An Alliance Against Babylon

An Alliance Against Babylon: The U.S., Israel, and Iraq

Ménage à Quatre: The U.S., Israel, Iran, and the Iraqi Kurds

Shortly after Baghdad fell to American forces in spring of 2003, a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) let a cat out of the bag in a conversation with a European journalist. His disclosure pleased President Bush’s neoconservative advisors in the Pentagon. It nourished the view that the U.S. plans to add Iraq to over 100 other countries where it maintains military bases termed “the new American empire.”

The head of the KDP in 2003 when the disclosure was made was Massoud Barzani, the son of the late Mullah Mustafa Barzani. The elder Barzani had told me during my visit to him in the Kurdistan mountains in 1972 how welcome U.S. “influence and presence” would be if the United States extended its powerful reach into Kurdistan.

Massoud’s deputy, Brusik Nuri Chawais, an engineer educated in Germany, was more specific. His words were music to the ears of the Bush administration in Washington...

Contents

Foreword by William R. Polk / xi
Map of Iraq and neighboring countries / xiii
Introduction / 1

1 The Babylonian heritage / 7
Ancestral memories / 8
Captives of Babylon / 9
Babylon rebuilt? / 11
The Mother of All Harlots / 13
The Jewish exiles / 14
A shrine restored / 16
“Seek the peace of the city” / 17
Ottoman power declines / 18

2 The Ottoman Empire divided / 23
Antecedents of war / 25
Britain captures Baghdad / 27
Betrayal in the Levant / 29
Enter the U.S. / 30
The Hashemites arrive / 32
Dividing the oily spoils / 34
Wilson opens doors / 35
Palestine to center stage / 37

3 “Operation Ezra and Nehemiah”: bittersweet flight to Zion / 40
A guided tour / 40
Jewish survivors / 43
Independence ... sort of / 46
Violence and rescue / 47
Wheeling, dealing, and mishaps / 49
“Arab” Jews who made it / 52
Whose terrorism? / 54

4 Iraq enters the Palestine arena / 59
The roots of Israeli intelligence / 60
Resisting the British / 62
The Arabs prepare for war 63
Iraq fights the new Israeli state 66
Stalemate and Israeli victory 68
Armistice agreements—minus Iraq 71
Ben-Gurion speaks 74

5 Ménage à quatre: the U.S., Israel, Iran, and the Iraqi Kurds / 76
The Kurds’ faded dreams / 77
The Kurds’ new friends: the State of Israel / 79
Kassem contra Kurds / 81
The Israeli–Kurdish honeymoon / 83
Uncle Sam’s role / 85
The Nixon–Kissinger–Shah Axis / 86
The oil equation / 88
Iraq and the Kurds in the Cold War / 89

6 How the CIA gave Saddam a leg up / 93
Kassem, Nasser, and Saddam / 94
James Critchfield: Cold Warrior par excellence / 96
The first Ba’athist coup / 98
Anglo-American cooperation / 99
Saddam’s sway begins / 101
Iraq’s strategic threat to Israel / 104
Iraq in the 1967 war / 106

7 Saddam’s reign (I): business with the U.S.; warfare with Israel / 110
U.S. business and Saddam’s triumph / 110
The July Ba’athist takeover / 112
Programs and power struggles / 114
Israel’s covert war on Saddam / 116
The MIG-21 caper / 119
Saddam’s real and imagined foes / 122
Saddam and the Palestinians / 123
Black September in Jordan / 125
Syria repulsed; Iraq withdraws / 128

8 Saddam’s reign (II): power plays and war, 1970–80 / 133
The reassurance of U.S. aid / 134
Sadat plans for war / 135
Israel’s “concept” / 136
U.S. complacency and the “oil weapon” / 138
Israeli intelligence failure 140
Iraq to the rescue of Syria 142
Saddam gets a breather 144
Saddam clamps down—and seeks total power 145
The downfall of Baqr 147
A “cynical embrace’” 151
Saddam attacks Iran 152

9 Saddam’s reign (III): defeat and defiance, 1980–90 / 154
Israel, Irangate, and the Iran–Iraq War / 155
The Osirak caper / 159
Retribution for Inman / 162
Tilting toward Saddam / 163
Reagan, Rumsfeld, and Saddam / 166
Israel’s oil concerns / 166
Western arms for Iraq / 168
Saddam’s largess for Palestinians / 171
Good cop, bad cop / 172

