Iraq: Facts

 Population 17.9 million (1991 estimate)

 Language: Official language is Arabic
(spoken by about 80% of population; 15%
speak Kurdish)
 Religion: Sunni (Iraq’s regime) and Twelver
Shia (more conservative) Islam (95%)
 Ethnic groups: Arab (72%), Kurds (23%), the
Kurds are mainly based on the north and the
north-west of the country
 Recent History
King Faisal I
 1920 – Placed under a League of Nations’ (1885-1933)
mandate, administered by Great Britain
 Provided the country with a constitution and a
bicameral legislature.
 Put in place King Faisal I
 A 25 year Treaty of Alliance was signed
 On October 3, 1932, the British mandate ended and
Iraq was established as an independent state.
 British retained military bases and continued to
exercise strong political and military influence in the
country.
 The Iraq Petroleum Company was a conglomerate of
British, French and U.S. interests.
 Recent History
King Ghazi I King Faisal II
(1912-1939) (1935-1958)

 King Faisal I died in 1933 but the regimes

under King Ghazi I (son) and King Faisal II
(grandson) continued to be pro-British.
 The Baghdad Pact was signed in 1955,
which was an agreement on collective
regional security, urged upon Iraq by the
British.
 Revolution
Abdul-Karim Kassem Abdul Salam Arif Abdul Rahman Arif
(1914-1963) (1921-1966) (1918-)

 A military revolution overthrew King Faisal II on

14 July 1958, and a left-wing nationalist regime
under the leadership of Brigadier Abdul-Karim
Kassem came to power.
 Iraqwithdrew from the Baghdad Pact in 1959.
 Kassem was assassinated in 1963.
 A bloody and violent Ba'thist Arab nationalist
regime under Colonel Abdul Salem Arif resulted.
 He was succeeded by his brother, Abdul Rahman
Arif in 1966.
 The Ba'athist Revolution of
1968
 The foundations of the modern regime in Iraq
were laid with the seizure of power by the Arab
Renaissance (Ba'ath) Socialist Party on July 17
1968.
 Major General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr became
Ahmed
President and Prime Minister of Iraq, his deputy Hasan al-
was Saddam Hussein. Bakr
 The regime undertook wide-ranging social and (1914-1982)
economic reforms to try and increase its
popularity.
 It nationalized the Iraqi Petroleum Company and
was bolstered by rises in oil prices in 1972 and
1974, following the Arab-Israeli war.
 The Kurds in Iraq
 In March 1970 an agreement was reached
between the government and the Kurdish
Democratic Party (KDP), over the establishment
of an autonomous Kurdish area.
 However, it quickly became clear that the promises
made in this 'March Manifesto' would not be fulfilled.
 Conflict broke out between the Kurds and
government's armed forces in the spring of 1974.
 The Kurds were supported by the Shah of Iran, who
was concerned about what he saw as Soviet
influence over the Iraqi regime.
 The Kurds in Iraq
 Jordanian intervention led to the signing of
the Algiers Agreement between Iran and
Iraq in March 1975.
 Iran closed its border with Iraq which led to
the collapse of the Kurdish military force.
 Kurdish resistance was violently repressed,
villages were destroyed and their
inhabitants resettled in specially constructed
villages surrounded by barbed wire and
fortified posts.
 The Rise of Saddam
Hussein
 The economic strength of the regime in the Saddam
late 1970s led to a concurrent rise in its Hussein
(1937- )
political strength.
 The Ba'ath party itself lost influence and real
power was increasingly concentrated in the
hands of Saddam Hussein and his political
backers.
 The party increasingly became an instrument of
the state.
 In July 1978 a decree was passed which made
any non-Ba'thist political activity illegal and
membership of any other political party
punishable by death for all members or former
members of the armed forces.
 The Rise of Saddam
Hussein
 President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr announced his
resignation, and the handover of power to Saddam
Hussein, on 16 July 1979.
 Huge oil revenues enabled Saddam to spend large
sums on welfare and building projects, and living
standards improved due to the expanding economy.
 Saddam Hussein concentrated on creating his own
personality cult; portraits and statues of him were
built all over the country.
 The Republican Guard - the elite presidential
security force - was also formed in this period.
 The Iran/Iraq War
 Relations with Iran seriously deteriorated in the period
following the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979.
 Cross-border incidents resulted in Iraq invading
Iran and in a full outbreak of war on 22 September
1980.
 Massive losses were experienced by both sides
and in 1986 a stalemate was reached.
 Iraq was supported by its Arab neighbors, particularly
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and by the US, the Soviet
Union and France.
 The Iran/Iraq War
 The UN Security Council passed Resolution
598, calling for an end to the war, on 20 July
1987.
 It was not accepted by Iran, who launched a
further attack on northern Iraq in the spring of
1988.
 The Iraqi air force responded with poison gas,
causing 5,000 civilian deaths in Kurdish
northern Iraq.
 Iran finally agreed to a cease-fire in July 1988.
 The Iran/Iraq War

 The Iran/Iraq war resulted in an estimated 400,000

deaths (roughly 1/4 Iraqi and 3/4 Iranian), and
around 750,000 people were injured.
 Despite large foreign debts and damaged
infrastructure, the Iraqi regime was actually
strengthened militarily by the war with Iran.
 Military production had increased significantly, and
the army had also increased in size, to a total force
of around one million. This consolidated Saddam
Hussein's grip on power.
 The Gulf War

 By the late 1980s Iraq was experiencing an

economic crisis, largely caused by misguided
economic reforms.
 $5 billion a year had been allocated to military re-
armament projects.
 Inflation and the cost of living were rising
dramatically.
 Iraq's relations with its neighbors declined,
particularly when Saddam laid claim to the Rumaila
oilfield that ran from Iraq into northern Kuwait.
 The Gulf War
 On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. On August 8 Iraq
announced its annexation of Kuwait.
 The UN Security Council quickly passed a series of
resolutions condemning Iraq's actions.
 Murders and abuses of Kuwaitis by Iraqi troops were
prevalent.
 Iraq was backed politically by the PLO, and also, rather
hesitantly, by Jordan.
 Forces from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Britain,
France, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the US began gathering in
Saudi Arabia. Iraq did not receive military support from any
state.
 The Gulf War
 The UN Security Council passed
Resolution 678, authorizing military force to
be used against Iraq, at the end of
November 1990.
 On 17 January 1991, the allied forces
began their aerial bombardment of Iraq.
 The Iraqi army surrendered in large
numbers on February 23 and 24.
 The US declared a cease-fire on February
28 1991 and the Gulf War was over.
 Post-Gulf War

 Immediately after the Gulf War, the UN

began carrying out its program of
dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction.
 Weapons inspection teams were set up to
make regular visits to Iraq to see that it was
complying with the terms of the UN
ceasefire resolutions.
Lecture Based on a
Special Report by the
BBC News
November 7, 1997