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Vol. 60, No. 1 (March 2016)
Iraq's 1963 Coup: A CIA Plot?
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Studies in Intelligence
Vol. 60, No. 1 (March 2016)
Contents
The entries are UNCLASSIFIED in their entirety.
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A CIA Plot?
Iraq's February 1963 Coup
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A CIA Plot?
(U) Ira
February 1963 Cou
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(U) . . . why write an
article about something
we didn't do? Partly to
set the record straight,
but also because the
record reveals an inter-
esting story in its own
right.
(U) Introduction
(U) On the morning of 8 Febru-
ary 1963, units of the Iraqi Army
launched a coup. First they assassi-
nated the Iraqi Air Force commander.
Next, Iraqi aircraft dive-bombed
Rashid Airbase. Within hours, the
Iraqi Army Fourth Tank regiment had
surrounded the Ministry of Defense
(MOD) compound. Other military
units seized regime facilities and
captured commanders loyal to the
Iraqi prime minister, 'abd al-Karim
Qassim. Meanwhile, armed squads of
civilians went door to door, kill-
ing Qassim's associates and senior
members of the Iraqi Communist
Party. The coup's politicos, mostly
from the Iraqi Ba`th Party, announced
the new National Council governing
the country. Qassim surrendered the
next day, and after a brief "trial," his
captors executed him with a gunshot
to the head and showed his lifeless
body on television. On 11 February,
the United States led the international
community in formally recognizing
the new government of Iraq.a
aX) cand al-Karim Qassim was an Iraqi
Army colonel who came to power in a
coup on 14 July 1958. Readers familiar
with Iraq in recent years will recognize the
date, 14 July, as memorialized in the name
of the 14 July Bridge on the soul ern edQe
of Badtdad's International Zone
(U) One author later called the
coup -one of the most elaborate CIA
operations in the history of the Mid-
dle East." Another identified the main
coup leader CIA Near East Division
chief James Critchfield. A Saddam
Husayn biographer concurred. As
Operation Iraqi Freedom was getting
underway in March 2003, a New York
Times columnist noted the irony that
CIA had installed the Balli party in
1963 to begin with. Tim Weiner, in
his history of CIA, Legacy of Ashes,
called it a CIA coup. In a 2009 book,
even the respected Rashid Khalidi,
director of Columbia University's
Middle East Institute, said CIA was
behind the overthrow In separate
issues of the academic journal Dip-
lomatic History in 2013, two more
scholars suggested CIA complicity.
CIA sponsorship of the coup is an ar-
ticle of faith among Iraqis. The prob-
lem is, it's not true. The February
1963 coup was not an agency-backed
program in any manner.'
o why write an arti- (b)(3)
de about something we didn't do?
Partly to set the record straight, but
also because the record reveals an
interesting story in its own right.
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The views, opinions, and findings should not be construed as asserting or implying
US government endorsement of its factual statements and interpretations or repre-
senting the official positions of any component of the United States government.
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A CIA Plot?
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Washington treated the loss of Iraq as a crisis.
enabling CIA to ap-
prise policymakers of the likelihood
that a regime change was coming.
(In fact, the agency's warnings of
a coming coup have often served
as "proof" for conspiracy theorists
that we were in on the planning.)
Importantly, the story is a window
into a transformative period for US
foreign policy in the Middle East that
involved discussions not unfamiliar
to us today: crises in Iraq and Syria,
and presidential consideration of CIA
covert action.
(U) The years of Qassim s tenure,
1958 to 1963, were a period of tran-
sition for US covert action. In 1958,
covert action's reputation still bene-
fited from the legacy of operations in
Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954),
which had made covert regime
change appear relatively easy. In the
late 1950s, CIA was still preparing
stockpiles of arms and gear that
could he delivered to anti-communist
insurgents on short notice, should the
United States see an opportunity to
assist another overthrow. But events
around that time began to shake the
faith
s govern-
ments across the developing world
appeared to be more not less
vulnerable to communist influence,
despite broad US overt and covert
efforts otherwise. More dramatically,
the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba
soured the John F. Kennedy admin-
istration to such operations. By the
early 1960s, the favored model was
longer-term support to anti-commu-
nist proxies, abetted by a new empha-
sis in the US military and Kennedy
White House on the discipline of
insurgency and counterinsurgency.
