I.

Introduction

Iraq, officially Republic of Iraq, also Irak, republic in the Middle East, bordered on the north by Turkey; on the east by Iran; on the south by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf; and on the west by Jordan and Syria. Iraq has a total area of 437,072 sq km (168,754 sq mi), taking into account the adjustments made to the border with Kuwait under the UN demarcation, which Iraq formally accepted in November 1994; the unadjusted area is 438,317 sq km (169,235 sq mi). These figures exclude Iraq’s share of the Neutral Zone (3,522 sq km/1,360 sq mi), an area with no permanent inhabitants lying between Iraq and Saudi Arabia that is jointly administered by the two governments, and through which nomads can move freely. Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait in August 1990, occupying it until expelled by a UN-led coalition in February 1991, during the Gulf War.

Some of the world’s greatest ancient civilizations developed in the area that makes up modern Iraq: Assyria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Sumer. Baghdad is the country’s capital and largest city.

II.

Land and Resources

There are four major areas within Iraq. The high Zagros Mountains in the extreme north-east are barren and harsh, supporting only pastoral nomadism during the summer months. Elevations reach 3,600 m (11,811 ft) at Jabal Ibrāhīm, the highest point in Iraq. Also part of this region are the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. They are an ideal environment for settlement, although now deforested, and form part of the Fertile Crescent where most cereal crops grow.

Between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the north lies a barren zone used by nomads and known as Al Jazira (Arabic, “island”). The sediment from the rivers forms a fertile alluvial plain in central and southern Iraq that is rich in agricultural potential. To the south-east of this plain lie extensive marshlands that reach Iraq’s 40 km (25 mi) of coastline on the Persian Gulf. To the west of the Euphrates, and covering more than half of the country, lies desert: on the southern border with Saudi Arabia is the Shamiya Desert; on the west, part of the Syrian Desert.

A.

Rivers and Lakes

Present-day Iraq occupies the greater part of the ancient land of Mesopotamia, the plain between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The two rivers flow through Iraq from north-west to south-east. They meet about 160 km (100 mi) north of the Persian Gulf to form the River Shatt Al Arab, which drains into the gulf. The chief tributaries of the Tigris are the Great Zab, Little Zab, and Diyālā rivers. Level terrain separates the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in their lower courses. In ancient times the Tigris and the Euphrates were joined by a network of canals and irrigation ditches that directed the water of the higher-lying and more westerly Euphrates across the valley into the Tigris.

B.

Climate

Most of Iraq has a continental climate—the summers are long and hot and the winters short and cool. The main exception is the mountainous north-eastern portion of the country, which has cool summers followed by cold, often snowy, winters; occasionally the snow is heavy, and when it melts in the spring it can cause widespread flooding downstream in central and southern Iraq. The mean January temperature in Baghdad, in central Iraq, is 9.4° C (49° F); for the months of July and August it is 35° C (95° F), and temperatures as high as 50.6° C (123° F) have been recorded. In the southern area around the Persian Gulf some of the highest atmospheric temperatures in the world have been recorded, and humidity is high. In the north-eastern highlands rainfall is considerable during October to May, but farther south, on the central alluvial plain, precipitation is slight, averaging approximately 152 mm (6 in) annually. The Syrian Desert receives little or no precipitation.

C.

Natural Resources

The natural resources of Iraq are primarily mineral. The country is well endowed with oil and natural gas. There are also important deposits of sulphur and phosphates, and small deposits of salt and gypsum. Iraq has areas of rich alluvial soil. However, deforestation and irrigation have helped to create in some areas problems of soil degradation and erosion, such as salinization and desertification.

The soils of Iraq are of two kinds. Heavy alluvial deposits containing a significant amount of humus and clay make up one type, and are useful for construction. The second type comprises lighter soils lacking in humus and clay content, and containing wind-deposited nutrients. A high saline content mars the otherwise rich composition of the soils. Irrigation and flood-control projects on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have helped to increase the agricultural production of this area.

D.

Plants and Animals

Vegetation is scanty throughout Iraq. The western and south-western parts of the country are desert areas, and the northern Tigris-Euphrates plain is barren. The country has few trees, except for the cultivated date palm and the poplar. In the few areas capable of supporting significant tree cover, notably the north-eastern foothills of the Zagros Mountains, there has been severe deforestation over the past 30 years, a result of both local fuel needs and warfare. The country’s native fauna includes the cheetah, gazelle, antelope, wild ass, lion, hyena, wolf, jackal, wild pig, hare, jerboa, and bat. Numerous birds of prey exist, including the vulture, buzzard, raven, owl, and various species of hawk; other birds include duck, geese, partridge, and sand grouse. Lizards are fairly common.

E.

Environmental Concerns

A series of wars: the Iran–Iraq War (1980-1988), the Gulf War (1991), and the ongoing War on Iraq have destroyed wildlife habitat, polluted Iraq's land and water, and led to the neglect of conservation efforts. During the Gulf War and the War on Iraq, much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed, including equipment involved in the petroleum industry. Although many oil wells and refineries have been restored they continue not to work at full capacity.

Iraq's farmland is declining in productivity due to soil salinization, which is caused by insufficient drainage and by saturation irrigation practices. About 8 per cent (1997) of Iraq is irrigated, and 12 per cent (1997) of its land is arable. Government water-control projects have destroyed wetland habitats in eastern Iraq by diverting or drying up tributary streams that formerly irrigated wetland areas. Estimates suggest that around half of all the country’s waste water flows untreated into rivers, especially since Baghdad’s water treatment plants were destroyed in 2003. The World Bank reported in late 2003 that only 6 out of 10 Iraqis in urban areas had safe drinking water. Most water is currently brought into the country aboard tankers.

III.

Population

About 77 per cent of the population of Iraq is of Arab origin. Kurds, dwelling in the highlands of northern Iraq, constitute about 19 per cent of the population. The other significant minority, the Turkomans, tend to dominate retail trading in the cities of Mosul and Kirkūk. In the rural areas of the country many people still live in tribal communities; some lead a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence, keeping herds of camels, horses, and sheep. The tribal ethos also extends into many aspects of urban and political life; this applies to both Arabs and Kurds.

A.

Population Characteristics

Iraq has a population of 28,221,181 (2008 estimate). The estimated overall population density was about 65 people per sq km (169 per sq mi). The density varies markedly, with the largest concentrations of people in the area of the river systems. The population is about 67 per cent urban; many people have had to move to the cities in recent years.

B.

Political Divisions

Iraq was formerly divided into 18 provinces, of which 3 were designated as Kurdish autonomous regions. Each province was headed by a centrally appointed governor. Iraq occupied and annexed Kuwait as its 19th province from August 1990 to February 1991.

C.

Principal Cities

Baghdad is the capital and largest city, with a population of 5,620,000 (2003 estimate). Other major cities include Basra, population 406,296 (1987), the only seaport, located on the Shatt Al Arab near the head of the Persian Gulf, and Mosul, 2,554,000 (2006 estimate), an oil and manufacturing centre.

D.

Religion

Approximately 95 per cent of the people of Iraq are Muslims. About 60 per cent of them adhere to Shiism and the rest to the Sunni creed. The Shiites mostly live in central and southern Iraq, the Sunni principally in the north and west. Despite their numerical superiority, the Shiites, unlike in neighbouring Iran, had hardly any influence on government in the period before the War on Iraq. Several of the holy cities of the Shiites, notably An Najaf and Karbalā’, are situated in Iraq. Many Shiites of Iranian origin live in these shrine cities. Among the few Christian sects in Iraq, which comprise 2.7 per cent of the population, are communities practising Nestorianism; the Jacobite Church; offshoots of these two sects, respectively known as Chaldean and Syrian Catholics; and a group known as the Mandaean Baptists living in Baghdad and Amara. In total there are about 519,000 Christians in Iraq. The former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz is a Christian. Smaller religious groups include the Yazidis (150,000), a uniquely Kurdish syncretic sect who live in the northern mountains.

E.

Language

Standard Arabic is the primary official language, while Kurdish (or “Kurdi”), an Indo-Iranian language, shares official status in Kurdish areas (mainly Sulamanya) of Iraq. Standard Arabic is a second language, learnt in schools and used in official domains. The more popular forms of Arabic are Mesopotamian Spoken and North Mesopotamian Spoken Arabic, which combined are mother tongues for the majority of the population. Several minority languages are spoken, including South Azerbaijani, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Western Farsi, and Domari.

