Tuesday, March 31, 2020

This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 31


1934 Iraqi Communist Party founded
(Musings On Iraq book review Red Star Over Iraq, Iraqi Communism Before Saddam)
(Musings On Iraq Interview with Prof Johan Franzen on the history of the Iraqi Communist Party)
1941 Pan-Arab Golden Square officers decided to remove PM Hashemi in coup
(Musings On Iraq book review of Persian Gulf Command, A History of the Second World War In Iran and Iraq)
(Musings On Iraq book review of Rashid Ali al-Gailani, The National Movement in Iraq 1939-1941)
(Musings On Iraq book review The Role of the Military In Politics, A case study of Iraq to 1941)
(Musings On Iraq book review Iraq 1941, The Battles for Basra, Habbaniya, Fallujah and Baghdad)
(Musings On Iraq book review Blood, Oil and the Axis: The Allied Resistance Against A Fascist State In Iraq and the Levant, 1941)
1981 Egypt began selling military equipment to Iraq in Iran-Iraq War
1985 Since Jan 1 in Tanker War Iraq hit 30 ships and Iran 7 in Persian Gulf
1985 UN Sec Gen arrived in Iran Told Iraqi air raids killed 1450 civilians and wounded 4000
1988 Iran claimed 44,000 of its troops suffered from Iraqi chemical attacks
(Musings On Iraq article on the origins of Iraq’s WMD programs)
(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)
(Musings On Iraq book review The Longest War, The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict)
1989 Iraq exported oil for 1st time from Basra after Iran-Iraq War closed down ports
1989 Israel said Iraq embarked on crash course to build a nuclear bomb and a missile to deliver it
1991 Govt op to retake Sulaymaniya from Peshemerga began
(Musings On Iraq book review Kurds of Iraq, Tragedy and Hope)
(Musings On Iraq interview with National Univ of Singapore’s Fanar Haddad on the Impact of the 1991 Uprising)
(Musings On Iraq article on 1st hand accounts of 1991 Uprising)
(Musings On Iraq article on Saddam’s view of 1991 Uprising)
(Ahulbayt Video on 1991 Uprising)
(Musings On Iraq article on how US encouraged 1991 uprising)
2000 UN Res 1293 doubled amount of spare parts Iraq could import to maintain its oil industry under Oil
for Food program
2002 PM Blair offered a division and UK bases to US for invasion
(Musings On Iraq Book Review The Report of the Iraq Inquiry, Executive Summary)
2003 Saddam didn’t give televised speech as expected Instead Information Minister Sahaf did Called on
Iraqis to carry out suicide missions against the invaders
2003 1st car bomb in Iraq hit US checkpoint north of Najaf
2003 US forces engaged Fedayeen and Republican Guard south of Baghdad
2003 US forces launched raid on Shatra Dhi Qar after receiving information Chemical Ali Hassan al-
Majid was there
2003 British military believed it could start popular uprising in Basra to take city rather than having to
attack it
2003 Sir David Manning told British would have huge shortage of troops for postwar operations in Iraq
2003 UK Foreign Office official wrote For Sec Straw saying Iraqis mistrusted US and US occupation
would be humiliation and untenable
2003 Israeli Infrastructure Min Paritzky said he wanted to reopen Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline by end of 03
Based upon promises made by Chalabi before war he would get Iraq to export oil to Israel
(Musings On Iraq Book Review Iraq and the Politics of Oil, An Insider’s Perspective)
2003 Def Sec Rumsfeld memo said important to create Iraqi interim authority as quickly as possible so
Iraqis were in power Had to pick pro-US Iraqis Said exiles could be core for new authority because they supported US goals in Iraq
(Musings On Iraq book review Leap of Faith, Hubris Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy
Tragedy)
2004 Insurgents ambushed Blackwater convoy and killed 4 contractors in Fallujah 2 were strung up on
bridge
2004 Bush gave CPA 48 hours to resolve Blackwater attack in Fallujah
(Musings On Iraq book review The Battle for Fallujah, Occupation, Resistance and Stalemate in the War in Iraq)
2004 Bush gave speech US would not give into violence in Iraq and fighting terrorism
2004 Sadrists marched to Green Zone in Baghdad to protest US occupation
2005 Silbermann-Robb report called US pre-war intel on Iraq one of largest intel failures in US
