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)

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)

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

(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 1^st 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 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 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)

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

judgments about Iraq

(Musings On Iraq article Iraq, One Of The Worst Intelligence Failures In US History)

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 intelligence 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 intel 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 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

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

(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 2^nd 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 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

(Musings On Iraq interview with Cambridge’s Michael Clark on Sadr, protests and PM Abadi’s reforms) 

View the Iraq History Timelines