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border between the two countries should lie in the center of the
waterway. This change would give Iran more control over the Shatt
al Arab. The problem of dissident Kurds fighting for their freedom
also continued. In 1969 Kurds had attacked the government’s oil
refinery at Kirkuk. After this the government of Iran, seeing an
opportunity to harass Iraq, began to supply Kurdish guerrillas with
weapons. By 1974 a full-scale war existed between the Iraqi gov-
ernment and the Kurds, who controlled the mountainous areas in
the north.
In March of 1975, Iraq and Iran settled the Shatt al Arab issue.
Iran received the border it wanted; in return, the
shah
agreed to
stop supporting the Kurds. Without weapons and an escape route
into Iran, Kurdish resistance evaporated. To prevent further rebel-
lions, the Iraqi government literally yanked more than 50,000
Kurds from their homes and moved them into empty areas, giving
them tents to live in. They were threatened with death if they tried
to return to the Kurdistan region. Al-Bakr’s government then
encouraged Arab Iraqis to move into the former homes of the Kurds
in order to dilute the influence of the Kurdish population.
By the end of 1975, Saddam Hussein had clearly become one of the
most powerful men in Iraq. While al-Bakr was considered the more
respectable face of the government, he had become little more than a
figurehead. Saddam was the regime’s strongman, intimidating Iraqis
to ensure that no one opposed the Baath Party. Political activity
among civilians or within the army, aside from that connected to the
Baath Party, was outlawed and could be punished by death.
S
ADDAM
H
USSEIN
T
AKES
P
OWER
In July 1979 Saddam Hussein, then vice president of Iraq,
announced that he had discovered a plot to take over the govern-
ment. Among the plotters, he claimed, were high-ranking members
of Iraq’s government; not only were they “traitors” to their friends,
I
RAQ
’
S
H
ISTORY TO
1990 57