apparently admitted him to full party membership and arranged for him to find safer refuge with other Ba’athists in Egypt.
Saddam was in exile four years, which he spent completing his high school education and mingling with other political revolutionaries. He also enrolled as a law student at Cairo University, though he did not complete his degree, and married his cousin,Sajida, Khairallah’s daughter. Marriages within the family are common practice in the Arab world and it is possible that the two young people had been betrothed since childhood. Saddam also joined the Egyptian Ba’ath party and collected friends. One of his closest comrades in Cairo was a fellow survivor of the plot to assassinate Kassem, Abdul al-Shaikly, who was studying medicine and would later become Iraqi Foreign Minister before the two fell out. It is alleged that Saddam, during his Egyptian exile, became associated both with Egyptian intelligence and with the CIA. Of that there is no proof though he was apparently financially supported by the Egyptian government, which was concerned to foster its political contacts with foreign Ba’athists after Syria withdrew from political union with Egypt in 1961.
Saddam’s chance to return from exile came in 1963 when Kassem was overthrown in a coup, apparently engineered by the CIA and led by Ahmad al-Bakr, Khairallah’s friend and Saddam’s early sponsor. The 1963 coup was particularly bloody. Kassem was removed from power only after prolonged street battles in which hundreds died; he was shot after a peremptory trial and his bullet-riddled body was then exhibited on Iraqi television. Bakr became Prime Minister in the change of régime, which effectively established the Ba’ath as the ruling party, and shortly after the transfer of power Saddam, with Abdul al-Shaikly, flew from Cairo to Baghdad, to be welcomed home by a crowd of exultant Ba’athists at the airport. Saddam the pan-Arab revolutionary seemed to be about to enter into his political inheritance.
The reality of his return proved different. Despite his undeniable record as an early enemy of Kassem and as an anti-Communist Arab nationalist, Saddam’s humble origins still told against him in his homeland. To the better-educated, middle-class Ba’athists he looked and sounded like a peasant. He was aware of their contempt and resented it. He also knew, however, that he could compensate for his lowly personal standing by winning respect by force; and in the immediate aftermath of Kassem’s overthrow the political situation in Iraq offered plentiful opportunities for violence. Kassem’s successor, President Arif, filled hisgovernment with Ba’athists but failed to quell dissent between its two factions, a civilian group of pan-Arabists and a military group loyal to the army’s traditional ‘Iraq first’ policy. Eventually he expelled all the Ba’athists from their ministerial posts but left the party in being. Bakr, Saddam’s party mentor, exploited the situation to achieve dominance, using Saddam, now head of internal party security, to bully and browbeat his opponents.
Saddam remained committed to seeking personal power. That required the removal of Arif, a risky undertaking as the President had the full support of the army. There were several plots, all premature; nevertheless, Saddam proceeded and, in one of the most mysterious episodes of his career, was identified as a conspirator, arrested and imprisoned in October 1964. How he escaped execution has never been explained; nor was his escape in July 1966, after a period in gaol when he was not harshly treated. How he occupied his time between his escape and the successful removal of Arif’s brother Abd al-Rahman from the Presidency in July 1968 is also unclear, as are his whereabouts. On 17 July 1968, however, he arrived outside the presidential palace, riding on a tank and dressed as a lieutenant. By telephone Bakr ordered Arif to go to the airport; a bloodless change of power
Saddam was in exile four years, which he spent completing his high school education and mingling with other political revolutionaries. He also enrolled as a law student at Cairo University, though he did not complete his degree, and married his cousin,Sajida, Khairallah’s daughter. Marriages within the family are common practice in the Arab world and it is possible that the two young people had been betrothed since childhood. Saddam also joined the Egyptian Ba’ath party and collected friends. One of his closest comrades in Cairo was a fellow survivor of the plot to assassinate Kassem, Abdul al-Shaikly, who was studying medicine and would later become Iraqi Foreign Minister before the two fell out. It is alleged that Saddam, during his Egyptian exile, became associated both with Egyptian intelligence and with the CIA. Of that there is no proof though he was apparently financially supported by the Egyptian government, which was concerned to foster its political contacts with foreign Ba’athists after Syria withdrew from political union with Egypt in 1961.
Saddam’s chance to return from exile came in 1963 when Kassem was overthrown in a coup, apparently engineered by the CIA and led by Ahmad al-Bakr, Khairallah’s friend and Saddam’s early sponsor. The 1963 coup was particularly bloody. Kassem was removed from power only after prolonged street battles in which hundreds died; he was shot after a peremptory trial and his bullet-riddled body was then exhibited on Iraqi television. Bakr became Prime Minister in the change of régime, which effectively established the Ba’ath as the ruling party, and shortly after the transfer of power Saddam, with Abdul al-Shaikly, flew from Cairo to Baghdad, to be welcomed home by a crowd of exultant Ba’athists at the airport. Saddam the pan-Arab revolutionary seemed to be about to enter into his political inheritance.
The reality of his return proved different. Despite his undeniable record as an early enemy of Kassem and as an anti-Communist Arab nationalist, Saddam’s humble origins still told against him in his homeland. To the better-educated, middle-class Ba’athists he looked and sounded like a peasant. He was aware of their contempt and resented it. He also knew, however, that he could compensate for his lowly personal standing by winning respect by force; and in the immediate aftermath of Kassem’s overthrow the political situation in Iraq offered plentiful opportunities for violence. Kassem’s successor, President Arif, filled hisgovernment with Ba’athists but failed to quell dissent between its two factions, a civilian group of pan-Arabists and a military group loyal to the army’s traditional ‘Iraq first’ policy. Eventually he expelled all the Ba’athists from their ministerial posts but left the party in being. Bakr, Saddam’s party mentor, exploited the situation to achieve dominance, using Saddam, now head of internal party security, to bully and browbeat his opponents.
Saddam remained committed to seeking personal power. That required the removal of Arif, a risky undertaking as the President had the full support of the army. There were several plots, all premature; nevertheless, Saddam proceeded and, in one of the most mysterious episodes of his career, was identified as a conspirator, arrested and imprisoned in October 1964. How he escaped execution has never been explained; nor was his escape in July 1966, after a period in gaol when he was not harshly treated. How he occupied his time between his escape and the successful removal of Arif’s brother Abd al-Rahman from the Presidency in July 1968 is also unclear, as are his whereabouts. On 17 July 1968, however, he arrived outside the presidential palace, riding on a tank and dressed as a lieutenant. By telephone Bakr ordered Arif to go to the airport; a bloodless change of power
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