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Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein's Tribal Policies 1991–96

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Amatzia Baram
Amatzia Baram
Affiliation:
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Middle Eastern HistoryUniversity of Haifa, Mt. Carmel31905 Haifa, Israel.
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Extract

The intention of this article is to show that, when applying his tribal policies, Saddam Hussein altered the Baʿth 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 Hussein'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 “Baʿthization”), 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 Baʿth Party itself “a tribe.”

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 1997 , pp. 1 - 31
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

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 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.

1 Al-Jumhūriyya, 18 07 1968Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, “Alif Bāʾ al-Baʿth,” al-Aḥrār (Beirut, the organ of the pro-Iraqi faction), 20 03 1970Google Scholar, and reproduced in a booklet of the same name, by Lil-Tibaʿa, Dar al-Taliʿa, Beirut, 04 1970, 18, 21, 25Google Scholar.

3 Al-Thawra al-ʿArabiyya, Third Year, no. 5–6, 1971Google Scholar, as reproduced in Al-Fallāḥūn wal-Thawra fī al-Rīf (The Peasants and the Revolution in the Village) (Beirut: Dar al-Taliʿa, 1974), 36–45Google Scholar.

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10 Al-Jumhūriyya, 7 07 1970Google Scholar. For meaningful concessions to peasants, mostly at the expense of the landlords (many of whom were either tribal shaykhs or sādāh) introduced in May 1969, see RCC Resolution, al-Jumhūriyya, 18 05 1969Google Scholar: Ilghāʾ at-Taʿwīṭ ʿan al-Arāṭī al-Muṣādara. See also RCC resolutions in al-Jumhūriyya, 10 06 1969, for further concessionsGoogle Scholar. For the new Land Reform Law of 1970, see Al-ʿlrāq Fī al-Ṭarīq (Baghdad: Wizarat al-Iʿlam, 1972), 32–34Google Scholar. For a typical debate on how best to separate the peasants from the “tribal” and “tie [them] to the central government,” see Sulṭān, Salīm against Ḥammādī, Saʿdūn, al-Thawra, 19 and 21 11 1968Google Scholar. See also Jāsim, ʿAzīz al-Sayyid, al-Thawra, 18 03 1969Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 5 03 1969Google Scholar.

11 In the summer of 1969, the tribes of the Mayyah, near ʿAmara, rose up in arms. For details of the June 1969 confrontation, see al-Ḥayāt (Beirut), 22, 26, 27, 28 June 1969; 1, 2, 11, 12 July 1969; 1, 2 08 1969Google Scholar.

12 For a study that concludes that urbanization in Iraq significantly weakened tribal ties, see al-ʿAyyāsh, Ghāzī, al-Jumhūriyya, 22 11 1993Google Scholar. Al-ʿAyyāsh is lamenting this phenomenon.

13 A series of interviews by the author with “ʿAbd al-Rahim,” a middle-aged intellectual and scion of a shaykhly family near Diwaniyya, 5–705 1994, Cambridge, MassGoogle Scholar. Tribes were affected differently even in adjacent areas. For example, in 1993 the population of the nāḥiya of al-Kifl near Hilla (526 square kilometers), was 84,000, split among six tribes (ʿashāʾir) (al-Thawra, 19 04 1993Google Scholar). In the nearby nāḥiya of Abi Gharq (191 square kilometers, with fewer than 40,000 people), there were fifteen tribes (al-Thawra, 28 02 1993Google Scholar).

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

15 The same person; compare, for example, the shaykh of the Rabiʿa in 1956 and in 1993: alʿAzzāwī, ʿAbbās, ʿAshāʾir al-ʿlrāq (Baghdad: Sharikat al-Tijara, 1956), vol. 4, 165Google Scholar, with Bābil, 25 11 1993Google Scholar. The shaykh of the Bani Asad in 1956 and in 1993: ʿAzzawi, 4:44, with al-Jumhūriyya, 1 07 1993Google Scholar. The same family—for example, although until 1954 Al-Bu Badri, living between Baghdad and Samarra, were led by al-Badri, Saʿid Mahmud, in 1993 they were led by the surgeon Dr. ʿAbd al-Latif al-Badri; compare ʿAzzāwī, 4:255-56Google Scholar, with al-Jumhūriyya, 22 06 1993Google Scholar. led, Shaykh ʿAsi al-Asad the Karabla in the Jazira in 1955, and his son, Badiwi al-Shaykh ʿAsi al-Asad, was the chief in 1993Google Scholar: compare ʿAzzāwī, , 3:118, with Bābil, 2 11 1993Google Scholar. There are many more examples.