F.

Education

Education in Iraq is free. Six years of primary education are compulsory, but many children in rural areas do not attend schools because facilities are not available. Instruction is mostly in Arabic, although Kurdish is used in schools in some northern districts. About 41.1 per cent of Iraqis aged 15 or older are literate. In 1998–1999 3,128,358 pupils attended 8,145 primary schools, and 619,114 students were enrolled in around 4,000 secondary schools. In addition, about 135,700 students attended 310 vocational or teacher-training institutions. Iraq has 15 universities: Al-Mustansiriyah University (1963), University of Baghdad (1958), Al-Nahrain (previously Saddam) University (1988), and the University of Technology (1960), all in Baghdad; as well as further universities in Basra, Irbīl, Mosul, and Tikrit. The country also has a number of technical institutes. Approximately 202,000 students were enrolled in institutions of higher education in 1995. In 1993, 5.1 per cent of the country’s gross national product (GNP) was spent on education.

Many schools were looted, burned, or destroyed during the war and its aftermath. The Coalition Provisional Authority estimated that 2,500 schools were reconstructed after the end of the war and that school attendance returned to pre-war levels. More than 30,000 new teachers have been trained. The newly established Ministry of Education took over control of education in Iraq from early 2004.

G.

Culture

The cultural heritage of Iraq is primarily Arabic, although long before the advent of Islam in the 7th century ad the area known as Mesopotamia was the centre of the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations. The Arabian influence is represented today in much of the surviving antiquities, including the Kadhimain Mosque, the Abbasid Palace, and the Shrine of Samarra. Iraq is known for producing fine handicrafts, including rugs and carpets.

The leading libraries of Iraq include the University of Basra Central Library; the University of Mosul Central Library; and the library of the Iraqi Museum, the National Library, and the University of Baghdad Central Library, all in Baghdad. Public libraries exist in most of the provincial capitals.

Noteworthy museums of Iraq include the Iraqi Museum, which contains relics of early Mesopotamian cultures; the Iraq Natural History Museum and the Iraq Military Museum, also in Baghdad; the Babylon Museum, which exhibits models, pictures, and paintings of ancient Babylon; and the Mosul Museum, containing exhibits of Assyrian and other antiquities. However, the fate of many antiquities is unknown following the War on Iraq, when many ancient sites and storage facilities were destroyed by bombing and subsequent looting.

UNESCO has inscribed two World Heritage Sites in the country. The first, inscribed in 1985, is at Hatra, a large fortified city of the Parthian Empire. The second is at Ashur (Ash-Sharqat), the first capital of the Assyrian Empire. The site was inscribed in 2003.

IV.

Economy

The modern Iraqi economy is largely based on oil, of which the country has the second-largest deposits in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Most of the few large manufacturing industries are oil related. Agriculture is the mainstay of the population, with dates the chief export crop. Virtually all sectors of the economy suffered as a result of the war with Iran, which left Iraq with a foreign debt exceeding US$75,000 million, much of it owed to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. By 1990 the industrial sector of economy was almost completely restored, with the aid of large-scale foreign investment. Iraq had a serious foreign exchange shortage, however, which left it unable to repay its debts, despite oil production of over 3 million barrels per day by 1990. The economy was again devastated by the trade embargo imposed by the UN after the invasion of Kuwait and by bombing during the Gulf War; the combined damage is estimated to have reduced Iraq to a nearly pre-industrial economic level.

The annual budget in the early 1990s included US$20,000 million in revenue and US$18,500 million in expenditure, although those figures are regarded as unreliable. The GNP of Iraq in 1990 was estimated at US$73 billion (World Bank figures, 1989-1990 prices) or US$4,110 per capita, but after the Gulf War these figures deteriorated dramatically; GNP was estimated at US$15,000 million in 1994, equivalent to about US$882 per capita. In 2003 the World Bank estimated that GDP per head was between US$480 and US$630.

A.

Agriculture and Fishing

Approximately 13 per cent of the land is under cultivation, although it is estimated that about 50 per cent of the total available land is arable, with around 1.7 per cent of the labour force employed in agriculture in 1994. Most farmland is in the southern region between the Tigris and Euphrates. Agricultural production increased and food imports declined in the late 1980s as a result of increased investment, self-sufficiency in fertilizers, and the disbandment of state farms. During the Gulf War, compulsory state purchase of the harvest and harsh measures against hoarding were introduced.

Agricultural production in 2003 included about 2.55 million tonnes of wheat, 600,000 tonnes of barley, and 230,000 tonnes of rice. Date exports from Iraq accounted for some 80 per cent of world trade in the commodity. Other fruits produced include watermelons, tomatoes, apples, figs, grapes, olives, oranges, pears, and pomegranates. Livestock husbandry is an important occupation for the nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples. In 2005 the livestock population included about 6.20 million sheep, 1.50 million cattle, 1.65 million goats, and 23 million poultry. In addition, the world-famed Arabian horse is extensively bred.

Iraq has a small fishing industry. In 2005 32,970 tonnes of fish were caught. About three quarters of the catch was made up of freshwater species. In 1990 a US$160 billion fish-processing plant was opened at Basra.

B.

Petroleum

Oil is the most important natural resource of Iraq. The country has the largest oil reserves in the Middle East, cautiously estimated at 100,000 million barrels—enough for almost 100 years of production. The oilfields are located in three main regions: in the south-east around the Persian Gulf, near Basra in the north-central part of the country, near Mosul and Kirkūk and in the east-central part of Iraq, near the town of Khanaqin.

Iraq’s main industry is the production of oil and natural gas for export and domestic consumption. Until the early 1970s four foreign-owned companies controlled the Iraqi oil industry. The two leading firms were the Iraq Petroleum Company, which held concessions in the north-central area, around Kirkūk and Mosul, and the Basra Petroleum Company, which operated in the south-east, near Basra. During 1972 to 1975 all the foreign oil companies were nationalized by the government; their operations were taken over by the Iraq National Oil Company and the Northern Petroleum Organization. Refineries are located at Baghdad, Basra, al-Hadithah, Khanaqin, Kirkūk, and Qayyarah. A plant for producing liquid natural gas is situated at Taji, near Baghdad.

Falling oil prices and the war with Iran severely hampered the oil industry during the 1980s, although Iraq continued to be the world’s third-largest supplier of oil. The 1990-1991 Gulf War crippled Iraq’s oil production: in 1992 functioning refinery capability was only 3 per cent of its level in the late 1980s. About 100 million barrels of oil and 10.7 billion cu m (377 billion cu ft) of natural gas were produced annually in the late 1980s; in the years immediately following the Gulf War, production stabilized at around 99 million barrels and 1.3 billion cu m (46 billion cu ft) a year respectively. With the imposition of oil sanctions Iraq produced oil for domestic consumption only. In 2004 production amounted to 478 million barrels and 1.50 billion cu m (53 billion cu ft) respectively. According to the Coalition Provisional Authority the 2004 levels of oil production reached the pre-war totals, with exportation also having been renewed. Currently the country is producing in the region of 2 million barrels of oil a day.

C.

Mining

Sulphur reserves of 515 million tonnes form the biggest reserves in the world. The country also has sizeable phosphate reserves that allowed self-sufficiency in fertilizers; excess fertilizer production was exported prior to 1990. Salt and gypsum are fairly abundant, and seams of brown coal are numerous. Small deposits of various other minerals are found, principally ores of iron, gold, lead, copper, silver, platinum, and zinc.

D.

Manufacturing

The 1980s was a time of expansion in the manufacturing industry, particularly of heavy industry and mineral-processing, but the country’s industrial base sustained heavy damage in the Gulf War. Besides oil-based and natural-gas products, manufactures include processed food, textiles and clothing, footwear, cigarettes, and construction materials. Baghdad is the leading manufacturing centre and Masul, an important textile centre.

E.

Energy

Production of electricity in 2003 was about 14.7 billion kWh. More than 95 per cent of the electricity was generated in thermal installations. Hydroelectric facilities are operated on the Tigris and some of its tributaries. The country also has a nuclear plant at Temuz, with a capacity of 5 MW; the Israeli air force destroyed a 70 MW plant under construction in 1981. Iraq was the first Middle Eastern state to export electricity, to Turkey. The Gulf War destroyed about 90 per cent of Iraq’s power plants and halted electricity generation. However, by 1992, 75 per cent had been restored.

