This Day in Iraqi History - Mar 16

1917 UK War Cabinet created Mesopotamia administration committee to decide

            on form of govt in captured areas

1959 Gen Qasim signed economic agreement with Soviet Union to move away from

            England and west

1975 Iraqi forces launched new offensive against Kurds after Iran stopped supporting

            them as part of Algiers agreement

1982 Iraq’s Dep PM Yassin Ramadan said Iraq ready to withdraw from Iran and would

            accept ceasefire Iran-Iraq War

1984 Iran fought off Iraqi effort to free Majnoon Islands Iran-Iraq War

1988 Iraqi forces dropped mustard and nerve gas on Halabja killing 5,000 Kurds to

            recapture town from Peshmerga and Iranian Revolutionary Guard

(Musings On Iraq article on the attack upon Halabja)

1991 Saddam made 1^st address since Gulf War Blamed southern uprising on Iran Said

            Kurds worked with foreigners and always defeated

1992 Saddam govt set off car bomb in Irbil after warning Kurds not to ally with

            foreign powers

2003 Azores summit with Bush Blair Portuguese Premier Barroso Bush said that Iraq

            war would start in days not weeks

2003 Blair got transcript of 60 Minutes interview with Pres Chirac who said he wanted

            30 more days for UN inspections

2003 Blair Bush Barroso agreed to give 2^nd UN resolution 24 more hours and pull it if

            didn’t have enough votes

2003 Bush and Blair gave UN 24 hour ultimatum to enforce its own resolutions

            on Iraq disarming or they would invade

2003 Blair complained that US screwed up a 2^nd UN resolution on Iraq

2003 VP Cheney told NBC that if world didn’t deal with Iraq it would go back to

            producing WMD

2003 VP Cheney refuted IAEA claim that Iraq had not reconstituted its nuclear weapons

            program

2003 VP Cheney on NBC IAEA wrong about aluminum tubes Iraq tried to buy and

            were wrong on Iraq in general

(Musings On Iraq article on the aluminum tubes story)

2003 Cheney on NBC said that Iraq had long standing relationship with Al Qaeda

2003 Cheney said that Army Chief of Staff Gen Shinseki wrong that US would need

            more troops to occupy Iraq than invade

2003 VP Cheney told NBC that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq

2004 UK Parliament report said British forces had bad intel on Iraq and govt limited them

            due to fears of anti-war sentiment

2004 DepDefSec Wolfowitz said Iraq invasion proved US view on Iraq’s links

            to terrorism

2006 New Iraqi parliament seated after Dec 05 elections

2007 ISI set off chlorine bomb in Anbar Killed 2 shiekhs in Fallujah and Ramadi that

            opposed ISI

2008 Maliki said he was going to take on security in Basra and that he was going to lead

            effort personally

2015 Abadi asked US for airstrikes to help Tikrit operation that was stalled

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