This Day In Iraqi History - Apr 2

1941 Regent of Iraq arrived at British airbase at Habaniya Anbar after Golden

            Square officers tried to arrest him after coup

1941 Regent tried and failed to organize resistance to Golden Square coup in Basra

            Then fled to Jordan

1975 Iraq army sealed border with Iran and declared Kurdish revolt over Mustafa

            Barzani and 150,000 Kurds fled to Iran

1975 1972-75 some 17,000 killed and 280,000 displaced during Kurdish rebellion

1982 Dep Cmdr of Iran’s armed forces claimed end of Iran-Iraq War was near

1986 Khomeini called for all able bodied men to join armed forces to overthrow

            Saddam

1990 Saddam threatened to use WMD against Israel if it was attacked 

(Musings On Iraq article on Saddam’s motivation for threatening Israel before the Kuwait invasion)

1991 State Dept U.S. never said that it was for removing Saddam

1991 Turkey said that 30,000 Kurds had entered country and 220,00 more coming as

            Saddam put down Kurdish revolt

1991 Iran and Turkey went to UN about Iraq’s suppression of Kurd and Shiite revolts

            and refugee crisis it was creating

1991 Kurds began fleeing Sulaymaniya in face of govt offensive to retake it from

            Peshmerga

2003 US forces took Karbala

2003 US forces reached outskirts of Baghdad Rep Guard Medina division

            counterattacked but turned back

2003 Qusay Hussein told Gen Hamdani that US attack in south was deception and

            real invasion would come from north

2003 US raid freed US POW Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital

2003 Talabani said Peshmerga would not attack Kirkuk city to stave off criticism from

            US and Turkey Kurds ended up taking city

2003 Rumsfeld sent memo to military to cooperate with ORHA because wasn’t helping

            it

2003 State Dept leaked complaints to LA Times about Pentagon’s postwar plans to

            exclude UN and support Chalabi and INC

2004 Sadr gave angry speech against US occupation after CPA closed his newspaper

2004 Sadrists protested outside Green Zone demanding movement paper be re-opened

2004 Mahdi Army began marching in Sadr City as tensions with US grew

2004 Some Friday prayers in Fallujah condemned attack on Blackwater contractors in

            city

2004 Powell criticized US intel for giving him faulty claims about Iraq’s WMD for

            his Feb 03 UN speech

2005 Al Qaeda launched suicide attack on Abu Ghraib prison starting battle for town

2006 SecState Rice UK ForSec Straw told PM Jaafari he didnt have support and

            should step down Jaafari said no

2006 US military reported 1313 Iraqi civilians killed in sectarian murders in March

            2006 173 killed in suicide bombings

2006 US Amb Khalilzad said militias should be disarmed Iraqi officials said that would

            create more violence

2006 PM Jaafari said he would integrate militias into security forces to control them

2006 Fmr CENTCOM cmdr Gen  Zinni on Meet the Press said Iraq failure of strategic

            planning by US

2008 Retired Gen McCaffrey said ISI’s urban insurgency was defeated

2010 Maliki said he was going to form alliance with Kurds and backed Talabani to

            remain as president to form new govt

2010 Sadrists began referendum amongst followers to see who they wanted to be new

            premier

2010 Maliki talk with National Alliance failed as SIIC Hakim’s opposed Maliki’s

            2^nd term

2011 56 wounded in clashes between police and protesters in Sulaymaniya

2012 Over 300 followers of Mahmoud Sarkhi arrested in Nasiriya

2012 Oil Min Luaibi claimed Exxon was halting work in KRG so that it could continue

            working with central govt on oil industry Wasn't true

2012 Dep PM Shahristani accused Kurds of smuggling oil to Iran

2013 Insurgents attacked Akkas gas field in Anbar

2013 Gunmen in army uniforms attacked 4 independent newspaper offices in Baghdad

            Mahmoud Sarkhi blamed

2013 Election Commission said provincial vote in Anbar and Ninewa would be

            delayed until May

2013 Sadrists said they would end cabinet boycott

2015 PM Abadi arrived in Tikrit after its liberation to make victory tour in city

2015 Sadr said brazen militias should be removed from Tikrit by ISF after stories

            of looting and burning homes

2015 Hashd leader Muhandis said that any looting and abuses in Tikrit were done

            by locals not Hashd

2015 Guard in Tikrit said he counted more than 200 homes in Qadisiyah district destroyed

            after city’s liberation

2016 Kurdish Alliance said it would not vote on Abadi’s new cabinet unless it

            got its quota of ministers

View the Iraq History Timelines 

Review Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied

Review Dodge, Toby, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003

The Americans would have been well served to have read Inventing Iraq during their occupation of the country. Toby Dodge wrote the book attempting to explain the ideology largely based upon stereotypes of the Ottoman Empire and colonial territories that shaped British rule during the Mandate period from 1920-32. Those ideas mixed with budget constraints and fading interest in London combined to undermine the creation of the modern state the English wanted in Mesopotamia. The book makes some excellent observations about the troubles the British ran into, which are directly comparable to what happened to the Americans when they occupied Iraq. Unfortunately, the book is a bit inconsistent in its writing and content. 

