Security In Iraq Apr 22-28, 2023 REVISED

Violence in Iraq continues to be at the lowest level since 2003. There were only 2 incidents reported in the country from April 22-28. Two people were kidnapped in southern Irbil and one of them, a Kurdish soldier, was executed by the Islamic State.

This Day In Iraqi History - May 1 British attacked Iraqi army surrounding Habaniya airbase in Anbar Started Anglo-Iraq War

 

1919 War Min Churchill wrote PM George that British army was overstretched with new

additions like Mesopotamia

(Musings On Iraq Churchill In His Own Words On Mesopotamia/Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq review Churchill’s Folly, How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq review Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied)

(Musings On Iraq review Supremacy And Oil, Iraq, Turkey, and the Anglo-American World Order, 1918-1930)

This Day In Iraqi History - Apr 30 Iraqi army surrounded UK Habaniya airbase hoping to force British troops out of Iraq

(Wikipedia)

 

1915 Ottoman mayor murdered in Najaf for trying to draft men for war and taking money

from shrines

This Day In Iraqi History - Apr 29 Ottomans defeated British at Kut 2nd biggest loss for UK during WWI

(Daily Sabah)

 

1916 Ottomans defeated the British at Battle of Kut after 4 months Captured 13,309 prisoners 7,000

of which died in captivity British lost 33,000 casualties One of largest defeats for UK in WWI

This Day In Iraqi History - Apr 28 PM Gaylani and pan-Arab Golden Square officers decided to go to war with UK Asked Axis for military aid again

(Bridgeman Images)

1922 UK Iraq Commissioner Cox said King Faisal racially weak for disagreeing with him

This Day In Iraqi History - Apr 27 Pres Arif said Kurds would never have autonomy in Iraq

(Wikipedia)

 

1916 UK offered Ottomans all the artillery and 1 mil pounds in return for letting British forces leave

Kut UK forces had been under siege in Kut since Dec Ottomans refused offer

Review Confronting Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq

Leffler, Melvyn, Confronting Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq, New York: Oxford University Press, 2023

 

At the very end of Melvyn Leffler’s book he wrote that “It is important to get the story right in order to grapple earnestly with the dilemmas of statecraft.” He failed to accomplish that in his Confronting Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq. Leffler ended up agreeing with the White House that Iraq was a threat to the United States, that President Bush only wanted Iraq to change course using diplomacy, and Bush did not decide upon war until he publicly said so in March 2003. In the process the author completely missed how the debate over Iraq had changed during the 1990s from containment to regime change and war. The main cause of Leffler’s failure was his reliance upon Bush administration officials who were still trying to justify the war.