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Riding the Storm. As Nasser steadily lost ground, Iraq's Communists steadily gained. Under Kassem's protection, Communist toughs smashed pro-Nasser demonstrations and captured unchallenged control of Baghdad's streets. Colonel Lutfi Tahir, a horse doctor, pro-Communist and brother to Kassem's aide became boss of Iraq's press, and Major Selim Fakhri, tagged by Western experts as a longtime party-liner, was made director of the government radio. Back from exile in the Soviet Union came a band of Kurdish Communists led by the famed "Red Mullah." Mustafa el Barzani.
Desperately, Iraq's Nasserites and anti-Communists sought to turn the tide. In September oldtime Iraqi Nationalist Rashid Ali el-Gailani (who ruled Iraq with the help of German fighter planes for a few wild days in 1941) joined with pro-Nasser officers in a plot against Kassem. In February six Cabinet ministers, all of them nationalists, resigned in mass protest against growing Communist influence on national policy. Last month, supported by Syrian-armed members of the powerful Shammar tribe, who poured in from Syria and western Iraq. Colonel Abdul Wahab Shawaf, commander of the Mosul garrison, prematurely flashed the signal for a revolt of army units in northern Iraq, and was crushed (TIME. March 23).
Each time Kassem rode out the storm, and each time the Communists turned it to their advantage. While Kassem tried and convicted Rashid Ali and 40 accomplices in secret, the People's Resistance militia stormed through Baghdad stopping cars, manhandling foreigners, searching citizens. All that the resignation of the nationalist ministers achieved was the creation of a reorganized Cabinet heavily loaded with members of the Communist-infiltrated National Democratic Party. And the Mosul revolt, which was bloodily stamped out by pro-Communist militia and Kurdish tribesmen from the hills around the city, left Kassem more dependent on the Reds than ever.
All along, Kassem had counted on army support to preserve his ultimate independence of the Communists. Now, his faith shaken, Kassem has begun to weaken that final prop. Of the original junta of 24 officers who overthrew Nuri's government, five have been purged. And more than 100 other senior officers have been retired or shifted away from key commands.
Independent Arm. Result is that today much of the machinery of Iraq's government is directly or indirectly in the hands of the Communists. The Economics Ministry is run by Communist-Liner Ibrahim Kubba, who recently signed a $137 million economic-aid agreement with Moscow, under which 80 Soviet technicians will soon arrive in Iraq to help build 15 Russian-financed factories. In the Education, Social Affairs and Defense ministries, "action committees," patterned on the classic Soviets of the Russian Revolution, have been formed to impose decisions on Kassem. And last month Iraq's Director General of National Guidance coolly told a U.S. reporter: "The anti-U.S. attitude of the Iraqi press is right." (The three Baghdad newspapers that occasionally printed non-Communist sentiments have long since been burned out by Red-led mobs.)