This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 26

1920 UK High Commissioner Sir Cox formed Iraqi provisional govt after 1920 Revolt led

British to give up direct rule Abd Naqib of Baghdad was premier Had 21 ministers 12 with no portfolios Naqib opposed giving any ministries to Shiites

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

1920 UK High Commissioner Sir Cox said Basra province showed no support for Mandate

Merchants in province just wanted to maintain status quo Mid-Euphrates sheikhs and landlords the same Baghdad and Mosul provinces want to have role in govt Intellectuals were nationalists

1952 Baghdad Pharmacy Collee strike over exams Turned into riot that spread to other

            cities 

1978 Pres Assad signed National Charter of Joint Action to counter Israel-Egypt peace treaty while

visiting Baghdad

1980 Iraq fired missiles at Dezful, Iran for 2^nd day

1980 Most of the Iranian forces driven out of Khorramshahr Gave Iraq control of Shatt al-Arab

1980 Soviet news agency accused Iraq of aligning with US in Iran-Iraq War

1980 Iran objected to Iraq abrogating 1975 Algiers Agreement in letter to U.N. Said Iran still

following it Iraq broke it

1984 Tariq Aziz told Sec of State Shultz Iraq ready to resume full diplomatic relations with US after

17 yr break

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

1989 Sec of State Baker memo said that ties with Iraq important to shape Middle East politics

2001 After anthrax letters sent to Wash DC ABC reported anthrax trademark of Iraq’s WMD

program

2001 Czech Interior Ministry told press 9/11 hijacker Atta met Iraqi intel officer in Prague

2003 DepDefSec Wolfowitz arrived in Baghdad and met with Chalabi who warned him insurgents

knew he was in the country

2003 Baghdad’s Rashid Hotel hit by rocket while Dep Sec of Def Wolfowitz staying there 16 killed

18 wounded

2003 US military said were not many foreign fighters in Baghdad

2003 Iraq Survey Group found aluminum tubes Iraq tried to buy were not for centrifuges Pentagon

replied group had not finished its analysis

2003 Report CIA interviewed head of Iraq’s centrifuge program who said Iraq ended centrifuge work

after Gulf War and tubes had nothing to do with it CIA claimed head of Iraq’s centrifuge program was not telling truth about aluminum tubes Iraq tried to buy

(Musings On Iraq article on the aluminum tubes story)

2004 PM Allawi blamed US for deaths of 49 army recruits killed in Diyala by Zarqawi

2005 Report CIA review said Zarqawi visited Baghdad May 02 but probably didn’t have protection of

Iraqi govt Review of Zarqawi’s trip based upon interviews with Saddam era Iraqi officials Bush admin originally claimed Zarqawi was given safe haven by Saddam and said sign of Iraq-Al Qaeda cooperation

2006 Maliki interview refuted US timetable for Iraq Said ISF could take over security in 6 months

not 12-18 US set out Said he didn’t agree to timetable Said he met with Sadr and they agreed greatest threat to Iraq was Al Qaeda in Iraq and Baathists not militias

2008 US Special Forces raided ISI camp in Syria used to ferry foreign fighters into Iraq captured

huge amount of documents

2017 Iraqi forces renewed west Anbar op This time aimed at liberating Qaim along Syrian border

2017 More clashes between Iraqi forces and Peshmerga in Fish Khabur and Altun Kupri in Ninewa

View the Iraq History Timelines 

Lasting Lessons From “The Anbar Awakening” Interview with Carter Malkasian, Author of Illusions of Victory

The conventional American wisdom on the Anbar Awakening was that it was a turning point in the war in Iraq. When a few tribes in central Anbar decided to rise up against the insurgency in 2006 it eventually expanded across the province, and was duplicated by the Americans during the Surge in 2007. It was such a success that the U.S. attempted to replicate it in Afghanistan. In effect this became a mythos of a tribal revolt. It held such sway that when the insurgency made a return in Iraq in 2014 with the Islamic State there were people in the U.S. calling for arming the tribes. Carter Malkasian attempted to upend that entire narrative in his book Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State. Malkasian argued that the Awakening was actually a fleeting success as shown by its quick disillusion in 2007, and its inability to maintain security in Anbar, which allowed the return of IS a few years later. This is an interview with Malkasian about his ideas on the Awakening and U.S. intervention.

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 25

1922 Gertrude Bell wrote that King Faisal was trying to create his own party but was being played by politicians

(Musings On Iraq book review of Gertrude Bell And Iraq)

1937 Nuri al-Said’s son told him to return from exile in Egypt after made contact with pan-Arab

Golden Square officers

1980 Iraq fired missiles at Dezful, Iran

1983 Iran claimed Iraqi troops destroyed Kurdish town of Penjwin

1984 Iranian troops recaptured Mehran, Iran ending Op Dawn 7

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

2000 Congress authorized increase in support for Iraqi opposition groups to $25 mil in 2001 $18 mil

would got to INC

2002 VP Cheney met with Russian For Min Told him countries that sided with US in war would get

preferential treatment in contracts afterward

2003 Iraqi prisoners were stripped, handcuffed and piled in pyramid on top of each other by US

jailers in Abu Ghraib

2004 Report top contracting official at US Army Corps of Engineers questioned Halliburton’s no-bid

Iraq contracts

2004 Report 380 tons of high grade explosives looted from Al Qaqaa nuclear site

2004 Kurds marched in Kirkuk demanding Kurdish control of city

2005 Results of Constitutional referendum announced 79% voted for constitution Anbar and

Salahaddin overwhelmingly voted no

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

2005 Death toll for Americans in Iraq reached 2,000 since 03 invasion

2005 Iraq Body Count est 26,690-30,051 Iraqi civilians and police died since 03 invasion

2006 Bush speech Iraq challenge of our time Knew people weren’t happy with Iraq war and neither

was he Bush speech said US winning in Iraq Bush said he didn’t believe in timetables for Iraq but Gen Casey and Amb Khalilzad issued a timetable the day before Said they were benchmarks and not a timetable At time he thought strategy failing and working on new one

