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Hizb al-Ba'th al-'Arabi al-Ishtiraki in Iraq [Ba'th Arab Socialist Party of Iraq] records
2009C50
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Table of contents
Title: Hiẓb al-Ba'th al-'Arabī al-Ishtirākī in Iraq [Ba'th Arab Socialist Party of Iraq] records
Date (inclusive): 1968-2003
Collection Number: 2009C50
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Arabic
Physical Description:
Around 1,006,4011 million digital files
(11.1 digital_files)
Abstract: Correspondence, reports, membership and personnel files, judicial and investigatory dossiers, administrative files and registers,
and videorecordings relating to political conditions in, and governance of, Iraq. Collected by the Iraq Memory Foundation
[Mu'assasat al-dhakirah al-'Iraqiyah] from the Ba'th Regional Command headquarters and from secondary sources.
Creator:
Ḥizb al-Baʻth al-ʻArabī al-Ishtirākī (Iraq)
Creator:
Muʼassasat al-dhākirah al-ʻIrāqīyah
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Users must sign use agreement here:
https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/hila_access_02262021.pdf until 2053.
Quotations from this collection may be protected by copyright law. The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, does not hold
copyright to any of the materials in the collection; it is the researcher's responsibility, when necessary, to obtain copyright
permission. The Hoover Institution is not responsible for any misuse by researchers of quotations obtained from this collection.
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives from the Iraq Memory Foundation in 2009.
North Iraq dataset and Kuwait dataset: [Identification of item] (Electronic Record), [Serial number], [Dataset title], Hiẓb al-Ba'th al-'Arabī al-Ishtirākī records,
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Other materials: [Identification of item] (Electronic Record), [Page (which actually is a file name)], [Dataset title], Hiẓb al-Ba'th al-'Arabī
al-Ishtirākī records, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Original documents of the Ba'th Party in the custody of the Iraq Memory Foundation have been returned to Iraq. Those in Baghdad
were returned to the Iraqi government in 2009. Those at Hoover Institution Library and Archives departed on August 29, 2020,
and arrived in Bagdad on August 31, 2020.
These digitized records were acquired by the Hoover Institution from the Iraq Memory Foundation (IMF). The IMF acquired the
materials from several different sources, and it grouped them into collections and datasets according to the form, content,
and provenance of the materials. Collections are defined by the IMF as hard-copy documents with shared provenance. Datasets,
according to the IMF, are digitized materials grouped together based on their form, content, and provenance. Datasets may
be compiled from more than one collection.
This document describes the provenance of the following collections and datasets:
1. North Iraq dataset (NIDS)
2. Kuwait dataset (KDS)
3. Ba'th Arab Socialist Party Regional Command collection dataset (BRCC)
(Includes the School Registers dataset, Boxfiles dataset, Membership Files dataset, and Artifacts dataset)
4. 2004 secondary collection dataset (2004SC)
5. 2005 secondary collection dataset (2005SC)
6. Ministry of Information selected documents collection dataset
7. Jewish Presence in Iraq dataset
8. Video documents from the Ba'th Regime Era dataset
2. Kuwait dataset (KDS)
3. Ba'th Arab Socialist Party Regional Command collection dataset (BRCC)
(Includes the School Registers dataset, Boxfiles dataset, Membership Files dataset, and Artifacts dataset)
4. 2004 secondary collection dataset (2004SC)
5. 2005 secondary collection dataset (2005SC)
6. Ministry of Information selected documents collection dataset
7. Jewish Presence in Iraq dataset
8. Video documents from the Ba'th Regime Era dataset
1. North Iraq dataset (NIDS)
The documents in this collection were created by the Ba'th Party; al-Istikhbarat al-'Askariyyah (military intelligence); Mudiriyyat
al-Amn al-'Ammah (general directorate of security) and its three governorates of Sulaymānīyah, Dahūk, and Irbīl; and the Revolutionary
Command Council (RCC). The documents were eventually digitized by the U.S. government, and a partial set of digital copies
were given to the IMF, which in turn transferred them to the Hoover Institution.
In March 1991, after the defeat of the Iraqi armed forces in the Gulf War, Kurdish rebels revolted against the Iraqi regime,
attacking and burning Ba'th Party buildings in northern Iraq. In the uprising, the Iraqi Kurds seized 18 tons of secret police
files before Saddam Hussein's armed forces returned from the south to crush the revolt. The records remained with the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).
