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General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was President of Iraq from 1968 to 1979. Al-Bakr entered the Iraqi Military Academy in 1938 after spending six years as a primary-school teacher. During his early military career, he took part in the Rashid Ali revolt in 1941, was arrested, imprisoned, and compulsorily retired from the army, but was reinstated in 1957. As a brigadier general, he was one of the "free officers," a group that overthrew the monarchy in 1958. He was again forced to retire from the Army in 1959 because of his alleged leadership of a rebellion in Mosul (Al-Bakr was a member of the Ba'th Socialist Party at that time) organized officers favouring closer ties with the United Arab Republic. He became Prime Minister for 10 months following the Ba'th coup of 1963. A leading member of the Ba'ath Party he orchestrated the 1963 coup that overthrew Iraq's military leader Abdul Karim Kasim. Al Bakr left the government in November 1963, when Field Marshal Abdul Salam Arif staged a countercoup. Al-Bakr stayed on as Vice President. In January 1964 he was removed as Vice president, but retained control of the Regional Command of the Ba'th Party. With Egyptian help, he helped orchestrate an internal coup within the government of President Abdul Rahman Arif. He exiled Arif, and installed al-Bakr as Iraq's fourth president. Al-Bakr became the leading face of the Ba'ath party and Iraqi pan-Arabism and was praised as "leader of the revolution." |
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