(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00423R000200150001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 30, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 18, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

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I. On Sy, nOvembe
revoit which for a moment threetened to
Americanc and %eropeans. Demonstratious 1
ccurred the day before but they had been rather
11 organized radical elements took over and mobs raa4 with sti)cs;
tones and. GAM marched through the atricts. There wee much destruction
such ea that of the US Information Service building and the office of
the British-run Iraq Times. Police, before tney disappeared completely,
were attacked and murdered. rer & few hour*, Baghdad, the capital of
free and a city of more than half a million inhabitants vatted trembling
for further developments. But in the later afternoon the army moved in.
Soldiers, tanks and even cavalry along with the chief of the Army.
General Muriddin Mehmoud accepted the invitation of the Regent to form
new cabinet. On Mhoday there were still noisy demonstrations; mobe
carrying the dead end waving banners with mitt-western inscriptions,
but the danger had passed. Martial law was declared And curfew
announeed fran senset to eunriee. The revolt ems over. nevertheless
what happened did shoek the western world for a moment as a bloody
earning that the Middle East wee fermenting, partly becaase of its own
problem, partly teesuee of Commaniet efforts Inspired fron behind the
Iron Curtain; the not so cold Cold War. The follovine is ancefort to
formelate reasons for the unrest. A sthry vhieh with some changes
could be applied to other Arab countries.
0
a
first Impression
first iepreseion or agM4 en of Iraq in gnerai
inting for anyone of the
bbasid Khalifs or t
irut are in part western
impressive. Baghdad is sti
to with some not always too auccessful ef
It is filthy and it *Iselin.
the main etreets and the residenttai.
tecture, people live in poverty in mudhouses,
unser with daily maxim up to 120 degrees and trying th
winter when the thermometer may drop below freezing point
b ageinst the veils. Principles of modern hygiene are
Dust covers the food and drinks openly shown on the
eiieJ.ka or in the stores while part of the water intended for drinking
has been fore for other purposes. Mortality is high - -even up to
Oo per cent for behies- -and diseases; especially of the eye and skin
are verywbere in evidence.
This torivz
VItJS S
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toren this is soon
ft from a primitive
rule and neglect has
La too difficult a change
feet one experiences a picture
Iraqi himself mho has remained
Be opens his home to you and
to express himself in English
ften funny results, The neve
ts you ie the morning, the
a service rendered by saying
troduces himself by saying
examples of a constant source
MAR is Y-153
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periods of stagnation are. eecaya It was later in eagleled that early
Islamic- culture reeebed its peek when the Abbleit Khalifs made that
city the center of art and knowledge* But that empire also eollapsed,
destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Two hundre4i years
later the ftrhe came and stayed till the end of the first World War.
When the TUrks left there were few remnants of ancient primeserity-esilted
irrigation canals and mounds of nibble vbere owe cities prosperel.
The population ves sparse and at of them miserably poor. eney in e
fee spots where nature took cure of itself were conditions better. In
the wrath, for instance, arouue Basra, the incoming tides of the
Persian Gulf fore* the slaters? of the Metal Areb, confluent of the
etsphratee and Tigris, to overflow their banks and so irrigate the
vorld's largest coteoetrutice of at ;eine In. the north aloes the
foot of the mountains seperatieg /morrow'. Iran and teeteee the winter
reins ere sufficient to permit the cultivation of eteet And barley on
the level land and the raising of grapes, peaches, apricots and nuts
on the valley slopes. That is the home of the Kurds, who often fought
the Arabs to the south in bloody quarrels. let, otherwise, the leo&
wee either steppe or desert where 'wandering Bedoeln tribes esseier with
their herds of camel, Sheep ant goats in search for food and Where
only a few oasis with their palms and citrus trees break_ the monotony
of the plain.
9.* Thous were small, seats or the Turkish officials. Jewish merchants
controlled met of the business in the bazaars. Moeda were mere tracks
and it ems not before the and of the first World War that a railroad?
the humus Berlin-Baghdad line?connected Vela with the rest of the
world.
10. Schools could only be found in the Larger cities; the overehelmine
maeority of the people were illiterate. A few of the eeperclass, the
leaders of the later independence, studied abroad preferably in Istanbul
or Paris. Disease checked any increase of population. It was a stagnant
economy %Philo not so far away westere _Kure,* rose to its pod( of
industrial weer* Baghdad, once a city of two million inhabitants, had
dropped to a eere forty thousand. Ae one writer puts it was
the remotest as well as under the shabbiest, of the vilaiyets Provincial
capitals) of the Turkish state.
