Anti-occupation forces take over city, confront tanks in Saddam home region

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Of course the degree of support for Saddam in parts of Sunni Iraq has
to have a material explanation. I think it lies in the actual role of
the Baathist regime established in 1968. Tdhe 1964 reactionary coup
against Kassem was a military coup supported by Baathist death squads,
which included Saddam.

The 1968 coup reflected the failure of the openly  rightist regime to
stabilize the situation, and the upsurge that followed the 1967 war
and the emergence of the Palestinian movement.  The Baathist military
takeover carried out some important reforms including nationalization
of oil and, I believe, the campaign which largely eliminated
illiteracy in Iraq.  These were bourgeois national reforms that helped
consolidate the position of a capitalist ruling class rooted
substantially in the top ranks of the military and the Baathists.
Savage repression was also characteristic of this regime (Baathist
ideology always included a dose of fear and hatred of the masses),
aimed at securing the ruling class' position against any challenges.

Saddam's takeover represented a shift to the right and was accompanied
by an upswing in both totalitarianization and militarization of the
society.  Saddam's takeover was partly a response to the Iranian
popular national revolution, which threatened the Sunni-dominated
political setup which the Baathist capitalists now topped. (Iraq, like
Iran though to a lesser degree, is majority Shiite).  His coup was
supported by the United States, which sought a bulwark against Iran,
and supported Saddam in the war against Iran.

But today the US occupation, in aiming to reverse the victory over
British domination that the 1958 revolution represented in order to
establish more direct US domination, is also aiming to abolish the
nationalization of oil and other reforms that were carried out under
the Baathist dictatorship. Among the Sunnis in particular, this has to
produce a pro-Baathist and even pro-Saddam response among some of the
masses.  After all, the medical and education systems which were among
the boasted accomplishments of the Baathist regime, have been allowed
to collapse and have been replaced with virtually nothing.  And the
foreigners are grabbing the oil.

Even during the war with Iran, which tended to alienate Saddam from
other Arab regimes that identified with Arab radicalism such as Syria,
Libya, and Algeria, Saddam kept his anti-imperialist image polished by
such actions as giving refuge to Arafat and the PLO after they were
forced out of Tunisia by Israeli bombings.  Iraq remained on the
"terrorist" list throughout
Saddam's turn to Washington, and an Iraqi nuclear power plant was
destroyed by Israeli bombers.d

The picture of Iraq as in an uninterrupted and ever-deepening
counterrevolution from 1964 to the present is thus very one-sided.
The Baathist coup in 1968 was a partial interruption in that process
and accomplished some very important national reforms which are now
under direct attack by the occupation.
Fred Feldman


Police flee as Saddam loyalists fuel city revolt
By Patrick Cockburn in Baiji
06 October 2003

Iraqis shouting pro-Saddam Hussein slogans have staged an uprising in
the important oil refining city of Baiji, burning down the mayor's
office, fighting with American troops and forcing local police to
flee.

About a thousand people, some holding pictures of Saddam Hussein,
were in a stand-off with American troops last night, with tanks
surrounding the police station in the city, 160 miles north of
Baghdad.

Loyalty to the ousted president, who is still being sought by Allied
troops, is strong in the Sunni Muslim heartland.

The crowds were chanting: "With our blood, with our spirit, we are
ready to die for you Saddam.''

"We were in a big firefight this morning but now we're back in
control,'' claimed a US soldier manning a checkpoint on the outskirts
of the city. But, despite the presence of American forces, pro-Saddam
townspeople appeared to be in command of most streets in Baiji.

The uprising, which started early on Saturday morning, underlines the
fragile grip on power held by the occupying US troops, and the local
police they have appointed, even in an important centre such as Baiji.

The city lies on the main road between Baghdad and the northern
capital city of Mosul. Baiji contains the largest oil refinery in
Iraq and is on a main oil pipeline. The uprising was largely
spontaneous but was fuelled by hostility to the American occupation
and by rumours that Iraqi oil was being smuggled to Israel via Turkey.

According to Majid, a local man who was in the city centre at the
time five or six men arrived in a Brazilian-made car and began
chanting pro-Saddam slogans.

He said: "A crowd gathered in the market place. Then the police
attacked them and [other] people ... and were also shooting. Four
people were hit and were lying on the ground.''

Enraged by the shooting, many citizens joined the crowd in attacking
the police. The town's police chief, General Ismail Abdullah Jassim,
was in any case extremely unpopular according to Rafid, a truck
driver who, like many people in Baiji, refused to give his family
name for fear of retribution.

He said: "The police chief took all the cars belonging to the
government for himself. He became like a president here in Baiji.'' A
large crowd then advanced on the office of the mayor of Baiji, Hamid
Rajabayef al-Qaissi.

He tried to stop them by saying that the police had overreacted but
the crowd refused to accept this and burnt his office.

The fire was put out but scorch marks showed where the flames had
consumed the building.

The people of Baiji, 30 miles north of Saddam's home town of Tikrit,
are Sunni Muslims. Many of the inhabitants worked in the security
forces and administration of the old regime and lost their jobs after
the occupation, a predicament that has led to many protests.

After the burning of the mayor's office, most of the police fled,
according to local people. American officers at the US base just
north of Baiji demanded that the police returned to their posts. They
replied that they would be killed if they did.

The Americans threatened to sack the officers, who mostly come from
villages outside the city, unless they went back.

The police said they had no bulletproof vests or radios, but later a
few patrols did return to Baiji. Local people attacked Turkish trucks
passing through the town, leaving two vehicles burnt out.

Turkish truck drivers are a target for local hatred in Baiji because
it is believed that they buy fuel cheaply, causing local shortages,
and then smuggle it into Turkey to sell at higher prices.

The crowds were particularly enraged, according to one report, by a
rumour that the oil being taken by the Turkish truck drivers was to
be sold in Israel. But there is no doubt that people in Baiji are
more willing to express their support for Saddam Hussein than
demonstrators in Ramadi and Fallujah, the Euphrates river towns where
there have been repeated attacks on American troops.

The atmosphere in Baiji yesterday evening was still very tense. Iraqi
truck drivers said they were frightened of driving through in case
they were mistakenly identified as Turkish. "No one is in control. It
is anarchy there,'' said one man on the outskirts of the city.

The number of dead and injured is unclear. At one point on the road
there was an orange truck which was hit by a rocket, killing the
driver, local people said.

A medic at the local hospital, Dr Assaf, said 11 people had been
brought in with bullet wounds on Saturday, but he did not know how
many casualties were treated yesterday.

"The most seriously injured have all been moved to the main hospital
in Tikrit,'' the doctor said.

Last night American troops appeared keen not to provoke further
trouble. Although crowds, many holding stones, were still surrounding
the main police station.




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