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After the Baathists, working in league with the American Central
Intelligence Agency
(CIA), overthrew the pro-Moscow Qasim in February 1963, Saddam returned home.
He married Khairallah's daughter, Sajida, a primary school teacher. He
graduated to
full membership of the Baath (i.e. Renaissance), now 1,000 strong. He
successfully
urged the Baathist leaders to put him in charge of the party's internal
security agency,
popularly known as Jihaz al Haneen (the Instrument of Yearning). Armed with
the list
of the Iraqi Communists supplied by the CIA, the Jihaz arrested and tortured
them
under his supervision.
the Baathist rule ended in November 1963, and the party reverted to an
underground
existence. Saddam moved up the party ranks and joined its Regional Command,
where
50-year-old General Ahmad Hassan al Bakr, a cousin of Khairallah and a
founder-member
of the Baath, played a leading role.
Because of his involvement in a failed Baathist coup attempt, Saddam was
jailed in
October 1964. He escaped in July 1966. Elected assistant secretary-general
of the
(clandestine) Baath, he spent the next two years building up the Jihaz
(where he trained
hand-picked recruits) and the party militia.
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