In the period after the War on Iraq power cuts became a daily fact of life for Iraqis. Power lines became the targets of saboteurs and renovations to the existing electricity power systems meant restrictions on output.

F.

Currency and Banking

The monetary unit of Iraq is the Iraqi dinar, of 1,000 fils or 20 dirhams (1,242 dinar equalled US$1, principal rate; early 2008).

Currency is issued by the Central Bank of Iraq (Bank al-Markazi al-Iraqi). All banks in Iraq were nationalized in 1964; limited private banking was reintroduced in 1991.

G.

Commerce and Trade

In the late 1980s annual exports were estimated at US$12,400 million and imports at about US$13,000 million. Oil sales accounted for almost all export earnings; other exports are dates, raw wool, and hides and skins. Leading imports were machinery, transport equipment, foodstuffs, and pharmaceuticals. Iraq’s main trade partners were Brazil, Turkey, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During and after the Gulf War, UN trade sanctions crippled Iraq’s foreign trade. Oil exports in particular were largely barred after 1990 by Iraq’s refusal to negotiate terms of trade with the UN. In 2000 exports were estimated at US$19,900 million and imports at about US$12,208 million. Iraq had estimated essential import needs of US$2,000 million for 1996, to be funded by export revenues of about US$500 million.

H.

Labour

The main labour organization is the General Federation of Trade Unions of Iraq. It had more than 1.1 million members in the late 1980s. The labour force in 1989 numbered about 4.1 million. The service industries were the largest employers (52 per cent), followed by agriculture (11.6 per cent), and manufacturing (19.4 per cent).

I.

Transport

Iraq has railway connections through Syria with Turkey and Europe. The Iraqi state railway system consists of about 2,000 km (1,243 mi) of track. The country has about 45,550 km (28,303 mi) of roads, of which 84 per cent are paved. In the mid-1980s about 491,800 passenger cars and 246,700 commercial vehicles were in use. In 1996 there were 368,000 buses and trucks and 672,000 passenger cars, with a ratio of 19 people per car. Most of the transport infrastructure is still seriously affected by war damage, although about 90 per cent of bridges had been rebuilt by 1995. International airports serve Baghdad and Basra. These were closed after the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Saddam International Airport, on the outskirts of Baghdad, was reopened on August 17, 2000, by the Minister of Transport and Communications, but this was largely a symbolic gesture since air travel into Iraq remained banned. Aircraft increasingly broke the flight embargo, however, and in November 2000 Iraq Airways resumed its domestic service between Baghdad and Basra. Iraq’s airports are currently used by coalition forces.

Basra, on the Shatt Al Arab, and Umm Qasr are the main ports for ocean-going vessels, although they have been closed since 1980. (The ferry service carrying passengers from Iraq’s Gulf neighbours to Umm Qasr was resumed as recently as November 1998.) River steamers are able to navigate the Tigris from Basra to Baghdad. Since the closure of the ports Iraq has been totally dependent on overland routes to export its oil. Until the Gulf War overland pipelines to the Mediterranean Sea via Turkey and Syria, and later via Saudi Arabia to the Persian Gulf, were used. Since 1990-1991 none of these routes has operated, and only export by road to Turkey and Jordan has been possible.

J.

Communications

About 37 telephones per 1,000 people were in use in Iraq in 2000; radios numbered about 5 million and television receivers about 2 million. A government decree of 1967 closed all privately owned daily newspapers. The country had 4 dailies in 1996; including ath-Thawra, issued by the Baath political party.

V.

Government

Iraq was formerly governed under a provisional constitution adopted in 1968 and subsequently amended. In 1980 the Kurds, who make up 15 to 20 per cent of Iraq’s inhabitants, were given some autonomy and elected an executive council and a 50-member legislature. Under UN and Allied protection the Kurds established a government in UN-controlled areas of northern Iraq, where a Kurdish parliament was established after a free general election. After the fall of Saddam Hussein the country was run by a US-appointed Governing Council. In March 2004 an interim constitution was drafted in anticipation of the handing over of sovereignty to an Iraqi caretaker government, which took place on June 28, 2004. The country’s interim prime minister was Iyad Allawi. A nationwide election to the 275-member National Assembly (Majlis Watani) was held on January 30, 2005, with Shiite groupings gaining most votes after Sunnis largely boycotted the election. The first task for the body was to create a constitution, which was approved in a referendum in October 2005. Elections to a new government were held in December 2005 but were boycotted by many Sunnis.

A.

Executive and Legislature

Saddam Hussein was the unchallenged political authority until he was deposed in 2003. Under him was a principal executive organization, the Revolutionary Command Council, which was led by a chairman. In practice, political power was centralized in Saddam Hussein who served as the nation’s president, as its prime minister, and as chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council.

The 2005 National Assembly had 275 members. In April it chose a presidency council comprised of a president and two vice-presidents, they in turn elected a prime minister and a Cabinet. The election of December 2005 saw more than 41 per cent of votes (which translated as 128 seats) won by the United Iraqi Alliance in the 275-seat assembly. The failure to gain a majority led to political deadlock for more than four months before President Talabani asked Jawad al-Maliki to form a government; al-Maliki replaced the previous candidate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was turned down by Kurdish and Sunni groups.

B.

Political Parties

The leading political organization in Iraq was the Arab Baath Socialist Party, which based its policies on pan-Arab and socialist principles. The Party was banned after the war of 2003. Many different parties and alliances, based on ethnic and religious lines, as well as a significant secular grouping, stood in the January and December 2005 elections, both of which were won by the United Iraqi Alliance.

C.

Judiciary

The judicial system of Iraq allowed for separate treatment of civil and religious matters. Civil matters were handled in courts presided over by individual judges. Above these courts were five courts of appeal, located in the major cities, and a court of cassation in Baghdad. Religious matters were usually handled by Muslim courts administering shari’ah law.

D.

Local Government

The 18 provinces (or governates) of Iraq were administered by governors appointed by the national government. Towns and cities were run by councils headed by mayors.

E.

Health and Welfare

Health standards in Iraq were low prior to the War on Iraq because of poor sanitary conditions, woeful funding, and many endemic diseases and became even worse immediately following the war. Hospitals and doctors lack adequate medical supplies and child vaccination programmes have been erratic. As a result, child mortality has increased significantly over the past decade. A newly formed Ministry of Health was established in early 2004.

In the late 1980s the average life expectancy at birth was about 64 years; by 1991 this had fallen to 46 years for men and 57 for women; and in 2008 it was 68 years for men and 71 years for women. In 2004 there were 1,519 people per doctor, while in 2008 the infant mortality rate was 45 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 2003 Iraq had one hospital bed for every 769 of its population.

F.

Defence

Military training in Iraq was compulsory for all males when they reached the age of 18; it consisted of about two years in active service and an additional period in the reserve. In 2004 total armed forces were estimated at 179,800 active troops and 650,000 reserves. Of this total the Iraqi army had about 79,000 personnel (including 100,000 recalled reserves); the air force, 200; and the navy, 700. The Revolutionary Guard was a praetorian force serving only the president and enjoying special privileges and training. At the start of the 21st century there was mounting concern in the West that the government was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, ballistic, and nuclear weapons; there were well-substantiated reports of the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. President Saddam Hussein denied such allegations, but following Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf War the UN Security Council in 1991 insisted on the monitored elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as a condition of raising the economic sanctions imposed on the country in August 1990. Weapons inspectors were reluctantly allowed into the country to search for weapons, or evidence of them, but they were pulled out of Iraq prior to the invasion of 2003 (see History below).

More than 300,000 troops were reportedly deployed in Kuwait following the August 1990 invasion. Loss of life and equipment in the Gulf War was considerable; the air force in particular is estimated to have lost around two thirds of its aircraft.

G.

International Organizations

Iraq is a member of the United Nations (UN), the Arab League, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

VI.

History

The territory of modern Iraq is roughly equivalent to that of ancient Mesopotamia, which fostered a succession of early civilizations. The earliest known of these was the civilization of Sumer, which arose probably in the 4th millennium BC and had its final flowering under the 3rd Dynasty of Ur at the close of the 3rd millennium bc. Periods of hegemony by Babylonia and Assyria followed. In 539 BC Cyrus the Great of Persia gained control of the region, which remained under Persian rule until the conquest by Alexander the Great in 331 bc. After his death the Greek Seleucid dynasty reigned in Mesopotamia for some 200 years from their capital at Seleucia on the Tigris, infusing it with Hellenistic culture.

