This Day In Iraqi History - Jul 19

1920 Start of 2^nd Battle of Aridiyat between British and tribal forces

(Musings On Iraq book review of Reclaiming Iraq, The 1920 Revolution and the Founding of the Modern State)

1921 Royal Iraqi Military College opened

1988 Tariz Aziz said Iraq accepted Iran offer to accept UN Res 598 to end war but military ops would

continue until Iran confirmed deal

1988 Iraq took Dehloran Iran 20,000 Iranian casualties 6000 captured

(Musings On Iraq interview with author Anthony Tucker-Jones on Iran-Iraq War)

(Musings On Iraq interview with author Tom Cooper on Iran-Iraq War)

(Musings On Iraq book review The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988)

(Musings On Iraq book review Iran-Iraq War, The Lion of Babylon, 1980-1988)

(Musings On Iraq book review The Iran-Iraq War)

1988 Iraq used poison gas against Kurdish villages

1991 UN complained Baghdad blocking it from helping displaced in southern marshes

1991 Demonstration in Kurdistan over food shortages led to police firing into crowd Led to 2 days of

fighting with 100 killed

2002 MI6 head Dearlove said US already decided on military action to remove Saddam talk was now about

how and when

(Musings On Iraq Chilcot Report Section 3.4 Development of UK Iraq Strategy and Options, Late July to 14 September 2002)

2002 Gen Franks briefed Bush on Running Start war plan Would have enough forces in theater at 100,000

to start operations

(Musings On Iraq book review of Shaping the Plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom, The Role of Military Intelligence Assessment)

(Musings On Iraq book review Leap of Faith, Hubris Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy

Tragedy)

2003 On defensive over not finding WMD White House released parts of 02 National Intel Est that Iraq was

rebuilding its WMD and nuke programs

2003 US began asking UN for help in Iraq after it spurned its role immediately before and after invasion

2004 Carnegie pre-2002 US intel on Iraq WMD generally good 02-03 reporting became more certain beyond

evidence Bush admin misrepresented threat posed by Iraq WMD and nuke program UN inspectors proved accurate that Iraq didn’t have WMD or nuke programs nor stocks

(Musings On Iraq article Iraq, One Of The Worst Intelligence Failures In US History)

(Musings On Iraq article UN Inspectors Were Right Iraq Was Not A Threat)

2005 US complained to Iran about supplying EFPs to militias

(Musings On Iraq interview with Galen Wright of Arkenstone blog on Iranian arms shipments to Iraqi militias) 

(Musings On Iraq article on Iran’s Iraq policy)

2005 2 Sunni members of constitutional committee Issa and Obeidi were assassinated Sunni delegation

suspended work afterward

(Musings On Iraq interview with constitutional scholar Zaid al-Ali on Iraq’s constitution)

2005 Iraq-Iran signed deal for Iraq to export 150,000 bar/day of oil to Iranian refinery in Abadan and send

refined products back to Iraq

2006 Report Iraqi govt told civilians in Baghdad to check IDs of ISF to make sure they were real not death

squads or insurgents

(Musings On Iraq book review Voices From Iraq, A People’s History, 2003-2009)

2006 NSC memo PM Maliki govt struggling to implement policy and deal with security Said Interior Min

making violence worse Called for review of US Iraq strategy Suggested troop increase might be necessary

2006 UK Intel report Violence more complex with multiple actors Violence spiraling out of control of Iraqi

govt Highest levels of violence since 2003 Insurgent commitment to violence unchanged

2007 1920 Revolution Brigades Ansar al-Sunna Iraqi Hamas announced front group Political Office for the

Iraqi Resistance Said willing to negotiate a US withdrawal Attacked ISI for sectarian killings and suicide bombings vs civilians

(Musings On Iraq book review The Caliphate At War, Operational Realities and Innovations of the Islamic State)

2008 Gen Petraeus said Al Qaeda was changing focus from Iraq to Afghanistan

(Musings On Iraq article on decline of insurgency)

2017 Salahaddin Gov Jabouri arrested over corruption charges

2018 Protests in Baghdad Basra Maysan Activists were planning national protests for Jul 20 Govt offering

jobs and investment and promising to meet protesters’ demands

2018 Heavy police and army presence set up around Basra oil fields to block protests there

2018 Iraqi Human Rights Commission condemned use of excessive force by Iraqi forces against

demonstrators including shootings beatings arbitrary arrests Amnesty Intl talked to 2 protesters arrested and tortured by ISF who wanted to know who organizers were

(Musings On Iraq article on Jul 19 protest activity)

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