(U) At that time, congressional
oversight and scrutiny of covert
action was also far less than it is
today. The mid-1970s congressional
investigations into covert actions re-
vealed a range of embarrassing plans,
including an alleged plot against
Qassim involving a poisoned hand-
kerchief. Though the handkerchief
story does not appear to have been a
serious plan (if ever a plan at all), it is
true that, back then, CIA had greater
latitude to explore circumstances for
the elimination of a foreign leader.
This would change as a result of the
mid-1970s congressional investiga-
tions and media exposes, which led
to greater restrictions including the
prohibition of assassinations rnore
oversight, and a rigorous process of
securing presidential Findings. Due
to a paucity of such measures in the
early 1960s, however, the historical
record is murky enough for conspir-
acy theorists (and some otherwise
scholarly writers) to entertain stories
such as the CIA's alleged complicity
in the ant i-Qassirri coup of 1963.
(0 The Policy Background
(U) As 1958 began, the Cold
War balance of power in the Middle
East was reasonably tolerable to the
United States, which counted Turkey,
Jordan, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia
as "pro-West," to use the term of the
era. But over the course of 1958, the
US position in the region grew pre-
carious. Egyptian President Gamal
`abd al-Nasser, the roost notable Arab
nationalist at the time, had joined
his nation with Syria into an Egyp-
tian-Syrian state called the United
Arab Republic. In Iraq, Qassim
ousted a Western ally, and US policy-
makers saw Qassim's acceptance of
military aid from the Soviet Union as
disrupting the balance of power. By
the end of 1958, the Soviet position
in the Middle East had strengthened
markedly.
ashington treated the
loss of Iraq as a crisis. To coordinate
a US response, the State Department
created the interagency Special Com-
mittee on Iraq, with senior represen-
tatives from the State Department,
NSC, CIA, and the US military. In
today's terms, this was essentially
a recurring Deputies Committee
meeting, together with the relevant
agencies top Middle East hands.
Committee members discussed the
range of policy responses, includ-
ing overt arid covert use of force to
unseat Oassini.
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On the committee, the US (b)(3)
military and CIA favored armed in-
tervention, stating in April 1959 that
"time is of the essence and . . we
had about reached the point of now
or never.'" In May, a CIA attendee in-
sisted that the United States "should
rnove with all dispatch to throw the
Communists out of Iraq." Committee
members considered several ideas,
such as supporting an Iraqi govern-
ment-in-exile and even conventional
military operations. But the State
Department was cautious, noting the
lack of an internal Iraqi actor with
whom to partner, and believing that
US action would he locally unpopu-
lar and counterproductive.'
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A CIA Plot?
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(U Anti-Qassim Planning
Though lacking orders
to use force against Iraq, the inter-
agency committee charged CIA with
developing contingency plans in
case a future development warranted
covert intervention.
Though lacking orders to use force against Irac(b)(3)
the interagency committee charged CIA with developing
contingency plans in case a future development warrant(-b)(3)
ed covert intervention.
By early 1960, policy-
makers no longer viewed Iraq as a
crisis. By then, an outright commu-
nist takeover of Iraq seemed unlike-
ly. The Special Committee on Iraq
disbanded in March. When John F.
Kennedy took office the next year,
his administration was somewhat
hopeful about Iraq. In March 1961.
the State Department wrote that
-U.S.-Iraq relations during the past
year have returned to a measure of
normalcy. . [and that] . . indica-
tions are that further improvement
can be expected."
(U) Through 1961, the US focus
on Iraq shifted toward monitoring
internal stability and preparing a
policy response to any major chang-
es. Qassim appeared vulnerable: his
purges of military personnel suspect-
ed of disloyalty and an unpopular,
unsuccessful civil war against (b)(1)
Kurds in the north created cnei(b)(3)
within the Iraqi Army. Persecution of
civilian dissent cost him a great ciPnl
of popular support. In June 19((b)(1)
State Department said that �wc(b)(3)
very much in mind the desirability
of early recognition of a non-Com-
munist successor regime (provided
it appears able to hold power)," and
was ready, via the US Embassy in
Iraq, to offer financial assistance to
a new Iraqi government. This is, in
fact, what would happen in February
19632'
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A CIA Plot?
