CIA Transnational Human Rights Actions - Assassination and Targeted Killing - Assassinations - Qasim

Qasim

Declassified CIA documents show that a request was made for a mission to incapacitate dictator Abd al-Karim Qasim of Iraq, who was overthrown in 1963 by a coalition dominated by the Ba'ath party. Qasim had put down an earlier coup attempt in 1959.

While Qasim was actually killed by a firing squad of the Ba'ath party that overthrew him, there had been a separate CIA plan to incapacitate him. In their request, they said the target's death would not be unacceptable to them, but was not the principal objective: "We do not consciously seek subject's permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop." (see detailed memo below)