Baram Neo Tribalism in Iraq

Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein's Tribal Policies 1991-96Author(s): Amatzia BaramSource: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Feb., 1997), pp. 1-31Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/163849 .Accessed: 30/01/2011 13:18

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Amatzia Baram

NEO-TRIBALISM IN IRAQ: SADDAM HUSSEIN'S TRIBAL POLICIES 1991-96

The intention of this article is to show that, when applying his tribal policies, Sad- dam Hussein altered the Bacth Party's most central tenets of faith, how and why he did this, and what it meant for Iraqi society and for the ruling party. Saddam Hus- sein's tribal policy started soon after the party came to power in July 1968, but it went through a quantum leap in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. First, rather than eliminating the tribal shaykh as a sociopolitical power, as dictated by party doctrine, he endeavored to manipulate the shaykhs and, through a process of socialization (or "Bacthization"), turn them into docile tools in the service of the regime. Second, and a far sharper departure from party tradition, he turned the tribal shaykhs into legitimate partners for power-sharing; he tribalized the regime's Praetorian Guard; and he worked to reawaken long-suppressed and often forgotten tribal affinities in that part of Iraqi society which is no longer tribal and to graft onto it tribal values, or what he considered to be such values. Furthermore, he even took some steps to tribalize the party itself, and tribal customs, real or imagined, permeated the state's legal system. Kinship was legitimized as a principle guiding the selection of party leaders, and leaders' tribal roots were played up; tribal honor became a legitimate guiding principle behind foreign-policy decisions; and at least once, the president even called the Bacth Party itself "a tribe."

THE BACTH AND TRIBALISM: THE IDEOLOGICAL

POINT OF DEPARTURE

As soon as it came to power in Iraq in July 1968, the Bacth Party announced in its Communique No. 1 its rejection of "tribalism" in no uncertain terms. "We are against religious sectarianism (al-td'ifiyya), racism, and tribalism (al-qabaliyya)," it declared, defining all these ills as "the remnants of colonialism." On the same day, the leading article in the government newspaper accused the previous regime of fomenting division in Iraqi society, including "tribal sediments (al-rawdsib al-cashd'iriyya)."1l In later years, too, in official party ideology tribal shaykhs and tribalism (al-qabaliyya, al-Cashdairiyya) have been regarded as the epitome of backwardness and social reaction.2 By coming out so forcefully against "tribalism," the nascent regime

Amatzia Baram is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Middle Eastern History, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, 31905 Haifa, Israel.

? 1997 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/97 $7.50 + .10

2 Amatzia Baram

admitted, however grudgingly, that at least as they saw it tribal affinities were still alive in Iraqi society.

Indeed, in a 1971 internal publication limited to party members, then repub- lished in 1974 for the benefit of a much larger readership, tribalism (al-'ashdair- iyya) was still treated as a serious threat to party rule-at least in the Iraqi countryside. Tribalism was regarded as a major obstacle on the road to the "socialist transformation" of the Iraqi village. Its continued existence was blamed on the slow development of the "relations of production" in the Arab world. Making a widespread mistake, the Bacth regime equated tribalism with feudalism, seeing them as inseparably intertwined. The party magazine warned that, although the Ba'th revolution had already managed to eliminate most manifestations of feudal rule

through agrarian reform, surprisingly it had "not achieved anything in regard to tribal structures." The magazine reported that tribal chiefs were already creating disturbances and "tribal fights" to undermine party rule. The peasants' associations were to serve as substitutes for the tribe, and peasants should be persuaded to live in a "peasant family" under the party's leadership. Yet the party analysts admitted that there was no quick solution to the problem. Tribalism was even considered so

powerful that the party organ stressed that anti-tribal policy had to be flexible, and that sometimes it might even seem to contradict the party's strategy. As will be shown, flexibility was practiced, not only preached. Finally, and surprisingly- perhaps referring to the Tikriti and other tribal groupings-the party analysts warned that tribalism had great influence "even within the ranks of the revolutionary and progressive forces" in the party, and their first demand was that any party official who specialized in action in the village must "in the first place himself be liberated from tribalism."3

In addition to the threat it posed to party social ideals and its influence in the countryside, tribalism was also perceived at least as late as 1982 as opposed to Pan-Arabism and Iraqi patriotism-namely, to any national identification.4 "Seces- sionism, sectarianism and tribalism . . . are tearing the unity of society to pieces," a member of the Regional Leadership wrote at that time.5 Almost a decade later none other than the president himself disclosed that tribal shaykhs still had much clout in the countryside, where they were competing successfully for influence with party members.6

In hindsight, the Bacth regime in Iraq has proved to be opportunistic, not to say cynical, in the way it treated its own traditional ideology. Whenever a tenet of party faith became a burden, it was jettisoned unceremoniously. Yet when it was founded in the 1940s the party professed an ideological orientation toward moder- nity and secularism, recoiling from many traditional social values and modes of social organization. When the party came to power in Iraq its declared goal was still "a revolution against existing society . . . building a new society . . . creating a [new] Arab man."7 But Bacth criticism of tribal shaykhs and values is under- standable not only from the purely ideological viewpoint. One has to bear in mind also that Bath members were overwhelmingly lower-middle-class urban youth from Baghdad, Nasiriyya, and other towns. Some, especially in the provincial towns, came from a tribal background, but only few came from shaykhly families.8 The tribal shaykhs represented a competing social elite.

Neo-Tribalism in Iraq 1991-96 3

THE BACTH AND TRIBALISM: PRACTICE PRIOR TO 1991

The decline of the tribal shaykh in Iraq started with the demise of the Hashemite monarchy in 1958, at the hands of the regime of General CAbd al-Karim Qasim and his "Free Officers." The new regime abolished the 1924 Tribal Disputes Regulations, which had given the tribal shaykh unprecedented power over his tribesmen. Like- wise, the Qasim regime abolished the 1933 Law Governing the Rights and Duties of Cultivators. This released the peasants from the legal bonds that tied them to their landlords, enabling them to move and settle in the cities. Qasim also enacted and started to implement a law of agrarian reform.9

When it arrived to power in 1968 the Bacth regime also introduced far-reaching land reforms, going several steps beyond Qasim's. As Bacthi sources disclosed, the reform decree of May 1969 and other laws further limiting land ownership, as well as the creation of government-controlled peasants' associations and cooperatives, were meant to separate tribal peasants from their shaykhly landlords. The tribal system in most of the Shi'i-Arab south is somewhat different from that of the Sunni- Arab center-north (the southern tribes are more splintered; the shaykh often shares leadership with the sadah (holy men, supposedly descendents of the Prophet); the ulama are more influential, etc.). In the south, the new phase of the land reform also held the promise of driving a wedge between the Shici peasants on the one hand and their sddah and ulama, supported by the Shici tribal shaykhs and landlords on the other. Saddam Hussein himself, in one of his earliest public appearances, discussed how to win over the "cheated" poor in the village and to convince them that the land reform was for them, and against the "reactionaries" [read: shaykhs], who spread "tribalism, religious factionalism [read: Shi'i communal and religious sentiments] and regionalism [read: Shi'i and Kurdish reservations vis-a-vis Sunni Arab rule]."10 These reforms did, indeed, alarm the shaykhs and sadah, and in some cases they, rather than the regime, managed to convince the poor peasants to support them.11

However, as admitted by an interviewee from an important Shici shaykhly family near Diwaniyya, the aforementioned steps taken by Qasim and the Ba'th, accompanied by the latter's efforts to penetrate into the village, did weaken the shaykhs and dealt a serious blow to tribal organization. Furthermore, the failure of the Ba'th land reform, combined with new jobs in the towns, resulted in a new wave of emigration from village to town. This, too, weakened the rural tribal units.12 Some tribes split, others almost disappeared, and still others lost much of their sense of unity of interest and purpose.'3 Indeed, according to government statistics, the urban population of Iraq increased by 206.1 percent between 1965 and 1988, but the rural population increased during the same period by only 18.6 percent. And whereas in 1965 roughly half the population was still living in the countryside, in 1988 only 27 percent lived there.'4 Usually, those who move to town are the young, with more skills and entrepreneurial spirit. This meant that by 1991 the tribal countryside had been bled white. Yet, in part because the tribal system was used by the regime, the tribes and their chiefs did not disappear.

This is evident from interviews, as well as from a comparison of reports of tribal activities in the 1990s in the regime's press, and reports of tribes and their whereabouts in sources from the 1950s. When it comes to tribal shaykhs and their families, who

4 Amatzia Baram

presumably had made their peace with the regime, there is evidence of a large degree of continuity: about 50 percent of the old shaykhly families from the 1950s were still regarded by the regime as such in the 1990s. In some cases, the same person had remained a shaykh since the 1950s. Much more common was the phenomenon of the family retaining its status even though the man was gone (i.e., had died or been re- placed).15 The new element here was that the sons and grandsons of the shaykhs from the early 1950s were, in far greater proportions, educated and engaged in the modern professions. Jumping on the bandwagon, some of them even became senior government and party officials, members of Parliament, and army officers under the no- longer-revolutionary Bacth regime.16

In the tribal domain (al-dira), all the evidence indicates that, at least for the big- ger tribes, apart from some important cases of tribal land appropriation in the 1990s, they (or large parts of them) were all still occupying the same geographical spaces which they had occupied in the early 1950s. Even in the 'Amara region, which had suffered most from emigration since the 1930s, the same tribes were still there after more than forty years.17 The same picture emerges also in other regions. Because at present the tribal areas are inaccessible to foreigners, it is not possible to ascertain where most of the tribes mentioned in this study are located along the continuum between autonomous social realities and artificial creations of the regime. Some are certainly close to the former, but even they have been heavily manipulated by the regime. However, if the government and opposition press as well as a few knowledgeable interviewees are not wrong, then one may at least suggest that, despite greater changes in their leadership patterns and social functions over the years, most contemporary Iraqi tribal groupings still evolve around old cores.

Since it came to power in 1968 the Bath regime has been working at cross- purposes. On the one hand it made great efforts to reduce the influence of the tribal shaykhs; in the Sunni areas it also endeavored to weaken the largest and strongest tribes. On the other hand, cooperation with tribal shaykhs was widespread. Though baffling, such a policy was not all that unusual. As observed by Dale Eickelman, "The post-independence governments . . . have signaled an ideological break with the colonial past by formally abolishing tribes . . . [yet tribes] continued to be highly significant at the level of practical local administration."'18 In Iraq, in the first place in the seat of power, but also in the countryside, pseudo- or neo-tribal values, hidden beneath socialist, egalitarian, and modernizing party rhetoric, were implicitly promoted. "Neo" because, as will be suggested, the context of many tribal phenomena promoted by the Ba'th was a far cry from the traditional context of tribal behavior and norms. When a highly centralized regime makes use of tribal values to reimpose its full control over its population, what emerges is something new and very different from the traditional set of values.

To break and weaken the strongest tribes, especially those too close to Baghdad for comfort, the regime expropriated large areas of their land. In the case of the Sunni Jubbur, for example, many lands in the tribe's domain west of the Tigris, near al- Mada'in south of Baghdad, were taken and given to other tribes. Saddam Hussein used the same policy with the Shammar Jarba in the Jazira, the 'Azza just north of the capital, and a few tribes between Baghdad and the Iranian border.19


At the same time, however, the Bacth regime initiated certain practices in the party and government which, whether intentionally or not, pushed individuals "back" toward their extended families or tribes; it also implemented tribal policies in the countryside which checked the decline of the rural tribal shaykh; and it relied on tribal loyalties to stay in power. Thus, for example, as early as 1963 it was well known that the majority of Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr's supporters within the army (including Tahir Yahya, Rashid Muslih, and others) came from the Tikrit area.20

Soon after the party came to power again in 1968 it became known that President Bakr, General Hardan CAbd al-Ghaffar al-Tikriti, General Hammad Shihab, and Sad- dam Hussein all came from the same town and that they were broadly related (according to interviews, they called one another "cousin," ibn Camm, even though this did not mean necessarily that they were all blood relations). Likewise, it has been known, at least since he became president, that Saddam Hussein's bodyguards (al- himdya) almost to a man came from the same tribe and the same geographical area. They were housed in special compounds in Baghdad (in al-Radwaniyya, Hayy al- Salam, and al-Qasr al-Jumhuri), and kept isolated from the rest of the city people. He trained and disciplined them, but they were also lavishly rewarded.21 At least since he became president, Saddam Hussein has also recruited people for security positions mainly from certain tribes, notably his own (Al-bu Nasir), the Jubbur, and the 'Ubayd. During the Iran-Iraq War, after the retreat from Khorramshahr in May 1982, Sad- dam stepped up and expanded this policy to other Arab tribes from various parts of Iraq, most of them Sunni but also some Shici. Reportedly, from the Jubbur alone (mainly near Tikrit) 50,000 young men were recruited for the president's personal guard, the Republican, and the Special Republican Guards. All these are units where loyalty to the president was of particular importance, because they were assigned the duty "of protecting him [Saddam Hussein] from the army." In these and other units, officers from tribal backgrounds were promoted more rapidly than others. For the impoverished tribes, military service was a respectable and profitable livelihood and a vehicle for upward social mobility. The president also rewarded their villages by providing roads, electricity, and water systems.22

As the president reportedly explained it, there were two mutually enforcing reasons for his new recruitment policy. In the first place, tribal Arabs were considered badui (Bedouin), even though they had become sedentary or semi-nomadic, and thus the most genuinely Arab in Iraq. Therefore they should be trusted more than others when Iraq was confronting the Persian enemy. Second, they were believed to have retained tribal values such as communal spirit, honor, and manly valor. This, the president believed, made them better soldiers.23 The president also applied this policy, albeit in a more limited way, to Shi'i tribes.

