His presidency was widely believed to be slack and indecisive. However, there are historical clues that he was not corrupt. The ill advised law that he passed in 1967 to absolve himself from paying income tax is probably an indication that he was not capable of getting wealth otherwise. On July 16, 1968, while Arif was sleeping, his own assistants along with members of the Ba'ath Party, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, overthrew him in a bloodless coup. As Arif and his brother had done in the 1963 coup against Qasim, the coalition declared victory once they had captured the radio station and the ministry of defense. It was accomplished when the defense minister, Hardan Al-Tikriti, phoned Arif informing him that he was no longer president. Arif was exiled to Turkey.
He returned to Iraq in 1979, when Saddam Hussein came to power, and largely stayed out of the public and political spotlight afterwards. He was allowed to leave the country once by Hussein's regime to undertake the Hajj. Arif left Iraq permanently after Hussein was removed from power by the U.S.-led invasion, and lived in Amman, Jordan from 2004. He died in Amman on August 24, 2007.[1] He was married to Faika Abdul-Mageed Faris Alanee. Shia militiamen threatened to kill his family including his wife's relatives and anyone who attended his funeral ceremony because they belonged to the Sunni sect.