OPERATION “TERMINATION OF TRAITORS”: THE IRAQI REGIME THROUGH ITS DOCUMENTS By Robert G. Rabil* This article examines the Iraqi regime’s policy toward its Kurdish population during the Iran-Iraq War, which culminated in a military operation codenamed Termination of Traitors. Executed in a methodical and systematic fashion, this operation shows that the regime was not just trying to quell the Kurdish insurgency but had a plan for altering irreversibly the life of the Kurds in northern Iraq. Equally significant, this operation shows the regime’s views and methods in general as well as attitudes toward human rights. This article, based on official Iraqi window into the regime’s inner workings, documents, examines the Iraqi regime’s policy nature and modus operandi. vis-à-vis its Kurdish population during the Iran- In its definitive study of the Anfal campaign, Iraq war (1980-1988).(1) The long, conflicted Human Rights Watch (HRW) concluded that Iraqi-Kurdish relationship led to the the Iraqi regime committed the crime of government’s decision to launch a major genocide. While seeing no master plan to campaign against the Kurds at the war’s end. exterminate the Kurds, HRW emphasized that Harsh methods were employed in an operation Anfal was the culmination of the Iraqi regime’s codenamed Termination of Traitors, personally “anti-Kurdish drive [which] dated back fifteen ordered by President Saddam Hussein and years or more, well before the outbreak of leading into the better-known Anfal campaign. hostilities between Iran and Iraq.”(2) Whether The three-phase effort was designed not only to or not this campaign will some day be deal a final blow to the Kurdish rebellion but to internationally recognized as genocide, the ensure no such uprising took place in the future. documentation shows that the regime’s effort to The campaign’s aim was also the conscious quell the Kurdish insurgency was based on a and deliberate murder of large numbers of deliberate plan to exterminate large numbers of Kurds regardless of their gender, age, or Kurds. civilian status. Even chemical weapons were to be used against them. A special bureaucracy BACKGROUND was created to carry out this operation and to Modern Kurdish history in Iraq cannot be meticulously detail every action taken. These separated from the Kurds’ struggle for activities spanned a gamut from independence or autonomy from government “collectivizing” the families of “saboteurs”, to control. In response, Baghdad tried to ensure its detaining them, creating dossiers on them, and power in the Kurdish regions and to suppress marking them for death. For this purpose, the periodic rebellions. This relationship was regime mobilized a wide range of officials from further exacerbated by the presence of vast oil the lowest- to highest-ranking. All this is reserves on the fringes of the Kurds’ ancestral sketched in minute detail in the mass of official land, mainly around the ethnically mixed areas documents examined by this research to open a of Kirkuk and Khaneqin. The Kurds repeatedly 14 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3 (September, 2002) Operation “Termination of Traitors”: The Iraqi Regime Through its Documents challenged the central authorities for control of Moreover, following the manifesto, a these areas. significant number of Kurdish families were A pattern characterized Kurdish-Iraqi forcibly removed from their homes to reduce relations since 1958. Each Iraqi government their presence in several areas, especially that came to power at first pursued peace around Kirkuk. In September 1971, thousands negotiations with the Kurds only to fight them of Faili Kurds were expelled to Iran from at a later date when it felt secure about its rule border areas on the grounds that they were not over the country. Following the Free Officers Iraqis. In 1972, the Ba’th regime began to Revolution in 1958, the new regime, led by assert its nationalist credentials and went on to ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim, pursued cordial relations sign a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union with the Kurds. In fact, the Kurds helped the and nationalize the Iraq Petroleum Company. regime put down a coup d'etat and the KDP Following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Iraq’s oil was legalized in 1960. However, once it revenues soared and provided the regime with appeared that Qasim was not willing to grant the wherewithal to embark on huge projects and real autonomy to the Kurds, fighting between to strengthen its police state. the two parties broke out in 1961. When the In the meantime, the Kurdish leadership Ba’th-Nationalist alliance overthrew Qasim in began a process of rapprochement with Iran, 1963, negotiations between the new regime and Israel and the CIA, which were concerned with the Kurds resumed. Fighting broke out again Iraq’s assertive policies and evolving Soviet- when the Kurdish