Abdel-Rahman Aref, Former Iraqi President (Deposed By Saddam) Dies

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Source: Associated Press

Abdel-Rahman Aref, former Iraqi president

AMMAN, Jordan --Former Iraqi President Abdel-Rahman Aref, overthrown more than 35 years ago in a coup that brought Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to power, died in Amman early Friday at the age of 91."He was a free officer, a military commander, a president of the republic. He was a model of integrity and tolerance," Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in a statement.

Aref, whose rule was considered weak, settled in Jordan after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam in 2003. He rose to power in 1963, five years after the bloody overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy when his elder brother, then Iraq's President Abdel-Salam Aref, appointed him army chief of staff.

Three years later, the brother died in a plane crash and Iraqi army officers, said to have been supported by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser, chose the younger Aref to become Iraq's third president. The plane crash was believed to be a sabotage.

Aref was president until 1968, when he was toppled in a bloodless coup by the Baath Party, led at the time by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who became Iraq's next president. But Saddam was believed to have held behind-the-scenes power in the coup and later, until formally taking over the government in 1979.

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