Are you a relative of former Iraqi Prime Minister of IRAQ, Qassim?
Was your family close friends of his family?
Did you or someone in your family served in his term as Iraq's leader from 1958 to 1963 and made face-to-face contact with him?
If your answer is 'yes' to any of the questions above, please write to us with information about Abdul Kareem Qassim at historyofiraq@gmail.com or post your information here in this blog. We need to know who you are and whether you can be contacted at least via email to make sure the information is valid and reliable.
This most humble first leader of IRAQ, when it became a republic, has very little written about him in books and on the Internet.
In July 28, 1958 the Time Magazine published an article about the coup against the Monarchy by Abdul Kareem Qassim as it appears in this Internet page:
"Only a handful of officers hatched the plot, only an hour was necessary to carry it out, and only three key assassinations made it complete. So swiftly last week fell Iraq, long celebrated as the West's strongest Arab bastion in the Middle East. The details of this remarkable coup, whose success surprised even the plotters, became clear only little by little last week, as the facts were slowly disentangled from impassioned propaganda and confused accounts. The revolt burst on Iraq at 5 o'clock Monday morning. Major General Abdul Kareem el-Kassim, 42, who had been ordered to lead his men...
Knowing the politically incorrect TIME Magazine and its propaganda, we are not sure how objective is this article writing about Qassim. The link in which the above paragraph appears is http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,810425,00.html
If you are currently a TIME subscriber or wish to subscribe, you can have an access to this article in the July 28, 1958 magazine. Can you please help us get it? We greatly appreciate it. The CIA plotted the coup against Qassim and accused him of being a communist. Therfore the American media must be studied during Qassim's era, commented on and/or corrected. This issue has several articles about the Arab world that deserves to be investigated. The front cover has the picture of President Jamal Abdul Nasser, who antagonized Abdul Kareem Qassim and who indirectly helped Abdus-Salam Aref to overthrow Qassim.
If you are interested in helping us search, write and publish about the life of Abdul Kareem Qassim from his birth till his assassination, please note that when you google his name, it has been also transliterated as Abdul Karim Kasim. We greatly appreciate your help in this important matter.
Among the very few and insignificant writings about Qassim was found in this link:
http://english.people.com.cn/200407/16/eng20040716_149772.html
If you live in IRAQ, did you read about Qassim's remains in Al-Sabah newspaper in July 2004? Can this piece of information be taken for granted? It was interesting to read in the report's first line that, "Bakhtiar Ameen, the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights" with the word 'Iraqi' underlined when Bakhtiar is neither an Iraqi nor an Arab name. Bakhtiar is a name common to Iranians. The story in Ismael Aref's book (published in the late 1980s) about Qassim was that his body was thrown in Diyala river. How can we find the truth?
We need to learn more about this humble and wrongly-accused leader. Please write to us and forward this message to all Iraqis and Arabs who know important information about Qassim for documentation's sake and also to educate about him. In history books, journals and newspapers, there has been far more mention of Qassim's opponent, Jamal Abdul Nasser whose leadership contributed to an unhealthy vanity toward Arab nationalism. Yet Qassim promoted a healthy and tolerant pan-Arabism and Iraqi patriotism through many of his policies and acknowledged well the presence of non-Arab element in IRAQ even when named the Iraqi republic (not to include 'Arab') as The Republic of Iraq.
For the sake of history writing accuracy, we appreciate your help in this regard! Please send any information pertaining this matter to historyofiraq@gmail.com Thank You.