Revolutionary Command Council
The Command Council of the (Iraqi) Revolution ( Arabic مجلس قيادة الثورة, DMG maǧlis qiyādat aṯ-ṯaura ) was the highest executive and legislative state body in the Republic of Iraq under the rule of the Arab - socialist Ba'ath Party .
Power
The command council corresponded to a military junta or collective dictatorship and in its abundance of power was roughly comparable to the Politburo of communist Eastern Bloc countries, the National Security Council of the Soviet Union , the National Defense Council of the GDR or like all of these together. The government (cabinet) and parliament (national assembly) were subordinate to him by constitution, the command council was solely responsible to the Ba'ath party. According to the constitution, he (not the National Assembly) was responsible for appointing the Iraqi government until 2003, as well as electing the president for a seven-year term by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Command Council (until 1995, then the Command Council elected a presidential candidate from among its members with a two-thirds majority, who was then manipulated Referendum as president was confirmed). In addition, the Command Council set the guidelines for the internal, foreign and security policy of Iraq, especially economic policy.
history
In theory, the Command Council existed from its establishment on July 17, 1968 until the alleged death of its last incumbent chairman Izzat Ibrahim ad-Duri on December 3, 2005.
In fact, however, the republican officers under Kassim had already united the executive and legislative branches in 1958 in a "Revolutionary Council" (Council of the National Revolution) or a "Revolutionary Government". When Kassim was overthrown by his successor Arif and his Baathist partners in 1963, a (three-member) "National Revolutionary Command" (Nationalrat des Revolutionary Kommandorat) was set up in personal union with the cabinet, reorganized when the Baathists were overthrown by Arif on November 18, 1963 , on August 14, 1965, however, it was dissolved and replaced by a "National Defense Council", which initially (until 1966) gave up its power to a civilian head of government ( Bazzaz ). The omnipotence of the Baathist Command Council that followed in 1968 practically extinguished in April 2003 with the overthrow of the Baath regime by the US invasion .
Interaction between party and state
The revolutionary command council must not be confused with the central council (or the leadership) of the Iraqi regional command of the Ba'ath party . In addition to a Syrian regional command, there had been an Iraqi regional command since 1952 and, above both, an all-Arab national command of the Baath party. The Iraqi regional command of the Baath Party was initially integrated into the RKR in 1977, and all members of the regional command became members of the command council. The 1968 originally seven-member Command Council (exclusively military) grew to 22 members and thus gained a stronger civil image, state and party were linked.
After Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 and further purges in 1982, it had only nine members (in addition to Vice President Ramadan, mainly relatives of Saddam Hussein), but two Shiites (Haddad and al-Amiri or Saadun Hammadi and az-Zubaidi ) and one each Christ ( Aziz ) and Kurd ( Marouf ). Later other members were appointed to the RKR (e.g. Saddam Hussein's son Qusai ), but again not RKR members to the regional command. Conversely, all RKR members also belonged to the regional command, Bakr and Hussein were both chairmen of the command council and the regional command.
Chairperson
The Chairman of the Command Council was President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr from 1968-1979 , his deputy was Saddam Hussein (1969-1979 also Vice-President). Under the presidency of Hussein, ad-Duri was deputy chairman of the command council from 1979–2003 and then acting chairman after Hussein's capture from 2003–2005. The regional command of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party has been operating from Syria since 2003, while Saddam Hussein's daughter Raghad is working from Jordan to take over the leadership or successor in the RKR in exile and in the regional command in exile.
literature
- Marion and Peter Sluglett: Iraq since 1958 - from revolution to dictatorship . Frankfurt 1990
- Edmund A. Ghareeb, Beth Dougherty: Historical Dictionary of Iraq . The Scarecrow Press, Lanham / Oxford 2004
Members
- ↑ Beth K. Dougherty, Edmund A. Ghareeb, Historical Dictionary of Iraq , Appendix B.