history US data on Iraq was worthless and analysis wrong US lacked significant new intel on Iraq WMD so relied on Gulf War and 90s UN inspections and extrapolated from them Relied upon Iraqi defectors that were lying and ignored problems with their stories Relied upon satellite photos that showed nothing substantive US intel claimed Iraq made WMD advances that were technically impossible US intel ignored reports that Iraq no longer had any WMD UN inspectors disproved most of US case against Iraq’s WMD but were ignored CIA had little on Iraq’s nuke program outside of aluminum tubes but became basis for Oct 02 National Intel Est on Iraq’s WMD Aluminum tubes Iraq tried to buy were for rockets not centrifuges Example of misinterpretation by US Said aluminum tubes was a technical assessment which CIA failed at Went with assumptions rather than facts CIA never looked at Iraqi rockets to see whether they fit aluminum tubes CIA and DIA created theory on tubes that rejected all criticism Report found British and Australian intelligence didn’t believe aluminum tubes were for centrifuges
(Musings On Iraq article on the aluminum tubes story)
(Musings On Iraq article Iraq, One Of The Worst Intelligence Failures In US History)
2005 RAND study showed post-war planning for Iraq was inadequate and never considered security of
Iraqi public
2006 100 insurgents attacked Muqtadiya police headquarters Killed 19 police and freed 33 prisoners
2007 PM Maliki made 1st trip to Anbar and met with tribal leaders and provincial council who complained
about Baghdad’s neglect
2007 PM Maliki endorsed plan to relocate 1000s of Arabs settled in Kirkuk province during Arabization
program Said would get money and land for leaving Iraqiya opposed plan Never implemented
2007 1920 Revolution Brigades commander said ISI killed one of its leaders leaving it to either fight ISI
or work with US
(Musings On Iraq article on splits within insurgency)
(Musings On Iraq book review Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency)
(Musings On Iraq book review The Caliphate At War, Operational Realities and Innovations of the Islamic State)
2008 Report 103 bodies killed by ISI found around Zahamm in Diyala River Valley When ISI first
entered village said they were opposing occupation Set up training camp and weapons caches Then began kidnapping and executing people who worked with ISF or didn’t follow rules like banning music smoking wearing the veil breaking curfew Extorted money from residents
(Musings On Iraq book review The Caliphate At War, Operational Realities and Innovations of the Islamic State)
2008 PM Maliki said would continue to go after Mahdi Army in Basra that didn’t follow
            cease-fire
2008 Interior Min announced 1000s of police would be fired for refusing to fight Mahdi Army in Basra
Baghdad and cities in the south 2 army regiments refused to fight Mahdi Army in Baghdad
2008 Report US special forces in Basra to help with air strikes vs Mahdi Army
2009 British ended military mission in Iraq
(Musings On Iraq Book Review The Report of the Iraq Inquiry, Executive Summary)
2009 Deadline for power sharing and provincial elections in Kirkuk passed with no progress
(Musings On Iraq Kirkuk Remains In Political Limbo)
2010 VP Hashemi said an Arab should be president no longer a Kurd
2010 Iraqiya said it would implement Art 140 on disputed areas to try to get Kurdish backing for Allawi
as premier
2010 Sadr said there would be a referendum on who his followers wanted as premier
2011 Pres Barzani said he would prosecute security members who fired on demonstrators in Sulaymaniya
2011 Protests in Kalar, Sulaymaniya become violent with rocks thrown at security forces
(Musings On Iraq interview with journalist Wladimir Van Wilgenburg on 2011 KRG protests)
2012 Oil Ministry paid oil companies in Kurdistan $650 mil for exports
2014 ISIS released 2nd annual al-Naba report on its operations
2014 ISIS held parade in Abu Ghraib
2014 Fmr Communications Min Allawi Fmr Fin Min Issawi and 8 general mangers charged with
corruption
2014 Mutahidun claimed 44 civilians killed by Hashd in Buhriz, Diyala with complicity of ISF
2015 Tikrit freed from IS 1st stories emerged of Hashd looting afterward
2015 Diyala council voted to remove confidence from Gov Yacoub for stealing aid for displaced
2016 PM Abadi presented his list of technocratic ministers Sadr called off his protests after Abadi
announced cabinet
(Musings On Iraq interview with Cambridge’s Michael Clark on Sadr, protests and PM Abadi’s reforms)

View the Iraq History Timelines 

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