A long period under new Persian dynasties (Arsacids, Sasanians) followed. During this time the area of modern Iraq was the richest province, called Khvarvaran, with a Persian ruling class, a Semitic peasantry who spoke the Aramaic language, plus some Arab, Greek, and Kurdish settlement. The Sasanian capital was at Ctesiphon, and the official religion was Persian Zoroastrianism, but most of the population followed Christian Nestorianism of the Syrian Jacobite Church or Monophysitism.

A.

Arab Conquest and the Abbasid Caliphate

War between the Sasanian kings and the Byzantine Empire led in AD 627 to a Byzantine invasion and the sack of Ctesiphon. Devastated and leaderless, the region at once was faced with the threat of rising Islam. In 637 Muslim Arabs defeated the Sasanians, sacked Ctesiphon again, and within a year the entire region had been overrun. The Arab rulers garrisoned Al Başrah and Al Kūfah; the Christian population were allowed to keep their religion. Iraq became a province of the caliphate, and the base for Ali ibn Abi Talib, son-in-law of Muhammad and the chief saint of Shiism, who was martyred at Al Kūfah in 661. With his death, Iraq was subordinated to the Umayyad caliphs of Syria. Ali’s son Hussain arrived in Iraq in 680 hoping to rally support against the Umayyads, but was killed at Karbalā’. Three years later the Umayyad caliph Yazid I died and the region became unruly. A stern Umayyad governor, Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, exacerbated difficulties and the ensuing revolt in 701 was crushed only by Syrian armies.

B.

Baghdad’s Golden Age

In 747 a new Iraqi revolt began in the name of the Abbasid family, and by 750 the Umayyads were crushed and the first Abbasid caliph proclaimed in the mosque of Al Kūfah. Baghdad, founded in 762, became the new caliphate capital and the thriving centre of Islam’s golden age. Caliph Harun ar-Rashid commanded immense wealth and power, but his decision on his death in 809 to leave Iran and the eastern caliphate under the rule of his second son, al-Mamun, led to a destructive civil war and the sack of Baghdad.

Though victorious, al-Mamun was unable to govern away from Baghdad and returned there in 819. He restored the power and cultural vigour of the region, but used Turkish mercenaries to replenish his depleted armies. Local resentment of these Turks drove his successor, al-Mutasim, to found a new capital at Samarra north of Baghdad in 836. The Turks were paid off in farming concessions which turned them into short-sighted and rapacious landlords. In 861 disaffected troops assassinated the caliph, and by 865 Samarra and Baghdad were at war. Unity was restored by 870, but this civil strife, plus revolts in southern Iraq and the cecession of most of the caliphate’s outlying domains, permanently weakened the Abbasids.

Baghdad once more became the Abbasid capital in 892 and recovered its cultural vitality, but now Iraq alone was under its rule. The weak boy caliph, al-Muqtadir (reigned 908-932), became a tool for ambitious viziers and generals. In 935 Caliph ar-Radi surrendered political authority to his generals. In the same year the great Nahrawan canal, key to the irrigation system which had underpinned Iraq’s prosperity since Mesopotamian times, was breached to defeat an invasion and was subsequently never repaired, doing permanent economic damage.

C.

Buyid and Seljuk Rule

In 945 Baghdad fell to the Buyids, a mountain people from south of the Caspian Sea who had already seized much of Iran. The Abbasid caliphs became puppet sovereigns, but the Shiite Buyids could not govern the old Abbasid realm: even Baghdad split into rival sectarian districts. Rival Buyid princes in the south controlled Basra. Mosul, which had become more or less an independent state, was seized in 977. However, this unity was short-lived, and both northern and southern Iraq became the domains of Shiite Bedouin sheikhs. By the early 11th century Baghdad was ruined, impoverished, and convulsed by feuds between partisans of the Shiite Buyids and the Sunni caliphs.

In 1055 Togrul Beg, leader of the Sunni Turkish Seljuks, overran central Iraq and imprisoned the last Buyid rule of Baghdad. After subjugating the northern Bedouin he was officially dubbed King by the reigning Abbasid caliph. After a brief Buyid resurgence in 1059-1060, Togrul established full Seljuk authority and was honoured as Sultan by the Caliph; he then began purging Iraq of Shiism. Seljuk rule proved highly successful, though both northern and southern Iraq tended to reassert their independence, and Iran, Syria, Anatolia, and Palestine fell under their sway. A separate Seljuk capital was established at Eşfahān in Iran. In 1135, however, the Abbasid caliphate, which had remained in Baghdad, rose against the Seljuk sultans and revived direct Abbasid rule in Iraq. Caliph an-Nasir (1180-1225) in particular fought to restore Abbasid prestige, the last Iraqi Seljuk Sultan dying in 1194. Abbasid authority endured until the arrival of Mongol armies from northern Iran. Baghdad beat off a Mongol attack in 1245, but after a series of disastrous floods, resistance collapsed in 1258. Baghdad was devastated and its citizens massacred, the last Abbasid caliph was executed, and Iraq was incorporated into the Mongol Empire.

D.

Mongol and Turkish Rule

Mongol Iraq fragmented into provincial administrations subject to the Mongol Il-Khans based in Azerbaijan; Baghdad itself was now in decline. When Mongol unity collapsed, Iraq and Azerbaijan became after 1360 the power base for the Mongol Sheikh Uways and his successors. Their state fell in 1393 to the ferocious conqueror Tamerlane, who returned to sack Baghdad again in 1401, definitively terminating its glory. After Tamerlane’s death in 1405 Iraq fell to Turkmen from Anatolia who fought each other and local groups until their conquest by the Safavid dynasty of Iran in 1508. Iraq became a Safavid province until the Turkish sultan Suleiman I conquered it in 1533-1534 for the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman rule initially brought peace, good government, and some resurgence of settled agriculture for Iraq, as well as entrenching Sunni dominance over local Shiites, who looked towards Iran. Iraq was subdivided into the three vilayets, or administrative districts, of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. From the 17th century Ottoman central authority weakened and power fell to local magnates, who brought British, Dutch, and Portuguese maritime traders into their rivalries. One renegade Janissary put Baghdad under Iranian Safavid sovereignty from 1623 until Murad IV restored Ottoman rule in 1638, massacring local Shiites.

The treaty which concluded this struggle in 1639 fixed the Ottoman-Iranian border, but Iraq was still disturbed by tribal risings and Iranian infiltration. Finally, Mamelukes (converted Christian slaves) were used in the 18th century to restore Ottoman authority. The Mamelukes became a local ruling dynasty, bringing some unity and prosperity, and inviting the British East India Company into Basra in 1763. The Iranians briefly held Basra from 1776 to 1779, then the last great Mameluke Governor, Suleiman Pasha (reigned 1780-1802) brought Mameluke power to its final peak.

E.

Turkish Supremacy

The history of modern Iraq properly begins with the last phase of Turkish rule, during the 19th century. In 1831 Sultan Ali Reza Pasha deposed the last Mameluke ruler, Daud Pasha, and the province of Iraq came directly under Turkish administration. The Arabs then began to feel the weight of the new and more efficient methods of Turkish administration, particularly with regard to tax collection. Local resentment of the centralized authority of the empire began to develop, giving rise to a strong spirit of Arab nationalism. Meanwhile, the modernizing pasha, Midhat (reigned 1869-1872), transformed Baghdad, introducing a tramway system and regular steamship services; his new tax registration system altered the relationship between tribal sheikhs and their subjects and curbed nomadism.

F.

British and German Intervention

In the latter part of the 19th century Britain and Germany became rivals in the commercial development of the Mesopotamian area. The British first became interested in Iraq as a direct overland route to India and in 1861 established a steamship company for the navigation of the Tigris to the port of Basra. Meanwhile, Germany was planning the construction of a railway in the Middle East, to run “from Berlin to Baghdad”, and overcoming British opposition obtained a concession to build a railway to the Persian Gulf. Despite this defeat, the British government managed to consolidate its position in the Persian Gulf area by concluding treaties of protection with local Arab chieftains. British financiers were also successful in obtaining, in 1901, a concession to exploit the oilfields of Iran; in 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) was formed to work it.

After Turkey entered World War I as an ally of the German Empire, British forces invaded southern Mesopotamia in November 1914 and gradually pushed northwards against heavy Turkish opposition. In March 1917 the British occupied Baghdad. Mesopotamia was fully under British military control by October 1918.

G.

