"chritchfield" - 1 õppematerjal

The Relations Between The USA and Iraq

Pre-1980s In 1963, the United States backed a coup against the government of Iraq headed by General Abdul Karim Qassim, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. The US was concerned about the growing influence of Communist Iraqi government officials under his administration, as well as his threats to invade Kuwait, which almost caused a war between Iraq and England. Former CIA Near East Division Chief James Chritchfield maintains that the CIA played no direct role in the 1963 coup, but that it viewed the Ba'ath Party favorably and offered support after they had taken over. In 1966 Salam Arif, the leader of the new Ba'athist government, died and his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, not a Ba'athist, assumed the presidency. Some believe that Robert Anderson, former secretary of the treasury under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, secretly met