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(b
42 Lcrr7
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A CIA Plot?
THE P VMS
INTELLIGENCE CHECKLIST
U) Brief notes about or related to Iraq were included in sorrye 20 issues of the Checklist during 7962.
Most tems dealt with regional relationships, Soviet military sates, and Iraqi conflict with its Kurdish
population. Thrfitems addressing coup possibilities are summed up in the lost two entries of the
year.
12 December 1962
Iraq. a. Plotting against Qasim by both Baath nationalists and Hashemite
royalists is--yet again--well advanced.
b. One problem has been that the Baathists who have a better chance
of success, have been waiting for a royalist assassination of Qasim.
c. We have reported plots against Qasim before and he is still around.
Qasim's prestige is at a new low, however, and the current plans are
unusually circumstantial. The Beath has in fact held rehearsals.
d. On the other hand, the Baathists do not have a good record for keeping
coup plans secret; if we know of this one, Qasim's security apparatus
probably does too.
20 December 1962
e. Ira c: Plotters called off the coup which they had planned
Timely reassignment of key military officers makes it obvious that
Qas s boys knew what was afoot.
1963
(U)Two items in January presaged the coop. One on 75 January noted that "the regirryes of Jordan,
Syria and !rag are now plagued with serious domestic troubles and we would not be surprised to see
the lid blow in any one of these countries" The second, devoted exclusively to Iraq took note of
Qasim's "inept handling" of the carrypaign against Kurds in northern Iraq and pointed out the
increase in military dissatisfaction with his leadership. The following item led the 8 February 7963
edition of the PICL.
8 February
Iraq a. The revolt against Qasim began this morning.
b. It is being led by Army officers, many of them members of the Beath
party. Qasim virtually jarred the conspirators into action by undertaking
within the past few days to purge army ranks of officers suspected of
opposing him and by arresting a number of Beath party leaders
c. Baghdad radio is in the hands of the insurrectionists. It claims that
Qasim has been killed. (A background summary on the revolt is included
separately.)
(Editor's note: See following page for the first page of the one and a quarter page summary.)
This graphic is classi
1$,SIJED Mr 1,.E
CENTRAL. IN . N A CY
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PP)
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Via cables, the State Department also
apprised Washington of the coup, i(b)(3)1(3)
prospects, and the policy implica-
tions as the events unfolded. Much(b)(3)
of the declassified State Department
correspondence is now available to
the public in the Foreign Relat(b)(1) tbw3)
of the United States (FRUS) sc(b)(3)
Also available now are the somewhat
redacted PICLs and PDBs published
during the Kennedy/Johnson admin-
istrations. (See following page for
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A CIA Plot?
8 February 1963
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT
Ckground on Revolt in Iraq
1. The Beath was formed in Syria in 1954 by
Michel Aflaq and Akram al-Rawrani. It is "social-
istic," pan-Arab, anti-West, anti-Communist, and
the most widely organized political party in the
Arab world today. However, it is rent with dis-
sension and divided into pro- and anti-Nasir fac-
tions. In Iraq, the party pays lip service to
Nasir's pan-Arabism, but it has no wish to see
Iraq's identity submerged in a Nasir-controlled
state. While anti-Communist, the Baath could not be
expected to reverse present policy toward Moscow
in such fields as arms procurement and trade. How-
ever, the Baathisto would favor a more neutral
policy between the Soviet Bloc and the West than
has Qasim.
2. Several of the key
aders of the present
revolutionary group have e idnntifind
army officers.
3. The move against Qasim was sparked by a
number of factors. Qasim has attempted persistent-
ly to crush the Beath. (The Beath in October 1959
nearly succeeded in killing him and he was hos-
pitalized for two months.) His strongly pro-
Communist policies, his unsuccessful 20-month old
campaign against the Kurds, his bitter feud with
Easir, and the loss of face caused Iraq by hip in-
sane antics were further incentives to revolt.