This recruiting and promotion policy backfired when, in January 1990, disaffected Jubburi army officers planned to assassinate the president at the Army Day military parade. The plot was exposed on January 4, two days before the parade. Saddam Hus- sein executed scores of Jubburis and a few 'Ubaydis and, as a precaution, dismissed hundreds more. This deepened the crisis with the Jubbur, reportedly resulting in Jub- buri combat pilots bombing the presidential palace in 1991.24 The reason for the original disaffection among the Jubburis seems to have been the president's policy of

6 Amatzia Baram

tribal land expropriation. It may be assumed that the many Jubburis and 'Ubaydis still in sensitive security positions represent a continuous risk to the president.

The president's tribal policies also backfired when the torture and execution of Air Force Major General Muhammad Mazlum al-Dulaymi provoked, on 17 May 1995, a local revolt of Al-bu Nimr of the Dulaym federation in and around Ramadi. This revolt, even though it did not spread even to all of the Al-bu Nimr, let alone the Dulaym, and although it was crushed within two or three weeks, introduced a new element of mistrust between the president and yet another large Sunni Arab tribal group which still has many representatives within the various security apparatuses.25 Thus, by 1996 Saddam Hussein had an uneasy relationship with at least three major Sunni tribal groups. That he was ready to take the risk and still employ senior officials from these tribes may be explained in two ways. First, as a tribal peasant he was aware, Eickelman puts it, that tribal affinities "provided a range of potential iden- tities ... [rather than] a base for sustained collective action" (emphasis added).26 In other words: practical rather than formal lineage classifications were the primary dictates of political action. Just in case some tribal officers were thinking otherwise, however, he relocated the Jubburis and 'Ubaydis (and possibly the Dulaymis, too) so as to ensure that they would not be able to coordinate efforts against him again, and he started to rely more than before on smaller, less ambitious tribes.27 Saddam Hussein's contribution to the reawakening of tribal identity was also demonstrated in a somewhat bizarre way when, on meeting his soldiers, he would as a matter of course ask them for their tribal affiliation.28

Easier to explain is another practice even further from party tenets. At least since 1980, but according to one source since 1968, the first (and main) form which a candidate was instructed to fill out before joining the party included questions in regard to his tribal origins: "affiliation to a tribe (cashira)" (question number three); if mar- ried, is the wife an Iraqi and to which cashira does she belong (questions seven and eight)?29 This practice was introduced for party-security reasons: the tribal origin of a new candidate could provide clues as to his potential loyalty. Also, mainly in Kur- distan and the rural areas, it could serve as a disciplinary mechanism. More fundamentally, as reported by a keen observer, by destroying all vestiges of independent civil society in Iraq, by holding the family, and the tribe, wherever the latter existed, responsible for the acts of the individual, and by routinely and arbitrarily arresting and torturing people, the regime pushed them to seek protection from the premodern modes of social organization.30

Finally, throughout Ba'th rule, the heads of the regime kept in touch with those tribal chiefs who were ready to cooperate. This was done through low-profile personal visits, modest presents (mostly special hand guns or a Barnau rifle for the chief and some money). Also, cooperating shaykhs could rely on the government to provide jobs at the center for their supporters. Cooperative chiefs also did policing jobs. Punishment for uncooperative chiefs ranged from death through replacement to denial of funds and jobs, and giving jobs in the center and in the Peasant Associations to their rivals. This way their rivals could build their own alternative clientele.31 Re- placing tribal chiefs and splitting tribes are old techniques, used first by the Ottomans and subsequently by the British.32


In the Kurdish north this policy was the key to all the government's interaction with the rural Kurds. Tribal chiefs (many of whom were actually appointed as such by the regime) served as mukhtars (government appointees, mediating between the government and their communities), and as military commanders (literally, "advis- ers," mustashars) in the fighting against the Kurdish nationalists. These mustashdrs commanded tribal units, the Battalion of Patriotic Defense (afwdj al-difi' al-wat- ani)-or, as the Kurdish nationalists dubbed them, jash or juhush ("young don- keys").33 Chiefs and their tribes were recruited also among the small minorities, notably the Turkomans and the Yazidis.34 Before the Shici Intifada, however, these tribal policies were not advertised in the press, as they were diametrically opposed to the party's ideology and its declared strategic goals.

TRIBES AND INTIFADAT SHACBAN, MARCH 1991

Semi-covert support for both tribal shaykhs and tribal identity in general appeared explicitly for the first time in the Bacthi media in the last stages of the Iran-Iraq War and the interwar period (1988-90). It was then that, for the first time, tribal shaykhs won explicit recognition when they publicly pledged allegiance to Saddam Hussein. The reason for this ideological volte-face may have been twofold. First, the Arab tribal identity of the Iraqis could serve as yet another buffer between the Iraqi and the Iranian Shica. (This credo marginalized the Kurds, and not for the first time.) Second, the regime was in great need of support in the tribal countryside. As a result of the massive military buildup (in particular since 1986) the party militia (al-Jaysh al-Shacbl, the Popular Army) was sent en masse to the front. Higher-level Bacth activists were made political officers in all army units, and the party's presence in the villages was thinned out. The tribal shaykhs were seen as a partial replacement.

Until the Gulf War, however, public appearances of the tribal shaykhs were un- systematic and relatively rare. Since the last stages of the Shici Intifada the new tribal policies have emerged into the full light of day. Since then tribalism has become, alongside Arabism, the glory that was pre-Islamic Mesopotamia, and Islam,35 a major ingredient of the Bacth-manufactured Iraqi identity. One reason for the ideological innovation this time may be that, having resorted to a tribal recruitment policy for the elite units for almost a decade and on such a large scale so as not to alienate the recruits in whose hands the power elite placed their personal security, the regime decided to narrow the gap between rhetoric and practice. Second, and more certainly, during the Intifada the Bacth party apparatus proved a near-total failure. Saddam himself later castigated the senior and middle-level membership for their helpless- ness and isolation from the masses in the face of the insurrection.36 In his need for grassroot support against the uprising, and after it against infiltration and guerilla activities, Saddam turned to the tribal chiefs. This decision was not arbitrary. During the revolt in the north, even though most of the tribes who had supported it changed sides, as in previous cases since the monarchy, the regime was still supported by some Kurdish tribal units.37 More likely, those were not whole tribes but, rather, parts

8 Amatzia Baram

of the tribes. Less surprisingly, a number of Sunni Arab tribes supported the regime in the north against the Kurdish revolt,38 and Sunni and even Shici tribes did too in areas close to the capital, where the government hold was in any event fairly firm.39

More significantly, the available information indicates that not all, possibly not even the majority, of Shici tribal groups joined the Intifada in the south in March 1991. Moreover, as a result of pragmatic calculations some tribes, or significant parts thereof, even supported the regime. During the Intifada Saddam identified the potential of cultivating the tribal shaykhs,40 and having crushed the Intifada he was quick to exploit this potential. To be sure, some tribes (or significant parts thereof) joined the revolutionaries and fought, even leading the fighting in certain places. Thus, for example, according to a series of interviews with four Shici revolutionaries, the commander of the revolutionaries in al-Hayy, near Kut, was a son of a local tribal chief. In Diwaniyya the revolt's leadership included two shaykhs of the Bani 'Arid in al-Hamza, one from the Khazacil, and the shaykh of 'Afak (CAfaj). According to the same interviews, a few saddh, too, joined the leadership of the revolt, and their presence helped the public appeal of the revolutionaries.41 That some saddah indeed joined is also evident from a vitriolic attack by Saddam Hussein against Arabic-speaking "Persian" sddiih, who should never be trusted.42 According to another interviewee, a Najafi who subsequently fled to Iran, the leadership of the revolt in Najaf included Shaykh Karim Abu Hunayn of the Hunayn; Shaykh 'Abbas Mahdi al-'Amri (of the 'Ama'ira), and Shaykh 'Ali of the Shalan. They all came armed with their men and wanted to march on Baghdad.43 There were many cases when tribes remained on the sideline.44 Finally, there were a number of cases when tribes supported the regime. As reported by Shi'i opposition sources, a large part of the Khaffaja near Nasiriyya supported the regime because the Khaffaja had a Nasiriyya-born representative (probably 'Aziz Salih al-Nu'man) in a very senior position in the party. (He was governor of Kuwait during the occupation. In 1992 he became a member of the Regional Lead- ership of the Bacth.) Likewise, the Bani Hasan (or Hisan) around Kufa supported the government because their chief, Hatim al-Hasan, had been a supporter of the regime for many years. Also, near Samawa and Rumaytha a tribe (section of the Al Ribbat?) helped the Baghdad division of the Republican Guard cross the river at Mishhuf and take Samawa after the bridge had been destroyed by the Allied air force. Their choice of sides may be explained by the fact that a member of the tribe, Major General 'Abd al-Wahid Shannan Al Ribbat, was the divisional commander.45 Presidential grants given to tribes for fighting "the bands of traitors" in March 1991 may be an indication that they either stood aside or even supported the regime in its difficult hour.46 After all, it is difficult to imagine that the president would actually reward, in public, a whole tribe that had revolted against him in his most trying hour. Such leniency could easily backfire in the next crisis, if tribes realized that acting against the president was not punished but rewarded.

There is some additional evidence that certain Shi'i tribes supported the regime during the Intifada. Some of this evidence is to be found in the Bathi press, and some in that of the Tehran-based Shi'i opposition to the regime. While the Intifada was raging, a few tribes in the south had already vowed loyalty to the regime.47 Two years later the Bathi press published the story of Yasir Hasan Sultan, who was then secretary of the Suwayra branch (shu'ba) of the party in Wasit and later promoted


to governor of Ta'mim. Reportedly, during the Intifada Sultan organized "popular committees," which included the tribal shaykh of the Juhayshat, to take care of local security in the area. They guarded roads and installations and "refuted rumors." What gives the stories some credibility is that the Juhayshat were mentioned two years earlier in the 13 March 1991 message of support, and that no great exploits are described, only routine policing jobs.48 (The Sunni Arab tribes were assigned more meaningful tasks.) Also, Sultan's promotion (a fairly rare phenomenon, as most party officials in the south were later castigated, some even punished severely) is evidence that he did well for party and president.49 Toward the end of March 1991 and during the following months, having realized that the Intifada was doomed, more and more tribes, Sunni as well as Shici, expressed their support for the regime.50 When it comes to the Shici tribes, however, the expressions of support could have been belated attempts to jump on the bandwagon to avoid disaster.5' The fact that many Shici tribes did not join the revolt and that some even marginally assisted the regime made it much easier for the army and the Republican Guard to put down the Intifada. Sig- nificantly, the Bacthi press refrains altogether from mentioning the name of any tribe which joined the Intifada, and there may be no doubt that quite a few did, either as a whole tribe or as a part of a tribe. This would have been far too embarrassing for a regime that had decided to rehabilitate the concept of tribalism.

A scrutiny of the press issued by the Tehran-based Shici fundamentalist opposition to the regime (whose accounts are far less detailed than those in the government press) reveals that it, too, recognized the importance of the role of the tribes in the intifada. Occasionally the reader could glean resentment and exasperation at the fact that some tribes were supportive of the regime. As information in the Shi'i press regarding tribal opposition to the Intifada comes mostly from interviews with young people who fought against Saddam's troops, there is, barring unintentional mistakes, no reason to doubt it. Unlike the regime's press, the opposition press gave a candid if cryptic account of its difficulties with some tribes. Participants in the revolt told al-Jihad that a number of tribal chiefs and their tribes (or parts thereof) collaborated with the regime in the south.52

By far the most important piece of information came from "Harun," the young revolutionary from Hilla. In late February "Harun" left his city to learn what was happening all over the south. He went to Nasiriyya, and on his way back the Intifada erupted in one town after another. During the first days of March (and of the Inti- fada) he traveled among al-Hayy (Kut), al-Fuhud, Diwaniyya, Najaf, Karbala, and Hilla, trying to get arms and advice from Najaf to convince his townspeople to start the revolt there too. The cities and towns through which he moved were ablaze. The countryside was quiet, undecided. Even when Hilla revolted at last, there was a sur- real silence in adjacent Tawarij, located between Hilla and Karbala, with liberated towns twenty kilometers on each side. Only a few days later, sometime between 8 and 11 March, the countryside there, too, revolted. Near Diwaniyya, the rural nahiya of al-Qasim revolted as late as 17 March, the same day on which Najaf fell. Many people in the countryside never bothered to come to town and join the revolt. As "Harun" put it, "In many places the villages did not support the Intifada."