Kanan Makiya, Peter Galbraith of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), and representatives of Human Rights Watch/Middle
East (HRW/ME) approached the Kurdish groups holding the documents about transferring them to the United States for analysis
and safekeeping. In May 1992, after several visits to northern Iraq, they reached an agreement with the PUK to send the greater
share of the documents to the U.S. With funding from the SFRC, the documents were transported to the U.S. by the Department
of Defense (DOD) and placed in the temporary custody of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The
KDP sent its official Iraqi documents to the U.S. under the same terms in August 1993. Finally, the United Party of Kurdistan
sent six boxes that were added to those already in NARA custody.
In the U.S., the material was re-housed in 1842 boxes. Research teams from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and HRW/ME
processed the material. Documents were scanned and screened by research teams from the DOD and Middle East Watch. They created
40,825 screening sheets (folder cover sheets), which describe the contents of a batch of documents. There is an average of
60 pages per batch. The screening sheets contain keywords, personal names, and place names that were logged during the initial
survey of the documents. HRW/ME analyzed the documents to begin gathering evidence for a possible genocide case against the
Iraqi regime, and the DIA's Documentation Exploitation Division digitized the 5.5 million documents, burning them onto 176
CDs. This work was finished in fall 1994.
In 1997, the Human Rights Initiative at the University of Colorado at Boulder negotiated the acquisition of the original and
digitized files with the SFRC, the DIA, and the Kurdish political factions that had captured the files in March 1991. The
release and transfer agreement outlined in a letter by Senators Jesse Helms and Joseph Biden of the SFRC stipulated that ownership
resided with the PUK and KDP and that any request by them for the return of the documents must be honored. While held by the
archives at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the records were made widely available to researchers seeking evidence
of crimes against humanity perpetrated by Saddam Hussein and his senior leadership.
In fall 1998, the digital contents of 1,575 boxes, representing the majority but not all of the original files, were delivered
to the Iraq Research and Documentation Project (IRDP, predecessor of the IMF); screening sheets for some of the boxes not
provided to the IRDP were among the materials received, and some documents among those received appeared incomplete. The IRDP
designed a database system for the material in summer 1999, and IRDP research teams began entering data in fall 1999. The
documents "annotated" by the IMF provide dates, names of individuals and originating offices, signature data, and descriptions
of individual documents, with a focus on bringing out the oppression of Iraq's people by the Iraqi government. It is this
set of digitized files that is at Hoover.
In 2005, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Regime Crimes Liaison Office of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) requested
access to the original files for use in the Iraqi trials of Saddam Hussein and leading officials of his regime. After this
work was completed, the University of Colorado at Boulder archives and the Regime Crimes Liaison Office reached an agreement
providing for the transfer of the original files to the DOJ on the condition that they would be repatriated to Iraq under
Kurdish control, as originally stipulated in the letter of agreement with the SFRC. In 2007, the U.S. government transported
the records to the custody of the Kurds in northern Iraq. The Archives at the University of Colorado at Boulder returned
the digital database to the federal government in 2016.
For more information, see Bruce P. Montgomery, "The Iraqi Secret Police Files: A Documentary Record of the Anfal Genocide,"
Archivaria 52,
http://journals.sfu.ca/archivar/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12815/14023 .
2. Kuwait dataset (KDS)
The original documents in this group were created by Iraqi military and political agencies; some personal documents left behind
by Iraqi soldiers and operatives are also included. The documents were collected by the Coalition forces after the retreat
of the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1991. A portion of these documents were declassified by the Defense Intelligence Agency
at the request of the Department of State, and others were declassified in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Only documents declassified by the U.S. government were given to the IMF. Digitization was performed by the U.S. government
and only digital copies were received by the IMF.
3. Ba'th Arab Socialist Party Regional Command collection (BRCC) dataset
These documents were created by the Ba'th Regional Command, which was the headquarters of the ruling Ba'th Arab Socialist
Party (BASP) that had authority over party organizations in Iraq. They were collected directly from the headquarters of the
BASP Regional Command in Baghdad by the IMF from September 23 to 25, 2003.
Upon capture of Baghdad by Coalition forces on April 9, 2003, Ba'th Regional Command documents fell within the restricted
area (Green Zone). They were left uncollected until Kanan Makiya of the IMF secured authorization from the Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA) for their removal. Over three days, under supervision by core IMF personnel, the documents were relocated
from their original site to an IMF processing facility.
The BASP Regional Command headquarters building was previously used as the headquarters of the BASP National Command, which
had authority over party organizations in the rest of the Arab world, and some of its documents were included among those
found by the IMF in the building.