16 See, for example. Dr. Ibrahim Mazhar al-Shawi, shaykh of the ʿUbayd in Mahmudiyya, Bābil, 28 10 1993Google Scholar. For officers and party officials, see al-Jumhūriyya, 9 01 1993, 1 07 1993Google Scholar. By summer 1995 two members of the Sunni Arab Saʿdun clan from Nasiriyya were among the seventeen members of the Regional Leadership of the Baʿth Party. And see below.

17 For example, al-Uzayrij were still there in 1993, as they had been in the early 1950s (cf. ʿAzzāwī, 3:72, al-Thawra, 15 03 1993Google Scholar). The same applies to al-Bazzun of Maymuna (cf. ʿAzzāwī, 4:74Google Scholar, al-Thawra, 16 08 1992Google Scholar); Darraj, Al-bu (cf. ʿ Azzāwī, 4:176, Bābil, 14 02 1994)Google Scholar; al-Mayyah, (cf. ʿAzzāwī, 4:166, al-Thawra, 21 02 1992)Google Scholar; the marsh al-Farijat (cf. ʿAzzāwī, , 3:66, al-ʿlrāq, 8 03 1992)Google Scholar. And many more.

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

19 An 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).

20 Fukaykī, Awkār al-Hazīma, 233Google Scholar.

21 Interview with “ʿUmar,” 1 07 1994, Washington, D.CGoogle Scholar. “ʿUmar” knew well the sons of a few top Baʿthi 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). “ʿUmar” left Iraq in early 1990.

22 Shaykh Mishʿan Rakkad al-Damin al-Jubburi, who assisted Saddam Hussein in his tribal policies between 1975 and the late 1980s, in an interview with Graham, Helga, The Independent on Sunday, 20 08 1995Google Scholar. Much of the interview was corroborated by Bazzaz, Saʿd, chief editor of al-Jumhūriyya who fled Iraq in 1992, in a lecture in the United States on 17 08 1995Google Scholar.

23 al-Jubbūrī, Mishʿān, The Independent on Sunday, 20 08 1995Google Scholar. See also another interview he gave to al-Ḥayāt (London), 18 08 1995Google Scholar; this author's interview with an American official in Washington, D.C, October 1993, 30 08 1994Google Scholar; Al-WaṬan al-ʿArabī, 25 06 1993, in JPRS-NEA, 31 08 1993, 1Google Scholar. See also the interview with “ʿUmar,” 25 12 1993, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar

24 As a result of the exposure of the coup d'état, the Army Day parade was canceled for the first time under Baʿth rule. For more detailed information, see al-Jubbūrī, Mishʿan, The Independent on Sunday, 20 08 1995Google Scholar. See also his interview with al-ḥayāt (London), 20 08 1995Google Scholar. Also, see this author's interview with an American official in Washington, D.C, 09 1993Google Scholar. The execution of 26 Jubburis was corroborated in an interview with an opposition activist who quoted Ambassador Jubburi, ʿAlwan, who had defected in 1993 to the West (25 09 1993, Boston)Google Scholar. And see Al-Waṭan al-ʿArabī, 25 06 1993, in JPRS-NEA, 31 August 1993, 1Google Scholar.

25 Although the regime flatly denied that there had been a Dulaymi military coup d'état in Abu Ghurayb in mid-June (al-Jumhūriyya, 20 06 1995Google Scholar; INA, 16 June 1995, in FBIS-NES-DR, 19 06 1995, 22Google Scholar), it never denied the mid-May Ramadi revolt. Indeed, by implication it even admitted it; see al-Thawra, 28 05 1995, in FBIS-NES-DR, 9 June 1995, 45Google Scholar; al-Kuʿud, Shaykh, INA, 28 06 1995, in FBIS-NES-Dft, 29 June 1995, 21Google Scholar.

