Word: baghdad
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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These days the most popular Arabian nights' entertainments are the televised trials staged in Baghdad by the Iraqi People's Court, under the presidency of Premier Karim Kassem's cousin, Colonel Fadhil Mahdawi. Premier Kassem himself is known to have turned on the television in the middle of a Cabinet session, listened to the colonel's brutal buffooneries and irrelevancies, and murmured: "What a jewel we have here." Last week, with 16 officers and one civilian on trial for their lives, accused of taking part in the Mosul army revolt in March, sheep-eyed, sheep-headed...
...hapless mutineers stumbled off to their cells, the Communists turned their control of press, radio, unions and of the Baghdad street mobs to seek out other enemies, particularly in the Foreign Office. For the first time the Communist press openly demanded representation in the government. In Washington, U.S. Intelligence Chief Allen Dulles told a Senate subcommittee last week that the situation in Iraq is one of "the most dangerous in the world today." But the manner in which the Communists pressed for more power showed that they did not have it yet. At week's end Iraq celebrated...
...Chance to Strike. Up to the day when the riddled body of King Feisal slumped down before Baghdad's royal palace, Kassem had the reputation of being the King's most loyal soldier. But in fact he had been quietly nursing plans of revolution for 24 years, had skillfully used his official position to recruit younger officers-notably, mercurial Abdul Salam Aref, who became his closest "brother in revolt" and took to proclaiming, "I am Kassem's son." In 1956, at a meeting in his bachelor house on the outskirts of Baghdad, Kassem merged his network with...
...chance to strike came on the night of last July 13. Kassem's 19th and Aref's 20th brigades received orders to move through Baghdad on their way to friendly Jordan, then beset by fear of revolt within its own borders. Following Kassem's plan, Aref's men instead rolled into Baghdad at 4:30 a.m., seized the radio station, pulled all switches at the telephone exchange, and, lobbing a mortar shell through a back wall of the royal palace, mowed down the King and members of the royal household as they stumbled in confusion...
Even as things now stand, Iraq marks a major Russian advance in the cold war. With the influence it now wields in Baghdad, the U.S.S.R. has achieved the major role it has so long sought in Middle Eastern affairs. But with that new status, Moscow has also acquired new problems. If the U.S.S.R. decides to push ahead with an attempt to establish an undisguised People's Democracy in Iraq, the Soviets must assume that they will alienate all other Arab nations, inherit the scapegoat position of "imperialist oppressors" that the Western powers have long occupied in Middle Eastern minds...