Word: kassem
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General Karim Kassem's revolution will be one year old on July 14, and sweltering Baghdad last week was alive with preparations for the great day. Triumphal arches rose in the streets, and a new Iraqi flag-red, black, green and yellow-was going up on lampposts...
Sputtering with rage, Baghdad's well-heeled Communist newspaper, Ittihad al-Shaab (Unity of the People), for the first time openly criticized Kassem himself: "The release of these persons adds to the dangers threatening the republic. The amnesty decision does not respond to the urgent necessities dictated by the interests of the masses." But the deed was done...
There were other Communist setbacks too. An army unit now guards the studios of Radio Baghdad; when Communists tried to organize a "local policing committee" to monitor radio broadcasts, the army commander broke up the meeting. In the countryside, Communists tried to take over Kassem's land-reform scheme through the recently formed National Federation of Peasants' Associations. Fifty farmers decided to take their complaints to the Premier himself, marched into Baghdad carrying a large portrait of Kassem and a long list of anti-Communist complaints, including the fact that the Communist president of the National Federation...
Through it all, Kassem continues to let himself be used as a propaganda front man at Communist rallies. Kassem seems to believe everything the Reds have to say about the iniquities of the West. Still, he quietly rejects their more obvious efforts to gain more control in Iraq. To groups of soldiers last week, the general repeated his credo: "I shall never belong to any party. I advise you not to allow any specific party to penetrate your ranks...
Tigris in the Gardens. Prime case in point is Gropius' new plan for Iraq's University of Baghdad. The $70 million project seemed a lost cause when General Abdul Karim Kassem swept to power last summer. Never one to give up easily, Gropius last January flew to Baghdad himself with plans and models, found, to his relief, that Premier Kassem was enthusiastic.* Kassem's only cavil: the university was not big enough. Gropius promptly agreed to increase the size by one-third (from 8,000 to 12,000 students...