26 Eickelman, , The Middle East, 144Google Scholar.

27 Jubburi, Mishʿan to Graham, Helga, The Independent on Sunday, 20 08 1995Google Scholar.

28 Interview with “ʿUmar,” 25 December 1993, corroborated by the Iraqi press. See the account of Saddam asking for Colonel tribe, Jasim Muhammad Salih's (being the Dulaym), in al-Jumhūriyya, 11 03 1992Google Scholar.

29 A party membership form shown to this author, among other Baʿthi 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.

30 Interview with “ʿUmar,” 25 12 1993Google Scholar.

31 Interviews with two Iraqi expatriates, the scions of Shiʿi tribal chieftains' families, one conducted in London over the course of a few meetings in 09 1991Google Scholar; the other with “ʿAbd al-Rahim” in Cambridge, Mass., on 5–705 1994Google Scholar, 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; Bābil, 11 10 1993Google Scholar. And Bazzaz, Saʿd, former editor of al-Jumhūriyya, who escaped from Iraq in 1992, in a lecture in the United States on 17 08 1995Google Scholar.

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

33 Interviews with four senior Kurdish activists, one of whom was a son of such a tribal chief mustashār, 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), 161–66Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 03 1992Google Scholar. “Government Kurds” were not a new phenomenon. They had existed since the monarchy, but the Baʿth expanded these units.

34 Al-Thawra, , 28 07 1992 (in Sinjar, Nineveh)Google Scholar; al-Thawra, , 18 11 1991Google Scholar.

35 See Baram, Amatzia, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Baʿthi Iraq (New York: St. Martin's Press; London and Oxford: MacMillan and St. Antony's College, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “Re-Inventing Nationalism in Baʿthi Iraq,” Princeton Papers, 1996, forthcoming.

36 See, for example, his speech at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Tenth Regional Congress, Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 10 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 16–19Google Scholar; and a speech to members of the leadership of party “Branches” (furūʿ) in Baghdad (al-Jumhūriyya, 24 11 1992Google Scholar).

37 According to the regime, among those were the Shakak under Shaykh Jalal Muhammad Tahir Zinawa, and the Harki under Ahmad Khan, who defended Mosul, ʿAqra, and Shaykhan, as well as the Rikaniyya under al-Rikani, Shaykh Muhammad Kalhi Tahir; al-Qādisiyya, 16 03 1992Google Scholar.

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

39 Mostly Sunni tribes which supported the regime in Madaʾin (Diyala): the Dulaym, Jubbur, ʿUkaydat, Mulla, Saʿidat, 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 03 1991Google Scholar. And for support for the regime from Shiʿi and Sunni tribes in the Baghdad area, see al-Thawra, 19 03 1991Google Scholar.

40 Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 10 1992, in FBIS-NES, 8 October 1992, 19Google Scholar.

41 Interviews with four Shiʿi revolutionaries, two of whom were very knowledgeable and specific; “Harun” (in his early twenties) from Hilla, and “ʿAbd 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.).

42 Al-Thawra, 13 05 1994Google Scholar.

43 “Wadiʿ,” interviewed by a colleague in Kurdistan, 26 July 1993 (unpublished). See also the Daʿwa Shiʿi opposition magazine al-Jihād, 30 09 1991Google Scholar. And see a claim that “most” (but not all!) the tribes near Basra, ʿAmara, and Nasiriyya joined the revolt; al-Jihād, 11 03 1991Google Scholar. al-Shaʿlan, Shaykh Husayn, chief of the Khazaʿa, joined the Intifada and eventually fled to Saudi Arabia; al-Jihād al-Duwalī, 15 07 1991Google Scholar. See also al-Jihād al-Duwalī, 12 08 1991Google Scholar; Liwāʾ al-Ṣadr, 25 08 1991Google Scholar; Liw āʾ al-Ṣadr, 22 09 1991Google Scholar. And see Liwāʾ al-Ṣadr, 10 11 1991Google Scholar.

44 For example, according to interviews, in Mahawil, near Hilla, al-bu ʿAlwan (a partly-Shiʿi 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.