(Musings On Iraq article on pre-Surge US Iraq strategy)

2006 CNN poll found 34% supported Bush on Iraq, 64% disapproved

2006 Maliki criticized US timetable for his govt Said no one had right to impose deadlines on Iraqi

govt Said timetable was created for US consumption before Nov elections Amb halilzad said Maliki agreed to idea of a timetable

2006 U.S. and ISF raided Mahdi Army areas in east Baghdad Maliki complained about raids saying

the wouldn’t happen again

2006 Report British military wanted to withdraw from Iraq withina  year British officials told US

that British military near breaking point with long deployments to Iraq

2006 Special Insp Gen for Iraq Recon audit found some US reconstruction contracts had 55%

overhead costs Main reason was long delay between singing contracts, assembling teams and actual work starting US wrote poor contracts bad to no oversight needless delays poor practices

2006 Report US raid in Washash Baghdad found Mahdi Army papers listing 65 houses that had

Sunni families in them replaced by Shiites Also draft of threats to Sunnis to drive them out

2006 Report Feb 05 Gen Casey said US would transfer security to ISF by end of 05 Jun 06 Casey

sent plan to White House sying that US troops would start withdrawing by Sep 06 and have 50% out by Dec 07 Oct 24 Casey said that ISF would take over security in 12-15 months

2009 ISI bombed Justice & Municipalities Ministries in Baghdad 155 dead 721 wounded Maliki

blamed Baathists but was ISI

View the Iraq History Timelines 

Security In Iraq Oct 15-21, 2018

(Iraqi News)

Incidents have been higher in October than previous months. This has been due to continued Islamic State rebuilding in central Iraq, and the group returning to Anbar and Baghdad. Turkey continues to hit the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Kurdistan as well every week.

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 24

1978 Pres Assad visited Baghdad 1^st time to talk about unifying Iraq and Syria Issued

unification declaration

1980 Iraq took city center in Khorramshahr and declared it taken Fighting continued for four more

days

1984 US Info Service reopened office in Baghdad Closed since 1958 in first step to reestablish formal

relations between US & Iraq

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

1997 KDP launched offensive against PUK ending last ceasefire in civil war

(Musings On Iraq book review of The Kurds, A Modern History)

(Musings On Iraq book review Kurds of Iraq, Tragedy and Hope)

2002 Pentagon’s Policy Counterterrorism Group briefed Rumsfeld on Iraq-Al Qaeda ties

2002 Rumsfeld told press Policy Counterterrorism Group was not an intel unit

2002 Intel officials complained to press that Pentagon politicizing intel on Iraq

2003 US secured $13 bil in aid and loans from allies for Iraq at Madrid conference

2003 Maysan police chief assassinated by a local political faction

2005 Palestine Hotel and Sheraton Ishtar Hotel in Baghdad hit by truck bombs

2006 US Cmdr Gen Casey and Amb Khalilzad announced new timetable for US goals in Iraq Said ISF should

take over security in 12-18 months Govt had to demobilize and integrate Shiite militias, Draft bill to divide oil revenues End deBaathification Hold provincial elections Revise constitute Set no date for wen goals had to be achieved or any consequences for not meeting them

2014 Babil’s Jurf al-Sakhr finally cleared after a dozen attempts All civilians forced out of city and

not allowed to return

View the Iraq History Timelines 

Official Results Announced for Iraq’s Kurdistan, Big Win For KDP

(AFP)

The Election Commission finally announced the official results of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) balloting. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) won a big victory, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) recovered from its embarrassing finish in 2013, while some of the opposition parties are claiming fraud.

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 23

1918 Battle of Shirqat started as British forces moved north from Baghdad to seize Mosul

province and its oil before war ended  

(Musings On Iraq article on how Mosul province became part of Iraq)

1973 Baghdad ordered its units home in 1973 Arab-Israeli War

1977 Ayatollah Khomeini’s son Mustafa died in exile in Najaf Iranian secret police believed to be

behind it

1980 US said Iran’s national integrity was threatened by Iraq Pres Carter was trying to get US

hostages released by Iran

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

1991 Baghdad imposed economic embargo on Kurdistan in retaliation for clashes with

            Peshmerga

1996 PUK and KDP signed ceasefire brokered by US, UK and Turkey

(Musings On Iraq book review of The Kurds, A Modern History)

(Musings On Iraq book review Kurds of Iraq, Tragedy and Hope)

1997 UN Resolution 1134 said that Iraq had to fully comply with weapons inspectors and

condemned non-cooperation Were splits within UN security council over continued weapons inspections

2002 US and UK submitted draft UN resolution for new inspections in Iraq

2003 Madrid Conf began with 76 countries to garner international aid for Iraq Germany Russia

France offered nothing having opposed war

2003 US guards at Abu Ghraib prison photographed an Iraqi prisoner with a leash on and other

abuses

2004 Al Qaeda in Iraq dressed as police took 49 Iraqi soldiers off bus and executed them in Diyala

2005 Islamic Army got in gun battle with Al Qaeda in Iraq in Taji north Baghdad over the latter

killing members of the Islamic Army

2006 Report UN recorded 1.6 mil refugees 1.5 mil displaced 40,000 Iraqis arriving in Syria per month

365,000 new refugees since Samarra bombing in Feb 06

View the Iraq History Timelines