Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime
The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 U.S. invasion. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence and an extraordinary surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured by the United States after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how it operated via its network of informers, and how the system of rewards functioned. Saddam Hussein's authority was dominant. His decision was final, whether arbitrating the promotion of a junior official or the death of a rival or a member of his family. As this gripping portrayal of Saddam Hussein's Iraq demonstrates, the regime was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China and some of the regimes in the Arab world who are witnessing upheavals, are not not dissimilar from the Ba‘th regime.
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Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime
The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 U.S. invasion. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence and an extraordinary surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured by the United States after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how it operated via its network of informers, and how the system of rewards functioned. Saddam Hussein's authority was dominant. His decision was final, whether arbitrating the promotion of a junior official or the death of a rival or a member of his family. As this gripping portrayal of Saddam Hussein's Iraq demonstrates, the regime was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China and some of the regimes in the Arab world who are witnessing upheavals, are not not dissimilar from the Ba‘th regime.
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Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime

Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime

by Joseph Sassoon
Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime

Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime

by Joseph Sassoon

Overview

The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 U.S. invasion. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence and an extraordinary surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured by the United States after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how it operated via its network of informers, and how the system of rewards functioned. Saddam Hussein's authority was dominant. His decision was final, whether arbitrating the promotion of a junior official or the death of a rival or a member of his family. As this gripping portrayal of Saddam Hussein's Iraq demonstrates, the regime was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China and some of the regimes in the Arab world who are witnessing upheavals, are not not dissimilar from the Ba‘th regime.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780521149150
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 12/12/2011
Pages: 338
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joseph Sassoon is Adjunct Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arabic Studies at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerous books including Economic Policy in Iraq, 1932–1950 (1987) and The Iraqi Refugees: The New Crisis in the Middle East (2009).

Table of Contents

1. The rise of the Ba'th party; 2. Party structure and organization; 3. The Ba'th party branches; 4. Security organizations during the Ba'th era; 5. The Ba'th and the army; 6. The personality cult of Saddam Hussein; 7. Control and resistance; 8. Bureaucracy and civil life under the Ba'th.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Sassoon has immersed himself in the documents and tapes of a regime that was meticulous in the recording of its savagery, and his scholarship imparts the original smell of fear as it elucidates. In the fast-diminishing roster of regional despots, Saddam and his personality cult came closest to being an Arab Stalin. Yet Sassoon brings out superbly that this was a system that was not totalitarian, but a balance of extreme violence and extravagant reward, a demonic machine to keep people down rather than determine what they believed. A chilling account of the inner workings of arguably the worst of the Arab security states.” – David Gardner, International Affairs Editor, Financial Times, and author of The Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance (2009).

“An absolute must-read for anyone interested in the structure of modern Arab authoritarian political systems. This is the first inside look at Saddam Hussein’s bureaucratic style of rule by rewards and punishments based on original party documents. Fair and judicious, it does much to revise the simple-minded view of the system as a totalitarian monstrosity based on Sunni domination of the Iraqi Shi’is.” – Roger Owen, Harvard University

“An outstanding book. Sassoon takes Western readers inside the Iraqi Bàth Party as no author has done before. Drawing on hundreds of thousands of Arabic documents and hours of recordings of Saddam’s governing council at work, this book provides an unparalleled case study of authoritarian politics in the Arab world. Engagingly written and remarkably balanced, Saddam Hussein’s Bàth Party is a chilling reminder of the type of regime being overthrown in the Arab Spring.” – Eugene Rogan, The Middle East Centre, University of Oxford

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