45 Interview with “Harun” and “Abd al-Rahim” and their two colleagues, 05 1994, BostonGoogle Scholar. For details about General al-Ribbat, see al-Sammarāʾī, Yūnis al-Shaykh Ibrāhīm, Al-Qabqāʾil al-ʿIrāqiyya (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Sharq al-Jadīd, 1989), 1:252–53Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 17 02 1993Google Scholar;al-ʿIrāq, 17 09 1993Google Scholar. According to the Baʿthi press, the Bani Hasan, Al-bu Dish, al-ʿIsa, al-Shibil, al-Jaryu, and Al-bu Nasir (the Shiʿi branch of the president's tribe, in my opinion)—all of the Najaf governorate—supported the regime; al-Jumhūriyya, 19 03 1992Google Scholar.

46 For Al-bu, ʿAysh and alʿAmaʾira tribes in Nahiyat al-Fuhud in Dhi Qar, see al-Thawra, 17 11 1993Google Scholar.

47 For example, during the first half of March 1991, there was already one tribal shaykh in the Shiʿi south who had announced support for the regime. This shaykh, from the qaṭāʾ of Suwayra, in the governorate of Wasit, was from the Juhaysh; see al-Thawra, 13 03 1991Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 19 03 1991Google Scholar.

48 Al-Jumhūriyya, 29 02 1992, 4 March 1992Google Scholar.

49 Al-Thawra, 24 03 1991Google Scholar. For reports of other tribes supporting the regime, see al-ʿlrāq, 9 03 1992Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 19 03 1992Google Scholar.

50 See, for example, al-Thawra, 29 03 1991Google Scholar, for the tribal chiefs of Wasit; the Khawalid of Babil (al-Hilla) and Baghdad; the Shammar of Madaʾin; Banu Tamim from Salah al-Din; al-ʿIzza 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 Rabiʿa of Diyala. See also al-Thawra, 10 04 1991, 21 April 1991Google Scholar; AlifBāʾ, 24 04 1991Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 25 08 1991, 10 November 1991Google Scholar.

51 Even the regime's media recognized the possibility that some tribal Shiʿi individuals [as opposed to whole tribes] did not deserve the medals they were awarded; Bābil, 14 05 1994Google Scholar.

52 Specific 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 ʿAli 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-Jihād, 16 09 1991Google Scholar. Shaykh ʿAbd al-Latif al-Darimi, a tribal chief in the vicinity of Karbala, was a Baʿthi old-timer and a member of Parliament who, with his tribe, collaborated with the regime; al-Jihād al-Duwalī, 15 07 1991Google Scholar. As reported by a revolutionary from qadaʾ al-Madina, the army that crushed the Intifada there was aided by local Parliament members who recruited local tribal chiefs; Liwāʾ al-Ṣadr, 28 07 1991Google Scholar. There are many more examples.

53 An 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.

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

55 “Harun” explained the participation of Yazidis and some Shiʿis 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.

56 Liwāʾ al-Ṣadr, 28 07 1991Google Scholar.

57 The case of M.P. ʿAbd al-Latif al-Darimi is a similar one. Similarly, the chief of the Zangana, Saʿid Muhyi al-Din, was a member of Parliament; al-ʿlrāq, 11 12 1991Google Scholar. Major General Khudayr ʿAbbas Ghadban belongs to the Shiʿi Karamitha of Najaf; Bābil, 17 02 1993Google Scholar. Major General Muhammad Salih Ismaʿil al-Khalidi is the shaykh of Al-bu Khalid in Diyala; al-Jumhūriyya, 9 01 1993Google Scholar.

58 Interviews with four participants in the Intifada, 5–605 1994Google Scholar.

59 Al-Thawra, 17 03 1991Google Scholar.

60 Al-Thawra, 29 03 1991Google Scholar.

61 Al-Jumhūriyya, 17 02 1993Google Scholar.

62 Al-Thawra, 7 03 1993Google Scholar.

63 For 500 tribal chiefs, clergy and notables from Diala, with their guns and flags, see al-Jumhūriyya, 25 05 1993Google Scholar; for 339 chiefs and clergy from Basra performing their dances for Saddam and swearing to turn in “rebels,” see al-Thawra, 14 03 1993Google Scholar; and for 617 chiefs and others from Nineveh (a Sunnirea), see al-Thawra, 7 04 1993Google Scholar.

64 Al-Thawra, 3 03 1993, 28 01 1994Google Scholar.

65 Al-Thawra, 15 03 1993Google Scholar.

66 See the account of Saddam's visit to the Hadidiyyin in Nineveh, where he sat with the tribal leaders in the muṭīf; Bābil, 6 12 1992Google Scholar. And see his visit to the Shiʿi Bani Malik near Qurna; al-Thawra, 3 09 1992Google Scholar.