On the basis of interviews with the four revolutionaries and with American officers who were close by, one may suggest why tribes did or did not join the Intifada. Those

10 Amatzia Baram

who fought against the regime did so for a combination of reasons: general Shici protest against Sunni domination or against Bacthi secularism and the relative economic neglect of the south, but also, significantly, discrimination against a particular tribe and bad blood between it and the regime. A relevant reason for tribes' remaining on the sideline may be the fact that the Intifada occurred in March, when the countryside was getting ready for the harvest. Disturbing the peace at such a time was highly unpopular with many peasants.53 Also, for many years the regime had been harping on tribal-Arab chords, warning against Iranian designs on Iraq and the Arabs. These tribes saw themselves as Arab, retaining their old Arab cultural traits. This Arab pedigree and culture was no less important to them than their Shici affiliation, which, in many cases, was relatively new, dating back only to the 19th century or later.54 The regime made every effort to exploit this Arab identity and encourage anti- Iranian feelings. The infiltration of armed men from the Iranian side of the border, welcomed by some Shicis in the towns, alarmed those who feared an Iranian occupation.55 Almost all of those who crossed over-and there were no more than a few thousand-were Iraqi Shicis who had been driven out years before, but the regime described this, cleverly, as an Iranian invasion.

Yet another explanation may be the fact that the tribes traditionally were less in- tegrated into the political and intellectual trends of the larger cities, with the result that they were less ideological or religious than the city dwellers. Finally, there is some evidence that, in the case of a number of tribes, collaboration with the regime came very naturally. These tribes had a vested interest in such collaboration, because for many years they had been receiving benefits from Baghdad, and some of their sons, while not having reached equality with their Sunni counterparts, had all the same become fairly prominent in the regime and could distribute benefits. This was, for example, the case with the Al-Ribbat, whose son reached the rank of major general in the Republican Guard. The same applied to the Khaffaja near Nasiriyya and that tribe's representative at the center, and to those tribes that had members of Par- liament in Baghdad.56 And there were other such cases.57 Ties between tribes and members of Parliament or other prominent figures in Baghdad, especially when the dignitaries originated from the tribe itself, enabled the tribe to cut corners in the capital and advance the interests of members. In interviews with the Shi'i revolutionaries, this kind of connection came up as a major consideration in favor of remaining on the sidelines or even helping the regime.58

THE REHABILITATION OF THE TRIBAL SHAYKH

Until the late 1980s the regime's tribal policies were not given publicity, and they delegated to the shaykh as little authority as possible. During the last stages of the Iraq-Iran War and mainly following the 1991 Intifada a major change took place. The first Intifada-related tribal oath of allegiance appeared on 17 March 1991. In it the tribes and their shaykhs were given more prominence than the rest of "the masses of the great Iraqi people." To those members who still believed in the more central tenets of the traditional faith of the party, this was a truly amazing reversal of the ideological scale of priorities.59 The first public report of a visit by tribal chiefs to Baghdad and to the Presidential Palace occurred at the end of the Intifada in the south. The chiefs were not received, however, by the president himself.60 Later,


meetings between the president and the chiefs at the Presidential Palace became commonplace.

The president's craving for authenticity and theatrical productions came into play when, in 1993, he instructed the tribal chiefs and tribes always to bring with them their rifles and banners and to dance their tribal war dance (al-hosa) in his presence, accompanied by popular poetry composed and chanted for the occasion.61 The del- egation that came immediately afterward, tribal chiefs from Najaf, brought with them their old Barnau guns and tribal banners and performed the hosa for the president's benefit.62 Ever since, this practice has been almost compulsory.63 Two weeks after the president requested that the tribes bring their banners, tribes in the Basra governorate added his portrait to their traditional banners,64 an honor they never bestowed on the Ottoman Sultans (who, admittedly, were geographically much farther away). A few days later those tribal chiefs from Basra who so accurately guessed Saddam's wishes also affixed the Iraqi flag to their tribal banners (al-bayarigh, al-baydriq).65

On rare occasions the president visited the tribes in their domains. Sometimes he would be a guest at the local mudlf (guest house), where he would sit on the carpets in a traditional fashion, sending the message that he was a tribesman amongst tribesmen (or, rather, a tribal shaykh al-mashd'ikh among his lesser shaykhs).66 After the presidential speech he would descend to the tribesmen below, shaking hands and receiving from them small presents such as Cabaya (a robe) or a gold-plated gun, a symbol of manhood. The tribal poets would then compete with one another in com- posing madlh (panegyrics) in the colloquial language in his honor.67

Most commonplace, however, were letters of support sent from the tribes to the presidential palace, which received due publicity in the Iraqi media. These letters were particularly numerous on the eve of national and religious festivals, including the president's birthday.68 Less common, but still quite widespread, was the practice of assembling the whole tribe, or even a few tribes together in one place, and com- posing a collective oath of allegiance.69 At least in one case the representatives of a tribe signed their oath in their own blood.70 In some cases the regime followed the tribal tradition by establishing its own tribal guest house at the headquarters of a governorate or district. Called the "Guest House of the Lord the President" (mudif al-sayyid al-ra'ls) and similar names, such a building would be open all day for consultations between the president's representatives (mostly the governor and his senior officials) and the tribal chiefs.71 This way the regime "tribalized" its bureau- cratic practices in the provinces. In his speeches to the chiefs and their people Sad- dam Hussein would incorporate local tribal expressions, clearly meant to indicate to his listeners that he knew the area and its folklore well and that he, too, had come from a tribal background.72

On these and similar occasions, in their oath of allegiance (al-qisma, al-'ahd, sometimes al-bayca) the shaykhs usually placed the main emphasis on Iraq's sover- eignty and territorial integrity and on Saddam Hussein, "the People's Loved One, and the Architect of Modern Iraq." On some occasions, the shaykhs swore in the names of Islam and "our . . . deep-rooted [tribal] traditions (taqalidind al-aslla)" (which often are at variance with Islam). Saddam, for his part, would promise that "the prevailing traditions . . . among tribesmen should be respected and maintained."73 This amounted to a promise of some tribal legal autoiomy. In a meeting between the president and

12 Amatzia Baram

586 tribal chiefs and clergy from Babil (Hilla, in the Shici south) the chiefs and clergy took an oath that embodied, in a bizarre cocktail, the three bases of political identification that had been ushered in by Saddam Hussein since the late 1960s: the Mesopotamian, the Islamic, and the tribal. Due to some oversight, they omitted Arabism:

In the name of God ... We, men of the monotheistic religion [Islam] and chiefs of tribes . . ., the sons of the District of Babylon, Babylon of history and invention and struggle, Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar . . ., Babylon of ... Saddam Husayn, we swear by God . . . and by his ... prophet ... our readiness to sacrifice . . till martyrdom.74

Occasionally the text of the oath would be placed in al-Husayn or 'Ali's tomb, to give it additional weight.75 In the Shi'i south, part of the oath is a commitment on the part of the tribal chiefs to turn in "infiltrators," "traitors," "saboteurs," "deserters," and other criminals.76 These expressions were directed at their own members and at other Shicis who formed armed bands that attacked government positions and party headquarters.77 Except for one case, when they disavowed the Sunni Arab Dulaym tribal uprising in the Ramadi area in May-June 1995,78 Sunni shaykhs never made such unnecessary promises.

In at least one case, and typically in a meeting between the president and Shici tribal chiefs, the chiefs committed themselves to the promise that they would not avenge the blood (damuhu yakiun hadaran) of a tribe member who was punished or turned in by another tribe for being a criminal.79 This was not an easy matter for a tribal chief, but it is clearly a part of traditional tribal practice: when a member of the tribe puts the whole tribe in jeopardy through criminal or other irresponsible acts that provoke other tribes, the tribe might decide to cut him off.80 However, on the same occasion the chiefs also promised to punish any such criminal even if he belonged to their own tribe. This was a clear departure from tribal norms. The tribe may excommunicate a member (tashmis), allowing anyone to spill his blood with impunity, but it does not itself punish a member for an offense against outsiders. One case in which tashmis was given publicity was when the Jubbur near Hilla excommunicated Ambassador Hamid cAlwan al-Jubburi, who had defected from his diplomatic post to the West.81 Here Saddam thus made use of a tribal tradition, albeit with a twist: the state was introduced as yet another tribe.

In return for these policing duties and symbolic gestures of loyalty to president and regime, the tribes received a number of rewards. The media presented them as symbols of Iraqi identity and patriotism. For people who, since 1958, had suffered from bad press, such rehabilitation was no small victory. The bureaucracy internal- ized the presidential message. As disclosed by a shaykh from Anbar who had also served in Parliament: "When I visit . .. state institutions as a head of a tribe they accord me much more respect than that which I receive as a member of Parlia- ment."82 To emphasize further his close affinity with the tribal chiefs, the president also regularly sent senior personalities, some very close to him, to convey his condolences to tribes that had lost a chief or another dignitary. This practice was not new. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, such high-level representatives had been sent occasionally to the tribes. Now, however, the visits were fully publicized.83 Indeed, another sign of the new age was the fact that important tribal funerals became a


meeting point for the "Who's Who" of the regime: the seniormost party and state officials rushed to be seen there.84 Such competition between Bacthists over a place in a shaykhly funeral would have been unthinkable only a few years earlier. But the tribal chiefs received much more than legitimacy and respect. They became the re- cipients of financial support for local development. Likewise, the tribal chiefs received sizable sums of money for their personal use, and often they also received land.85 The result was that some tribal chiefs or collaborating local dignitaries managed to accumulate fairly large estates.86 Most important, the tribes received a large number of light arms and sometimes even RPG rocket launchers, mortars, and even howitzers.87 The intention was to enable the chief to build a private army among his tribesmen.88 Occasionally the government press reported cases in which tribes apprehended and turned in army deserters; usually there would be a special bonus for such mis- sions accomplished.89 Overall, however, it seems that the contribution of the tribes to security was very limited. Yet their activities saved the regime the need to spread its troops thinly over the countryside.

THE INTRODUCTION OF NEO-TRIBAL VALUES

In an address on the Prophet's birthday in the fall of 1991, Saddam Hussein used the examples of Moses and the Prophet to justify state nominations based on kinship- or, simply, nepotism. In the Qur'an, he argued, Moses "asked God's permission to seek help from his brother, Aaron." Even more daringly, Saddam interpreted God's intentions, explaining that the Prophet himself had been chosen many years before the Message was bestowed upon him, "possibly even as a fetus." In doing so, God relied on His knowledge of the Prophet's family, which was a leading family in Mecca. Thus, lineage was as important to God as what was later added to the Prophet's personality. And the conclusion: "Therefore, ... no one should be allowed to emerge in the . . . leadership in the Bacth party if ... [he does not] come from a good origin ... [a good] family background."90

At an Extraordinary Meeting of the Tenth Regional Congress of the party in Octo- ber 1992 Saddam returned to the Prophet in his attempt to legitimize the principle of the elevation of tribal leaders such as Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and Khalid ibn al-Walid to positions of state leadership.91 This principle was totally alien to the original Ba'thi socialist-revolutionary and egalitarian doctrine. Indeed, had it been applied in the 1950s and 1960s Saddam Hussein himself would never have made it in the party's hierarchy. Tribal values or, rather, what the Iraqi leadership presented as such became quite suddenly a legitimate part of Iraqi and Arab national political culture. This was still so, despite the high degree of ambivalence demonstrated by some party ideologues vis-a-vis these values. Thus, in two detailed articles the editor of the government daily answered "many who ask" why Iraq had invaded Kuwait, then decided to stay and go to war against a superior enemy. The editor explained these decisions in terms of "tribal honor" (al-sharafal-'ashdairi): the Iraqis, whose tribal honor was injured by the lowly Kuwaitis, had no choice but to act, no matter what the consequences. This, he argued, was what tribes always did.92

There are some indications that tribal traditions were allowed to be grafted even onto the Iraqi legal system, as the central authorities became inclined to respect tribal

14 Amatzia Baram

custom in criminal cases. This was unpopular with many party old-timers, because it was reminiscent of tribal autonomy under the monarchy. Thus, for example, a cit- izen accused the minister of the interior of moving a murderer off death row after the murderer's mother promised that the family would settle the affair with the victim's family through internal tribal arbitration (al-fasl).93 "Abu Sirhan," the author of many editorials in Babil (very possibly 'Udayy Saddam Husayn), also went back to tribal values. He defined the killing of male and female prostitutes and a man's right to kill his wife, daughter, or sister if the woman's behavior "harms [his] honor" as part of "our inherited Iraqi and family traditions (taqdild), which distinguish us as Iraqis from the rest of the Arab countries."94 Until the 1980s, the term taqalid was used almost exclusively in a negative context, referring to anachronistic, backward tribal traditions. Now it became fashionable, dictating social behavior. As will be shown, this was clearly an attempt to reach a deep Arab pre-Islamic common denominator unifying Iraq's Sunnis and Shica. To what extent such a common denominator still exists, and how meaningful it is to people, the present author cannot say.