British Mandate

Early in the war, in order to ensure the interest of the Arabs in a military uprising against the Turks, the British government had promised a group of Arab leaders that their people would receive independence if a revolt proved successful. In June 1916 an uprising occurred in the Hejaz, led by Faisal al-Husein, later Faisal I, first King of Iraq. Under the leadership of the British general Edmund Allenby and the tactical direction of the British colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), the Arab and British forces achieved dramatic successes against the Turkish army and succeeded in liberating the Arabian territory. In 1918 an armistice was signed with Turkey, and the British and French governments issued a joint declaration stating their intention to assist in establishing independent Arab nations in the Arab areas formerly controlled by Turkey.

In July 1920 the Mesopotamian Arabs, after they learned of the decision of the Supreme Allied Council, began an armed uprising against the British government, then still occupying Iraq. The British government was forced to spend £40 million in quelling the revolt, and it concluded that it would be expedient to terminate its mandate in Mesopotamia. The British civil commissioner thereupon drew up a plan for a provisional government of the new state of Iraq: it was to be a kingdom with a government directed by a council of Arab ministers, and under the supervision of a British high commissioner. Faisal was invited to become the ruler of the new nation. In August 1921 a plebiscite elected Faisal King of Iraq; he won 96 per cent of the votes cast in the election.

H.

Monarchy Established

The integrity of the newly established state was menaced from without by Arabia on the south and Turkey on the north, and from within by various groups with separatist aspirations, such as the Shiites of the River Euphrates area and the Kurds of the north. These groups acted in conjunction with Turkish armed forces endeavouring to reclaim the lands in the Mosul area for Turkey. The British were thus forced to maintain an army in Iraq, and agitation against the British mandate continued. King Faisal formally requested that the mandate under which Britain held Iraq be transformed into a treaty of alliance between the two nations. The British government concurred, and in June 1922 a 20-year treaty of alliance and protection between Britain and Iraq was signed.

In the spring of 1924 a constituent assembly was convened. It passed an organic law establishing the permanent form of the government of Iraq. Elections for the first Iraqi parliament were held in March 1925. In the same year a concession was granted to an internationally owned oil company to develop the oil reserves of the Baghdad and Mosul regions. In 1927 King Faisal requested that the British support Iraq’s application for admission to the League of Nations. The British refused to take such action at that time, but in June 1930 a treaty between Britain and Iraq provided for a recommendation by the former that Iraq be admitted to the League of Nations as a free and independent state in 1932; the recommendation was made in that year and the British mandate was formally terminated. In October 1932 Iraq joined the League of Nations as an independent sovereign state. King Faisal I died in 1933 and was succeeded by his less diplomatically skilled son, King Ghazi I.

Following independence the political parties gradually disintegrated and it became increasingly difficult to form a stable Cabinet. Frequent tribal revolts led to an enhanced role for the army, which the public increasingly saw as the only uncorrupt force in the country. There was public support for the coup d’état in October 1936. The army continued to determine the rise and fall of almost all Cabinets from 1936 to 1941. There were six more coups d’état before the outbreak of World War II.

I.

Oil Agreements

In 1931 the exploitation of the oil reserves in Iraq was further advanced by an agreement signed by the Iraqi government and the Iraq Petroleum Company, an internationally owned organization composed of Royal-Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, French oil companies, and the Standard Oil companies of New York and New Jersey. The agreement granted the Iraq Petroleum Company the sole right to develop the oilfields of the Mosul region, in return for which the company guaranteed to pay the Iraq government annual royalties of £400,000. In 1934 the company opened an oil pipeline from Mosul to Tripoli, Lebanon; a second one to Haifa was completed in 1936.

In 1936 the Iraq movement, under King Ghazi, began to move in the direction of a general alliance with the other nations of the Arab world in forming the so-called Pan-Arab movement. A treaty of non-aggression, reaffirming a fundamental Arab kinship, was signed with the king of Saudi Arabia in the same year. In April 1939 King Ghazi was killed in a car accident, leaving his 3-year-old son, the titular king as Faisal II, under the regency of Abd al-Illah, who was dominated by the pro-British politician Nuri as-Said. As-Said was the de facto ruler of Iraq until 1958.

J.

World War II

In accordance with its treaty of alliance with the United Kingdom, Iraq broke off diplomatic relations with Germany early in September 1939 and during the first few months of World War II had a pro-British government under as-Said. In March 1940, however, as-Said was replaced by Rashid Ali al-Gailani, an extreme Arab nationalist, who at once embarked on a policy of non-cooperation with the British. British pressure for the implementation of the Anglo-Iraqi alliance precipitated a military revolt on April 30, 1941, and a new pro-Axis government headed by Premier Gailani was formed. The royal family and as-Said briefly fled the country. Alarmed at this development, the British at once landed troops at Basra.

Declaring this action a violation of the treaty between the two countries, Gailani mobilized the Iraqi army and war between Britain and Iraq began on May 2. On May 31, 1941, the government of Iraq conceded defeat. The armistice terms provided for the re-establishment of British control over Iraq’s transport, a provision of the 1930 treaty of alliance. Shortly afterwards a pro-British government was formed, later superseded by a Cabinet headed by as-Said.

In 1942 Iraq became an important supply centre for British and American forces operating in the Middle East and for the trans-shipment of arms to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On January 17, 1943, Iraq declared war on the Axis, the first independent Muslim state to do so. Meanwhile, Iraq’s continuing assistance to the Allied war effort made possible a stronger stand by Arab leaders on behalf of a federation of Arab states.

K.

War with Israel

Throughout 1945 and 1946 the Kurds of north-eastern Iraq were in a state of unrest, supported, it was believed, by the USSR. The British, fearing Soviet encroachment on the Iraqi oilfields, moved troops into Iraq. In 1947 as-Said began to advocate a new proposal for a federated Arab state. This time he suggested that Transjordan (later Jordan) and Iraq be united, and he began negotiations with the king of Transjordan regarding the effectuation of his proposal. In April 1947 a treaty of kinship and alliance was signed by the two kingdoms, providing for mutual military and diplomatic aid.

Immediately following the declaration of independence by Israel in May 1948, the armies of Iraq and Transjordan invaded the new state. Throughout the rest of the year Iraqi armed forces continued to fight the Israelis and the nation continued to work politically with the kingdom of Transjordan. In September it joined Abdullah ibn Husein, King of Transjordan, in denouncing the establishment of an Arab government in Palestine as being “tantamount to recognizing the partition of Palestine”, which Iraq had long consistently opposed. With the general defeat of the Arab forces attacking Israel, however, the government of Iraq prepared to negotiate an armistice, represented by Transjordan. On May 11, 1949, a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Transjordan was signed, but Iraqi units continued to fight Israelis in an Arab-occupied area in north-central Palestine. Transjordanian troops replaced the Iraqi units in this area under the terms of the armistice agreement, signed on April 3, 1949.

L.

Oil Accords and Elections

Royalties paid to the government of Iraq by the Iraq Petroleum Company were substantially increased under accords reached in 1950 and 1951. By the terms of an even more advantageous arrangement, concluded in February 1952, Iraq obtained 50 per cent of the profits. Around 70 per cent of the oil royalties was to be allocated to the National Development Board, established in 1950. In 1953 the 911-km (566-mi) Kirkūk-Bāniyās pipeline of the Iraq Petroleum Company was formally opened.

Parliamentary elections, the first based on direct suffrage, took place on January 17, 1953. Constitutional government was re-established on January 29. King Faisal II formally assumed the throne on May 2, 1953, his 18th birthday.

In April 1954 the US government agreed to extend military aid to Iraq. A series of political crises during the first half of the year led in June to parliamentary elections. Political groups hostile to the US arms agreement triumphed in the voting. The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved on August 4, and new elections were called for September. Subsequently the government suppressed the National Democratic Union, a left-wing organization. The Socialists boycotted the election, and the government won an overwhelming victory.

M.

Pro-Western Pacts

On February 24, 1955, Iraq concluded the Baghdad Pact, a mutual-security treaty with Turkey. Advancing plans to transform the alliance into a Middle Eastern defence system, the two countries urged the other Arab states, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan to adhere to the pact. Britain joined the alliance in April. Pakistan became a signatory in September and Iran in November. The five nations established the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) in November. On July 4, 1956, Jordan (as Transjordan had been renamed) accused Israel of deploying an invasion army near Jerusalem, whereupon Iraq moved strong troop units to the Jordanian border. Israeli representatives, denying aggressive designs on Jordan, interpreted the Iraqi move as a manoeuvre in a struggle between Iraq and Egypt for control of Jordan. Following the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt on July 26 of that year, the Iraqi government gave unequivocal support to the Egyptian action. Egypt was invaded by Israel, the United Kingdom, and France; on November 1-2, Iraqi and Syrian troops occupied positions in Jordan in accordance with terms of a mutual-defence agreement.