10 From Jerusalem to Washington: an alliance strengthened and confirmed / 175
Missiles, “superguns,” and profits / 176
Saddam brews the Kuwait crisis / 178
Israel and “Desert Storm” / 180
Target: Saddam Hussein / 185
Kuwait freed: Saddam spared / 185
Clinton’s containment; the CIA’s bungles / 188
An Israeli peace with Saddam? / 189
Misadventures of the UN arms inspectors / 190
Clinton: “Oust Saddam” / 192
U.S. policy shifts / 196
The “neocons” at work / 197

11 Endgame: Iraq democratized or dismembered? / 201
“Get Saddam” / 202
The Palestinian disconnection / 203
The cabal in action / 205
Mechanics of an alliance / 206
Israeli intelligence input / 207
A (militarily) well-planned campaign / 210
The unplanned occupation / 212
Intelligence fiascos / 213
Israel’s Steinitz Inquiry / 216
Shared weapons, shared training / 217
The Abu Ghraib nightmare / 220
Israel, Turkey, and the Iraqi Kurds / 224
Nation-building—or dissolution? / 225
An endgame begins; an alliance holds firm / 229

Notes / 233
Selected bibliography / 242
Index / 247

Foreword

John K. Cooley is a newspaperman’s newspaperman. He is the sort of person newcomers always seek out when they arrive for the first time in the Middle East to cover some major story. He has been there, seen that, knows who did what to whom, when, and how. And he has been doing these things since the 1950s. His 40-plus years in the Middle East and North Africa is almost unique among American journalists. And he has dealt with issues, in dispatches and broadcasts without number, and in acclaimed books from Morocco to Afghanistan. The range of his books is quite remarkable and each one singled out a major topic for treatment.

He began with Baal, Christ and Mohammed: Religion and Revolution in North Africa. His eye moved south to recount the rise of Chinese influence in Black Africa in East Wind Over Africa: Red China’s African Offensive. In Green March, Black September: The Story of the Palestinian Arabs he came to grips with the history, culture, and plight of the Palestinian Arabs and explained why they felt they had to turn to “the weapon of the weak,” terrorism. Back to the Mediterranean and Africa, he sought to comprehend the most enigmatic of all the Middle Eastern leaders, Muammar Qaddafi, in Libyan Sandstorm: The Complete Account of Qaddafi’s Revolution.

Dealing with terrorism took him to the Afghan story, the fight of that colorful mountain people against the Russians, then against themselves and finally against the Americans. Their involvement with guerrilla warfare, heavily subsidized by the United States as a part of its strategy during the Cold War, led the Islamic militants among them to associate themselves with Osama bin Laden. This is the subject of Mr. Cooley’s Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, now in three editions and eight languages. The final edition is a revision published after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Publishing the results of his intensive (and often intrusive) research has not always been easy. One of his most fascinating accounts, a study of the international market in counterfeit American hundred dollar bills and a history of currency counterfeiting as a political weapon since ancient times seems to have been too sensitive for the public to read. Mr. Cooley never let such issues guide his reporting: he went “where the story was,” and reported it as fairly and intelligently as he knew how.

I first met Mr. Cooley when he became a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1964–65. He had just returned to his native New York from a hitch in North Africa, where he wrote his book on why Christianity failed there and was superseded by Islam because Christianity was seen as associated with European colonialism. He and I both participated in one of the Council’s study groups to which he was introduced as a sort of “pioneer” for what became the prestigious Edward R. Murrow foreign correspondent fellowships. I had recently left the government where I had been in charge of planning American policy in the Middle East and I had spent a troubling period as head of the “task force” on the Algerian war of national independence so I found his observations of particular interest.

I was then deeply involved with establishing the Middle Eastern Studies Center at the University of Chicago and creating the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs, I did not see him again for several years. Meanwhile, he had begun the study that would take him deep into the Palestinian uprising and on to Libyan affairs. But our paths again crossed in Lebanon where he was the Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. Again we parted, he to become an ABC News correspondent out of London and I to live in Egypt. We met again over in Iraq where in 1987, we met a number of Ba’ath party officials and got an early view of the events he describes in this book.

This account of the tragic events and historical background of the Iraq war is his latest foray into the psychological and political minefield of the Middle East. There is much to be learned in it. Even more, to be savored and reflected upon. As will immediately become evident, it is a close-up view, derived from personal observation, lengthy interviews and much wise reflection. I hope it finds a wide audience.

William R. Polk

An Alliance Against Babylon
The U.S., Israel, and Iraq

John K. Cooley

Pluto Press
London • Ann Arbor, MI

First published 2005 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © John K. Cooley 2005

The right of John K. Cooley to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7453 2282 4 hardback

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