This Day In Iraqi History - Apr 1

1941 PM Hashemi deposed in Golden Square officers coup after Hashemi tried

            to remove them

(Musings On Iraq article on 1941 coup)

1941 Army surrounded royal palace Regent escaped to Anbar with help of US

            ambassador Nuri al-Said and other pro-British politicians fled Iraq

1941 US and England believed Iraq coup part of German plan in coordination with

            invasion of Balkans and Libya Wasn’t

1941 Golden Square officers thought British were plotting against them

1975 Iraqi amnesty offer to Kurdish rebels and army deserters expired

1975 Iran closed border to Kurds fleeing Iraqi government offensive against them

1980 Islamic Action Organization made attempt on Dep PM Tariq Aziz at Mustansiriya

Univ, Baghdad

1988 End of 2^nd Anfal campaign

(Musings On Iraq article on Anfal campaign)

1989 Saddam held elections for new parliament as part of political reform after

            Iran-Iraq War 160 of 250 seats went to Baathists

1990 Saddam speech said if US supported Israeli attack on Iraq he would burn

            Israel

(Musings On Iraq article on Saddam’s motivation for threatening Israel before the Kuwait invasion)

1991 Peshmerga repelled govt attack to retake Sulaymaniya

1991 Saddam’s forces put down Kurdish revolt in Zakho

1991 Barzani said 3 mil Kurds had fled to northern mountains along Turkish border

            to escape govt attacks

2002 UK ambassador to US Meyer warned Bush thinking of war with Iraq by

            autumn but no postwar plans

2003 US attacked Najaf Kut Samawa Hindiya Headed towards Hillah

2003 ORHA head Garner made 1 day trip to Um Qasr port 1^st time in Iraq

2004 CPA adviser Larry Diamond told Bremer that there was a security vacuum in

            southern Iraq being filled by militias

2004 Gen Kimmitt promised to pacify Fallujah after Blackwater contractors killed

2004 US intel officer told press regime change in Iraq could have been promoted as part

            of war on terror but admin wanted to scare public using WMD

2005 Report White House and CIA leadership created environment where only threat of

            Iraq WMD reports were acceptable

2008 Maliki praised Badr and Dawa militia for helping to fight Mahdi Army in Basra

2008 Maliki promised jobs and better services after Charge of Knights in Basra

2009 National Reconciliation Committee said it began talks with Asaib Ahl Al-Haq

2009 Baghdad was supposed to take control of all Sahwa in Iraq from US forces

2010 Iran said it would host Iraqi parties that wanted to talk about forming new govt

2010 Gorran head Mustafa taken to court for defamation against Pres Talabani

2010 Iraqiya announced regional tour of Egypt Qatar Turkey Syrian and Iran to drum

            up support for forming new govt

2011 Protests in Baghdad against corruption and demanded release of prisoners

2012 Maliki said that if Pres Assad lost power there would be problems throughout

            the Middle East Condemned Gulf States arming Syrian rebels

2012 KRG halted oil exports for Baghdad over payment dispute

2012 VP Hashemi went to Qatar violating his arrest warrant

2013 ISI suicide truck bomb on Tikrit police station and govt center

2013 PUK said it would run independently of KDP in next KRG elections

2014 KRG said it would export oil for Baghdad to help with negotiations with central

            government over industry but didn’t happen

2014 Kataib Hezbollah said that it was involved in Shjariya operation in Anbar

2015 Mopping up operations in Tikrit with small attacks in north

2015 UN received reports that govt forces looting Tikrit after it was liberated and

            burning homes

2015 Sadr complained about brazen militias and said any that broke law should

            be brought to justice

2015 IS video of Ninewa sheikhs giving it baya

2016 PM Abadi’s nominee for Oil Minister in new technocratic cabinet withdrew

            name saying no consensus on changes

2016 Maliki faction of State of Law said it would only support partial cabinet change

2016 Kurdish Alliance said if Fin Min Zebari was replaced they would not vote

            on new cabinet

2016 Higher Educ Min Shahristani and For Minister Jaafari refused to step down for

            Abadi’s cabinet changes

2016 Solution List complained that Abadi’s new cabinet was way to exclude some

            parties from power 

View the Iraq History Timelines 

Musings On Iraq In The News

I was quoted by Paul Iddon in "What's behind the PKK withdrawal from Sinjar" in Al Araby. That article was reprinted in Mepa News. I was cited by Aron Lund in "How Washington Learned to Love Haidar al-Abadi" for The Century Foundation. Paul Iddon quoted me again in "Iraqi and Syrian deployments hinder Turkish operations against Kurds" in Rudaw.