67 For example, al-Thawra, 15 03 1993Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 25 05 1993Google Scholar.

68 See, for example, al-Thawra, 26 01 1992Google Scholar; al-Qādisiyya, 27 04 1993Google Scholar; Bābil, 28 October 1993 (Saddam and the chief of the ʿUbayd).

69 Bābil, 13 and 25 10 1993Google Scholar.

70 Al-Thawra, 18 09 1992.Google Scholar

71 This was, for example, the case in the town of Diwaniyya; al-Thawra, 21 11 1993Google Scholar; also, 14 July 1993. And in the center of the governorate of Qadisiyya, where the (compound's?) area wa no smaller than 4,500 square meters and could house a whole tribe; al-Thawra, 14 07 1993Google Scholar.

72 Al-Thawra, 1 08 1993Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 20 04 1993, 25 May 1993Google Scholar.

73 A1-Thawra, 24 04 1994Google Scholar; and Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 23 April 1994, in FBISSER1ALJN 2304195394. See also al-ʿIraq, 1 12 1992Google Scholar.

74 Al-Thawra, 1 08 1993Google Scholar. For officials visiting the tribal muṭī , see, for example, the account of the party secretary of the Basra Farʿ visiting Shaykh ʿAbd al-Rasul Khudayr of the Bani Kaʿb near Basra, in al-Thawra, 7 10 1992Google Scholar. See also the account of the Zubayd, Jubbur, al-Luhayb, al-Hurub, Bani Zayd, and the sādāh in Diyala inviting to a meeting the secretary of the Central Tanzim of the party, Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmad, and swearing allegiance, in al-Thawra, 5 10 1992Google Scholar.

75 For example, al-Qādisiyya, 13 12 1993Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 30 12 1993Google Scholar.

76 Al-Thawra, 7 03 1993, 15 March 1993Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 25 05 1993; and moreGoogle Scholar.

77 Al-Thawra, 14 07 1993Google Scholar.

78 See the people of Ramadi to the president; al-Thawra, 14 06 1995Google Scholar.

79 Al-Thawra, 5 04 1993Google Scholar.

80 See a case of a mukhtār of a village accused of stealing water and other things from his village and banished from the tribe; Bābil, 8 11 1993Google Scholar.

81 Al-Thawra, 29 08 1993Google Scholar.

82 Al-Jumhūriyya, 22 06 1993Google Scholar.

83 See, for example, Saʿdun Shakir representing the party in a funeral in Khalis of a tribal shaykh of the Banu Asad (al-Thawra, 2 12 1992Google Scholar) (Shakir himself is from Khalis, from the ʿUbayd); the chief of Uzayrij thanking Saddam for sending his First Companion (al-Murāfiq al-Aqdam) Rukkan Razzuqi to deliver his condolences at a funeral (al-Thawra, 12 04 1993Google Scholar); 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 09 1993Google Scholar); and more.

84 See, 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 12 1992Google Scholar); and a funeral in the Saʿdun (al-Thawra, 29 03 1993Google Scholar).

85 For lands, see al-Thawra, 8 and 10 04 1992Google Scholar; al-ʿIrāq, 13 04 1992Google Scholar. For water to Basra tribes, see al-Jumhūriyya, 14 09 1993Google Scholar. 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 03 1993Google Scholar. For three million dinars for tribes in Dhi Qar, see al-Jumhūriyya, 17 02 1993Google Scholar. For prize money to tribal chiefs for capturing “infiltrators” in al-Kahla, Maysan, see al-Thawra, 23 10 1992Google Scholar. And for special gifts from the president to tribal chiefs in Basra and Anbar, see al-Thawra, 8 04 1992Google Scholar.

86 Al-Thawra, 14 07 1993Google Scholar. For officials returning lands to its pre-1958 owners and dispossessing poor peasants, see Bābil, 28 03 1994Google Scholar. 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-ʿIzz, near ʿAmara; to the tribes of Al-bu Muhammad, Al-bu Ghanim, Al-bu Bakhit, and al-Nawafil, see al-Thawra, 27 03 1994Google Scholar.