4. The USSR has suffered a setback in Iraq.
There is little doubt that the new revolutionary
regime will do its best to crush the Communists for
good. A blood bath is likely. Street fighting be-
tween Communists and anti-Communists is going on in
Baghdad now.
5. The Arab World: Nasir will be given a
great boost by the suecess of the, coup--he will do
(U) The remainder of this paragraph brick evaluates the impact of the coup on regional
relationships. The next, concluding, paragraph suggests that y' the "revolution" succeeds, the
new government is likely to evolve into a coalition of anti-communist nationalist elements.
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A CIA Plot?
a summary and background on the
coup that was delivered to the White
House with the morning's PICL.)
The honeymoon between the US government (b)(3)
and the new government in Iraq was short-lived: within
months, extremist elements of the Baith were pushing the
moderates out.
(b)(11.
.th Iraq ;(k(b)(1
(b)(3)
The honey moon between
the US goverment and the new
government in Iraq was short-lived:
within months, extremist elements of
the Bath were pushing the moderates
out. In July, 1963, CIA's Office of
National Estimates noted "a growth
of a spirit of violence and extremism,
expressing itself in street killings and
summary executions." By that time
CIA assessed that the Ba�th "does
not have broad popular support,"
and that its repressive measures were
causing most Iraqis to oppose it. In
November, a more radical faction
consolidated power, at the expense of
the remaining moderates and minor
parties that had initially supported the
Bath,"
(U) The United States contin-
ued to have uneasy relations with
Iraq for several years. The United
States evacuated its embassy during
the 1967 Arab-Israeli War when it
became one of the numerous US em-
bassies throughout the Middle East to
be targeted by protesters, angi-y over
presumed US complicity in Israel's
attack on its Arab neighbors.12 With
the exception of a small interest of-
fice beginning in the early 1970s, the
United States would not have formal
diplomatic relations
until the mid-1980s.
� � �
(I) The Allegations of
CIA Complicity
(U) In contrast to the above ac-
count, scores of books, articles, b(b)(3)
reviews, and blogs have asserted CIA
responsibility for the coup, often
invoking one particular line quoting
a Bath Party official as saying, "We
came to power on a CIA train.- The
most confident assertions that the
coup was a CIA plot all seem to track
back to Said K. Aburish's A Brutal
Friendship: The ffi?st and the Arab
Elite (Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1997).
Not everyone cites him directly:
Lloyd Gardner cites Andrew and
Patrick Cockburn, who cite Aburish;
Rashid Khalidi cites Tim Weiner,
who cites Aburish. In 1997, Andrew
Cockburn wrote an article for the UK
Independent announcing that -fresh
evidence has emerged" that the coup
was "organised and fine-tuned by the
CIA." The new evidence was Abur-
ish's book.'
(U) Problematically, A Brutal
Friendship falls well short of any rea-
sonable scholarly standard. Accord-
ing to one book review, most serious
academics and career diplomats who
had served in the Middle East dis-
missed the book. A Brutal Friendship
is replete with conspiracy, hyperbole,
half-truths, blurred context, and lack
of sourcing for its boldest claims."
The author's key sources for CIA
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A CIA Plot?
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(U) Former CIA analyst may have inad-
vertently led some readers astray by stating in a 1988
book that the coup "was forecast in exact detail by CIA
agents."
complicity in the 1963 coup were
left unidentified, and for the quote
about "coming to power on a CIA
train." he cited only an article in Al
Quo's al Arabi, an Arabic-language
newspaper published in London,
dated 14 February 1996. He provided
neither context nor elaboration of the
quote's usage.
(U) An earlier version of the
"train" quote appears in an article by
\\Triter Sami Yousif, in a multi-author
volume called The Gulf frVir and the
New 11'S rid Order (Zed Books, 1991).