On January 21, 1957, Iraq endorsed the recently promulgated Eisenhower Doctrine, under which the United States would supply military assistance to any Middle Eastern government whose stability was threatened by Communist aggression. On February 14, 1958, following a conference between King Faisal and Hussein I, King of Jordan, Iraq and Jordan were federated. The new union, later named the Arab Union of Jordan and Iraq, was established as a countermeasure to the United Arab Republic (UAR), a federation of Egypt and Syria formed on February 1 of that year. The constitution of the newly formed federation was proclaimed simultaneously in Baghdad and Amman on March 19. The document was ratified by the Iraqi parliament on May 12. On May 19 Nuri as-Said, former premier of Iraq, was named premier of the Arab Union.

N.

Republic Proclaimed

The UAR, bitterly antagonistic to the pro-Western Arab Union, repeatedly issued radio calls to the people, police, and army of Iraq to overthrow their government. On July 14, 1958, in a sudden coup d’état led by the Iraqi general 'Abd al-Karim Kassem, the country was proclaimed a republic. King Faisal, the Crown Prince, and as-Said were among those killed in the uprising. On July 15 the new government announced the establishment of close relations with the UAR and the dissolution of the Arab Union. Kassem, however, made attempts to gain the confidence of the West by maintaining the flow of oil.

In March 1959 Iraq withdrew from the Baghdad Pact, which was then renamed the Central Treaty Organization; in June 1959 Iraq withdrew from the sterling bloc (a group of countries with currencies tied to the British pound sterling). Following the termination on June 25, 1960, of the British protectorate over the emirate of Kuwait, Iraq claimed the area, asserting that Kuwait had been part of the Iraqi state at the time of its formation. British forces entered Kuwait in July at the invitation of the ruler, and the UN Security Council declined the Iraqi request to order their withdrawal.

O.

Military Coups

On February 8, 1963, Kassem was overthrown by a group of officers, most of them members of the Baath Party; he was assassinated the following day. Abdul Salam Arif became president, and subsequently relations with the Western world improved. On April 13, 1966, Arif was killed in a helicopter crash and was succeeded by his brother, General Abdul Rahman Arif.

During the Arab-Israeli confrontation in 1967 Iraqi troops and planes were sent to the Jordan-Israeli border. Iraq subsequently declared war on Israel and closed its oil pipeline supplying the Western nations. At the same time diplomatic relations with the United States were severed. On July 17, 1968, General Arif’s government was overthrown, and Major-General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a former premier, was appointed head of the Revolutionary Command Council.

P.

Oil Nationalization

In the following years Iraq in general maintained hostility to the West and friendship with the USSR. The positions of the individual Arab countries with regard to Israel caused some friction between Iraq and its neighbours. In 1971 Iraq closed its border with Jordan and called for its expulsion from the Arab League because of Jordan’s efforts to crush the Palestinian guerrilla movement operating inside its borders.

From 1972 to 1975 Iraq fully nationalized, with compensation, all foreign oil companies operating within its borders. Iraq enjoyed a massive increase in oil revenues starting in late 1973 when international oil prices began a steep rise. The discovery of major oil deposits in the vicinity of Baghdad was publicly announced in 1975.

Iraq aided Syria with troops and material during the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973. Calling for military action against Israel, Iraq denounced the ceasefire that ended the 1973 conflict and opposed the interim agreements negotiated by Egypt and Syria with Israel in 1974 and 1975.

Q.

Kurdish Unrest

The 1958 coup d’état had proclaimed a republic based on the “free association of Arabs and Kurds”. The Kurdish tribal and military leader, and the head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), Mustapha Barzani, returned to Iraq. He had been in exile in the Soviet Union since he led the 1943-1945 revolts. In 1960 and 1961 attempts at Kurdish assimilation were clumsily applied and the Kurds rose in armed insurrection in September 1961.

On seizing power in 1963, the Baath Party made overtures to the Kurds, initially granting decentralization rather than the demanded autonomy. Within months, however, negotiations broke down and fighting recommenced, continuing into 1969 and exhausting Iraq’s economic and military potential. Early in 1970 President al-Bakr’s government concluded a limited autonomy deal with Barzani’s KDP. The vice-president of Iraq was to be a Kurd, as were several government ministers. The four-year implementation period was one of neither war nor peace. A policy of Arabization continued apace.

In early 1974 heavy fighting erupted in northern Iraq between government forces and Kurdish nationalists, who rejected as inadequate a new Kurdish autonomy law based on the 1970 agreement. Led by Barzani, the Kurds received arms and other supplies from Iran, with discreet US support. After Iraq agreed in early 1975 to make major concessions to Iran in settling their border disputes, through the Algiers Agreement, Iran halted aid to the Kurds. The revolt was dealt a severe blow. In July 1979 President Bakr was succeeded by General Saddam Hussein, who immediately rounded up dozens of officials on charges of treason.

R.

War with Iran

Tension between Iraq and the revolutionary regime in Iran increased during 1979, when unrest among Iranian Kurds threatened to spill over into Iraq. Sectarian religious animosities exacerbated the differences. In September 1980 Iraq declared its 1975 agreement with Iran, which President Hussein had negotiated, null and void and claimed authority over the entire disputed Shatt Al Arab estuary. The quarrel flared into the Iran-Iraq War. Iraq quickly overran part of the Arab-populated province of Khuzestan and destroyed the Ābādān refinery. In June 1981 a surprise air attack by Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor near Baghdad. (The Israelis charged that the reactor was intended to develop nuclear weapons for use against them.)

In early 1982 Iran launched a counter-offensive and by May had reclaimed much of the territory conquered by Iraq in 1980. In the ensuing stalemate each side inflicted heavy damage on the other and on Persian Gulf shipping. Although declaring its neutrality in the war, the United States announced in November 1984 that it had resumed diplomatic relations with Iraq.

After a ceasefire with Iran came into effect on August 20, 1988, the Iraqi government again moved to suppress the Kurdish insurgency, the Kurds having taken advantage of Baghdad’s involvement on the Iranian front, and of Iranian support, to intensify their attacks. The measures employed included poison gas attacks on civilians and the clearing of large swathes of Kurdish areas by population transfers and mass executions. This genocidal policy, entitled al Anfal, was pursued through to 1989 when the Kurds were no longer considered to be a problem. During the late 1980s the nation rebuilt its military machine, in part through bank credits and technology obtained from western Europe and the United States.

S.

Occupation of Kuwait and the Gulf War

In 1990 Iraq revived a long-standing territorial dispute with Kuwait, its ally during the war with Iran, claiming that overproduction of oil by Kuwait was injuring Iraq’s economy. Iraq was also badly behind in its debt repayments to several countries, including Kuwait. Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait on August 2 and rapidly took over the country. A series of UN Security Council resolutions condemning the occupation culminated in a demand that Iraq withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait by January 15, 1991.

When Iraq failed to comply, a coalition led by the United States began intensive aerial bombardment of military and infrastructural targets in Iraq and Kuwait. The Gulf War proved disastrous for Iraq, which was forced out of Kuwait in about six weeks. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed, most of the country’s armoured vehicles and artillery were annihilated, and much of its nuclear and chemical weapons facilities were destroyed.

In April 1991 Iraq agreed to UN terms for a permanent ceasefire; coalition troops withdrew from the southern region as a UN peacekeeping team moved in to police the Iraq-Kuwait border. Meanwhile, the Baghdad government used its remaining military forces to suppress rebellions by Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north. An estimated 2 million Kurdish refugees fled to the border with Turkey and to Iran, fearing to return. British and French troops landed inside Iraq’s northern border in May 1991 to set up refugee camps to protect another 600,000 Kurds from Iraqi government reprisals and to encourage the refugees to return.

T.

Iraq After the Gulf War

Throughout 1992 Iraq came under intense international pressure to eliminate its remaining weapons of mass destruction; meanwhile, UN economic sanctions remained in effect. An umbrella group for forces opposed to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), was set up in 1992. However, by 1996 many of the member groups had fallen out, and the INC represented just a disparate group of opposition personalities. In 1993 UN officials announced that they had completed dismantling Iraq’s nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare capability, although this was to be revived later. The trade embargo remained in force, however, because of Iraqi refusal to come to terms with the UN.

