Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

Biography

Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was born in Tikrit in 1914. After six years as a primary-school teacher he entered the Iraqi Military Academy in 1938. He took part in Rashid Ali's failed revolt against the British in 1941, was imprisoned and dismissed from the army, and was reinstated only in 1956, when he also joined the Ba'ath Party.

He supported the 14 July Revolution of 1958 but was forced out of the army again in 1959. As chairman of the Ba'ath Party's military bureau he organised the February 1963 coup that overthrew Abd al-Karim Qasim, becoming prime minister and briefly vice president, until President Abdul Salam Arif turned on the Ba'athists in November 1963.

Elected head of the Iraqi Ba'ath branch, he worked underground with his relative Saddam Hussein and returned to power in the coup of 17 July 1968. He became president, chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and prime minister, and for a time also defence minister. High oil revenues brought growth, land reform and rising living standards, but real power shifted steadily to Saddam and the security services.

In July 1979 al-Bakr resigned all his posts, citing ill health, and Saddam succeeded him. He died in Baghdad in 1982.