IRAQ: A Few Setbacks

The Communists are doing fine in Iraq —but they have not got it all yet. Controlling the press and the trade unions, muscling into the farm organizations, they try ceaselessly to put the heat on the regime’s army strongman, Premier Karim Kassem. But the elusive Kassem sometimes gets away from them, too.

Heedless of Communist demands that still more “reactionaries” be thrown into already crowded jails, Kassem chose the eve of the Moslem Id al-Adha holiday to give amnesty to hundreds of political exiles and prisoners arrested after last year’s revolt. “This will provide an opportunity for all citizens to live in an atmosphere free from feuds and grudges,” declared Kassem.

Sputtering with rage, Baghdad’s well-heeled Communist newspaper, Ittihad al-Shaab (Unity of the People), for the first time openly criticized Kassem himself: “The release of these persons adds to the dangers threatening the republic. The amnesty decision does not respond to the urgent necessities dictated by the interests of the masses.” But the deed was done.

There were other Communist setbacks too. An army unit now guards the studios of Radio Baghdad; when Communists tried to organize a “local policing committee” to monitor radio broadcasts, the army commander broke up the meeting. In the countryside, Communists tried to take over Kassem’s land-reform scheme through the recently formed National Federation of Peasants’ Associations. Fifty farmers decided to take their complaints to the Premier himself, marched into Baghdad carrying a large portrait of Kassem and a long list of anti-Communist complaints, including the fact that the Communist president of the National Federation of Peasants’ Associations is not even a farmer but a former hospital worker. But on the way to Kassem’s office, a mob of Communist toughs shouting “National front” attacked them with clubs and fists. Bruised and angry, they finally got in to see Kassem, but only after squads of soldiers broke up the brawl.

Through it all, Kassem continues to let himself be used as a propaganda front man at Communist rallies. Kassem seems to believe everything the Reds have to say about the iniquities of the West. Still, he quietly rejects their more obvious efforts to gain more control in Iraq. To groups of soldiers last week, the general repeated his credo: “I shall never belong to any party. I advise you not to allow any specific party to penetrate your ranks.”