Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr

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Marshal Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, around 1975

Marshal Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr , also Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr ( Arabic أحمد حسن البكر, DMG Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr ) (born July 1, 1914 in Tikrit , Vilâyet Baghdad , Ottoman Empire ; †  October 4, 1982 in Baghdad ) was an Iraqi military and politician.

As chairman of the Ba'ath Party , which was the dominant party in Iraq from 1963 to 2003, Al-Bakr was involved in several coups . From February 1963 to November 1963 he was Prime Minister and from November 1963 to January 1964 Vice President of Iraq. He was then the third President of Iraq from 1968 to 1979 and head of the Revolutionary Command Council . On July 16, 1979, he resigned and passed power to his successor, Saddam Hussein .

Earlier years

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Military career

Al-Bakr was born in Tikrit in 1914 to a notable family in the Ottoman province of Baghdad .

After having worked as a primary school teacher for six years, al-Bakr began training at the Iraqi military academy in Baghdad in 1938 and, on April 1, 1941, the military coup of anti-British politicians and officers under Rashid Ali al-Gailani . The new government proclaimed Iraq's neutrality, which was also supported by al-Bakr. But when the British began to suppress the uprising on May 2, 1941, al-Bakr telegraphed to the fascist kingdom of Italy under Benito Mussolini and Victor Emanuel III. to solicit ideological support. The clashes between British and Iraqi forces, which lasted a month, ended in the Iraqi defeat. Al-Bakr was then arrested and expelled from the Iraqi army. After 15 years he was rehabilitated again in 1956 after several unsuccessful attempts. In the same year he joined the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party .

Political rise

Via al-Bakr, the Baathists made contact with the “Free Officers” movement around Abd al-Karim Qasim . In 1958, Al-Bakr took part in the " July 14th Revolution " under Qasim and Abd as-Salam Arif against King Faisal II.

The new government enabled al-Bakr a quick political rise. During the Qasim rule, he was an avid advocate of Iraq's exit from the Baghdad Pact and an improvement in bilateral relations with the Soviet Union .

In 1959, just a year after the coup, he was arrested on charges of participating in an attempted coup by the Baathist military against Qasim. Despite this setback, he was able to become a leading figure in the Ba'ath Party. While in custody he met al-Salam Arif, with whom he led a Baathist coup against Qasim on February 8, 1963 .

In the late 1950s, when Saddam Hussein became a member of the Ba'ath Party, al-Bakr was first critical of him. Among other things, he rejected his later, very repressive actions against the opposition, while Saddam Hussein criticized al-Bakr's too moderate attitude towards the Iraqi Jews and Israel . Only Saddam's uncle Chairallah Talfah was able to bring the two closer together. Yet Saddam was only a Ba'ath Party member from the start, and not a party activist like al-Bakr.

Because of the repressive policies of Qasim and his government, Ali Salih as-Sa'di , General Secretary of the Ba'ath Party, called on December 24, 1962 for nationwide protests against the Qasim government. In Beirut , Lebanon , leading Baathists organized a coup against Qasim. For this project, al-Bakr secured the support of the military. He set up a “military office” to plan the uprising and was elected first chairman. The office succeeded in recruiting more and more officers against the regime, most of whom were personal confidants or supporters of al-Bakr.

Takeover and Prime Minister

On February 8, 1963 , the military, led by al-Bakr and al-Salam Arif, carried out a Ba'athist coup against Qasim. Qasim was executed, Arif became President and al-Bakr became Prime Minister of Iraq.

As prime minister, Al-Bakr arranged a new edition of the United Arab Republic with Nasser and al-Atassi , but this did not materialize.

In November 1963, Ali Salih al-Sa'di tried to expel al-Bakr from the party. President al-Salam Arif used the turmoil for the military coup of November 18, 1963 and to overthrow the Ba'ath Party. Al-Bakr had to resign as prime minister and became vice president; he had to resign in January 1964.

After al-Bakr had secured control of the Iraqi regional command of the Ba'ath Party, he led a bloodless coup against Abd al-Rahman Arif in 1968 and became President of Iraq.

President of Iraq

Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, around 1968

His presidency was marked by bloody purges . These were used by Saddam Hussein to become the strong man of the regime. Al-Bakr has been a protector of Saddam Hussein since his return from exile in Egypt. Both shared ancestry from Tikrit and were distant relatives.