Finally, the most conspicuous case, and a most disturbing one at that, where tribal (or, rather, neo-tribal) norms took precedence over the state's legal system was initiated by Saddam Hussein himself and applied to his own family. In August 1995 Hussein and Saddam Kamil Hasan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law and cousins (being the sons of his first patrilineal cousin, Kamil Hasan al-Majid CAbd al- Qadir), defected to Amman. With them were their wives (Saddam Hussein's daughters), and their children, as well as other family members. In response, the brothers of Kamil Hasan al-Majid (the defectors' father) and their families declared them out- casts, and allowed anyone to spill their blood.95

On 21 February 1996 the two brothers, frustrated by their experience in Amman and having secured a pledge that they would be spared from Saddam Hussein, the Revolutionary Command Council, and the party's Regional Iraqi Leadership, returned to Baghdad. As they crossed the border, they were separated from their wives and children. The next day they were forced to divorce their wives. On the evening of 23 February the Iraqi media reported that they, along with their brother, Hakam, who had defected and returned with them, as well as their father, Kamil (and, according to unconfirmed reports, their two sisters and their families), had been killed in a gunfight by young people from their "family" and "tribe." As emerges from an analysis of the names mentioned, the assassins came from the defectors' khams (a five-generation unit within which all male adults are responsible for avenging the blood and honor of every member). The next day the Iraqi press identified two people who had allegedly died while assailing the Kamils as "the martyred heroes," and gave publicity to the assassins' letter to the president in which they explained that shedding the Kamils' blood redeemed the family's honor. The seniormost state officials, excluding only the president, participated in the two assailants' funeral. The president himself later explicitly endorsed the killings, which, as he saw them, "pur- ified" and healed the family by amputating from the "hand" an "ailing finger." Trying at the same time to distance himself, however, he assured his listeners that, had he been notified about it ahead of time, he would have prevented the assault, because "when I pardon, I mean it."96 Whatever the truth, by officially hiding behind it Sad- dam Hussein unequivocally placed tribal justice above that of the state.


THE SOURCE? STATE AND PARTY OFFICIALDOM

AND THE TRIBAL CONNECTION

It is, generally speaking, since the Intifada that tribal shaykhs and tribal affinities have begun to surface in unexpected places. Geographically, shaykhs and tribes be- gan appearing in the various quarters of Baghdad and, most strangely, in at least one very old quarter where it was widely believed that no tribal organizations remained.97 During the Istifta' (Plebiscite) for the presidency in October 1995, shaykhs in various parts of Baghdad were reported to have established mudifs, in which voters could rest and even receive refreshments, including lamb and rice.98 In the Iraq of 1995 this was a rare treat. It is safe to assume, however, that while in the countryside tribal groupings and values had been largely alive-though partly in abeyance-and thus could be resuscitated, in the city's older quarters (al-A'zamiyya, al-Kazimayn, al- Waziriyya, al-Shaykh 'Umar, al-Kaylani, al-Mustansiriyya, etc.) tribalism was a nearly extinct social structure.

Since the late 1980s and more so since the Intifada, the tribal background of many senior party officials and army officers has been revealed to the public, after many years of official repression of this kind of information. This was, most notably, the case with the president himself and with 'Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, deputy chairman of the RCC and deputy commander in chief of the armed forces. Since the mid-1970s these men and their colleagues had even stopped using their towns' names (such as al-Tikriti and al-Duri) to disguise their regional origins. But in the late 1980s they cast off their all-Iraqi skin by allowing the media occasionally to expose their Al-bu Nasir and Harb tribal pedigree, respectively.99 Many lesser but still important figures went through the same process. Thus, for example, while Lieutenant General al- Ribbat, chief of staff since 1995, never disguised his tribal affiliation, Hani Wahib, editor in chief of al-Qddisiyya, did. Now, quite unexpectedly, he revealed his al-Nida connection.100 Major General Khudayr 'Abbas Ghadban was reported as belonging to the (Shi'i) Karamitha of Najaf;101 Major General Muhammad Salih Ismail al-Khalidi was described as the chief of Al-bu Khalid of Diyala.102 The former chief of staff, General Nizar 'Abd al-Karim al-Khazraji, exposed his Faysal al-Ansari 'ashira of the Khazraj qabila;'103 Habib al-Shaykh Ja'far, head of the Popular Organizations Bureau at the Presidential Palace, was reported to be chief of the Maghamis of Khalis104 (namely, a tribal shaykh who was put in charge of presidential contacts with tribes). By using his last name, Muhammad Zimam al-Sa'dun, interior minister since May 1995, revealed that he was a scion of the old Sunni Arab southern shaykhly clan the Sa'duns of the Muntafiq. A number of officers in the Special Republican Guard were allowed to add "al-Nasiri," to their names, thus exposing their tribal affinity with Saddam Hussein, and there are many more. This left at a disadvantage those leaders, such as Taha Yasin Ramadan, who had no apparent tribal affiliation. (Ramadan is an Arabized Kurd. He refrained from reintroducing his regional surname, al-Jazrawi.) It is safe to assume, however, that this party-tribes symbiosis was not new. It must have existed throughout Bath rule, albeit in low profile. There is reason to believe that even non-tribal party officials developed symbiotic relations with one or more tribes. In return for circumventing the state bureaucracy, they may have expected shelter when they found themselves on Saddam Hussein's hit list.105

16 Amatzia Baram

No less important than the symbolic exposure of the tribal origin of the regime's luminaries was the tribal connection of those people assigned to middle-level state and party positions in the Shici areas. This is the level of officialdom that comes into daily contact with the population: secretaries of large party branches (furui); senior party officials "in charge" of party "organizations," which include two or three furW' each (mas'ul tanzlmdt); and provincial governors. Following the Gulf War and the Intifada, there was a clear shift in the south in favor of nominating members of important southern clans and tribes who were party old-timers.'06 Especially noteworthy is the Sacdun clan.'07 Clearly, after the Intifada the regime decided to rely on this Sunni clan due to its close contacts with both the Shica of the deep south and the Sunnis ruling in Baghdad. This created a short cut in regime-tribe relations, cutting through the impersonal and less-than-efficient Bacthi bureaucracy.

PARTY "COMRADES" AND TRIBAL SHAYKHS

In his speech at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Tenth Regional Congress, the president implied that he was aware of criticism of his policy when he promised his comrades: "the party is at the helm of power . .. [the role assigned to the shaykhs] is meant to be [merely] a supportive one." But Saddam Hussein also warned his subordinates: "[All this], unless our comrades fail to play their role.... In such a case, the others whom we mentioned would replace them and become substitutes for them and their [Bacth] party."'08 Because they could not openly discuss their main concern-namely, that they might lose power to the tribal chiefs-party activists con- centrated their firepower on other aspects of the tribal threat. The most important concern was that the new tribal policy might pose a threat to Iraqi patriotic unity. This included the impartiality of the national legal system and bureaucracy. True, the legal and administrative system in Iraq under the Bath was far from impartial, because the president and his extended family, and a number of senior officials as well as the security forces, were exempt from the general rules of law. Yet there is no reason to doubt the fear among party members that this exemption would be extended to a great many tribes all over the country. This could deny non-tribal Iraqis, including party members, what remained of basic justice and be transformed into tremendous political clout.

After the Extraordinary Meeting of the Tenth Regional Congress and the president's defense of the tribal shaykhs, a journalist tried to deflect flak coming from dis- gruntled party members in an article trying to answer the intriguing question: "Who are the Iraqis?" In reply to anonymous charges that the return of tribalism splits Iraqi society he claimed that "the Iraqi family" consisted of many ethnic and other groups. Yet, he pointed out, all these groups were "closely intertwined" until they created "oneness" (al-tawahhud). In the end, all are united in defense of "the unity of the homeland front."109 Saddam himself suggested an elegant symbolic way to demonstrate the unity of all the tribes within Iraqi patriotism. In a lecture he gave in late 1992 he explained: "The tribes in Iraq have [their individual] banners, but all their banners are sheltering under the banner of Iraq."110 As has been noted, three months later some tribes translated this into tangible symbolism by affixing Saddam's picture and the Iraqi flag on their banners. This was a Bathi recognition of the


reality of tribal identity and family loyalty, as opposed to party membership and uni- form patriotic integration. This was also a declaration of intent to continue and keep things this way, and even encourage these diversities, albeit within patriotic unity.111

However, by admitting a new identity to the national pantheon and a new social force to the equation of political power and economic dependence on the shrinking resources of the regime, the president won but also lost some support. In a few articles in Babil, the daily newspaper belonging to his son 'Udayy, and in the party daily, one could identify party officials' muffled protests against the return of the tribal shaykh. Most notable in that respect was an article entitled, "The Red Line: 'No' to the Damaging Traditions (al-taqalid al-darra)," by a researcher at the Center of Gulf Studies at the University of Basra. In the article, the author lashes out against the tribal policy of the regime in a way that makes one wonder who is call- ing the tune in Iraq. After paying the unavoidable lip service to "The Ingenious Leader Saddam Hussein, may God preserve him," he wrote, in a totally unexpected about-face, that party "strugglers" must point to areas of weakness in the president's policy. Some tribal shaykhs believe that the leadership supports them due to the weakness of the party and the state apparatus, he said, and this encourages them to follow "harmful tribal inclinations." Rather than "encouraging the unity of the [Iraqi] people," these inclinations are "sowing . .. the seeds of division . .. inciting one part of it against the other . . . providing protection . .. annulling the law and depreciating legal justice." Thus, when a teacher reprimands a pupil, the tribal shaykh intervenes and forces him to retract. When a clerk is disciplined by her boss, the next day she summons her tribe to intimidate him. A gun-toting man enters a police station, threatens the guards, and demands the blood of his tribal enemy, who is detained there pending trial, as his inherent right to carry out "tribal revenge" (al-thaDr al- 'ashaDirl). A cab drivers' trade union sacks three of its officials because they try to impose state regulations on tribal members and, in the process, clash with the tribe. Heavily armed tribal patrols are terrorizing the citizens, "and dozens of other examples." If a soldier or a policeman kills a tribal criminal while on duty, tribal tradition has it that the tribe will not intervene. "Yet now," the author complains, "the criteria have changed, and the tribe seeks revenge for the blood of the criminal . . . attempting an armed assault on your home when you had simply fulfilled your duty." And the author exclaims, not very convincingly: "the armed tribal inclination will never be allowed to return!"'12

The president had anticipated a situation in which tribes would use their firepower to settle intertribal accounts rather than to fight the "traitors" and "infiltrators" from Iran, and he warned against it,113 but to no avail. In a detailed letter to the editor, a tribal rural person who preferred to remain anonymous painted a very disturbing picture of intertribal conflicts. Because the story came from a less than disinterested party, it is difficult to tell how innocent this party really was. However, in the issues that followed the one carrying the account, there was no denial of its essential va- lidity by the tribes involved or by the Ministry of the Interior, nor was there any such denial in other newspapers. (Denials did appear when the interior minister felt the need for them.) The conflict involved the powerful Karamisha tribe near Basra, who took advantage of their government-issued weapons to settle accounts with their

18 Amatzia Baram

weaker neighbor, the marsh tribe of the Shaghanya (or Shaghanba).1"4 In the fighting two men were killed, and many were wounded. After the battle, senior state officials and army officers situated in the vicinity and other tribal chiefs tried to mediate but failed. For a few weeks the Karamisha continued to besiege the Shaghanya, who could not leave their tribal dira without risking their lives. The Shaghanya asked: "Are the [state's] security bodies unable to protect us from this tribe?"115

Another, more deadly case of intertribal fighting following the new tribal-empow- erment policy involved a major confrontation that started between two tribes near al-Hayy, south of Kut, as a land dispute. The result was a multi-tribal battle in which howitzers were used; it left 266 dead and 422 wounded. Mediation attempts by other chiefs failed for a long time, due to the heavy fighting, until the security forces separated the two camps. Babil commented wryly: "The tribes were given the weapons to fight the United States . .. not to fight among themselves."116 Party veterans, wor- ried that the tribes might try to return to the old "feudalism," warned that this would not be permitted.'17 It would seem that, by directing Bdbil to attack his uncle's Min- istry of the Interior for its leniency toward the tribes and by indirectly attacking his father's policies, 'Udayy was trying to create a base of support for himself in the party at their expense. But whatever the game he was playing, he gave vent to reservations within the party. Further, the reported tribal transgressions are surprising indications of the weakness of the regime's security system in the countryside. Although there may be no doubt that it could, very quickly, concentrate sufficient forces to crush any tribal rebellion, it could not keep sufficient forces everywhere simultaneously to enforce law and order on a daily basis.