All documents in this collection were digitized by the IMF, and a complete set of digitized files is at Hoover. The collection
includes the school registers dataset, boxfiles dataset, membership files dataset, video documents from the Ba'th regime era
dataset, and artifacts dataset that includes sound and video recordings.
4. 2004 Secondary Collection dataset (2004SC)
The documents in the collection were created by various units of the Iraqi government and were collected by many different
Iraqi secondary sources after the fall of the regime. When the documents became problematic the secondary sources discarded
them, at which point the IMF collected them. All documents collected by the IMF in 2004 are included in the dataset.
Many documents were acquired by individuals and organizations in the aftermath of the fall of the Ba'th regime. These documents
are believed to have been widely mishandled, so that document components could be lost, and other documents could be introduced
that were out-of-context, altered, redacted, or forged. A strong black market in documents also emerged immediately after
the regime fell, which added to the degradation of the document pool. In many cases the documents eventually became liabilities
to their current owners, and in fall 2004 many documents were dumped or otherwise disposed of. Using a local network of friends
and associates, many disposed documents were rescued and transported to IMF premises. It was rarely possible to preserve the
context of these documents, nor appraise their content and value.
The bulk of this series was collected in twenty-three rounds from September 22 to November 1, 2004, from ten locations relatively
close together. The collection sites were both within and outside Baghdad's International Zone (Green Zone), and varied from
official sites (Military Bureau, Regional Command, al-Qadisiyyah newspaper) to private residences. Due to the nature of the
collection process, individual documents are not linked to their recovery location. While the collection process was opportunistic,
the content exhibits much coherence, suggesting that the document scavengers in the neighborhoods from which the series was
gathered had access to the same pool of material in their proximity. The main components of the 2004SC are Regional Command
membership files, Special Security personnel files, and correspondence and administrative files.
All documents in this collection were digitized by the IMF, and a complete set of digitized files is at Hoover.
5. The 2005 Secondary Collection dataset (2005SC)
The documents in the collection were created by various units of the Iraqi government and were collected by many different
Iraqi secondary sources after the fall of the regime. When the documents became problematic the secondary sources discarded
them, at which point the IMF collected them. All documents collected by the IMF in 2005 are included in the dataset.
These documents are believed to have been widely mishandled, so that document components could be lost, and other documents
could be introduced that were out-of-context, altered, redacted, or forged. A strong black market in documents added to the
degradation of the document pool. Using a local network of friends and associates, many disposed documents were rescued and
transported to IMF premises. It was rarely possible to preserve the context of these documents.
All documents in this collection were digitized by the IMF in Baghdad, and a complete set of digitized files is at Hoover
6. Ministry of Information selected documents collection
These documents were selected for their importance by a Ministry of Information insider, Amir al-Hilu, who provided them to
the IMF in July-August 2003. The IMF digitized all of them.
7. Jewish Presence in Iraq dataset
The collection combines a few thousand pages of material from the BRCC dataset and additional documents given to the IMF without
restriction by Edwin Shukur of London in 2006.
8. Video documents from the Ba'th Regime Era dataset
These video recordings were created by government agencies and individuals during the Ba'th regime. They come from both the
Ba'th Regional Command collection and the 2004 secondary collection. The original recordings were on VHS videocassettes that
were digitized by the IMF and received by Hoover as file-based recordings.
The Hiẓb al-Ba'th al-'Arabī al-Ishtirākī (Ba'th Arab Socialist Party) came to power in Iraq through a military coup in July
1968. Over time, party members systematically penetrated all governmental and military institutions. The Ba'th Party was able
to influence or control the Iraqi government in two ways. One was through government employees and military personnel who
were also party members. The second was the party's ability to influence governmental decisions at lower levels. Because the
party had units that were functionally parallel to those of the government, the party could monitor activities in all government
units.
The basic organizational unit of the Ba'th Party was the party cell or circle (
halaqah). Cells had from three to seven members and functioned at the neighborhood or village level. Several cells formed a division
(
firqah), which operated in urban areas, larger villages, offices, factories, schools, and other organizations. Divisions were spread
throughout the bureaucracy and the military, serving as the eyes and ears of the party. Several divisions formed a section
(
shabah), which operated in a large city quarter, town, or a rural district. Above the section was the branch (
fira), which contained at least two sections and functioned at the provincial level. There were twenty-one branches in Iraq, one
in each of the eighteen provinces and three in Baghdad. The union of all the branches formed the party's congress, which elected
the Regional Command (Qīyadah al Qutrīyah).
The Regional Command was both the core of party leadership and the top decision-making body. Its membership varied in number.
