Facts on the War in Iraq:
Ba'ath
Party
General Georges Sada was the only Iraqi
general under Hussein who was not a member of
the Ba'ath party.
Source:
BBC News
The Iraqi Baath party was one of
the tools by which Saddam Hussein maintained a
tight grip on his country.
The Arab Socialist Baath Party, to give it
its full name, was founded in Syria in the 1940s
by a small group of French-educated Syrian
intellectuals - Michel Aflaq, a Greek Orthodox,
and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a Sunni Muslim.
The word Baath means renaissance in Arabic.
The party's ideology is pan-Arab, secular
nationalism. A committed Baathist should
see individual Arab states as regions or
provinces of the larger Arab nation.
The party is secular, and in the beginning,
was steeped in Socialist ideology.
The Baath party also became the ruling party and
bureaucracy in Syria - a fact that led to great
rivalry between Damascus and Baghdad, rather
than alliance.
The Iraqi Baath party was founded in 1951 and
had 500 members three years later. Saddam
Hussein joined it as a 20-year-old in 1956.
The party came to power on 8 February 1963 in a
coup backed by the Army, overthrowing Brigadier
Abdel Karim Qasim - who himself overthrew the
British-installed Iraqi monarchy in 1958.
The Baathist hold on power did not last long.
Within months, Brigadier Qasim's ally, Colonel
Abdel Salam Muhammad Aref, seized power.
Saddam Hussein was elected assistant general
secretary of the party in 1966 and staged a
successful coup in 1968.
General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, also from Tikrit
and a relative of the Saddam Hussein's, took
power. The two worked closely together and
became the dominant force in the Baath party,
with Saddam Hussein gradually outstripping the
president's leadership...(more)
