspected to be supported by the CIA,<ref>For sources that agree or sympathize with assertions of U.S. involvement, see:
*{{cite web |last1=Wolfe-Hunnicutt |first1=Brandon |last2=Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) |title=Essential Readings: The United States and Iraq before Saddam Hussein's Rule |url=https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/37783/Essential-Readings-The-US-and-Iraq |website=[[Jadaliyya]] |date=20 July 2018 |quote=CIA involvement in the 1963 coup that first brought the Ba‘th to power in Iraq has been an open secret for decades. American government and media have never been asked to fully account for the CIA's role in the coup. On the contrary, the US government has put forward and official narrative riddled with holes–redactions that cannot be declassified for "national security" reasons.}}
*{{cite book |last=Citino |first=Nathan J. |title=Envisioning the Arab Future: Modernization in US-Arab Relations, 1945–1967 |chapter=The People's Court |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-108-10755-6 |pages=182–183 |quote=Washington backed the movement by military officers linked to the pan-Arab Ba'th Party that overthrew Qasim in a coup on February 8, 1963.}}
*{{cite journal |last=Jacobsen |first=E. |date=1 November 2013 |title=A Coincidence of Interests: Kennedy, U.S. Assistance, and the 1963 Iraqi Ba'th Regime |url=https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/dh/dht049 |journal=Diplomatic History |language=en |volume=37 |issue=5 |pages=1029–1059 |doi=10.1093/dh/dht049 |issn=0145-2096 |quote=There is ample evidence that the CIA not only had contacts with the Iraqi Ba’th in the early sixties, but also assisted in the planning of the coup.}}
*{{cite book |last1=Ismael |first1=Tareq Y. |last2=Ismael |first2=Jacqueline S. |last3=Perry |first3=Glenn E. |title=Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East: Continuity and Change |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-317-66282-2 |page=240|quote=Ba'thist forces and army officers overthrew Qasim on February 8, 1963, in collaboration with the CIA.}}
*{{Cite journal |last=Little |first=Douglas |date=14 October 2004 |title=Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East |url=https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-abstract/28/5/663/337167 |journal=Diplomatic History |language=en |volume=28 |issue=5 |pages=663–701 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-7709.2004.00446.x |issn=1467-7709|quote=Such self-serving denials notwithstanding, the CIA actually appears to have had a great deal to do with the bloody Ba'athist coup that toppled Qassim in February 1963. Deeply troubled by Qassim's steady drift to the left, by his threats to invade Kuwait, and by his attempt to cancel Western oil concessions, U.S. intelligence made contact with anticommunist Ba'ath activists both inside and outside the Iraqi army during the early 1960s.}}
*{{cite book|last=Osgood|first=Kenneth|title=America and Iraq: Policy-making, Intervention and Regional Politics|chapter=Eisenhower and regime change in Iraq: the United States and the Iraqi Revolution of 1958|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2009|isbn=9781134036721|pages=26–27|quote=Working with Nasser, the Ba'ath Party, and other opposition elements, including some in the Iraqi army, the CIA by 1963 was well positioned to help assemble the coalition that overthrew Qasim in February of that year. It is not clear whether Qasim's assassination, as Said Aburish has written, was 'one of the most elaborate CIA operations in the history of the Middle East.' That judgment remains to be proven. But the trail linking the CIA is suggestive.}}
*{{cite web|last=Sluglett|first=Peter|url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1389811754d4Sluglett.pdf|title=The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba'thists and Free Officers (Review)|work=[[Democratiya]]|page=9|quote=Batatu infers on pp. 985–86 that the CIA was involved in the coup of 1963 (which brought the Ba'ath briefly to power): Even if the evidence here is somewhat circumstantial, there can be no question about the Ba'ath's fervent anti-communism.}}
*{{cite book |last=Wolfe-Hunnicutt |first=Brandon |title=The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-5036-1382-9 |location= |pages=119 |quote=Weldon Matthews, Malik Mufti, Douglas Little, William Zeman, and Eric Jacobsen have all drawn on declassified American records to largely substantiate the plausibility of Batatu's account. Peter Hahn and Bryan Gibson (in separate works) argue that the available evidence does support the claim of CIA collusion with the Ba‘th. However, each makes this argument in the course of a much broader study, and neither examines the question in any detail.}}
*{{cite book|last=Mitchel|first=Timothy|title=Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|year=2002|isbn=9780520928251|page=149|quote=Qasim was killed three years later in a coup welcomed and possibly aided by the CIA, which brought to power the Ba'ath, the party of Saddam Hussein.}}
*{{cite book|author-link=Tim Weiner|last=Weiner|first=Tim|title=Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA|publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]]|year=2008|isbn=9780307455628|page=163|quote=The agency finally backed a successful coup in Iraq in the name of American influence.}}</ref><ref>For sources that dispute assertions of U.S. involvement, see:
*{{cite book |last=Gibson |first=Bryan R. |title=Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-137-48711-7 |page=58 |quote=Barring the release of new information, the balance of evidence suggests that while the United States was actively plotting the overthrow of the Qasim regime, it did not appear to be directly involved in the February 1963 coup.}}
*{{cite book|last=Hahn|first=Peter|title=Missions Accomplished?: The United States and Iraq Since World War I|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2011|isbn=9780195333381|page=48|quote=Declassified U.S. government documents offer no evidence to support these suggestions.}}
*{{cite book|last=Barrett|first=Roby C.|title=The Greater Middle East and the Cold War: US Foreign Policy Under Eisenhower and Kennedy|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]]|year=2007|isbn=9780857713087|page=451|quote=Washington wanted to see Qasim and his Communist supporters removed, but that is a far cry from Batatu's inference that the U.S. had somehow engineered the coup. The U.S. lacked the operational capability to organize and carry out the coup, but certainly after it had occurred the U.S. government preferred the Nasserists and Ba'athists in power, and provided encouragement and probably some peripheral assistance.}}