In January 1993 the United States launched a cruise missile attack against Iraq over its failure to dismantle police posts near the Kuwaiti border; another such attack was launched in June in retaliation for a reported assassination plot against the former president George Bush.

U.

Increased Isolation

The regime of Saddam Hussein continued its efforts to crush internal resistance in 1994 with an economic embargo of the Kurdish-populated north and a military campaign against marsh Arabs in the south. Much of the marshy shelter for insurgents has been deliberately drained. On October 12, 1994, Iraqi troops, massed on the border with Kuwait in an effort to force the lifting of UN sanctions, were withdrawn under the threat of resumption of hostilities. Iraq formally recognized the sovereignty of Kuwait on November 10. In March 1995 Turkish forces entered UN-protected areas of northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish insurgents. In April Iraq again rejected UN proposals for a conditional end to trade sanctions.

During 1995 the infighting among Kurdish parties in the north degenerated into an intermittent civil war that paralysed the region’s administration. A US attempt to broker a peace failed despite meetings in Europe. Turkish troops mounted occasional forays across the border in search of Turkish-nationality Kurdish guerrillas. The future of the Kurdish zone remains uncertain.

V.

Saddam Maintains Control

During the year there were reports of a failed coup attempt and of an army rebellion. In August two of Saddam Hussein’s most senior aides, who were also married to his daughters, defected with their families to Jordan. Returning to Iraq in February 1996, after assurances of pardon, they were shot dead, apparently by kinsmen. There was strong international condemnation of the action and suspicion that Saddam Hussein had ordered the deaths. Whatever their cause, the killings served to underline Saddam Hussein’s political dominance. His position was rubber-stamped in a referendum in October 1995, which approved another seven-year presidential term.

During their stay in Jordan, Saddam Hussein’s sons-in-law had provided damaging evidence that Iraq had concealed details of its weapons arsenals from the UN inspectors. This disclosure appeared to dispose the government towards accepting a UN deal for a partial lifting of sanctions. A limited amount of oil would be piped to Turkey, which would then pay for essential supplies for Iraq, and also contribute to the fund for victims of Iraqi aggression. A protocol allowing for the future reopening of the pipeline between the two countries was signed in March 1996.

The first legislative elections since 1989 were held on March 24, 1996, to choose 220 members of the 250-member national assembly. Returns did not give the party affiliation of successful candidates, but the Baath Party announced that it had been confirmed as the leading political force. Thirty of the seats, in the Kurdish-controlled zone, were filled by presidential appointees.

In May 1996 agreement was reached on limited UN-supervised sales of Iraqi oil to pay for humanitarian supplies. Iraqi troops pushed into northern Iraq in August in support of one Kurdish faction, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), against its rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Despite limited US air retaliation in southern Iraq, the KDP advanced further in September 1996, and announced a coalition government in northern Kurdish Iraq, but a PUK counter-offensive in October led to a truce. In December 1996 Saddam Hussein’s eldest son Uday Hussein, a hated figure, was shot and severely injured, apparently by disaffected Iraqis.

In April 1997 the Iraqi government flew pilgrims to and from Mecca in defiance of official UN restrictions on flights. In November Iran approved the release of 500 Iraqi prisoners-of-war (POWs) from its eight-year war with Iraq. Iraq claimed that Iran still has 18,000 prisoners; Iran claimed that Iraq has up to 10,000 Iranians. In April 1998 several hundred more POWs were exchanged on each side.

W.

Arms Inspection Crisis

At the end of October 1997 the UN accused Iraq of tampering with equipment being used to monitor its weapons-manufacturing capacity. Three UN representatives went to Baghdad to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to withdraw his ban on American nationals working with the UN’s weapons inspection team. For the limited period of the negotiations, Saddam Hussein suspended his threat to expel the Americans, and the UN suspended the flight of U-2 spy planes that Iraq had threatened to shoot down.

In November the American nationals working with the UN inspection teams were told to leave the country immediately. Later in the month, they were allowed back into Iraq and the inspectors resumed their work. A major crisis began over access to Saddam Hussein’s palaces, the presidential sites: while the president said UN representatives would be welcome, it appeared not to be on the UN’s own terms.

By the end of 1997, following an American military build-up and Russian mediation, Iraq once again was preventing UN inspectors from visiting the presidential sites. Richard Butler, the UN’s chief weapons inspector, refused to agree to Iraqi’s request for a halt to inspection of these sites while international experts evaluated Iraqi disarmament.

X.

The Crisis Deepens

At the end of January 1998 a Western naval task force with massive firepower gathered in the Gulf region to apply pressure on Saddam Hussein to end Iraq’s obstruction of weapons inspections. The United States and Britain, however, failed to gain sufficient international support for direct action, with no military support forthcoming from the former coalition countries.

In early February Russia and France intensified their efforts to find a peaceful way out of the crisis. The United States again gave warning that the time for diplomacy was running out and sought, with limited success, support from Arab nations for their threatened air strikes against Iraq. When Iraq offered to open 68 suspect sites, insisting that the 8 most sensitive ones should be examined by experts under the auspices of the Security Council rather than the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the United States rejected the offer.

Y.

UN Resolution

On February 18 Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, went to Iraq and secured an agreement from Saddam Hussein. It allowed UN weapons inspectors unconditional access to all the disputed sites, and a “special group” to accompany them to visit eight presidential sites. Iraq proclaimed the deal a victory, although it was regarded by many as a face-saving compromise. On February 22 the United States tentatively accepted it, insisting that it would keep its military forces battle-ready in the Gulf for at least six months. The new resolution was meant to ensure that there would be no need to go back to the Security Council if the agreement was flouted.

By late February 1998 Iraq was suggesting that it would not grant UN arms inspectors unlimited access to sensitive sites after all, while demanding the immediate withdrawal of the US-led military force in the Gulf. However, at the end of March, UN weapons inspectors, plus diplomats, made their first search of one of the presidential sites and by April the inspections were well under way.

Z.

Chemical and Biological Weapons

In the four years following the Gulf War, the UN found no evidence of biological weapons stocks, though it did find thousands of chemical weapons. However, repeating evidence made public by UNSCOM in 1997 and 1998, it claimed that Iraq had the ingredients to make 200,000 litres (44,000 gallons) of the nerve agent VX, a quantity sufficient to kill the world’s population. According to British military intelligence Iraq is thought to have built up large stocks of Agent 15, which incapacitates victims by attacking the central nervous system causing hallucinations, forgetfulness, and stupor, and which is fatal in heavy doses.

Biological weapons such as anthrax, which need to be grown in the laboratory, are also known to be in the Iraqi arsenal. Iraq is assessed to have the capacity to produce more than 20,000 kg (20 tons) of anthrax (an aerosol spraying 100 kg (220 lb) of anthrax from a height in a densely populated area could kill 3 million people). In addition to anthrax, plague, and botulinum toxin, which Iraq was suspected of having before the Gulf War, UN inspectors have also found other lethal biological agents, such as 2,000 litres (440 gallons) of aflatoxin, which produces liver or lung cancer, and clostridium, also known as gas gangrene. It was not until the defection of a senior Iraqi official in 1995 that Iraq admitted production of these weapons: Nasser Hindawi, who pioneered Iraq’s biological warfare programme, was arrested as he tried to leave the country.

Of the 819 Scud missiles known to have been acquired by Iraq from Russia in the 1970s and 1980s, all but two have either been destroyed or fired in battle. In February UN inspectors had also confirmed the destruction of six launchers and 30 Scud warheads adapted for carrying chemical or biological weapons. In April 1998 the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iraq had “satisfactorily completed its undertaking to produce a consolidated version of its full, final, and complete declaration of its clandestine nuclear programme”. At the end of April, UNSCOM reported that its investigations, especially into biological weapons, were far from complete; the UN Security Council renewed sanctions on Iraq but agreed to review them after 60 days. Iraq had said it would disrupt arms inspections if sanctions were not lifted.

The scattered nature of the vastly underestimated Iraqi weapons programmes and the clandestine transfer of materials by Iraqi officials from one secret site to another continued to pose problems for the UN inspectors, who claimed that no progress had been made in the previous six months.

AA.