87 See, 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 09 1992Google Scholar. For the use by the tribes of mortars, howitzers, and RPG rocket launchers given to them by the state, see Bābil, 10 10 1993Google Scholar. And for a demand by the Nassar from al-Rifaʿi in Dhi Qar for more arms, to which the president agreed on condition of proper use, see al-Thawra, 3 12 1992Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 9 09 1992Google Scholar.

88 Al-Thawra, 3 September 1992; 21 12 1992Google Scholar.

89 Al-Thawra, 5 04 1993Google Scholar.

90 Al-Jumhūriyya, 21 09 1991Google Scholar, in FB1S-NES, 26 09 1991, 21–23Google Scholar.

91 Last part of Saddam's speech to Baʿth Congress, Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 10 1992Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES, 8 10 1992, 19Google Scholar.

92 al-Mukhtār, Ṣalāḥ, editor in chief, al-Jumhūriyya, 5 01 1994Google Scholar; see also ibid., 17 November 1993.

93 Bābil, 6 12 1993Google Scholar. For a similar practice by the minister of the interior in mid-1994, see Bābil 27 06 1994Google Scholar. See also a study of intertribal violence and the authorities' approach of following tribal traditions as much as possible; al-Jumhūriyya, 19 04 1992Google Scholar.

94 “Abū Sirḥān,” Bābil, 5 06 1994Google Scholar.

95 For details on the defection and its aftermath, see Baram, Amatzia, “The Regime's No. Two Defects,” Middle East Quarterly, 2, 4: 15–21Google Scholar.

96 INA in Arabic, 23 and 24 02 1996Google Scholar, in FB1S-NES-DR, 26 02 1996, 19Google Scholar. The assassins reportedly came from the families of ʿAbd al-Majid, Sultan, and ʿAbd al-Ghaffur. They are the sons of ʿAbd al-Qadir, Saddam's great-grandfather; see family tree in Iskandar, Amīr, Saddam Husayn Munāṭilan, wa Mufakkiran, wa Insānan (Paris: Hachette, 1980), 21Google Scholar. For the sisters' death, see AFP Paris from Amman, 26 02 1996Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES-DR, 27 02 1996, 23–24Google Scholar. See also al-Majalla (London), 17–23, 03 1996Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES-DR, 22 03 1996, 19–20Google Scholar. For Saddam's endorsement, see Associated Press quoting INA, 10 05 1996Google Scholar. General Nizar al-Khazraji, who defected after the murder, however, did not include the sisters and their families among the casualties; interview in al-Ḥayāt (London), 16 04 1996Google Scholar.

97 See, for example, the accounts of the death of Hathut ʿAbd Saʿid, chief of the Hamida faction of alʿAzimun tribe in al-Jadida, Baghdad, in al-Thawra, 5 August 1992, and 27 07 1992Google Scholar. For tribal chiefs in Madinat Saddam, the newer Shiʿi poor quarter, see al-Qādisiyya, 16 01 1992Google Scholar; and in the old Shiʿi quarter al-Kazimiyya, see al-Thawra, 16 08 1992Google Scholar.

98 See, for example, the account of the shaykh of the ʿUkaydat in al-Hayy quarter, in al-Qādisiyya, 16 10 1995Google Scholar; and in al-Thawra, 16 10 1995Google Scholar.

99 Nasir, Saddam's Al-bu affiliation was (inadvertently?) exposed to the Iraqi public in 1980–1981Google Scholar. 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; Matar, Fuad, Saddam Hussein: The Man, The Cause and The Future (Beirut: Express International Printing Company, 1981; London: Third World Center for Research and Publishing, 1981), 71Google Scholar. For Saddam of the Beygat, a sub-unit of Al-bu Nasir, see al-Thawra, 17 07 1993Google Scholar. For Saddam's, Khayr Allah Talfah's, General Fadil al-Barrak's, and General Hamid Shaʿban's affiliation to Al Nasir (or Al-bu Nasir), see al-Samarrāʾī, , Al-Qabāʾil, 2:655–58Google Scholar; also, Alif Bāʾ, 26 04 1995Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES-DR, 30 06 1995, 30Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 29 10 1995Google Scholar. For Izzat Ibrahim, see al-Samarrāʾī, , Al-Qabaāʾil, 1:213, 1:165Google Scholar; Bābil, 5 01 1994Google Scholar. See also, al-Samarrāʾī, , Al-Qabāʾil, 2:636Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 18 08 1993Google Scholar; Bābil, 17 02 1993Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 1 07 1993Google Scholar