Saddam Hussein himself felt the need to justify his decision in the eyes of the party cadres and to harmonize the traditional party approach with the new one. He reminded his subordinates that it was because of the shameful behavior of the party members in the south, who had fled their posts during the Intifada, that he was compelled to turn to the shaykhs.118 To legitimate fully tribal affinities Saddam Hussein took two more steps. In the summer of 1992, in a speech to tribal chiefs, he pointed out, correctly, that many a tribe in Iraq encompasses Sunni and Shi'i sections. He revealed that even his own tribe has a Shi'i branch."19 In other words, Saddam presented the tribal principle as a bridge that transcends the Sunni-Shi'i divide in Iraqi society. Clearly, to the mind of the Iraqi president, the catastrophic Sunni-Shi'i chasm exposed in the Intifada, even though largely of the regime's own making, was far more dangerous than the division among the tribes or between city and countryside. His first priority was, thus, to try to convince the Iraqis that the religious division was but superficial, even if this meant fostering the tribal one.120

To satisfy the party cadres and, at the same time, further emphasize the legitimacy of the tribal principle, Saddam made the astonishing announcement, during a joint medal-awarding-ceremony speech to tribal chiefs and internal security officers (in itself a sign of the new age), that "the Bath is the tribe of all the tribes" (ashirat kull al-'ashd'ir).l21 This was the first time in the party's history that it was defined by its own secretary-general as "a tribe." Saddam thus implied that the tribes stand at a lower echelon than the party, sheltering under its wings. At the same time, however, and much more significantly, he tribalized the Ba'th Party itself.


CONCLUSION: NEO-TRIBALISM: THE INVENTION OF TRADITION

Why did the Bacth regime return to tribalism? What may be the implications of such a return for Iraqi society, for the regime's power base and social base, and, perhaps, for its longevity? And to what extent do Saddam Hussein's tribal policy and values differ from traditional tribal patterns? An attempt to sum up and answer these questions, however tentatively, may shed more light on the significance of the findings presented in this article.

Although the Hashemite monarchy was based on the support of the rural shaykh, King Faysal's ruling elite (his "Sharifian" officers and the city notables) was non- tribal, as was the elite under General Qasim. They chose for their close supporters people who had either no other loyalties or only very small families or tribes to back them up. The situation started to change under the 'Arif brothers, and tribalism made a quantum leap under Saddam Hussein. By recruiting his own and other tribes to his various security organs, and by lavishly rewarding them, Saddam Hussein bought their fierce loyalty. Their belief that Saddam Hussein's disappearance would also cause their demise further cemented their allegiance to the president. Recent testi-

mony to this fact was provided by the defection to Jordan of the president's son-in- law General Husayn Kamil on 8 August 1995. The man who had turned the rudi- mentary Himaya into the elaborate Special Security (al-Amn al-Khass) knew well how resilient the system was that he had helped create. Rather than trying to engi- neer a palace coup d'etat, he decided to defect. The motivation behind Saddam Hus- sein's recruiting policy is clear: to find the most effective tools to keep him and his party in power. No loyalty is absolute, but as this article is being written his calcu- lation has proved right. Although General Qasim lasted fewer than five years, and General CAbd al-Rahman 'Arif lasted just over two, Saddam Hussein was still alive and in power in the summer of 1996, after 17 years as president and despite unprecedented upheavals. It may also be suggested that, when combined with better pay and various other perquisites, the tribal recruiting policy contributed to the Republican Guard's loyalty to the president and relatively better fighting spirit than that of the regular army. 122 As for the recruiting of the rural tribal shaykhs, because such an account is so embarrassing for the president, there is no reason to doubt his version that it was deemed necessary due to the collapse of the party organization in the countryside. The destruction of much of the Iraqi army in the Gulf War made the shaykhs' local militias useful in that they saved the regime from having to spread its armed forces too thinly.

When he tried to legitimize the special role of the tribes and their shaykhs, and that of his own extended family in particular in the apparatus of the Iraqi nation- state, Saddam Hussein performed an ideological spin of 180 degrees. For a long time the regime pretended to promote the non-segmentary, patriotic, and all-Iraqi alongside the Pan-Arab national identity. After 1991, at long last, the president tore away the rhetorical veil which was designed to cover the true face of his social power base since the mid to late-1970s. Why?

The Shi'i Intifada provided evidence that ideology and state-sponsored culture, even when accompanied by some political and economic benefits but short of real Sunni-Shici equality, were insufficient to create patriotic unity even among the Arabs

20 Amatzia Baram

of Iraq. Saddam Hussein looked into the intercommunal abyss and shuddered. Having crushed the Intifada at a horrendous human cost, killing between 30,000 and 100,000 people,123 he then turned to a two-track policy. On the political level he made efforts to co-opt those Shici tribal shaykhs with whom he could establish symbiotic relation- ships. On the ideological level, to paper over the Sunni-Shici abyss, he offered an Arab-tribal common denominator. This involved the rehabilitation of both the tribal principle and the shaykh. Such rehabilitation became necessary for another reason: Saddam Hussein's growing dependence on tribal power necessitated a narrowing of the gap between practice and doctrine. Apparently, paying his tribal supporters with money and power was no longer sufficient. The president also felt the need to satisfy their pride. For Saddam, a tribal peasant who still relied on his tribe for survival, this may have been a very small price to pay. Indeed, to him this may have even been a blessing in disguise: this way he also legitimized himself. But for many other party members it was a bitter pill to swallow. But they had little say in the matter. And those who identified their survival with that of Saddam Hussein at least had to admit that his tribal policies made him less vulnerable to assassination attempts and military coups d'etat. Such a trade-off left them reasonably unhappy. As for the president's attempt to present tribalism as a major cultural force, uniting Sunnis and Shi'is, it is true that a common lineage, whether real or perceived, somehow bind together the Sunni and Shici parts of the same tribe. Yet other tribes take no part in this bond. And as for common tribal values and traditions, these more often than not separate the tribes from one another and set them against one another.

In 1996 it looked as though Saddam Hussein's tribal policy was the beginning of a process of transforming the Iraqi countryside, sending it on a journey back to its pre-1958 system of tribal autonomy. By providing shaykhs with arms and giving them more authority over their tribesmen, and by recognizing tribal legal traditions in the countryside, the regime risked the re-creation of two separate social and legal systems in the same state. It has to be emphasized that tribal justice is not less effective and just than the state's-indeed, sometimes it is more so-but the two cannot coexist without splitting Iraqi society. By giving shaykhs land and cash gifts, and by offering farmers lucrative prices for their products to dissuade them from selling on the black market,'24 the regime greatly enhanced the relative economic position of the tribal shaykh and other rural dignitaries. At the same time, however, hyperinflation, the result of the international embargo and the regime's socioeconomic preferences, gradually ruined most of the salaried city educated. Thus, the regime risked reversing a long and profound process which had started with Midhat Pasha in the second half of the 19th century. It was then that the city of Baghdad and its educated classes started to function as the modernizing powerhouse of much of what is today Iraq. During its first years in power, the Ba'th regime emasculated the educated classes politically and severely limited their entrepreneurial activities. At the same time it provided free education to huge numbers of youth, then attracted them to government service. After the Gulf War the government could no longer pay for their employ- ment, and most of them were ruined economically. Under such circumstances, the exasperation of the city people can be fully appreciated. For many years they saw in education the best guarantee for upward social mobility, and the new policy looked like a world turned upside-down.

Neo-Tribalism in Iraq 1991 -96 21

The decline of the urban educated classes was accentuated when the regime started to introduce tribal traditions into the all-Iraqi legal system. Occasionally even the political-strategic thinking was defined as tribal. By 1995 the village con- quered the city in more than one sense: most of the security troops in Baghdad were tribal villagers. Although the professional government ministries and the institutions were still staffed with educated urban experts, much of the top echelon of the state (the RCC), the party (the Regional Leadership), and the security apparatuses hailed from villages and small provincial towns.'25 Even the rural vernacular of Tikrit became the new power language.l26 All these developments are not apparent to the casual visitor, but they are transforming the capital and the regime's social base. In short, while the new tribal and village-city policies proved useful for the regime- or, at least, for the president-they were problematic when it came to the long-term development of the country.

To what extent are Saddam Hussein's tribal policies a genuine return to tribalism? A careful scrutiny reveals that important components in this search for primordial roots represented a new phenomenon, under the guise of a return to tribal traditions. What is a tribe? Richard Tapper observes:

'Tribe' may be used loosely of a ... group in which kinship [or a myth thereof] is the dominant idiom of organization, and whose members consider themselves culturally distinct.... Tribes are usually politically unified. . .. They do not usually relate directly with the state, but only through . . . intermediate structures.127

To what extent is the policy of transplanting of a part of Al-bu Nasir in Baghdad a deviation from traditional tribal patterns? With very limited precedents under the 'Arif brothers, and within the context of late-19th- to early-20th-century Ottoman Iraq-Mesopotamia and modern Iraq, this policy was clearly new. However, by moving his family and tribe to the capital city and making them its de facto masters,128 Saddam Hussein followed a long Arab tradition. In certain respects, the Umayyads, the 'Abbasids, the Fatimids, and others did the same in the medieval era, and the House of Sacud has been the state in Arabia since the 18th century. Indeed, it may be said that, by surrounding himself with his own and closely related tribes in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein acted in a classical tribal fashion.129

Tribal intervention in the state justice system, in the running of the state bureaucracy, and in state education, and the phenomenon of tribal blood feuds being turned against the state's law-enforcement officers-all the result of the tribes' growing self- confidence-are creating a strange mix between new and old, center and periphery. Even though this may indeed be a partial return to tribal norms in the tribal areas, this trend threatens when it permeates into the cities to become the undoing of the workings of the state because it encourages the formation of a very large number of kin-based pressure groups. Similarly, by increasing tribal autonomy as well as the firepower of the tribes, Iraq did not return to the original tribal tradition. Rather, it created a partly new one. Tribal raids and skirmishes in that area are nothing new.130 However, the number of casualties was usually very small. After the late 19th century, with the arrival of the repeating rifle, the number of casualties increased.'3' But now, tribes in the countryside are armed with machine guns, RPG rocket launchers, and even howitzers. The number of casualties in at least one confrontation was one

22 Amatzia Baram

hundred times greater than that in traditional tribal confrontations. In addition, under such circumstances the gap between weak and strong tribes poses a powerful temp- tation for the stronger side to use force. No wonder, then, that often the old mediation techniques, so successful in the past in containing disputes, crumbled. Even the state officials were helpless. Because the military superiority of the regime could not be maintained everywhere simultaneously, as long as the tribes did not challenge the center, the regime allowed the periphery to sink deeper and deeper into something that looks more like intertribal chaos than like a traditional tribal balance of power.

To what extent are the regime's "tribal values" true reflections of tribal norms? It must be first pointed out that the very concept of "tribe" is being continuously manipulated by the governments, as well as by the tribesmen themselves, to suit their changing needs. As pointed out, among others, by William and Fidelity Lancaster, tribes, much like states, are "ideas to be used and manipulated, rather than absolute institutions." All the same, however, tribal values are not indefinitely stretchable: at a certain point the departure from the traditional norm is such that it can no longer be defined as a tribal one. As for the Kamils' assassinations, there is reason to believe that the public was not told the whole truth. Still, the regime's public record is gruesome and deviates enough from traditional tribal norms to be regarded as neo- tribal. Tribal custom was perverted, in the first place, in the sense that actually killing one's own male relatives to avoid confrontations with outsiders (as different from hadar al-dam) is unheard-of. The outcast, while left to his fate, is very rarely harmed by his own family. Further, the defectors' father, Kamil Hasan al-Majid, and his two daughters and their families were not involved in the defection, and should have been spared. This is particularly so if women were killed: woman are never harmed in blood revenge. Be this as it may, that a khams would almost eliminate one of its own branches to cleanse itself in anyone's eyes is unprecedented. Clearly, this op- eration was designed by Saddam Hussein to prevent a Kamil survivor from taking revenge. But there are a few Kamils who did survive: Saddam's grandchildren. Tra- ditionally, they owe their allegiance to their father's side of the family-that is, to their father and patrilineal grandfather Kamil, and so on. If Saddam Hussein is seen by the Iraqi public, or even just by Al-bu Nasir, as having been connected with the multiple murders, he as a maternal grandfather is, by tribal standards, still under the Damoclean sword of blood revenge. Finally, even if as president of the state he was not involved in the killings, as the most important member of the 'Abd al-Qadir khams Saddam Hussein (the Kamils' paternal cousin, in addition to being their father-in-law) was, according to tribal tradition, involved in it up to his ears. This fact was conveniently ignored by the Iraqi media, and a new tradition was invented.