Continuing Isolation

In August 1998 a fresh crisis over arms inspection erupted when Iraq demanded that US influence in UNSCOM be reduced. Iraq withdrew cooperation in October 1998, and in December the United States and the United Kingdom launched punitive strikes against Iraq. However, the political impact of these was diminished by rumours in January 1999 that some UNSCOM inspectors had in fact been supplying information to US intelligence. Attacks on Iraq continued into March 1999 as the Iraqi government contested the no-fly zones imposed on its territory.

The debate on sanctions imposed on Iraq by the UN intensified in 1999. In August the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that child mortality had more than doubled during the sanctions, and warned of an impending humanitarian emergency. Various human rights organizations continued to highlight the sanctions’ detrimental effects, and in December the 'oil-for-food' deal, allowing Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil in exchange for food and medicines, was extended. Persistent drought, however, threatened severe shortages in food production for 2000. In early 2000 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported a catastrophic state of the health system, hygiene, and water supply in Iraq, which caused the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to express grave concern over the humanitarian crisis.

Meanwhile, the contentious UNSCOM inspecting organization was replaced, in a UN Security Council resolution passed in December 1999, by a new body, the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). A panel of 17 international arms experts was appointed to it in March 2000. Iraq immediately rejected the authority of the new mission.

Parliamentary elections for the National Assembly in March 2000 saw a triumph for Saddam’s son, Uday, who won 99.9 per cent of votes in his Baghdad constituency. Both sons of the Iraqi leader, Qusay and Uday, were given increased prominence in state affairs.

AB.

British and US Air Strikes

January 2001 saw more attacks against allied aircraft patrolling the Iraqi no-fly zones than in the whole of 2000. The United States and Britain retaliated by bombing air defence targets in northern Iraq in mid-February. A consequence of this was the erosion of international support for sanctions, because of the perceived suffering they cause ordinary Iraqi people. Russia had also complained that it had lost US$30 billion dollars in business since sanctions were imposed. So-called “smart sanctions”, designed to hamper leading officials in the Iraqi government and to prevent the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, were proposed.

AC.

Disarming Saddam Hussein and War on Iraq

In January 2002, in his first State of the Union address, President George W. Bush referred to Iraq as one of three countries operating as an “axis of evil” (alongside Iran and North Korea) because of their development of long-range missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. Concern was also reiterated regarding Iraq’s possession and development of biological and chemical weapons. The statement and the idea that Iraq continued to have such weapons was both condemned and denied in Baghdad.

The US administration also feared that these weapons could land in the hands of terrorist groups and in October US Congress passed a resolution giving Bush its consent to enforce all relevant UN resolutions regarding Iraq. The following month the UN Security Council passed a resolution ordering weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, from where they had been expelled in 1998, and threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq did not disarm. After a vote in parliament, Iraq agreed to comply with the resolution, and weapons inspections, led by chief inspector Hans Blix, started that same month.

Domestically, Saddam Hussein was voted back into power unanimously in a referendum held in October 2002. Despite the resumption of inspections, the Bush administration argued that Iraq was not fully cooperating and was continuing to hide banned weapons. Bush, with the support of Britain and several other countries, sought UN authorization of force against Iraq. However, some countries, such as France, Germany, Russia, and China, wanted to give the weapons inspections more time to proceed and opposed military action. Blix reported that Iraq had speeded up its cooperation but requested more time to verify Iraq's compliance. Ignoring an ultimatum from the US to leave Iraq, Hussein expressed his determination to fight any proposed invasion. After the UN Security Council was unable to reach agreement about whether to authorize force against Iraq, Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair decided to forego UN approval and pursue military action in a coalition with other willing countries. In March 2003 US-led ground forces invaded Iraq from the south, while coalition air forces attacked key targets throughout the country, most visibly in Baghdad, thus beginning the War on Iraq.

The initial bombing campaign failed to remove the Hussein regime. Nevertheless, the invading forces faced little sustained opposition, though neither did they receive the rapturous welcome that some supporters of the war had predicted. Baghdad was taken in April and, although the leaders of the defeated regime remained at large, a provisional authority was established under the US administrator Paul Bremer, a former diplomat and counterterrorism expert, and a governing council made up of Iraqi political and religious leaders was appointed. Restoring services and providing security proved to be tough challenges, particularly in the face of a ruthless terrorist campaign that targeted both occupying forces and humanitarian organizations (the headquarters of the UN in Baghdad was targeted in August; among those killed was the UN envoy to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello. The Red Cross organization was attacked in October). Suspicion fell on external elements (for example Al-Qaeda), using Iraq as a battlefield on which to prosecute their own war against the West, and the remaining supporters of the Baathist regime as the agents of the attacks. In spite of these blows to the occupying powers the principal figures of the Hussein regime were steadily rounded up or killed (Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed by US forces in Mosul in July; Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” because of his role in the use of chemical weapons against Iraq’s Kurdish population in 1987, was captured in August; Saddam Hussein himself was arrested in Tikrit in December). The exact nature of the legal process that the captured leaders will face has yet to be decided.

The Governing Council agreed an interim constitution in March 2004 that envisages a federal republic. The constitution proposed that elections to a national assembly be held before the end of 2005. The occupying forces timetabled June 30, 2004 as the date for the transition of power to the Iraqi people. Meanwhile, the violence by insurgent rebel groups against coalition targets continued, with many civilians and aid agencies also being caught up in the bomb attacks, shootings, and, in a new departure in the spring, kidnappings. Pessimistic observers anticipated that the security situation could only deteriorate before the June deadline was reached as groups with an interest in destabilizing the country increased their intensity of attacks. For this reason the transfer of sovereignty was secretly brought forward two days, to June 28. At a low-key ceremony Iraq’s interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, took over from Paul Bremer as the head of government. While improvements in health, employment, schooling, and the infrastructure of Iraq continued apace, establishing security remained a priority. Coalition forces stayed in Iraq, with the support of the new government.

Fighting continued in the country in the autumn of 2004, most notably in the cities of An Najaf, between US forces and Shiite militias, and then in Al Fallūjah, where a major US offensive took place in November. The national elections went ahead as planned on January 30, 2005. Nearly 8.5 million Iraqis at home and abroad voted in what were declared successful elections by both the Americans and other international observers. The feared escalation in violence, timed to coincide with the elections, failed to materialize, although Sunni groups largely boycotted the elections. A month later the provisional results gave victory to the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite grouping. However, the bloc did not have the necessary two-thirds (it took 48 per cent) of the vote to create a ruling majority and sought a deal with both Kurdish groups (26 per cent) and Sunni elements to create a representative parliament. The secular grouping headed by the current prime minister Allawi, took just 14 per cent of the vote.

Finally, in April 2005, Iraq’s government chose Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the country’s new president. The two vice-presidents are Ghazi Yawer (the former president and a Sunni) and Adel Abdul Mahdi (a Shiite). Shortly thereafter, Ibrahim al-Jaafari (also a Shiite) was named as prime minister. In October, voters approved a draft constitution that outlined a federal democracy. Meanwhile, the violence continued in the country, with estimates suggesting that 25,000 civilians had died since the US-led invasion; US casualties passed the 2,000 figure in the same month. Former president Saddam Hussein was finally put on trial but the proceedings were deflected after the abduction and murder of two of Hussein’s defence lawyers.

AD.

Reconstruction

Elections to a new government were held in December 2005 but were boycotted by many Sunnis. The winner in the polls was the United Iraqi Alliance, which won more than 41 per cent of votes (which translated as 128 seats in the 275-seat assembly). However, the failure to gain an outright majority led to political deadlock for four months before President Talabani asked Jawad al-Maliki to form a government; al-Maliki replaced the previous candidate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was turned down by Kurdish and Sunni groups. The government sat for the first time in early May 2006.

Despite the killing by coalition troops of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the self-proclaimed leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the creation of a government did not have the desired effect of dampening the insurgency. Continuing violence, especially in the “Sunni Triangle” area around Baghdad, and increasingly around the British-controlled area centred on Basra, led to calls for a timetable for withdrawal. In December, an Iraq Study Group, led by the former US secretary of state James Baker, delivered a report making recommendations to President Bush on the future strategy in Iraq. It bluntly described a worsening, “deteriorating” situation in the country and warned that “time was running out” if the country were not to descend into chaos, leading to the collapse of the Iraqi government, and a humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity in November 2006, in a case pertaining to the killing in 1982 of 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Although a second trial, concerning the alleged genocide committed against the Kurdish population during the Anfal campaign in 1988, was underway, Saddam Hussein was hanged on December 30.