Members were elected for five-year terms at regional congresses of the party, though this term was obscured in practice. Its
secretary general (also called the regional secretary) was the party's leader, and its deputy secretary general was second
in rank and in power within the party hierarchy. The members of the Regional Command (Qīyadah al Qutrīyah) theoretically were
responsible to the Regional Congress that was to convene annually to debate and to approve the party's policies and programs.
In reality, the members were chosen by Saddam Hussein and other senior party leaders to be "elected" by the Regional Congress,
a formality seen as essential to the legitimation of party leadership.
Above the Regional Command (Qīyadah al Qutrīyah) was the National Command (Qīyadah al Qomīa)of the Ba'th Party, the highest
policy-making and coordinating council for the Ba'th movement throughout the Arab world. The National Command consisted of
representatives from all regional commands and was responsible to the National Congress, which convened periodically. It was
vested with broad powers to guide, to coordinate, and to supervise the general direction of the movement, especially regarding
relationships among the regional Ba'th parties and with the outside world.
In reality, the National Command (Qīyadah al Qomīa) did not oversee the Ba'th movement as a whole because a major schism in
1966 resulted in the creation of two rival National Commands, one in Damascus and the other in Baghdad. Both claimed to be
the legitimate authority for the Ba'th. Michel Aflaq, one of the original cofounders of the Ba'th Party, was the secretary
general of the Baghdad-based National Command, and Saddam Hussein was the vice-chairman. In practice, the Iraqi Regional Command
(Qīyadah al Qutrīyah) controlled the Baghdad-based National Command.
Theoretically, the Iraqi Regional Command (Qīyadah al Qutrīyah) made decisions about Ba'th Party policy based on consensus.
In practice, all decisions were made by the party's secretary general, Saddam Hussein, who was also chairman of the Revolutionary
Command Council and president of the republic starting in 1979.
Moving from the party organization to the governmental system, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) was the top decision-making
body of the state. It was formed in July 1968 and exercised both executive and legislative powers. The chairman of the RCC
was also the president of the republic. Since 1977 the Ba'th Party regarded all members of the Ba'th Party Regional Command
as members of the RCC. The interlocking leadership structure of the RCC and the Regional Command emphasized the party's dominance
in governmental affairs.
Sources: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress.
A Country Study: Iraq. Edited by Helen Chapin Metz. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1990.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iqtoc.html .
Helms, Christine Moss. Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1984.
Helms, Christine Moss. Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1984.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection consists of records of the Ba'th Arab Socialist Party of Iraq collected by the Mu'assasat al-dhākirah al-'Irāqīyah
(Iraq Memory Foundation or IMF). Materials created by the IMF since its inception in 1992 comprise a separate collection,
the Mu'assasat al-dhākirah al-'Irāqīyah (Iraq Memory Foundation) records, at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
The correspondence, reports, membership and personnel files, judicial and investigatory dossiers, administrative files and
registers, and videorecordings in this collection relate to political conditions in, and governance of, Iraq. They were collected
by the IMF from the Ba'th Regional Command headquarters and from secondary sources. The materials were digitized by the IMF
or the U.S. government, which gave digital copies to the IMF, and these digital files are at Hoover.
Most datasets contain digitized documents scanned in color at 300 ppi, so they are very legible. However, some were scanned
in black and white at 72 ppi, and they are sometimes difficult to read.
The collection is organized in ten datasets defined and named by the Iraq Memory Foundation (IMF): (1) North Iraq dataset,
(2) Kuwait dataset, (3) School registers dataset, (4) Boxfiles dataset, (5) Artifacts dataset (6) Membership files dataset
(also includes 2004 secondary collection data), (7) 2005 secondary collection dataset (8) Ministry of Information selected
documents dataset, (9) Jewish presence in Iraq dataset, and (10) Video documents from the Ba'th Regime Era. The IMF defines
a dataset as a set of digitized documents grouped together based on their form, content, and provenance.
A database designed and populated by the Iraq Memory Foundation uses this arrangement to describe the materials. The descriptive
information in this IMF database is in a mixture of English and Arabic. For each dataset, the number of digitized pages described
by one database record varies considerably. Details about the database information available for each dataset are provided
in the "Series Description" section of this finding aid. Descriptive information continues to be added, and the user interface
continues to be upgraded.
Mu'assasat al-dhākirah al-'Irāqīyah [Iraq Memory Foundation] records, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Kanan Makiya papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Iraq -- Politics and government -- 1979-1991
Iraq -- Politics and government -- 1991-2003