Imat Present
11. Look at Iraq now, thirty years lataxe and see the change. The
area under cultivation has increased six fade thanks to large barrages,
new irrigation canals and ditches and thous-44s of pumps along the
river banks 'which sepe/e water to the s4Jetent lowland. tee chief
factors favor irrigationeecoe is the feet that in a lowland rivers bound
by their natural levee, floe above the surface of the leede 'which of
course facilitate* irrigation and the other that the hrates and
Tigris IA turn differ in elevation and that the flow of water between
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but
At t
aM barley,
ead put buck in
will be ueed.
12.
seeds and better
While this is going on
cultural land is in the heads of
pumps. The tenant reeeives not much more than one
value of the crop he produces; the rest sees to the
state or Is ueed for upkeep. Be is accordingly in
to 30) and is unable to repay it, leach make* him ev
As one author puts it 'The bulk Of the land has come in
of a class from whom no leadersbip in agricultural methods can be
expected and which is tyrennous, ealleus and oppressive% this harsh
statement is rather too general because there are many owners much
interested in the plight of their tennents but often it is true. With
an average income or about 05 a year, spent on simple clothing, low
grade tobacco, sugar and tea, the farmer lives not far above the
subsistence level aed often below it. Crop yield* are low; such too
low for crops under irrigation.
13. TO make all these changes
tel is needed buteeaed here comes
available' thanks to the profits recel
cent of the net income of the 011 companie
of Iraq are immensei the reserves at the IiirkUk oilfield
reportedly to 1,000 million toes and tbose or the lees
fields near Beare offering perhaps 'oval premise. Iraq's
floating in oil and if rudical elemente do not force
the fields which would unavoidably lead to a sharp
what heppened in Memie0) the immediste future in
14. The
economic i
and foreign expert
billion dollars ter the ;mat five years.
barrel.* and sore irrigation canals; more
production thods. There is0 bowever0 one pa
The greater part of the money Is used fora better future.
evememally solve poverty and eeke tree a prosperous densely populated
nation, But there is also the deader that the patient waiting for
these benefits frill tie before that prosperity is reached. In other
words, would it not be better to use a larger pereentage for immediate
relief such as bitter bousieg, medical help and improved education?
The people are impatient; they want to see results and surprisingly
the Development Soardis not popular.
of
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15. There are other things to be con
at present. Isoletion is a thing of the past.
its neighbors and their quality is improving even
Ung by ear over moat of the roods is a slow and not
s. A trunk railroad line leads to lerkey arid beyond the
The airfields of Beare and Baghdad, stop on the lines from
uroe o the rest of Asia and Australia, are among the busiest in
the vori4. Industries are deveioping in the chief cities end the
Baghded skyline shows the smoking oblmneye of factories using local raw
materials. Schools, some or them with quite modern buildings, are
increasing rapidly in number although in manyraral districts the children
cannot afford to 8.0 to school. The many colleges in Baghdad will
eventually be united into a ;single aniversity. &reign experts have
been called to help in many fields --agriculture, fishloo, engineering,
medical sereice and in edaoation. Baghdad is crowded, with them and
not ell of them have been put to work because of Lack of facilities.
Interesting is thst Point ?Our is not popular at all in spite of the
good work done by the specialist who came under that progoam. Wooly
Iraqi regard this as a gesture or charity versus a backward nation
and are most sensitive about that. They would prefer to pay for the
SOD they need and not receive it as a gift.
la. meanahile young Iraqi are sent aba d
the laser future no foreign help will be necessary.
of progress. Baghdad is growing rapidly end is again
spreading out on both sides of the Tigris. Most of the
or /raq seem to spend their existence driving up and down Mashid street--
the main thoroaghfare, and because all of the toot their horns, Baghdad
may be the worldts noisiest city.
Of course, in their eagerness to go el,
arise, which are of ,no immediate use,
beautiful railroad statinn but the railroads b
An iepreseive gate with ancient Assyrian ornaments asset
entrance to a musseum leads to a mudfield; the museum was not
built. On the other side the College of Arta and Sciences is housed
in a building which in the United States would be regarded unsuitable
for any kind of office, vbile in contrast streamlined grammar schools
are found in many villages and small towns. But that is typical for
the growing pains of a young nation because not all chaeeme can be
made overnight and a great deal already has been aceoePliehed.
-end-
TYPE PrilATE INFO-TFR-DATE Aith
0
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