As for the attempt to disguise the invasion of Kuwait and the reluctance to with- draw peacefully, perceived by many in Iraq as catastrophic mistakes,132 as deriva- tives of tribal honor, the regime is misusing the concept. Apparently to increase his personal grip on power Saddam Hussein is driving the concept of honor (tribal and personal) to illogical extremes. The whole mechanism of arbitration, blood money, and honor money (fasl al-qdtil, hashm) was introduced in order to circumvent end- less feuds (usually not between whole tribes but, rather, between kin-based groups of five generations, or khams). Long, unresolved blood feuds that continue endlessly to draw new blood are the exception, not the rule, in traditional tribal society. As


Steven Caton observes: "[Middle Eastern] tribesmen . . . are talking to each other probably more than they are fighting," believing that "the basis of power is persuasion rather than the exercise of force." Eickelman points out: "Cultural notions of persuasion, together with mediation . . . and negotiation, are basic to the shared moral community of tribesmen, not the use of sheer force."'33

Indeed, as demonstrated starkly by descriptions of the conflict between the Shagh- anya and the Karamisha, a tribe that recognizes its relative weakness will never court death by fighting against all odds. Rather, it will seek mediation and arbitration.'34 The Iraqi ruling elite itself was not consistent in upholding its own stereotypical concept of tribal honor. Despite the offensive language used by Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran against the Bacth regime, in 1988 Saddam Hussein was ready to negotiate. Like- wise, in March 1991 he agreed to humiliating cease-fire conditions. How can one explain, then, the fact that Saddam Hussein, a tribal peasant from Tikrit who is presented by his own propaganda machine as Bedouin,'35 invaded Kuwait, then refused to with- draw, confusing it with (or just presenting it as) a tribal modus operandi? The only explanation is that, in reality, despite the kinship affinities cementing much of its power elite, the Bacth political modus operandi since the early 1980s was not tribal. If anything, it was dictatorial, with ultimate power vested in one man whose decisions could not be challenged. The heart of a traditional tribal system is a fairly democratic process of consultation in the tribal majlis'36 and, in some cases, the ability of members to challenge the shaykh.'37 Likewise, tribal federations by their very nature are voluntary alignments from which each tribe is free to secede at will. It is common interest rather than the Republican Guard which keeps the tribes in the federation.138 The traditional shaykh-tribe relationship was described to Lady Blunt by the shaykh of the Ruwala in a simple fashion: "I can only do what my people wish."'39 In a federation, a dissenting tribe would vote with its feet against the shaykh al-mashd'ikh.140 When leaving is no longer possible, the system may no longer be regarded as traditionally tribal. In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, an individual official or officer cannot dissent without risking his life. Settled tribes can no longer simply emigrate, and a revolt is too risky due to the regime's overwhelming military superiority. By responding to dissent with coercion, Saddam Hussein negated his own claim to tribal values.

Assuming that Saddam Hussein genuinely believed in the concept which his chief ideologue presented as "tribal honor," clearly this concept was taken out of context. To justify flexible behavior it demanded more than clear and present danger: it demanded that the adversary first prove its actual readiness to fight and ability to win, or at least to reach a strategic deadlock, inflicting in the process substantial damage on Iraq. Only then did the president's finely honed sense of "tribal honor" (or what he presented as the Iraqis' sense of "tribal honor") allow for negotiations and concessions. Without the checks and balances of the traditional tribal system (or modern democratic ones), there was no mechanism in Iraq which could correct Saddam Hussein's errors of judgment before they returned to haunt Iraq.

NOTES

Author's note: The first draft of this article was prepared at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. I was assisted in my research by grants from the U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C., and the Bertha Von Suttner Project for the Optimization of Conflict Resolution. I am

24 Amatzia Baram

deeply indebted to them for their generous support. I am also grateful to Professors Dale Eickelman, Joseph Ginat, William and Fidelity Lancaster, and Peter Sluglett for going over the manuscript and making most helpful comments, as I am grateful to my assistant, Ronen Zeidel, who helped me in preparing this article. The responsibility for any mistakes in the article is mine.

1Al-Jumhiiriyya, 18 July 1968. 2See, for example, "Alif Ba' al-Bath," al-Ahrar (Beirut, the organ of the pro-Iraqi faction), 20 March

1970, and reproduced in a booklet of the same name, by Dar al-Tali'a Lil-TibaCa, Beirut, April 1970, 18, 21, 25.

3Al-Thawra al-'Arabiyya, Third Year, no. 5-6, 1971, as reproduced in Al-Fallaihun wal-Thawra ft al- Rif (The Peasants and the Revolution in the Village) (Beirut: Dar al-TaliCa, 1974), 36-45.

4Arab Bacth Socialist Party, Iraq, The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress June 1982 (Baghdad, January 1983; Madrid, Unigraph, 1985), 162-63.

5Sa'd Qasim Hammudi, Afiq 'Arabiyya, December 1980, 94. 6Al-Yawm al-Sabi' (Paris), 29 January 1990. 7"Alif Ba' al-Bacth," al-Ahrar, 18-19. 8Hani al-Fukayki, Awkdr al-HIazima: Tajribati Fi Hizb al-Ba'th al-'Iraqi (London: Riad el-Rayyes

Books, 1993), 21-22, 65-66. For the social background of party leadership, see Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), 968, 1008, 1024-25, 1082, and, in particular, 1086-92.

9Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914-1932 (London and Oxford: St. Antony's College and Ithaca, 1976), 241, 251; Uriel Dann, Iraq Under Qassem (New York: Praeger, 1969), 56-61; Edith and E. F. Penrose, Iraq: International Relations and National Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978), 241-48.

10Al-Jumhuriyya, 7 July 1970. For meaningful concessions to peasants, mostly at the expense of the landlords (many of whom were either tribal shaykhs or sidih) introduced in May 1969, see RCC Res- olution, al-Jumhuiriyya, 18 May 1969: Ilgha' al-Ta'wid 'an al-Arkdl al-Musadara. See also RCC reso- lutions in al-Jumhuiriyya, 10 June 1969, for further concessions. For the new Land Reform Law of 1970, see Al-Iraq Fi al-Tariq (Baghdad: Wizarat al-HIlam, 1972), 32-34. For a typical debate on how best to separate the peasants from the "tribal" and "tie [them] to the central government," see Salim Sultan against Sa'dun Hammadi, al-Thawra, 19 and 21 November 1968. See also 'Aziz al-Sayyid Jasim, al- Thawra, 18 March 1969; al-Thawra, 5 March 1969.

"In the summer of 1969, the tribes of the Mayyah, near 'Amara, rose up in arms. For details of the June 1969 confrontation, see al-Hayat (Beirut), 22, 26, 27, 28 June 1969; 1, 2, 11, 12 July 1969; 1, 2 August 1969.

12For a study that concludes that urbanization in Iraq significantly weakened tribal ties, see Ghazi al-'Ayyash, al-Jumhuriyya, 22 November 1993. Al-Ayyash is lamenting this phenomenon.

13A series of interviews by the author with "'Abd al-Rahim," a middle-aged intellectual and scion of a shaykhly family near Diwaniyya, 5-7 May 1994, Cambridge, Mass. Tribes were affected differently even in adjacent areas. For example, in 1993 the population of the ndhiya of al-Kifl near Hilla (526 square kilometers), was 84,000, split among six tribes (ashd'ir) (al-Thawra, 19 April 1993). In the nearby ndhiya of Abi Gharq (191 square kilometers, with fewer than 40,000 people), there were fifteen tribes (al-Thawra, 28 February 1993).

14Percentages computed according to data in the Annual Abstracts of Statistics (AAS), Iraqi Govern- ment Statistical Bureau, Baghdad. For 1965, AAS 1965, 3-28, table 1, and AAS 1970, 45, table 15; for 1988, AAS 1988, 44, table 2/3.

15The same person; compare, for example, the shaykh of the Rabi'a in 1956 and in 1993: 'Abbas al- 'Azzawi, 'Ashda'ir al-'Iraq (Baghdad: Sharikat al-Tijara, 1956), vol. 4, 165, with Bdbil, 25 November 1993. The shaykh of the Bani Asad in 1956 and in 1993: 'Azzawi, 4:44, with al-Jumhuiriyya, 1 July 1993. The same family-for example, although until 1954 Al-Bu Badri, living between Baghdad and Samarra, were led by Said Mahmud al-Badri, in 1993 they were led by the surgeon Dr. 'Abd al-Latif al-Badri; compare 'Azzawi, 4:255-56, with al-Jumhuiiriyya, 22 June 1993. Shaykh 'Asi al-Asad led the Karabla in the Jazira in 1955, and his son, Badiwi al-Shaykh 'Asi al-Asad, was the chief in 1993: compare cAzzawi, 3:118, with Bdbil, 2 November 1993. There are many more examples.

16See, for example, Dr. Ibrahim Mazhar al-Shawi, shaykh of the cUbayd in Mahmudiyya, Babil, 28 October 1993. For officers and party officials, see al-Jumhuiriyya, 9 January 1993, 1 July 1993. By summer 1995 two members of the Sunni Arab Sa'dun clan from Nasiriyya were among the seventeen members of the Regional Leadership of the Bacth Party. And see below.


17For example, al-Uzayrij were still there in 1993, as they had been in the early 1950s (cf. CAzziwi, 3:72, al-Thawra, 15 March 1993). The same applies to al-Bazzun of Maymuna (cf. CAzzawi, 4:74, al- Thawra, 16 August 1992); Al-bu Darraj (cf. Azzaiwi, 4:176, Bibil, 14 February 1994); al-Mayyah (cf. CAzzawi, 4:166, al-Thawra, 21 February 1992); the marsh al-Farijat (cf. 'Azzawi, 3:66, al-'Iraq, 8 March 1992). And many more.

t8Dale F Eickelman, The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989), 129.

19An interview with a very senior, Arabic-speaking Western diplomat who served in the second half of the 1980s in Baghdad, and who used to go frequently on excursions to tribal domains in the countryside (9 October 1995, Europe).

20Fukayki, Awkdr al-Hazima, 233. 21Interview with "'Umar," 1 July 1994, Washington, D.C. "'Umar" knew well the sons of a few top

Bacthi leaders and used to visit them in the leadership's compounds guarded by the Himaya. He is a young Sunni Arab Iraqi who graduated from Baghdad University in engineering and who served for more than five years in the Iraqi army, mostly during the Iran-Iraq War (1979-85). "'Umar" left Iraq in early 1990.

22Shaykh Mishcan Rakkad al-Damin al-Jubburi, who assisted Saddam Hussein in his tribal policies between 1975 and the late 1980s, in an interview with Helga Graham, The Independent on Sunday, 20

August 1995. Much of the interview was corroborated by Sacd Bazzaz, chief editor of al-Jumhiiriyya who fled Iraq in 1992, in a lecture in the United States on 17 August 1995.

23Mish'an al-Jubburi, The Independent on Sunday, 20 August 1995. See also another interview he gave to al-.Haydt (London), 18 August 1995; this author's interview with an American official in Wash-

ington, D.C., October 1993, 30 August 1994; Al-Watan al-'Arabi, 25 June 1993, in JPRS-NEA, 31 August 1993, 1. See also the interview with "'Umar," 25 December 1993, Washington, D.C.

24As a result of the exposure of the coup d'etat, the Army Day parade was canceled for the first time under Ba'th rule. For more detailed information, see Mish'an al-Jubburi, The Independent on Sunday, 20 August 1995. See also his interview with al-Haydt (London), 20 August 1995. Also, see this author's interview with an American official in Washington, D.C., October 1993. The execution of 26 Jubburis was corroborated in an interview with an opposition activist who quoted Ambassador cAlwan Jubburi, who had defected in 1993 to the West (25 September 1993, Boston). And see Al-Watan al-'Arabi, 25 June 1993, in JPRS-NEA, 31 August 1993, 1.

25Although the regime flatly denied that there had been a Dulaymi military coup d'etat in Abu Ghurayb in mid-June (al-Jumhiiriyya, 20 June 1995; INA, 16 June 1995, in FBIS-NES-DR, 19 June 1995, 22), it never denied the mid-May Ramadi revolt. Indeed, by implication it even admitted it; see al- Thawra, 28 May 1995, in FBIS-NES-DR, 9 June 1995, 45; Shaykh al-Ku'ud, INA, 28 June 1995, in FBIS-NES-DR, 29 June 1995, 21.

26Eickelman, The Middle East, 144. 27Mish'an Jubburi to Helga Graham, The Independent on Sunday, 20 August 1995. 28Interview with "'Umar," 25 December 1993, corroborated by the Iraqi press. See the account of

Saddam asking for Colonel Jasim Muhammad Salih's tribe (being the Dulaym), in al-Jumhuriyya, 11 March 1992.

29A party membership form shown to this author, among other Bacthi documents, by a Kurdish national activist. It was found in Sulamaniyya during the Kurdish revolt in March-April 1991. There may be no doubt as to the authenticity of this form.

30Interview with "'Umar," 25 December 1993. 3 Interviews with two Iraqi expatriates, the scions of Shici tribal chieftains' families, one conducted in

London over the course of a few meetings in September 1991; the other with "'Abd al-Rahim" in Cam- bridge, Mass., on 5-7 May 1994, and in a clarifying telephone conversation on 9 September 1994. On mediation, see also the account of a father from Najaf asking his Khaffaja tribal chief to escort him and his deserter son to the party branch command and to mediate when the son gave himself up, according to an amnesty arrangement. Despite that, the son was arrested; Bdbil, 11 October 1993. And Sacd Bazzaz, former editor of al-Jumhiiriyya, who escaped from Iraq in 1992, in a lecture in the United States on 17 August 1995.

