Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party

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.

Author: Joseph Sassoon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 12/12/2011
Pages: 338
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780521149150

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 03/01/2012 pg. 111
Choice 10/01/2012

About the Author
Sassoon, Joseph: - 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).