Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party Inside an Authoritarian Regime [Paperback]

A unique and revealing portrait of Saddam Hussein's Iraq which was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Russia or Mao's China.The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 U.S. invasion. Under Saddam Hussein's leadership, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence, a surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how it operated via its network of informers, and how the system of rewards functioned. As this gripping portrayal of Saddam Hussein's Iraq demonstrates, the regime was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China.The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 U.S. invasion. Under Saddam Hussein's leadership, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence, a surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how lã&