After the Military Uprising, Qassim assumed the post of
Prime Minister and
Defence Minister, while Colonel
Abdul Salam Arif was selected
Deputy Prime Minister and
Interior Minister. They became the highest authority in Iraq with both executive and legislative powers.
Qassim soon withdrew Iraq from the pro-Western
Baghdad Pact and established friendly relations with the
Soviet Union. Iraq also abolished its
Treaty of mutual security and bilateral relations with
Britain. Also, Iraq withdrew from the agreement with the
United States that was signed by the monarchy from 1954 to 1955 regarding military, arms, and equipment. On
May 30,
1959, the last of the British soldiers and military officers departed the
Al-Habanya base in Iraq.
On
July 26,
1958, the
Interim Constitution was adopted, proclaiming the equality of all Iraqi citizens under the law and granting them freedom without regard to race, nationality, language or religion. The government freed political prisoners and granted amnesty to the Kurds who participated in the 1943 to 1945 Kurdish uprisings. The exiled Kurds returned home and were welcomed by the republican regime.
He lifted a ban on the
Iraqi Communist Party, and demanded the annexation of
Kuwait. He was also involved in the 1958 Agrarian Reform, modeled after the
Egyptian experiment of 1952.
However, by 1959 Qassim moved against the Communist Party, removing its supporters from government and purging its activists from the Army. He also suppressed the party's mass organisations of students, workers and women and prevented the printing and distribution of its newspapers. The
Iraqi Communist Party championed Qassim throughout his rule, despite the steps he took against it. It later appeared that Qassim’s suppression of Communist Party activity was his biggest mistake, since he was left with no means to mobilise ordinary people to defend his regime when the
Ba’ath Party launched a coup in 1963.
Qassim worked to improve the position of ordinary people in Iraq, after the long period of self-interested rule by a small elite under the monarchy which had resulted in widespread social unrest. Among his accomplishments was the large-scale construction of housing for the urban working classes.The most notable example, and indeed symbol, of this was the new suburb of Baghdad named
Madinat al-Thawra (revolution city), renamed Saddam City under the Baath regime and now widely referred to as Sadr City.