Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime

Description

The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 US 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.

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).

'Sassoon's writing is calm and deliberate.' The Times Literary Supplement 'In Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime, Joseph Sassoon has worked his way through the meticulous records in the archives to put together what is a fascinating portrait of the regime, explaining how the Ba'th Party was organized, its relationship with the army, the security organizations, the personality cult around Saddam, and how the regime extended its control over all aspects of life in Iraq.' Emma Sky, International Affairs 'In this well-written and extensively researched volume, Joseph Sassoon ... provides critical insights into the functioning of the Ba'thist party and regime. Deftly analyzing the party's internal structure, intelligence organizations, and relationship with the military, as well as Saddam's personality cult, patterns of control and resistance, and bureaucracy and civil life under the Ba'th, [he] weaves a fascinating narrative of social control and repression.' Eric Davis, Perspectives on Politics '... an impressively researched and perceptive book.' Weldon C. Matthews, Arab Studies Journal