leadership realized that the Iraq relations. With Ba’th-Kurdish relations enthusiasm of the new regime for Kurdish intermittently hostile, the main Kurdish leader autonomy had been assumed for purely tactical Mustafa Barzani, head of the Kurdistan purposes. By 1964, the nationalists, led by Abd Democratic Party (KDP), laid formal claim to al-Salam ‘Arif, had pushed their Ba’thist the Kirkuk oil fields in June 1973. partners out of the coalition and negotiated a Baghdad was furious at what it considered cease-fire with the Kurds. The cease-fire lasted Barzani’s audacity on this point as well as his until April 1965 at which time the central collaboration with Iran, Israel and the CIA. government dispatched virtually the entire Iraqi Fighting broke out between the two sides. In army to the North in an attempt to reassert its March 1974, Baghdad unilaterally decreed an authority there. autonomy statute excluding the oil-rich areas of This same pattern continued when the Ba’th Kirkuk, Khaneqin and Jabal Sinjar from the party government assumed power following a Kurdish autonomous region, which would July 1968 coup. The new regime was pragmatic include only the three provinces (governates) of enough to seek political accommodations with Irbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk. In line with the the Kurds at a time it felt weak on account of new statute, the Ba’th regime undertook an contending domestic political forces. The administrative reform in which the country’s Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the sixteen governates were renamed and some had highest authority in the land, issued a manifesto their boundaries altered. Of special importance, on March 11, 1970 essentially recognizing the the governate of Kirkuk was divided and the legitimacy of Kurdish nationalism and area around the capital city Kirkuk was guaranteeing Kurdish participation in renamed al-Ta’mim (nationalization) governate government. But it held out on defining the after its boundaries were redrawn to give an territorial extent of Kurdistan pending a new Arab majority. census. Since the next census was not schedule Meanwhile, despite its persistent offensives until 1977, the regime felt confident of that included air strikes on Kurdish positions, controlling events by then. Iraqi forces were bogged down by fierce resistance from Kurdish fighters, known as Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3 (September, 2002) 15 Robert G. Rabil peshmerga (those who face death). and control Kurdish political life had foundered Unexpectedly, in March 1975, in the course of after so many army units stationed in Iraqi an OPEC conference at Algiers, the shah of Kurdistan were sent to the front. The resurgent Iran and Iraq’s strongman, Saddam Hussein, peshmerga were quick to fill the security signed the Algiers agreement, which put a vacuum there and many villagers offered refuge temporary end to the conflict between the two to an increasing number of Kurdish deserters. countries. Iraq granted Iran shared access to the At first, the regime focused its attention on disputed Shatt al-Arab and in return Iran the KDP’s links to Iran, which increased its withheld its support from the Kurds. In less military and economic support for the Kurdish than a week, Barzani’s rebellion collapsed. He opposition party. This relationship entered a left for Iran, then for the United States where he new dangerous phase in the regime’s eyes when died in 1979. Consequently, the KDP split in Iran, with help from the KDP, seized the 1975 into two main factions, the KDP- important border garrison town of Hajj Omran Provisional Command led by Barzani’s sons in July 1983. The initial thrusts of the Iraqi Idris and Masoud, and the Patriotic Union of army into Iran had been parried by a successful Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani. Iranian counter-offensive. Now Iraq was on the Immediately following the rebellion’s defensive. The regime was furious with the collapse, the Iraqi regime embarked on a KDP and branded it a fifth column. campaign to Arabize the areas it had excluded At the same time, the regime maneuvered to from the autonomous region. Hundreds of deepen the rivalry between the KDP and the Kurdish families were uprooted and Arabs from PUK. Capitalizing on the PUK’s opposition to the south were lured to move to the north. the KDP’s role in facilitating the Iranian Subsequently, in 1977-1978 the regime began offensive on Hajj Omran, Saddam Hussein to clear a strip of land along its northern launched a diplomatic initiative centering on borders with Turkey and Iran, which was offering the PUK leader a renewed expanded several times until it was several few commitment of Kurdish autonomy. Talks miles wide. ensued between the PUK and Baghdad and Sharing a long mountainous border with continued inconclusively until their collapse in Iran, the governate of Sulaimaniya was deeply January 1985.