The 1958 coup against the pro-western monarch of Iraq, Nuri Said, by a cabal of Army officers caught the CIA completely by surprise, again. The new regime, led by General Abdel Qasim, quickly unearthed the CIA's network of bribed officials in the monarchy. After a CIA contract agent disappeared without a trace, officers fled the station in Baghdad. Qasim tilted to the Soviets by allowing their political and cultural delegations into Iraq. Red warning flags went up all over the halls of power in Washington. Soviet hegemony in a region so vital to the United States because of it's oil reserves was simply intolerable.
Enter James Critchfield, the CIA's liason officer with former Nazi and Abwher General Reinhard Gehlen in Germany. Critchfield was made Near East division chief and quickly became interested in the Ba'ath Party of Iraq as a means of overthrowing Qasim. Members of the party had tried to assassinate Qasim in a wild gun battle. Critchfield's officers also tried to assassinate Qasim using a poisoned handkerchief, a slightly preposterous idea that was endorsed all the way to the top of the CIA command structure. The CIA was apparently fond of poisoning in unusual ways as a modus operandi. (They tried a poison ice cream cone on Fidel Castro). Nevertheless, the agency finally backed a successful coup five years later in 1963. According to the Ba'ath Party interior minister in the 1960's, Ali Saleh Sa'adi, "we came to power on a CIA train" [1]. Saddam Hussein, a rising party assassin, was on board that train. There is evidence that the agency was heavily involved with the coup plotters. The agency provided money, command and control and even a hit list of Iraqis whose extermination was deemed necessary for the coup's success. Relations between the agency and the Ba'athists were very close even after the overthrow. In return for help against Qasim's forces they provided the CIA with models of MiG fighters and Soviet armor not yet in US hands.
[1] A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, Aburish 2001