According to Yousif, Ali Salih al-
Sa'di said in 1971 that "we came to
power on an American train." Yusif
gives no citation, and Yousif's ensu-
ing sentence suggests that al-Sa'di
was actually talking about Bacth-US
cooperation in the period after the
coup, i.e., that US support helped the
Ba�th Party consolidate its power. It
is an alarmingly spurious basis on
which so many accounts of the coup
have come to rest. (Nor is Yousif's
article compelling: his thesis is that
the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
was actually a covert, US-backed
Iraqi invasion, deployed in order to
justify further US intervention in the
Middle East.)''
(U) Themes of the Evidence Of-
fered in Support of the Claim CIA
Was Involved in the Iraqi Coup
Because CIA had
advance Information on the coup
plans, CIA was responsible. It is
true, as stated above, that the agency
disseminated reports about the coup
plotting; in fact, the reporting was
so voluminous that the daily Central
Intelligence Bulletin ceased high-
lighting each report as it came in and
instead folded them in to the Mekly
Review But awareness does not
equal complicity, and the inference
that CIA's knowing about something
means CIA has therefore caused it is
illogical. i6
(U) Former CIA analyst
may have inadvertently
led some readers astray by stating
in a 1988 book that the coup -was
forecast in exact detail by CIA
agents." This quote appears in several
accounts as evidence of CIA com-
plicity; however, the word "agents" is
how CIA refers to foreign nationals
who are recruited to provide secrets.
is correct that agents of the
CIA reported the plans of the coup to
CIA officers.'
ecause CIA had links
with a group beforehand, CIA
directed its actions. This is a recur-
ring fallacy in the literature on CIA,
from the Cold War era to the more
recent world of counterterrorism.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the agency
had contacts with scores of oppo-
sitionist groups in the Middle East,
many of which would later emerge
as adversaries. In some cases.
the agency gave modest subsidies
to some of their media outlets. In
others, the agency used them to
spread specific covert action themes.
Hundreds of groups around the world
received covert funding from CIA
during the Cold War and afterward.
In nearly all, a key CIA motive was
to gain intelli
activities.�
ence resortin on their
(U) Alleged admissions by then�
NE Chief James Critchfield. Sev-
eral authors allege that former NE
Division Chief James Critchfield has
acknowledged CIA responsibility. In
one oft-cited quote, Critchfield says,
"We really had the T's crossed on
what was happening.. . . We regard-
ed it as a great victory." The quote is
from the aforementioned Cockburn
biography of Saddam Husayn, Out
of the Ashes, sourced to a personal
interview with Critchfield in 1991
though with no context on exactly
what part of the events Critchfield
was talking about.
rt7 It appears that the quote
concerned CIA's e o tinot o c -
ations
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(U) Other writers cite an inter-
view Critchfield gave PBS, which
appeared in a 2000 Frontline televi-
sion special on Saddam Husayn. In
it, Critchfield's comments that the
agency was well-informed about
the coup are used to suggest CIA
involvement. But this is the fallacy
addressed above, that foreknowledge
equals control. Further, the writers
ignore that elsewhere in the interview
Critchfield says CIA wasn't involved.
Nowhere in the public or classified
record does Critchfield state that the
coup was an agency operation.
Because the United
States welcomed the coup, it was
complicit One frequently-referenced
passage is from NSC official Robert
Korner, who on the day the coup be-
gan called it "a net gain for our side."
Another is from Baghdad embassy
political officer James Akins, who
said that, "On account of the Ba'th
coup, we enjoyed better relations
with Iraq.- These and many quota-
tions like them, in which US officials
praise the overthrow, do nothing to
demonstrate that the coup was a US
program.
(U) Several writers point to the
fact that US Embassy Baghdad con-
tacted the rebels on 9 February, the
second day of the coup, and promised
them recognition if they succeeded.
This is true, as a now-declassified
cable from the embassy attests.
According to an earlier Washington
memorandum in June 1962, the State
(U) One wonders why CIA would have had to tell the
conspirators�many of whom were insiders in the secu-
rity services and savvy politicos�whom they needed to
eliminate.
Department had been prepared for
such a contingency. But nowhere
do these documents imply that the
United States had brought on the
coup; instead, they reflect the sort of
pragmatic foreign policy decisions of
the US government that occur as one
regime appears to be well underway
in supplanting another.
