COMMUNIST FRONT PERSONALITIES IN THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNENT OF IRAQ

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R000900170001-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: REPORT

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COMMUNIST FRONT PERSONALITIES IN THE
REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT OF IRAQ
Two prominent figures in the new revolutionary government of
Iraq have in the past been identified with the Iraq Peace Committee.
These two are Col. Jalal Jaffar Awgati (Abbasi), newly designated
commander of the Air Force, and Dr. Ibrahim Kubba (Gubba), Minister
of Economy in the new cabinet. Awqati in addition was reported as
being a World Peace Council member in 1954.
Three other figures in the revolutionary government were partici-
pants in the Communist-front Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference held in
Cairo, December 1957-January 1958. These are Finance Minister Muhammad
Hadid, Gvi i,nce Minister Muhammad Sadiq Shanshal, and Education
Minister Jabr (Sadir) Umar. The latter, at that time in exile in
Syria, headed the delegation to Cairo.
Shanshal has just appointed as his director general of guidance
and broadcasting fellow Istiga.al leader~Gharb al-Haj Ahmad, who
has also maintained close contacts with two other Left'ing lawyers
recently active in the Cairo Afro-Asian Conference: Faiq Samarri,
president of the Iraq Lawyers Association (ILA) and former Istiglal vice
president, and Husayn Jamil, as of March 1957 secretary general of the
Arab Lawyers Federation in Cairo. Between April 1953 and August 1957
Jamil was ILA president and an alleged member of that organization's
Communist-controlled suqroup, the Committee to Aid Justice. Moreover,
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for manyJamil has been closely associated with Muhammad Hadid (see
above), the two having been secretary general and vice president,
respectively, of the Left Wing National Democratic Party (NDP).
It should be noted here that Shanshal held an equivalent position,
chief of the propaganda department, under the pro-Axis Rashid All
/government of 1941 Two of his assistants in this capacity, incidentally,
were Fuad Nasser, later to become the secretary general of the Communist
Party of Jordan, and Muhammad Nimr Udah (Awdah), as of 1956 a close
associate of Jamal Husayni in Saudi Arabia. 't:
A further interesting appointment of the new regime is Hashim
Jawad as Iraqi delegate to the UN. Jawad, an associate of Muhammad
Hadid in the liberal/Socialist/Communist Ahali (or Baghdad) group in
the 1930's, was first named Iraq delegate to the UN in 1946 and has
served there intermittently since. He has, however, been a
controversial figure, whom the Government has kept abroad. His last
problem developed in early 1958 vhen:he was censured by his government
for having supported the Greek stand on the Cyprus issue. One
Btti t Fuad al-Rikabi (Minister of Development), is identified in the
new cabinet. He has served earlier this year as a Ba'th representa-
tive in the National Front.
Two of these men, Shanshal and Jabr Umar, have spent most of the
past four months abroad. Shanshal, known in Egypt as a friend of
Gamal abd-al Nasser, spent most of this time in Cairo. Umar was
located in Damascus, where he was reported working closely with
A IL c p'G''!t.< r~ Cl 'YID +"_t~j/ ~'Ul.t A^C'C.GL! -- K J.+II_. A
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the Syrian intelligence in connection with the clandestine radio,
"Voice of Free Iraq." Both were last reported in Damascus.
Hadid and Shanshal have been reported participating as
National Congress Party* representatives with the Bath Party and
the Communist Party of Iraq in the work of the illegal opposition
organization, the National Front, since late 1956. However, as
late as mid-1955 the Iraq CP had vigorously attacked Hadid and other
Left Wing leaders linked with him, indluding Husayn Jamil and the leader
of his Party, Kamil Chaderchi. The change in the CP Iraq's
attitude toward those Leftists is credited to instructions received
by the Party in April 1956 from Moscow calling for unification of
the Iraqi Communist factions and splinter groups as a necessary step
toward an effective broad national front. In the rapprochement
that followed, Aziz Sharif, an Iraqi Communist, exiled since 1949
and long resident in Syria where he lived with Khalid Bakdash, is
credited with the promotion of the CP Iraq's change in attitude
toward the inclusion of the Left in the National Front. In
spite of his relationship with Bakdash, Sharif himself was, as late
as 1955, denounced by the CP Iraq as a "Titoist." Sharif, who has a
record as a leading Iraqi Communist dating back to 193+, has for more
than years been linked n lr with the leading Leftists of the
Hadid-Chaderchi group, and has consistently supported and advocated
*The National. Congress Party is a merger formed by elements of
the old Left Wing National Democratic and the Right-extremist
Istiqlal parties.
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broad united fronts (see Appendix III). Since 1957 he has taken a
leading role in the Iraqi participation in Peace Partisan and
Afro-Asian solidarity activity outside.Iraq. The composition and
actions of earlier United Front groupings provide a useful insight
into these relationships. (See Appendix III)
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