*{{cite book|last=West|first=Nigel|title=Encyclopedia of Political Assassinations|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]]|year=2017|isbn=9781538102398|page=205|quote=Although Qasim was regarded as an adversary by the West, having nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company, which had joint Anglo-American ownership, no plans had been made to depose him, principally because of the absence of a plausible successor. Nevertheless, the CIA pursued other schemes to prevent Iraq from coming under Soviet influence, and one such target was an unidentified colonel, thought to have been Qasim's cousin, the notorious Fadhil Abbas al-Mahdawi who was appointed military prosecutor to try members of the previous Hashemite monarchy.}}</ref> however, pertinent contemporary documents relating to the CIA's operations in Iraq have remained classified by the U.S. government,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wolfe-Hunnicutt |first=Brandon |title=The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-5036-1382-9 |location= |page=117 |quote=What really happened in Iraq in February 1963 remains shrouded behind a veil of official secrecy. Many of the most relevant documents remain classified. Others were destroyed. And still others were never created in the first place.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Matthews |first=Weldon C. |date=9 November 2011 |title=The Kennedy Administration, Counterinsurgency, and Iraq's First Ba'thist Regime |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/abs/kennedy-administration-counterinsurgency-and-iraqs-first-bathist-regime/B4DA680E1CD37E8293DCEE8788C7C826 |journal=[[International Journal of Middle East Studies]] |language=en |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=635–653 |doi=10.1017/S0020743811000882 |s2cid=159490612 |issn=1471-6380 |quote=Archival sources on the U.S. relationship with this regime are highly restricted. Many records of the Central Intelligence Agency's operations and the Department of Defense from this period remain classified, and some declassified records have not been transferred to the National Archives or cataloged.}}</ref> although the Ba'athists are documented to have maintained supportive relationships with U.S. officials before, during, and after the coup.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Matthews |first=Weldon C. |date=9 November 2011 |title=The Kennedy Administration, Counterinsurgency, and Iraq's First Ba'thist Regime |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0020743811000882/type/journal_article |journal=[[International Journal of Middle East Studies]] |language=en |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=635–653 |doi=10.1017/S0020743811000882 |s2cid=159490612 |issn=0020-7438 |quote=[Kennedy] Administration officials viewed the Iraqi Ba'th Party in 1963 as an agent of counterinsurgency directed against Iraqi communists, and they cultivated supportive relationships with Ba'thist officials, police commanders, and members of the Ba'th Party militia. The American relationship with militia members and senior police commanders had begun even before the February coup, and Ba'thist police commanders involved in the coup had been trained in the United States.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wolfe-Hunnicutt |first=B. |date=1 January 2015 |title=Embracing Regime Change in Iraq: American Foreign Policy and the 1963 Coup d'etat in Baghdad |url=https://academic.oup.com/dh/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/dh/dht121 |journal=Diplomatic History |language=en |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=98–125 |doi=10.1093/dh/dht121 |issn=0145-2096}}</ref> Ba'athist leaders were appointed to the cabinet and [[Abdul Salam Arif]] became president. Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba'athist leaders later that year in the [[November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état]]. Being exiled in Egypt at the time, Saddam played no role in the 1963 coup or the brutal anti-communist purge that followed; although he returned to Iraq after the coup, becoming a key organizer within the Ba'ath Party's civilian wing upon his return.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wolfe-Hunnicutt |first=Brandon |title=The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-5036-1382-9 |location= |pages=206 |quote=}}</ref> Unlike during the Qasim years, Saddam remained in Iraq following Arif's anti-Ba'athist purge in November 1963, and became involved in planning to assassinate Arif. In marked contrast to Qasim, Saddam knew that he faced no death penalty from Arif's government and knowingly accepted the risk of being arrested rather than fleeing to Syria again. Saddam was arrested in October 1964 and served approximately two years in prison before escaping in 1966.<ref>{{cite book|author-link1=Efraim Karsh|last1=Karsh|first1=Efraim|last2=Rautsi|first2=Inari|title=Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography|publisher=[[Grove Press]]|year=2002|isbn=978-0-8021-3978-8|pages=25–26}}</ref> In 1966, [[Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr]] appointed him Deputy Secretary of the Regional Command. Saddam, who would prove to be a skilled organizer, revitalized the party.<ref>{{cite book |last=Tripp |first=Charles | page=183 |title=A History of Iraq |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-87823-4| author-link=Charles R. H. Tripp }}</ref> He was elected to the Regional Command, as the story goes, with help from Michel Aflaq—the founder of Ba'athist thought.<ref name="Hanna Batatu">''The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq'' (Princeton 1978).</ref> In September 1966, Saddam initiated an extraordinary challenge to Syrian domination of the Ba'ath Party in response to the [[1966 Syrian coup d'état|Marxist takeover of the Syrian Ba'ath]] earlier that year, resulting in the Party's formalized split into two [[Ba'ath Party (Syrian-dominated faction)|separate]] [[Ba'ath Party (Iraqi-dominated faction)|factions]].<ref>{{cite book|author-link1=Efraim Karsh|last1=Karsh|first1=Efraim|last2=Rautsi|first2=Inari|title=Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography|publisher=[[Grove Press]]|year=2002|isbn=978-0-8021-3978-8|pages=26–27}}</ref> Saddam then created a Ba'athist security service, which he alone controlled.<ref>{{cite book|author-link1=Efraim Karsh|last1=Karsh|first1=Efraim|last2=Rautsi|first2=Inari|title=Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography|publisher=[[Grove Press]]|year=2002|isbn=978-0-8021-3978-8|page=27}}</ref>