100 Al-Thawra, 18 08 1993Google Scholar.

101 Bābil, 17 02 1993Google Scholar.

102 At-Jumhūriyya, 9 01 1993Google Scholar.

103 Al-Samarrāʾī, , Al-Qabāʾil, 1:213Google Scholar.

104 Al-Jumhūriyya, 1 07 1993Google Scholar.

105 See, for example, an account by Hasan al-ʿAlawi, a scion of the Shiʿi Hamdaniyya tribe of Rumaytha (Al-ʿIrāq, Dawlat al-Munaẓẓama al-Sirriyya [Tehran: al-Sharīf al-Rāḍī, 1992?], 180–81Google Scholar), 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-ʿAlawi's cousin, ʿAdnan Husayn al-Hamdani, a member of the RCC and party leadership who was executed by Hussein, Saddam in 08 1979Google Scholar. He had rejected his tribe, and lost its (limited) protection.

106 Thus, for example, ʿAziz Salih Al Nūman, who is “responsible” for the party tanẓīmāt in Maysan and Wasit, and who was appointed following the Intifada, is a member of the Khaffaja from the neighboring governorate, Dhi Qar {al-Jumūiriyya, 21 11 1992Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 5 08 1992Google Scholar). Hamid Mahmud al-Hasan, Secretary of the farʿ of Babil, is the brother of the chief of the large tribe of ʿAbd Allah there (al-Thawra, 1 08 1993Google Scholar). Karim Hasan Rida, governor of Najaf in 1991–92, is a member of a (Shiʿi) branch of Bani Tamim in the mixed area of Diyala, east of Baghdad (al-Thawra, 23 03 1992Google Scholar).

107 Muhammad Zimam Al Saʿdun, 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 Saʿduns in Basra (alʿlrāq, 2 12 1992Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 14 03 1993Google Scholar). ʿAbd al-Baqi ʿAbd Karim al-Saʿdin, the secretary of the farʿ of Basra (al-Thawra, 25 and 26 08 1991Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 9 10 1992Google Scholar), and his brother, the Secretary of the farʿ of Dhi Qar, ʿAli ʿAbd al-Karim al-Saʿdun, belong to the same clan; al-Thawra, 25 08 1991Google Scholar.

108 Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 10 1992Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES, 8 10 1992, 20Google Scholar.

109 Ḥasan, Ḍiyāʾ, al-Thawra, 22 10 1992Google Scholar. See also praises to the tribes for their “heroism in defending the homeland (al-watan)”; al-Thawra, 18 08 1991Google Scholar. And for the failure of the imperialists to “divide and rule” Iraqi society as demonstrated by unified tribal support for Saddam, see Bābil, 16 12 1993Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 7 09 1992Google Scholar. And for Interior Minister Watban Ibrahim Hasan on tribal cooperation with his ministry, see al-Qādisiyya, 21 03 1992Google Scholar; al-Jumhūriyya, 21 12 1992Google Scholar.

110 Al-Thawra, 11 12 1992Google Scholar.

111 See also al-ʿAyyāsh, Ghāzī, al-Jumhūriyya, 22 11 1993Google Scholar.

112 al-Saʿdūn, Asʿad Ḥamūd, Bābil, 1 11 1993Google Scholar.

113 Al-Thawra, 3 12 1992Google Scholar.

144 See Maxwell, Gavin, A Reed Shaken by the Wind (Middlesex: Penguin, 1957), 150Google Scholar.

115 Bābil, 10 10 1993Google Scholar.

116 Bābil, 21 10 1992Google Scholar, in FBIS-SERIAL 2310103594. And see, for example, a complaint that the Haditha police is unable to stop tribal disputes, in Bābil, 17 10 1993Google Scholar. For warning of greater problems ahead, see Bābil, 7 09 1992Google Scholar.

117 DrḤamdān, Yūsuf, al-Thawra, 15 10 1992Google Scholar.

118 Last part of Saddam's speech to Baʿth Congress, Republic of Iraq Radio Network in Arabic, 7 10 1992Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES, 8 10 1992, 19Google Scholar.