Review Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq

Review Record, Jeffrey, Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq, Dulles: Potomac Books, 2010

It’s odd that 15 years after the Iraq war there is still discussion about what caused it. Was it the weapons of mass destruction, the oil, neoconservatives, or other factors? Much of that is due to the Bush administration whose stated goals WMD and Iraq’s connection to Al Qaeda both proved to be based upon a house of cards. Jeffrey Record’s Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq is one of the best attempts to answer the question of why the U.S. invaded Iraq. Rather than having a grand strategy, Record found that there was a confluence of different personalities and ideas within the White House that all converged on Iraq. These were roughly divided into two main camps, neoconservatives that wanted to spread democracy via overthrowing Saddam Hussein and others that wanted to maintain the supremacy of the United States in the world after 9/11.

This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 31

1934 Iraqi Communist Party founded

(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

1981 Egypt began selling military equipment to Iraq in Iran-Iraq War

1985 UN Sec Gen arrived in Iran Told Iraqi air raids killed 1450 civilians and wounded

            4000

1989 Iraq exported oil for 1^st 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

2000 UN Res 1293 doubled amount of spare parts Iraq could import to maintain its

            oil industry under Oil for Food program

2002 Blair offered a division and UK bases to US for invasion

2003 Saddam didn’t give televised speech as expected Instead Information Minister Sahaf

did calling on Iraqis to carry out suicide missions against the invaders

2003 1^st 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 Ali Hassan

            al-Majid Chemical Ali 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

2004 US Committee on US pre-war intel on WMD said that US intel was “dead wrong”

            on almost all its judgments about Iraq

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

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 intelligence

            failures in US history

2005 Silbermann-Robb report US intel data on Iraq was worthless and analysis wrong

2005 Silbermann-Robb report US lacked significant new intel on Iraq WMD so relied

            on Gulf War and 90s UN inspections and extrapolated from them

2005 Silbermann-Robb report US relied upon Iraqi defectors that were lying and

            ignored problems with their stories

2005 Silbermann-Robb report US relied upon satellite photos that showed nothing

            substantive

2005 Silbermann-Robb report US intel claimed Iraq made WMD advances that were

            technically impossible

2005 Silbermann-Robb report US intel ignored reports that Iraq no longer had any

            WMD

2005 Silbermann-Robb report UN inspectors disproved most of US case against Iraq’s

            WMD but were ignored

2005 Robb-Silberman report found 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

2005 Silbermann-Robb report said that aluminum tubes Iraq tried to buy were for

            rockets not centrifuges Example of misinterpretation by US intel

2005 Robb-Silberman report said aluminum tubes was a technical assessment which

            CIA failed at Went with assumptions rather than facts

2005 Robb-Silberman report CIA never looked at Iraqi rockets to see whether they

            fit aluminum tubes CIA and DIA created theory on tubes that rejected all criticism

2005 Robb-Silberman report found British and Australian intelligence didn’t

            believe aluminum tubes were for centrifuges

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 killing 19 police and

            freed 33 prisoners

2007 Maliki made 1^st trip to Anbar and met with tribal leaders and provincial council

            who complained about Baghdad’s neglect

2008 IRGC-QF Gen Suleimani met with Pres Talabani and VP Mahdi to try to

            negotiate ceasefire between Maliki and Sadr

2008 Maliki said would continue to go after Mahdi Army in Basra that didn’t follow

            cease-fire

2008 Maliki aide said plan was to divide Mahdi Army between those that followed

            Sadr’s ceasefire and those that continued fighting

2008 Mahdi Army fired rockets at Green Zone for another day

2008 Interior Min announced 1000s of police would be fired for refusing to fight Mahdi

            Army

2008 Report 2 army regiments refused to fight Mahdi Army in Baghdad

2008 Mass grave with 52 bodies of ISI victims found in Zahmann Diyala River

            Valley

2009 British ended military mission in Iraq

2009 Deadline for power sharing and provincial elections in Kirkuk passed with no

            progress

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

2012 Oil Ministry paid oil companies in Kurdistan $650 mil for exports

2014 IS released 2^nd annual al-Naba report on its operations

2014 IS 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 1^st 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

2016 Sadr called off his protests after Abadi announced cabinet

View the Iraq History Timelines

Security In Iraq, Mar 22-28, 2018

The number of incidents reported in Iraq during the fourth week of March surpassed the yearly mean due to an increase in Islamic State attacks as well as an ongoing operation by Turkey against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Those two factors also resulted in a very high death count for the week. March is shaping up to be the month that IS switched from scattered hit and run attacks after railing from its territorial defeat to when it regrouped and converted back to openly confronting the Iraqi government. It has access to rural areas from Anbar and Ninewa straight across to Diyala, and has targeted local officials and security forces. These are the same tactics it used in its comeback after the Surge.