32For example, Alois Musil, Arabia Deserta (A Topographical Itinerary) (New York: American Geographical Society of New York, 1927), 435.

33Interviews with four senior Kurdish activists, one of whom was a son of such a tribal chief- mustashdr, January-August 1994, Washington, D.C. See also Middle East Watch, Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993), 161-66; al-Jumhuriyya,

26 Amatzia Baram

4 March 1992. "Government Kurds" were not a new phenomenon. They had existed since the monarchy, but the Bacth expanded these units.

34Al-Thawra, 28 July 1992 (in Sinjar, Nineveh); al-Thawra, 18 November 1991. 35See Amatzia Baram, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Bacthi Iraq (New York:

St. Martin's Press; London and Oxford: MacMillan and St. Antony's College, 1991); and idem, "Re-

Inventing Nationalism in Ba'thi Iraq," Princeton Papers, 1996, forthcoming. 36See, for example, his speech at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Tenth Regional Congress, Republic

of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 October 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 16-19; and a speech to members of the leadership of party "Branches" (fur'c) in Baghdad (al-Jumhuiriyya, 24 November 1992).

37According to the regime, among those were the Shakak under Shaykh Jalal Muhammad Tahir Zinawa, and the Harki under Ahmad Khan, who defended Mosul, 'Aqra, and Shaykhan, as well as the Rikaniyya under Shaykh Muhammad Kalhi Tahir al-Rikani; al-Qddisiyya, 16 March 1992.

38See ibid. for the tribe of Tayy under Shaykh Ghazi al-Hansh defending Mosul and its environs, including Tall Kayf and Tall CAfar. The 'Ibada under Jasim al-KaCud, too, were assigned defensive jobs around Mosul.

39Mostly Sunni tribes which supported the regime in Mada&in (Diyala): the Dulaym, Jubbur, CUkay- dat, Mulla, Sa'idat, and Shammar. There was also one Sunni tribe, al-Ahbab, from the Salah al-Din governorate (in which Tikrit is situated); see al-Thawra, 13 March 1991. And for support for the re-

gime from Shi{i and Sunni tribes in the Baghdad area, see al-Thawra, 19 March 1991.

40Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 October 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 19. 4'Interviews with four Shi'i revolutionaries, two of whom were very knowledgeable and specific;

"Harun" (in his early twenties) from Hilla, and "'cAbd al-Rahim" (a son of a tribal shaykh in his early forties) from Diwaniyya, who fled to Saudi Arabia (5-8 May 1994, Cambridge, Mass.).

42AI-Thawra, 13 May 1994. 43"Wadi'," interviewed by a colleague in Kurdistan, 26 July 1993 (unpublished). See also the Dacwa

Shi'i opposition magazine al-Jihdd, 30 September 1991. And see a claim that "most" (but not all!) the tribes near Basra, 'Amara, and Nasiriyya joined the revolt; al-Jihad, 11 March 1991. Shaykh Husayn al- Shalan, chief of the Khazaca, joined the Intifada and eventually fled to Saudi Arabia; al-Jihdd al-Duwali, 15 July 1991. See also al-Jihad al-Duwall, 12 August 1991; Liw&' al-Sadr, 25 August 1991; Liwd' al-Sadr, 22 September 1991. And see Liwd' al-Sadr, 10 November 1991.

44For example, according to interviews, in Mahawil, near Hilla, al-bu cAlwan (a partly-Shici member of the largely Sunni Dulaym federation) remained uninvolved throughout the revolt. There are some cases of conflicting information about the role of certain tribes. Al Ghanim in Hilla-Diwaniyya are said by the regime to have supported the regime, but revolutionaries say otherwise.

45Interview with "Harun" and "Abd al-Rahim" and their two colleagues, May 1994, Boston. For details about General al-Ribbat, see Yuinis al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Sammara7i, Al-QabiDil al-lrdqiyya (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Sharq al-Jadid, 1989), 1:252-53; al-Thawra, 17 February 1993; al-Clrdq, 17 Sep- tember 1993. According to the BaCthi press, the Bani Hasan, Al-bu Dish, al-'Isa, al-Shibil, al-Jaryu, and Al-bu Nasir (the Shici branch of the president's tribe, in my opinion)-all of the Najaf governorate-supported the regime; al-Jumhuiriyya, 19 March 1992.

46For Al-bu 'Aysh and al-Ama'ira tribes in Nahiyat al-Fuhud in Dhi Qar, see al-Thawra, 17 No- vember 1993.

47For example, during the first half of March 1991, there was already one tribal shaykh in the Shi0i south who had announced support for the regime. This shaykh, from the qadad of Suwayra, in the governorate of Wasit, was from the Juhaysh; see al-Thawra, 13 March 1991; al-Thawra, 19 March 1991.

48Al-Jumhuiriyya, 29 February 1992, 4 March 1992. 49A1-Thawra, 24 March 1991. For reports of other tribes supporting the regime, see al-cIrdq, 9 March

1992; al-Jumhutriyya, 19 March 1992. 50See, for example, al-Thawra, 29 March 1991, for the tribal chiefs of Wasit; the Khawalid of Babil

(al-Hilla) and Baghdad; the Shammar of Madalin; Banu Tamim from Salah al-Din; al-cIzza of Tikrit and Beiji; al-Ibrahim near Najaf; Al-Bu Mufrij of Yusufiyya and Baghdad; Banu Tamim of Abu Ghurayb and Diyala; Al-Bu Muhammad of Baghdad, Maysan, and Basra; the Rabica of Diyala. See also al-Thawra, 10 April 1991, 21 April 1991; Alif Bda, 24 April 1991; al-Thawra, 25 August 1991, 10 November 1991.

51 Even the regime's media recognized the possibility that some tribal Shi'i individuals [as opposed to whole tribes] did not deserve the medals they were awarded; Bdbil, 14 May 1994.


52Specific mention was made only of the tribe of Al-bu Musa in al-Musayyib, but another, anonymous tribe in the same area was accused of collaboration, as was a tribe in CAli al-Sharqi. The shaykhs were accused of receiving between 3,000 and 6,000 dinars from the regime, as well as cars and bodyguards; al-Jihad, 16 September 1991. Shaykh CAbd al-Latif al-Darimi, a tribal chief in the vicinity of Karbala, was a Bacthi old-timer and a member of Parliament who, with his tribe, collaborated with the regime; al-Jihad al-Duwali, 15 July 1991. As reported by a revolutionary from qada' al-Madina, the army that crushed the Intifada there was aided by local Parliament members who recruited local tribal chiefs; Liwda' al-Sadr, 28 July 1991. There are many more examples.

53An interview with two U.S. army colonels (February 1992, Cambridge, Mass.) whose units participated in the left hook through the Iraqi Western Desert and ended up near Nasiriyya.

54Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 39-42; Selim Deringil, "The Struggle Against Shicism in Hamidian Iraq: A Study in Ottoman Counter-Propaganda," Die Welt des Islams 30 (1990): 49 ff; Yitzhak Nakash, The Shicis of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 13-48.

55"Harun" explained the participation of Yazidis and some Shi'is in the military units that put down the Intifada in Hilla in terms of regime misinformation that many Iranians infiltrated into the town; see note 53.

56Liwa' al-Sadr, 28 July 1991. 57The case of M.P. CAbd al-Latif al-Darimi is a similar one. Similarly, the chief of the Zangana, Sacid

Muhyi al-Din, was a member of Parliament; al-'lrdq, 11 December 1991. Major General Khudayr CAb- bas Ghadban belongs to the Shici Karamitha of Najaf; Babil, 17 February 1993. Major General Muham- mad Salih Isma'il al-Khalidi is the shaykh of Al-bu Khalid in Diyala; al-Jumhuiiriyya, 9 January 1993.

58Interviews with four participants in the Intifada, 5-6 May 1994. 59Al-Thawra, 17 March 1991. 60Al-Thawra, 29 March 1991. 61Al-Jumhuriyya, 17 February 1993. 62Al-Thawra, 7 March 1993. 63For 500 tribal chiefs, clergy and notables from Diala, with their guns and flags, see al-Jumhuiriyya,

25 May 1993; for 339 chiefs and clergy from Basra performing their dances for Saddam and swearing to turn in "rebels," see al-Thawra, 14 March 1993; and for 617 chiefs and others from Nineveh (a Sunni area), see al-Thawra, 7 April 1993.

64Al-Thawra, 3 March 1993, 28 January 1994. 65Al-Thawra, 15 March 1993. 66See the account of Saddam's visit to the Hadidiyyin in Nineveh, where he sat with the tribal leaders

in the mudlf; Babil, 6 December 1992. And see his visit to the Shi'i Bani Malik near Qurna; al-Thawra, 3 September 1992.

67For example, al-Thawra, 15 March 1993; al-Jumhuiriyya, 25 May 1993. 68See, for example, al-Thawra, 26 January 1992; al-Qadisiyya, 27 April 1993; Babil, 28 October

1993 (Saddam and the chief of the 'Ubayd). 69Babil, 13 and 25 October 1993. 70Al-Thawra, 18 September 1992. 71This was, for example, the case in the town of Diwaniyya; al-Thawra, 21 November 1993; also, 14

July 1993. And in the center of the governorate of Qadisiyya, where the mudif's (compound's?) area was no smaller than 4,500 square meters and could house a whole tribe; al-Thawra, 14 July 1993.

72Al-Thawra, 1 August 1993; al-Jumhiriyya, 20 April 1993, 25 May 1993. 73Al-Thawra, 24 April 1994; and Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 23 April 1994, in FBIS-

SERIAL JN 2304195394. See also al-'Iraq, 1 December 1992. 74Al-Thawra, 1 August 1993. For officials visiting the tribal mudlf, see, for example, the account of

the party secretary of the Basra Far' visiting Shaykh 'Abd al-Rasul Khudayr of the Bani Ka'b near Basra, in al-Thawra, 7 October 1992. See also the account of the Zubayd, Jubbur, al-Luhayb, al-Hurub, Bani Zayd, and the sddah in Diyala inviting to a meeting the secretary of the Central Tanzim of the party, Mu- hammad Yunis al-Ahmad, and swearing allegiance, in al-Thawra, 5 October 1992.

75For example, al-Qadisiyya, 13 December 1993; al-Thawra, 30 December 1993. 76Al-Thawra, 7 March 1993, 15 March 1993; al-Jumhuriyya, 25 May 1993; and more. 77Al-Thawra, 14 July 1993. 78See the people of Ramadi to the president; al-Thawra, 14 June 1995.

28 Amatzia Baram

79Al-Thawra, 5 April 1993. 80See a case of a mukhtar of a village accused of stealing water and other things from his village and

banished from the tribe; Bdbil, 8 November 1993. 81Al-Thawra, 29 August 1993. 82Al-Jumhiiriyya, 22 June 1993. 83See, for example, Sacdun Shakir representing the party in a funeral in Khalis of a tribal shaykh of

the Banu Asad (al-Thawra, 2 December 1992) (Shakir himself is from Khalis, from the 'Ubayd); the chief of Uzayrij thanking Saddam for sending his First Companion (al-Murafiq al-Aqdam) Rukkan Raz- zuqi to deliver his condolences at a funeral (al-Thawra, 12 April 1993); Saddam Kamil, the president's cousin, son-in-law, and bodyguard, participating in mourning the chief of the Latifat in Salah al-Din (al- Thawra, 20 September 1993); and more.

84See, for example, a funeral in the Shammar, where the whole cabinet, members of the party's leadership, the personal representatives of Saddam, and other luminaries appeared (al-Thawra, 4 December 1992); and a funeral in the Sacdun (al-Thawra, 29 March 1993).

85For lands, see al-Thawra, 8 and 10 April 1992; al-'Irdq, 13 April 1992. For water to Basra tribes, see al-Jumhuriyya, 14 September 1993. And for Saddam's instructions during a meeting with tribal chiefs from Maysan to contribute ID 20 million to the district, see al-Thawra, 15 March 1993. For three million dinars for tribes in Dhi Qar, see al-Jumhuriyya, 17 February 1993. For prize money to tribal chiefs for

capturing "infiltrators" in al-Kahla, Maysan, see al-Thawra, 23 October 1992. And for special gifts from the president to tribal chiefs in Basra and Anbar, see al-Thawra, 8 April 1992.

86Al-Thawra, 14 July 1993. For officials returning lands to its pre-1958 owners and dispossessing poor peasants, see Babil, 28 March 1994. For the president ordering land gifts-1,000 dunams (an Iraqi dunam is 2,500 square meters) to collaborating shaykhs of large tribes; 500 dunams to shaykhs of sub-tribes; and 100 dunams to peasants in Nahr al-'Izz, near 'Amara; to the tribes of Al-bu Muhammad, Al-bu Ghanim, Al-bu Bakhit, and al-Nawafil, see al-Thawra, 27 April 1994.