119 Baghdad Radio, 30 08 1992Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES, 31 08 1992Google Scholar. Hanna Batatu mentions the northern Shammar Jarba (Sunnis) and southern Shammar Toqa (Shiʿis), and the southern Fatla of the Dulaym (Shiʿis) and the Dulaym on the Euphrates north of Baghdad (Sunnis). The Jubbur, too, are split between southern Shiʿi 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.

120 Al-Thawra, 17 03 1991Google Scholar; al-Thawra, 28 07 1991Google Scholar. Also al-Thawra, editorials, 3, 4, 5 04 1991Google Scholar.

121 Al-Thawra, 3 12 1992Google Scholar. And see ʿIzzat Ibrahim, deputy secretary-general of the party's regional 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-Jumhūriyya, 20 04 1993Google Scholar).

122 An interview with an American general who commanded a field unit that was part of the lefthook maneuver through the Western Iraqi desert to Safwan, 18 08 1994, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar

123 AI-Jihād, 22 04 1991Google Scholar, assessed the fatalities at 30,000. General Wafiq al-Samarraʾi, who defected in 12 1995, mentioned 100,000Google Scholar; Voice of Iraqi Kurdistan in Arabic, 17 12 1994Google Scholar, in FBISNES-DR, 19 12 1994, 34Google Scholar.

124 In 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 01 1994Google Scholar, in FB1S-NES, 24 01 1994, 35Google Scholar. 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 06 1994Google Scholar, in FBIS-SERIAL JN1406125494.

125 In the fall of 1995 only one of the eight members of the RCC (Tariq ʿAziz) 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 (ʿAziz, ʿAbd al-Ghani ʿAbd al-Ghaffur, and possibly Samir Najm).

126 This conclusion is based on interviews with a number of Baghdadis who have left Iraq since the late 1980s, 1993–1994, London and Washington, D.CGoogle Scholar.

127 Tapper, Richard, as quoted in the introduction to Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. Khoury, Philip S. and Kostiner, Joseph (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991), 5Google Scholar. See also Eickelman, , The Middle East, 128–35Google Scholar, and Hourani's, Albert conclusion in Tribe and State Formation, 304Google Scholar

128 Men 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.

129 See, for example, the case of the chief of the ʿAnayza 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, 438Google Scholar.

130 For example, ibid., 173, 175, 185, 369, 434, 435.

131 See Lancaster, William, The Ruwala Bedouin Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 142Google Scholar.

132 Even 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 07 1991Google Scholar. See also his admission in regard to the way the Gulf War ended that “Only God is free of error”; INA in Arabic, 6 01 1994Google Scholar, in FBIS-NES, 7 01 1994, 22Google Scholar. See also embarrassing questions and revelations by Saʿd Bazzāz (chief editor of al-Jumhūriyya), Ḥarb Talidu Ukhrā (Jordan: al-Ahliyya lil-Nashr wal-Tawzīʿ 1992–1993), mainly pp. 26–34Google Scholar.

133 Caton, Steven, “Power, Persuasion and Language: a Critique of the Segmentary Model in the Middle East,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (02 1987): 89Google Scholar, as quoted by Eickelman, , The Middle East, 136Google Scholar. See also Stewart, Frank H., who wrote “Bedouin law is…fundamentally directed towards the peaceful settlement of disputes,” Honor (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 139 (see also pp. 81–91)Google Scholar; and Musil, , Arabia Deserta, 172–73, 434Google Scholar.

134 Musil, , Arabia Deserta, 369, 434Google Scholar

135 For example, Saddam's face described as “your bedouin face” (wajhuka al-badawī) in a poem by al-Māniʿ, ʿIzz al-Dīnal-Thawra, 28 04 1992Google Scholar.

136 See, for example, Kostiner, Joseph, “Tribes and State in Saudi Arabia,” in Tribes and State Formation, 245Google Scholar.

137 For the Iraqi context, my conclusion is based on interviews with “al-Rahim, ʿAbd,” 5–7 05 1994Google Scholar, and Bazzaz's, Saʿd lecture in the United States, 17 08 1995Google Scholar.

138 See, for example, Gellner, Ernest, “Tribalism and State in the Middle East,” in Tribes and State Formation, 11–112Google Scholar.

139 Blunt, Lady Anne, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (London: John Murray, 1879), 140CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

140 For example, Musil, , Arabia Deserta, 454Google Scholar.