Articles, Radio Addresses, and Interviews Recorded at the Time in My Own Papers - Part 7: Defense Minister Ahmad al-Sharabati's Bribe Demand That Left the 1948 Army Without Arms

The Story of Ahmad al-Sharabati

Syria's Defense Minister, 1948

Lebanon's ambassador, Musa Mubarak, told me the following, relayed from France's own ambassador to Syria and Lebanon in 1948, Count de Chayla, in a private conversation between the two of them:

Musa Mubarak: I first came to know him in 1943/1944, as chairman of the Supreme Council for Syrian-Lebanese Joint Interests, and later accompanied him to the International Trade Conference held in Geneva in 1947, where I was in the company of Hassan Jabbara, Shaker al-Ass, and Izzat al-Tarabulsi, and later came to know him as Lebanon's own ambassador in Rome in 1965.

Ahmad al-Sharabati: he was a Syrian engineer, a member of the National Action League, later appointed defense minister during the 1948 war fought between the Arab armies and Israel. He went on to work in construction contracting in Syria and neighboring countries, and became a partner in the Engineering Company for Construction and Development, whose partners included Salah al-Sharbaji, Abdel Hamid Diab, Anwar al-Dusuqi, Subhi Kahhale, the Lebanese Ghorghor company, and others. Ahmad al-Sharabati took over executive management of this company's contracts in Iraq and Kuwait, and amassed vast sums of money for himself over the course of these projects, exploiting his own partners' absence, which led to enormous losses the company had to absorb, ultimately forcing it to declare bankruptcy. This left the partners liable for debts arising from their own guarantees on the credit facilities and loans the Rafidain Bank had extended to this company in both Syria and Iraq. It is said that Salah al-Sharbaji attempted to take his own life in the Tigris River upon learning of these losses.

The story: Musa Mubarak told me that France's ambassador to Syria and Lebanon, Count de Chayla, related the following story to him. When Syria entered the war of 1948, its army was small in number and poorly equipped, its ammunition and weapons badly lacking. President Shukri al-Quwatli asked France to urgently supply the Syrian army with weapons and ammunition, and the French government agreed to this request. A contract was drawn up between the two governments, and a date was set for its signing in Beirut, with Count de Chayla representing France, and Ahmad al-Sharabati representing Syria. On the appointed date, Minister Ahmad al-Sharabati did not show up in person, but instead sent an officer with the rank of lieutenant to inform the French ambassador that Ahmad al-Sharabati was demanding a private commission for himself in exchange for signing this contract. The French ambassador was astonished at this demand, saying that the contract was between two governments, and had been drawn up at the Syrian president's own request.

This deal was never carried out, leaving the Syrian army caught in a real military bind for lack of ammunition, and the truth of this story is further confirmed by what Ambassador Rashed al-Kaylani himself recounts in his own memoirs, 1990 edition, page 78.

A Conversation with Mustafa Ram Hamdani

At the home of Mr. Khairuddin Shamsi Basha, Monday evening, 4/3/1991

Sixteen people were present, among them Rashed al-Kaylani, my own brother As'ad, Major General Adel Cheikh Amin, Za'im Shallash, myself, the speaker himself, and our host.

He said: in the year of the union (February 1958), during the exhibition season (around September), Mustafa Hamdoun came to see me and said Akram al-Hourani wished to meet with me. I asked him why. He said it concerned an important matter. I was commanding the front at the time, so I told him: you have all become politicians now, and I am a military man, there is no need for such a meeting.

But why, he pressed... He said it was a secret matter. Then he spoke: he said, if you are ready, we want to save the country from Egyptian tyranny. We have already approached Bashir Sadek, and he has agreed. Akram has tasked me with approaching Amin al-Hafiz and yourself. I asked him: have you spoken to Amin al-Hafiz? He said: no. I later learned he had in fact spoken to him, and that al-Hafiz had refused. As for myself, I advised him not to speak to him at all.

I told him the whole affair was dormant, and that if the secession ever actually happened, unity would never rise again...

Amir Shallash's Own Account That Same Night

He said: in the days of al-Shishakli, Ahmad al-Fatih invited us in an effort to reconcile al-Shishakli and Akram al-Hourani. Al-Hourani attended, accompanied by Abdel Jalil Qaddour, deputy for al-Nabk, and the conversation lasted from eight in the morning until eight the following morning. (I myself left around midnight.) Al-Shishakli's own position was: I will hand power over to you, on these conditions:

1. No interference whatsoever with the large agricultural landholdings, since we are a poor country, and it is these very holdings that bring us our scarce foreign currency.

2. Teachers and military men are to be kept out of politics.

3. Students, up through the end of secondary school, are to be kept out of party politics.

4. You remain free to work among university students.

Al-Hourani said: and what exactly have you left for us, then?

He left for Beirut the next morning, and announced publicly that al-Shishakli had decided to have him assassinated, which was not in fact true.

Rashed al-Kaylani's Own Account That Same Night

He said: I was air force commander during the war of 1956.

The American military attaché came to me and asked why we had not joined in the defense of Egypt. Wasn't Egypt our own partner? I said to myself: by God, what this foreigner is saying is true.

I went to Major General Aziz Abdel Karim and put the very same question to him. He said:

We are ready to do so, but a telegram came to us from Egypt itself, asking us not to take part (despite the bilateral defense agreement), so that the Syrian army would not be destroyed.