[7./-7In fact, policymakers pre-
ferred to wait until Iraq approached
the United States
(U) That the presence of lists of
people to be eliminated implies a
CIA hand. Another theme and the
most sensational is the assertion
that the thousands of deaths during
and soon after the coup were CIA-or-
dered murders. Said Aburish alleges
that CIA compiled lists of people
to be killed, positing the number
5,000, but suggesting it could have
been as high as 30,000. He fails to
give compelling evidence for such a
strong assertion, and an agency role
in the killings makes little sense. One
wonders why CIA would have had
to tell the conspirators many of
whom were insiders in the security
services and savvy politicos whom
they needed to eliminate. The senior
security officials in the Qassim gov-
ernment were well-known, as were
the communist party members. The
Iraqis themselves had the keenest
understanding of who controlled the
Qassim regime and the communist
party not Americans.
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(U) Aburish and others claim that
CIA broadcast the names of those to
be killed over the airwaves from a
radio station outside Iraq in order tom )
infoun the hit squads. King Hussein
of Jordan once asserted that this wz(b)(1)
the case, which several writers have
mentioned as evidence. But this also
fails the common sense test: if CIA
had given the coup its instructions
via open radio broadcast heard by
large swaths of the population why (b)(3)
would this fact need to be �rev(b)(11
by one person years later'?' (b)((b)(1)
(U) Has Anyone Gotten it Right?
(U) Thankfully, yes. The best
(though apparently least-read)
histories from academia generally
have it right. The superior account is
by Hanna Batatu, in The Old Social
Classes and the Revolutionary Move
merits of Iraq (Princeton University
Press, 1978). Batatu mentions the
allegations against CIA but says that
agency involvement cannot be cer-
tain. Batatu points out the ease with
which the information on whom to
eliminate could have been gathered
by Iraqis themselves.
(U) Another good source is that
of Peter and Marion Sluglett, whose
Iraq Since 1958(1. B. Tauris, 1990)
says the compilation of the lists is a
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matter of conjecture and was within
the motives and abilities of many
groups in the Middle East. Books
by Ofra Bengio, Charles Tripp, and
Phebe Man also leave CIA out of the
equation, and they consider internal
Iraqi factors, such as Qassim's re-
pressive measures, as influencing the
coup. A well-researched 2011 article
in the International Journal ofMid
dle East Studies discusses several of
the joint security programs between
the United States and Iraqi Bath
government, in proper context, with-
out the allegation that CIA had been
behind the overthrow A recent book,
Mission Accomplished? The United
States and Iraq Since World War I
(Oxford University Press, 2011), by
Peter L. Halm, gets it right though
one reviewer castigated him for
failing to conclude that the coup was
a CIA machination.''
(U) Some broader histories of the
Middle East by reputable scholars
have also avoided the canard. Mal-
com H. Kcrr's landmark The Arab
Cold War: Carnal 'abd al-Nasir and
His Rivals, 1958 1970(Oxford Uni-
versity Press, :1971) depicts the coup
in indigenous terms with no mention
of CIA. Odd Arne Westad, in his
Bancroft Prize-winning The Global
Cold Ilk: Third World Interven
lions and the Making of Our Times
(Cambridge University Press, 2007)
does not mention a US plot, when a
lesser scholar would have had every
reason to do so in a book about US
and Soviet power abroad during the
Cold War. Douglas Little has a good
depiction of the internal dynamics of
the coup in American Orientalism:
The United States arid /lie Middle
East Since 1945 (University of North
Carolina Press, 2002), which ap-
propriately puts into context the US
government's pleasure at Qassim's
fall."'
(U) In the end, a healthy skep-
ticism might still prompt one to
wonder whether there is some remote
possibility that the 1963 coup was a
CIA operation. We are, after all, in
+ + +
the intelligence business, and we're
supposed to be skeptical. Could this
have been a program so secret as to
have avoided leaving any trace, even
today? Is the entire documentary
record a collection of forgeries and
"eyewash- records and one that
moreover has deceived the Cold War
scholarly community and historians
of the Kennedy administration? Was
there a secret cabal within the US
government powerful enough to top-
ple foreign governments, but whose
activities have never been revealed?