Al-Bakr was opposed to a compromise with Israel and advocated pan-Arab positions. On April 9, 1972, Iraq signed an alliance treaty with the Soviet Union .

The Iraq Petroleum Company was expropriated and Iraq participated in the OPEC oil embargo that led to the first oil crisis . The high oil price made numerous social and economic reform programs possible for the government.

His other achievements as president include the establishment of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (1970/74), the creation of the National Front with Iraq's Communists and Barzani's Kurds (1972–1978) and the conclusion of the agreement with the Shah (1975). In this treaty, the border between Iran and Iraq was determined. Despite military aid to Syria in the October 1973 war, which saved Damascus from falling, the reconciliation and unification with Baathist rival Syria planned in 1978 did not succeed .

In 1979, President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, now ailing and ready to retire at 65, appointed Saddam Hussein as chairman of the party and his successor. On July 11, 1979, he became General Secretary of the Ba'ath Party and on July 16, 1979, he also took power as head of state and government. After that, Hussein initiated a bloody purge of the Ba'ath Party, banned the Communist Party and also stopped the planned merger with Syria. A year later he began the eight-year war (1980–1988) against Iran.

Even after the purges and the establishment of a reign of terror in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's authority was not yet completely absolute. At first, al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein had only swapped positions, al-Bakr remained in fact vice-president until his death in October 1982. According to rumors, he was poisoned at the instigation of Saddam Hussein, as a Baathist critical of Saddam through a recall of al-Bakr pondered.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr In: Encyclopædia Britannica. (English).
  2. ↑ Ahmed al-Bakr Dies; Former Iraqi President. In: New York Times. October 5, 1982 (English).
  3. ↑ Edmund E. Gareeb: Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Oxford, 2004 p. 36 f:
  4. ^ A b Tucker, Spencer: The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts . tape 1 . ABC-CLIO, 2010, ISBN 978-1-85109-947-4 , pp. 191 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ Tucker, Spencer: The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts . tape 1 . ABC-CLIO , 2010, ISBN 978-1-85109-947-4 , pp. 191–192 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Coughlin, Con: Saddam: His Rise and Fall . Harper Perennial, 2005, ISBN 0-06-050543-5 , pp. 39 .
  7. ↑ a b c Let's pray . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1968, p. 77-79 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Coughlin, Con: Saddam: His Rise and Fall . Harper Perennial, 2005, ISBN 0-06-050543-5 , pp. 27 .
  9. ^ Emadi, Hafizullah: Politics of the Dispossessed: Superpowers and Developments in the Middle East . Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, ISBN 0-275-97365-4 , pp. 87 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  10. ↑ al-Marashi, Ibrahim; Salama ,: Iraq's Armed Forces: an Analytical History . Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-40078-7 , pp. 97 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  11. ↑ al-Marashi, Ibrahim; Salama ,: Iraq's Armed Forces: an Analytical History . Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-40078-7 , pp. 92 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ^ Tripp, Charles: A History of Iraq . Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-87823-4 , pp. 167 .
  13. ↑ Second attempt . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1963, pp. 70 ( online ).
  14. Jump up ↑ Dance for Corpses . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1970, p. 98 ( online ).
  15. ↑ Wave of executions in Iraq . ( Memento from June 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Die Zeit , No. 5/1970, p. 10
  16. ↑ Into the abyss . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1970, pp. 72-74 ( online ).
  17. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Iraq . In: Die Zeit , No. 29/1973, p. 12@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zeit.de
  18. ↑ Efraim Karsh, Inari Rautsi: Saddam Hussein - A Political Biography , New York, 1991 p. 22 f.
  19. ↑ Fleet in the Gulf . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1972, p. 104-105 ( online ).
  20. ↑ Tense muscles . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1972, p. 83-84 ( online ).
  21. ↑ The powerlessness of the giants . ( Memento from January 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Die Zeit . No. 24/1972, p. 21.
  22. ↑ Death before us . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1975, p. 97-98 ( online ).
  23. ↑ Professional . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1979, pp. 156 ( online ).
  24. ↑ Only shards . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1979, pp. 94 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr; أحمد حسن البكر (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iraqi military and politicians
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Tikrit , Vilâyet Baghdad , Ottoman Empire
DATE OF DEATH 4th October 1982
Place of death Baghdad