1938 -
Iraqi politician.
Taha Yasin Ramadan, also known as Taha al-Jazrawi, was born in Mosul to a working-class Arabized Kurdish family. In 1959 he was dismissed from the army by the regime of Abd al-Karim Qasim, because of his leanings toward the Baʿth party. In 1966, he became a member of the Baʿth party's regional (Iraqi) leadership, and after the Baʿthist takeover in 1968, he supervised the purging of the army. Starting in 1969, Ramadan became a member of the Revolutionary Command Council and, starting in 1972, he commanded the Baʿthist militia. He was one of the ideological hard-liners among Saddam Hussein's entourage, always toeing Hussein's line. Between 1979 and 1991 he was first deputy prime minister, following which he was appointed vice president. Ramadan emerged from the Gulf Crisis of 1990 and 1991 as one of the most powerful individuals in Iraq outside of Hussein's own family, with his power base resting in the city of Mosul and in the party apparatus.
Following the U.S. occupation of Iraq starting in March 2003, Ramadan became a wanted figure. He was eventually captured in Mosul by Kurdish forces in August 2003, whereupon he was handed over to the U.S. forces.
Bibliography
Baram, Amatzia. "The Ruling Political Elite in Baʿthi Iraq, 1968 - 1986." International Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (1989): 447 - 493.
Batatu, Hanna. The Old Social Classes and the RevolutionaryMovements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Baʿthists, and Free Officers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.
— AMATZIA BARAM
UPDATED BY MICHAEL R. FISCHBACH