Since there was, in fact, a real wish to see it destroyed.

This bears out what Mahmoud Riad himself said when he came before the People's Assembly to ask that we not intervene, for this very same reason.

Monday evening, 3/5/1993

At the home of the retired Za'im Amir Shallash and his wife, Mrs. Hikmat al-Sabai

Umm Ghassan was with me

He spoke of the state of the army and the minorities' own dominance of it. He said:

In the days of al-Shishakli (when he was president of the republic), I served as director of the military academy in Homs. On one occasion I came to Damascus carrying the list of the academy's own successful graduates.

He took up his own pen and struck off the names of the Alawite and Druze graduates who had passed, keeping only two or three from each sect, while retaining every single Sunni name.

He added: the army at the time was made up of 90 percent Sunni officers.

He was harshly critical of those who carried out the secession, even though he himself had discharged many officers during the days of the union.

He accused them of being the very ones who had brought the country to this wretched state.

A Conversation on the War of 1956

With Mr. Abdullah al-Khani

I went with Mr. Majed al-Ghazi and Mr. Nader al-Nabulsi to visit Mr. Abdel Qader al-Aswad at his home, across from the Italian Hospital in Damascus, to wish him well for Ramadan.

Today is Saturday, the fifth of Ramadan 1413, corresponding to 27 February 1993, and Mr. Baha al-Bakri and Abdullah al-Khani were present as well.

We spoke of the wars the Arabs had fought against Israel.

We spoke of the war of 1956.

Abdullah al-Khani said:

That year I served as assistant secretary-general of the Presidential Palace. We traveled to Cairo:

President Shukri al-Quwatli, Prime Minister Said al-Ghazzi, myself (al-Khani), and Chief of Staff Shawkat Shuqayr.

We met privately with President Abdel Nasser, who had with him Field Marshal Amer and Minister Ali Sabri.

The two presidents wished to know the military situation should war break out with Israel. Za'im Shuqayr was summoned to the meeting, and President al-Quwatli put the question to him directly: what is the true extent of Syrian military strength, should we go to war with Israel?

The man was blunt: we have not yet completed our own rearmament, and if war broke out now, the Syrian army could hold out for twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the very most. Those present were stunned, and Gamal Abdel Nasser turned to ask Field Marshal Amer about the Egyptian army's own readiness. Amer said: if I receive an order from President Gamal to enter the war, I can occupy Tel Aviv within three days, but if I then receive an order to halt after entering the battle, I will not stop short of my own objective, whatever order Gamal Abdel Nasser gives.

Al-Khani continues: it was Israel that planned the war of 1956, and it knew full well the true state of Arab military capability at the time.

I asked his permission to publish this account under his own name, but he declined, saying: this meeting was highly confidential, and I cannot disclose it. I told him: nearly 37 years have now passed since then.

He insisted on his refusal all the same.

A Conversation with Our Son-in-Law, Abdel Moneim

17 August 1993

I had asked our son-in-law, who served as director of Mezzeh prison until 8 March 1993 [sic], whether he knew of anyone who had taken part in the movement of 8 March 1963, and specifically, whether Ziad al-Hariri, commander of the front (who, upon being ordered transferred to serve as ambassador, decided instead to carry out the coup), had any Baathist officers working alongside him in that capacity.

He told me he had once been in contact with a Hourani officer named Suleiman al-Abdullah, originally a Nasserist, who had been serving at the front and was due to be transferred away from it, when al-Hariri sent word asking him to hold off a little, since he intended to carry out a movement of his own. He asked him whether there were any Baathist officers working alongside al-Hariri in that capacity, and was told that al-Hariri had simply been gathering officers of every political persuasion around him, on one condition alone, that they agree to support the restoration of the union. They had all sworn this same oath together, with no other purpose behind the movement whatsoever, meaning that party affiliation played no role at all in how the Baathist officers themselves behaved.

Abdel Moneim added that this same officer was the one who came to the prison with another officer named Bahjat al-Khayer (or al-Dayri), and together they took Louai al-Atassi to General Staff headquarters (I myself was there at the time)...

The Damascenes' Own Movement During the Days of the Secession:

Abdel Moneim also told me that the officer Munib al-Rifai had gathered a large number of Damascene officers around him during the days of the secession, planning a movement on the pretext that the communists had seized control of the government (following Nazim al-Qudsi's own arrest and release), but once they were ready to act, al-Rifai advised them that Syria was about to sign an agreement with the Russians (concerning the Euphrates Dam, perhaps), and that it would be wrong to let the country miss this opportunity, and so they backed down. Word of their plan was discovered all the same, and Zahreddine swore to them he would content himself with a mere 45 days' imprisonment at Mezzeh, only to break his own oath and extend their detention to six months...

Then the events of 8 March 1963 took place. Zahreddine came to the prison gate, accompanied by two armed sergeants, with Abdel Moneim present. He was told by the leadership to place him under arrest, and did so. Zahreddine was taken by surprise, since they had told him, in his own capacity as army commander, that he was needed at the prison to release certain detainees. Abdel Moneim informed him that an order had in fact been issued for his own arrest, and Zahreddine asked that the officer Uthman al-Jayrudi (a Nasserist and a friend of his) be placed in his company, a request Abdel Moneim granted him.