The Price of Derring-Do

Shortly before Baghdad abruptly nationalized the Western-owned Iraq Petroleum Co. last month, Vice President Saddam Hussein Takriti, 35, flew off on a secret mission to Paris. No one knows whether Takriti, who is Iraq's boss as head of the dictatorial Baath (Renaissance) Party, actually told the French government of his plans to take over I.P.C. But he was sufficiently encouraged to return last week for a session with President Pompidou. After the meeting, Takriti announced a considerable diplomatic and commercial coup: the Compagnie Franc,aise des Petroles--one of six former corporate owners of I.P.C.--will take 23% of Iraq's oil over the next ten years. Italy's government-owned energy company, E.N.I., which had been reluctant to be first to do business with Baghdad, also signed a contract for at least another 20 million tons of oil.

The double agreement was a notable stroke for Iraq, which had been threatened with the specter of a Western boycott of its newly acquired oil, and loss of oil revenues that approach $1 billion annually. Even so, the government may still be in difficulty. The French could insist on taking oil as compensation for their investment in I.P.C., thus paying nothing for it; or they could offer payment in goods--chiefly heavy equipment--tagged with artificially high prices.

The arrangement leaves Iraq looking for customers for 60% of the oil it used to sell to the West. As the price for its derring-do in taking over I.P.C., Baghdad faces a severe cutback in its ambitious plans for agricultural and industrial development. The Baath regime has already ordered an austerity program to offset the drop in oil revenues. Foreign travel has been banned except for government officials, students or ailing citizens allowed to go abroad for treatment.

More ominously, the situation may strain an already uneasy truce between Baghdad and the dissident Kurds of the north, who claim ownership of the Kirkuk oilfield, which has been shut down ever since it was nationalized. "If there is to be a stoppage of national development, you can be sure the Kurds will be the first to feel it," said Dara Towfik, editor of the Baghdad-based Kurdish paper Al Ta'Khee, last week. Besides complaining that they have been shortchanged on development funds, Kurds feel that Baghdad has cheated on the terms of their truce. Kurd Leader Mustafa Barzani worked out an agreement with Baghdad two years ago that brought Kurds into Iraq's Cabinet. But in practice, they have been given hollow jobs. To top that off, eleven people were killed not long ago in an apparent assassination attempt against the Kurd leader. Tempers are high enough that any fresh controversy over the oilfields could lead to renewed demands for an autonomous Kurdistan.

In any confrontation, the regime would likely prevail. In the four years since it seized absolute power, the Baath Party has ruthlessly consolidated its rule. One method was the execution of more than 120 potential opponents, some of whom were strung up in Baghdad's Tahrir Square in grisly public hangings. Other enemies of the regime languish in a Baghdad prison that Iraqis ironically refer to as the "Palace of the End." President Ahmed Hassan Bakr, 57, the cautious army general who was installed to arbitrate between feuding Baath factions, has become a figurehead as Vice President Takriti concentrated power in his own hands. Says a Western diplomat in Baghdad: "As things stand now, Bakr has no role to play; Saddam Hussein is it."

The Baath Party's rule has reduced the legendary thousand-and-one nights capital of Haroun-al-Rashid to "a joyless city where laughter is alien and diplomats politely suspend dinner conversations when a waiter hovers within earshot," reported TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott after a visit last week. The city (pop. 2,100,000) is a dusty, sunbaked melange of blue-domed mosques, dun-colored buildings and massive office complexes housing a growing government bureaucracy. Traffic jams are frequent as British-built double-decker buses, government Chevrolets and even donkeys all maneuver for the five bridges that span the Tigris. To break the jams, police assess fines as high as $320 merely for illegal parking on Saaddoun Street, the city's main thoroughfare.

Once one of the Middle East's most xenophobic and insulated nations, Iraq is striving to end its role as odd man out and looking for diplomatic friends. Last March, Iraq proposed yet another Arab federation, with Syria and Egypt, but the notion was quickly rejected in Cairo. Libya was left out of Baghdad's plans at the time because its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, had objected to Iraq's growing friendship with the Soviet Union. But since then, Gaddafi has spoken up in favor of the I.P.C. nationalization, and "he is now our friend," said a foreign ministry spokesman last week. Iraqis would like to see a united Arab war of attrition against Israel, but have prudently refrained from doing anything about it themselves. A 12,000-man Iraq expeditionary force facing Israel from Jordan was suddenly recalled two years ago because, as the foreign ministry insisted, "the U.S. Sixth Reel was sailing around in hot Mediterranean waters. We have our own country to protect." Baghdad is 600 miles from the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, relations are expanding outside the Arab world. Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin visited Baghdad two months ago to sign a friendship pact. After his visit to Paris last week, Takriti announced his ambition "to see Franco-Iraqi relations raised to the level of relations with the Soviet Union." Diplomatic relations between Baghdad and Washington were severed after the Six-Day War, and 13 months ago, Iraq confiscated the U.S. embassy to house its foreign ministry. But in September, two U.S. foreign service officers will arrive in Baghdad to take over the American-interests section of the Belgian embassy, a task that is currently being handled by one Belgian.

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