Saturday, September 2, 2017

This Day In Iraqi History – Sep 2


1980 Iraq-Iran border clash at Qasr-e-Shirin, Iran Precursor to Iran-Iraq War
1991 UN Resolution 712 said that money should be released for buying food
            and supplies for Iraqi civilians
1996 US began 2 days of cruise missile attacks on Iraq in retaliation for Iraqi forces
            helping KDP vs PUK and invading Irbil
1996 U.S. extended southern no fly zone farther north
1996 Iraqi army withdrew from most of Kurdistan after helping KDP against PUK
2002 Bush told Blair Iraq had WMD and unclear how quickly it could get nukes
2003 Zarqawi car bomb hit Baghdad police HQ killing 1 wounding 20
2003 Ayatollah Hakim buried in Najaf after killed in Zarqawi car bombing in same city
2003 Abdul Aziz al-Hakim blamed lax US security for death of his brother Ayatollah
            Hakim
2003 Fmr NY City Police Commissioner Kerik sent to be Iraq’s Interior Minister under
            CPA
2003 Bush agreed to talk with UN about multi-national force helping with security in
            Iraq Effort failed
2005 Operation Restoring Rights started to clear Tal Afar
2006 Over 20 Ramadi area sheikhs met to talk about fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq
2006 Iraq CIA station chief told Iraq Survey Group Interior Ministry running death
            squads and torturing people
2006 Fin Min Jabr told Iraq Survey Group corruption under control due to Board
            of Supreme Audit
2014 Peshmerga recaptured Zumar, Ninewa
2014 Relatives of Camp Speicher massacre stormed parliament and demanded
            explanations
2014 ISI released video beheading of US reporter Steven Slotoff Threatened to kill UK
            hostage if US didn’t withdraw from Iraq
2014 US sent another 250 troops for force protection to Iraq
2015 Protesters surrounded Najaf provincial council building and tried to sack it


5 comments:

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Harry Barnes said...

From around February 1955 to October 1956 I undertook the bulk of my National Service at an RAF Movements Unit at Basra in Iraq. Do you hold any information about what happened to that camp site following the departure of British Troops from Iraq just a few years later? Was use made of it by Saddam Hussain and his forces? And was any use of it made by British forces following the invasion of Iraq in 2003? Then what exists on the old camp site now ? In my period it had a jetty on the Shatt Al Arab river which British Naval vessels sometimes used. In John Brew's biography of Clement Attlee, he points out on page nine that after Attlee was injured when fighting in Iraq in 1916 he then "began his recovery at the garrison in Basra". Perhaps this was the same site. This is the thread on my blog relating to items I have posted in the past in Iraq - http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Iraq

Joel Wing said...

Hi Harry, I don't remember hearing of any military base in the Shatt al-Arab in either the Iran-Iraq War or the 2003 invasion. I have a book on British operations in Basra though and I'll give it a look to see if anything is mentioned.

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Harry Barnes said...

Hi Joel. Thank you for your above response and for your email. I have been onto the internet to see what I can find out and I will delve further into my own material on Iraq. When I started my National Service in Iraq in February 1955, the UK held crown territory there at RAF camps in Habbaniya and Shaibah. These were formally handed over to Iraq later that year under the provisions of the Baghdad Pact, although reduced RAF facilities remained at these camps for a period. Our Movements Unit in Basra was just south of the Basra's dockyard next to the Shatt al-Arab, but it was not crown territory. Initially we were surrounded by an outer camp belonging to the Iraqi Levies, who had British Officers. But with the Baghdad Pact these were disbanded and their camp was then taken over by the Iraqi Army. The camp I served at may have been in the vicinty of (a) the Basra garrison where Attlee recovered from his inquiry when fighting in Iraq in 1916 (b) where Saddam Hussein had his ship in dock and (b) where British troops were stationed after the 2003 invasion; yet these are all unlikely to have been on the same spot.

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