87See, for example, the account of a presidential visit to al-Qurna, where Saddam Hussein accepted the request from the Bani Malik for arms, in al-Thawra, 3 September 1992. For the use by the tribes of mortars, howitzers, and RPG rocket launchers given to them by the state, see Babil, 10 October 1993. And for a demand by the Nassar from al-Rifa'i in Dhi Qar for more arms, to which the president agreed on condition of proper use, see al-Thawra, 3 December 1992; al-Thawra, 9 September 1992.

88Al-Thawra, 3 September 1992; 21 December 1992. 89Al-Thawra, 5 April 1993. 90Al-Jumhuriyya, 21 September 1991, in FBIS-NES, 26 September 1991, 21-23. 91Last part of Saddam's speech to Bath Congress, Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 Octo-

ber 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 19. 92Salah al-Mukhtar, editor in chief, al-Jumhuiriyya, 5 January 1994; see also ibid., 17 November 1993. 93 Babil, 6 December 1993. For a similar practice by the minister of the interior in mid-1994, see Bdbil

27 June 1994. See also a study of intertribal violence and the authorities' approach of following tribal traditions as much as possible; al-Jumhuriyya, 19 April 1992.

94"Abu Sirhan," Bdbil, 5 June 1994. 95For details on the defection and its aftermath, see Amatzia Baram, "The Regime's No. Two Defects,"

Middle East Quarterly, 2, 4: 15-21. 96INA in Arabic, 23 and 24 February 1996, in FBIS-NES-DR, 26 February 1996, 19. The assassins re-

portedly came from the families of 'Abd al-Majid, Sultan, and 'Abd al-Ghaffur. They are the sons of 'Abd al-Qadir, Saddam's great-grandfather; see family tree in Amir Iskandar, Saddam Husayn Munddilan, wa Mufakkiran, wa Insdnan (Paris: Hachette, 1980), 21. For the sisters' death, see AFP Paris from Amman, 26 February 1996, in FBIS-NES-DR, 27 February 1996, 23-24. See also al-Majalla (London), 17-23 March 1996, in FBIS-NES-DR, 22 March 1996, 19-20. For Saddam's endorsement, see Associated Press quoting INA, 10 May 1996. General Nizar al-Khazraji, who defected after the murder, however, did not include the sisters and their families among the casualties; interview in al-Hayat (London), 16 April 1996.

97See, for example, the accounts of the death of Hathut 'Abd Said, chief of the Hamida faction of al- 'Azimun tribe in Baghdad al-Jadida, in al-Thawra, 5 August 1992, and 27 July 1992. For tribal chiefs in Madinat Saddam, the newer Shi'i poor quarter, see al-Qddisiyya, 16 January 1992; and in the old Shi'i quarter al-Kazimiyya, see al-Thawra, 16 August 1992.

98See, for example, the account of the shaykh of the 'Ukaydat in al-Hayy quarter, in al-Qddisiyya, 16 October 1995; and in al-Thawra, 16 October 1995.


99Saddam's Al-bu Nasir affiliation was (inadvertently?) exposed to the Iraqi public in 1980-81. In his semi-official biography there is a photocopy of his Civil Status Record from 1977, in which his full name is given as Saddam Husayn Majid al-Nasiri; Fuad Matar, Saddam Hussein: The Man, The Cause and The Future (Beirut: Express International Printing Company, 1981; London: Third World Center for Research and Publishing, 1981), 71. For Saddam of the Beygat, a sub-unit of Al-bu Nasir, see al-Thawra, 17 July 1993. For Saddam's, Khayr Allah Talfah's, General Fadil al-Barrak's, and General Hamid Shacban's affiliation to Al Nasir (or Al-bu Nasir), see al-Samarra'i, Al-Qaba'il, 2:655-58; also, Alif Bda', 26 April 1995, in FBIS-NES-DR, 30 June 1995, 30; al-Thawra, 29 October 1995. For Izzat Ibrahim, see al-Samarra'i, Al-Qabdail, 1:213, 1:165; Bdbil, 5 January 1994. See also, al-Samarra'i, Al-Qaba'il, 2:636; al-Thawra, 18 August 1993; Bdbil, 17 February 1993; al-Jumhuiriyya, 1 July 1993.

100A1-Thawra, 18 August 1993. 'OBadbil, 17 February 1993. 02AI-Jumhuriyya, 9 January 1993. 03Al-Samarrad', Al-Qabd'il, 1:213.

104Al-Jumhuriyya, 1 July 1993. 105See, for example, an account by Hasan al-'Alawi, a scion of the Shici Hamdaniyya tribe of Ru-

maytha (Al-'lraq, Dawlat al-Munazzama al-Sirriyya [Tehran: al-Sharif al-Radi, 1992?], 180-81), according to which party members usually served as sponsors and middlemen between their tribes and the regime. When they failed to do so, the tribe had to find another sponsor. The particular case discussed is that of al-'Alawi's cousin, 'Adnan Husayn al-Hamdani, a member of the RCC and party leadership who was executed by Saddam Hussein in August 1979. He had rejected his tribe, and lost its (limited) protection.

106Thus, for example, 'Aziz Salih Al Nuiman, who is "responsible" for the party tanzimdt in Maysan and Wasit, and who was appointed following the Intifada, is a member of the Khaffaja from the neigh- boring governorate, Dhi Qar (al-Jumhuiriyya, 21 November 1992; al-Thawra, 5 August 1992). Hamid Mahmud al-Hasan, Secretary of thefar' of Babil, is the brother of the chief of the large tribe of 'Abd Allah there (al-Thawra, 1 August 1993). Karim Hasan Rida, governor of Najaf in 1991-92, is a member of a (Shi'i) branch of Bani Tamim in the mixed area of Diyala, east of Baghdad (al-Thawra, 23 March 1992).

107Muhammad Zimam Al Sadun, member of the leadership of the party and "responsible" for the party branches in the governorates of Basra and Dhi Qar, is the brother of the chief of the clan (fakhdh) of the Saduns in Basra (al-'lraq, 2 December 1992; al-Thawra, 14 March 1993). 'Abd al-Baqi 'Abd Karim al-Sadun, the secretary of the far' of Basra (al-Thawra, 25 and 26 August 1991; al-Thawra, 9 October 1992), and his brother, the Secretary of thefar' of Dhi Qar, 'Ali 'Abd al-Karim al-Sa'dun, belong to the same clan; al-Thawra, 25 August 1991.

10Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 October 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 20. 109Diya' Hasan, al-Thawra, 22 October 1992. See also praises to the tribes for their "heroism in de-

fending the homeland (al-watan)"; al-Thawra, 18 August 1991. And for the failure of the imperialists to "divide and rule" Iraqi society as demonstrated by unified tribal support for Saddam, see Bdbil, 16 De- cember 1993; al-Thawra, 7 September 1992. And for Interior Minister Watban Ibrahim Hasan on tribal cooperation with his ministry, see al-Qddisiyya, 21 March 1992; al-Jumhuriyya, 21 December 1992.

1 0Al-Thawra, 11 December 1992. 1 1 See also Ghazi al-'Ayyash, al-Jumhuiriyya, 22 November 1993. 12As'ad Hamuid al-Sa'dun, Babil, 1 November 1993. 113Al-Thawra, 3 December 1992. 114See Gavin Maxwell, A Reed Shaken by the Wind (Middlesex: Penguin, 1957), 150. "Bdbil, 10 October 1993. 116Babil, 21 October 1992, in FBIS-SERIAL 2310103594. And see, for example, a complaint that the

Haditha police is unable to stop tribal disputes, in Bdbil, 17 October 1993. For warning of greater prob- lems ahead, see Babil, 7 September 1992.

117Dr. Yuisuf Hamdan, al-Thawra, 15 October 1992. 11 Last part of Saddam's speech to Bath Congress, Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 Octo-

ber 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 19. 1 9Baghdad Radio, 30 August 1992, in FBIS-NES, 31 August 1992. Hanna Batatu mentions the north-

ern Shammar Jarba (Sunnis) and southern Shammar Toqa (Shi'is), and the southern Fatla of the Dulaym (Shi'is) and the Dulaym on the Euphrates north of Baghdad (Sunnis). The Jubbur, too, are split between

30 Amatzia Baram

southern Shici and northern Sunni branches (see p. 41). There are many more such split tribes. Al-bu Nasir (in the Tikrit and Najaf areas) is only one of them.

120AI-Thawra, 17 March 1991; al-Thawra, 28 July 1991. Also al-Thawra, editorials, 3, 4, 5 April 1991.

12lAl-Thawra, 3 December 1992. And see CIzzat Ibrahim, deputy secretary-general of the party's re-

gional leadership and deputy chairman of the RCC, claiming that "love and respect for the family and tribe" are the values of "Arabism before Islam and after it" (al-Jumhiiriyya, 20 April 1993).

122An interview with an American general who commanded a field unit that was part of the left- hook maneuver through the Western Iraqi desert to Safwan, 18 August 1994, Washington, D.C.

123Al-Jihad, 22 April 1991, assessed the fatalities at 30,000. General Wafiq al-Samarra'i, who defected in December 1995, mentioned 100,000; Voice of Iraqi Kurdistan in Arabic, 17 December 1994, in FBIS- NES-DR, 19 December 1994, 34.

124In late January 1994, for example, payments for wheat and barley were increased by some 60 percent; see Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 22 January 1994, in FBIS-NES, 24 January 1994, 35. Four-and-a-half months later, a presidential decree again raised substantially and retroactively the

payments to peasants for wheat and barley; Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 14 June 1994, in FBIS-SERIAL JN1406125494.

125In the fall of 1995 only one of the eight members of the RCC (Tariq CAziz) had been born in a major city. Of the seventeen members of the RL, only two or three had been born in a major city (CAziz, CAbd

al-Ghani 'Abd al-Ghaffur, and possibly Samir Najm). t26This conclusion is based on interviews with a number of Baghdadis who have left Iraq since the

late 1980s, 1993-94, London and Washington, D.C. 127Richard Tapper, as quoted in the introduction to Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East,

ed. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991), 5. See also Eick- elman, The Middle East, 128-35, and Albert Hourani's conclusion in Tribe and State Formation, 304.

128Men from Saddam Hussein's extended family have served in a number of influential positions: as the czar of Iraq's industry and military industry (until August 1995); as minister of defense (until July 1995); as minister of interior, in charge of the police, border guard, and economic police (until May 1995); and as chiefs of general security. At least until mid-1996 family members also served as chief of special security and as provincial governors. Members of his tribe, Al-bu Nasir, commanded the Air Force and the Republican Guard and served as his chief military adviser. One was Army Group commander; a large number were army generals; and most of the battalion commanders in the Special Republican Guard belonged to the tribe.

129See, for example, the case of the chief of the 'Anayza refusing to help the Ottomans in any area in which he had no relatives (his tribesmen). "I will not march beyond the Dead Sea.... I have no relatives there.. .. Why should I go to bring death to myself?" Musil, Arabia Deserta, 438.

13For example, ibid., 173, 175, 185, 369, 434, 435. 13 See William Lancaster, The Ruwala Bedouin Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1981), 142. 132Even Saddam himself promised that "next time [I will plan things] so that our losses would be

within the limits of normal losses," implying that losses in the Gulf War were unacceptable; al-Thawra, 12 July 1991. See also his admission in regard to the way the Gulf War ended that "Only God is free of error"; INA in Arabic, 6 January 1994, in FBIS-NES, 7 January 1994, 22. See also embarrassing questions and revelations by Sacd Bazzaz (chief editor of al-Jumhdriyya), Harb Talidu Ukhra (Jordan: al-Ahliyya lil-Nashr wal-Tawzic, 1992-93), mainly pp. 26-34.

133Steven Caton, "Power, Persuasion and Language: a Critique of the Segmentary Model in the Mid- dle East," International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (February 1987): 89, as quoted by Eickelman, The Middle East, 136. See also Frank H. Stewart, who wrote "Bedouin law is ... fundamentally directed towards the peaceful settlement of disputes," in Honor (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 139 (see also pp. 81-91); and Musil, Arabia Deserta, 172-73, 434.

34Musil, Arabia Deserta, 369, 434. 135For example, Saddam's face described as "your bedouin face" (wajhuka al-badawl) in a poem by

'Izz al-Din al-Mani', al-Thawra, 28 April 1992. 136See, for example, Joseph Kostiner, "Tribes and State in Saudi Arabia," in Tribes and State Forma-

tion, 245.


137For the Iraqi context, my conclusion is based on interviews with "'Abd al-Rahim," 5-7 May 1994, and Sacd Bazzaz's lecture in the United States, 17 August 1995.

138See, for example, Ernest Gellner, "Tribalism and State in the Middle East," in Tribes and State Formation, 11-112.

139Lady Anne Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (London: John Murray, 1879), 140. 140For example, Musil, Arabia Deserta, 454.

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