Did the mid-1970s congressional
committees in their wide-ranging
access to government secrets miss
this? (Or did they discover it and join
the cabal'?) At that level, only the
most incorrigible conspiracy theorist
would cling to the belief that CIA
was behind the 1963 Iraq coup. The
fact that many writers will do so,
undaunted, is sure to keep the issue
alive. For CIA historians, at least it
keeps the job interesting.
48
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Em /notes
1. (U) In order as cited in the paragraph: Said K. Aburish, Nasser: The Last Arab (St. Martin's Press; 2004), 213; Lloyd C. Gardner, Three
Kings: The Rise elan American Empire in the Middle Fast after 114.trld War 11(The New Press, 2009); 196; Andrew and Patrick Cock-
burn; Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (Ilarper; 1999), 74; Roger Morris, "A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making,"
New York Times, 14 March 2003; Tim Weiner, Legacy of A.shes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday, 2007), 141; Rashid Khalidi,
Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East (Beacon Press; 2009); 151; Tareq Ismael, review of Peter
L. Hahn, Mission Accomplished? The United States and Iraq since World 1t-Ir I(Oxford University Press, 2012) in Diplomatic History
37, no. 3 (June 2013); 605-7; Eric Jacobsen, "A Coincidence of Interests: Kennedy, U.S. Assistance; and the 1963 Iraqi Bath Regime,"
Di,plomatic History 37, no. 5 (November 2013), 1029-59.
((b)(3)
(b)(1)
12. (U) Robert B. Semple Jr., "U.S. Flies Planes to Libyan Base and Beirut to Evacuate Citizens," New York Times,7 June 1967,18.
13. (U) Full citations for these works are provided in endnote I. Cockburn, "Revealed, how the West set Saddam on the Bloody Road to
Power," UK Independent, 29 June 1997.
14. (U) This is the present author's judgment, which several reviewers share. Middle East historian Daniel Pipes�controversial due to his
denunciations of the academic field of Middle East history called A Brutal Friendship "the slightly deranged musings of one out-
of-touch intellectual." Aburish's section on Iraq in the early 1960s, a pro-Qassirn bias is apparent: "For twenty-four hours Kassem
fought back, and throughout he behaved like a gentleman officer. . . . When the time to execute him came, he shouted; 'Long live the
people With a steady voice which betrayed no fear or remorse." Aburish, A &ilia! Friendship, 138-39.
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15. (II) Sami Yousif,"The Iraqi-US War: a Conspiracy Theory, The Gulf War and e Voila Order, Haim Bresheeth and Nira
Yuval-Davis, eds., (Zed Books, Ltd., 1991), 51-69.
20. (II) Hamm Batatu, 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 Mists and Free Officers (Princeton University Press, 1978), 985-86. Batatu recounts King Hussein's
accusation but remains neutral on its veracity.
21. (U) Batatu, The Old Social Classes and Revolutionary Movements oftraq, 966-994; Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, hag
Shice 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship (I. B. Tauris, 1990 revised edition, original 1987); Ofra Bengio, Saddam's Political
Discourse in Iraq (Oxford University Press, II 998), Charles Tripp, A History of bag (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 3' edition;
Phebe Man, The Modern History of _Iraq (Westview Press, 2012), 3'd edition; Steven Halm, Mission Accomplished?, Weldon C. Mat-
thews, "The Kennedy Administration, Counterinsurgency, and Iraq's First Ba'thist Regime," in International Journal of Middle Fast
Studies 43 (2011), 635-53. In the June 2013 issue of Diplomatic History, political scientist Tareq Ismael reviewed Mission Accom-
plished?and offers several pieces of "evidence" that CIA was pulling the strings, but the evidence is nothing more than the fallacies
mentioned M this article.
22. (U) Malcom H. Ken, The Arab Cold War: Carnal `abd al-Nasir and his Rivals, 1958-1970 (Oxford University Press, 1971), 3'd edition;
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third- World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge University Press, 2005);
Douglas Little, Americ.:an (Mentalism: The United ,States and the Male East ,since 1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
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50
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