This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 16

 

1917 UK War Cabinet created Mesopotamia administration committee to decide on form of govt

in captured areas

1921 Churchill told Foreign Secretary Lloyd George there was no longer a plan for a Kurdish state

            Instead Kurds would be included in new Iraq

(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 Kurds of Iraq, Tragedy and Hope)

(Musings On Iraq review The Kurdish Revolt 1961-1970)

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

West

1959 Nasser organized 50,000 for anti-Iraq protest in Cairo

(Musings On Iraq interview with Western Kentucky’s Prof Romero on the Qasim govt)

1964 Arif govt granted amnesty to Kurds who took part in Barzani revolt since 1961

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

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

(Musings On Iraq review The Kurdish Revolt 1961-1970)

(Musings On Iraq review Journey Among Brave Men, Travels in Kurdistan)

1975 Iraqi forces launched new offensive against Kurds after Iran stopped supporting them as part of

Algiers agreement

(Musings On Iraq review Killing Hope, U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II)

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

in Iran-Iraq War

1984 Iran fought off Iraqi effort to free Majnoon Islands in Basra  

1984 CIA Station Chief in Lebanon William Buckley kidnapped by Islamic Jihad-Hezbollah and sent

to Iran Was retaliation for US support for Iraq in Iran-Iraq War

(Musings On Iraq How US Tilt Towards Iraq In Iran-Iraq War Led To Iran-Contra Scandal)

1985 Republican Guard joined counterattack against Iran Op Badr in south Iran threw in reserves Iraq

recaptured Ajrada Sabkha Beida 2,000 Iranians captured

(Musings On Iraq review Iran-Iraq War Volume 2: Iran Strikes back, June 1982-December 1986)

(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 review The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988)

(Musings On Iraq review Iran-Iraq War, The Lion of Babylon, 1980-1988)

(Musings On Iraq review The Iran-Iraq War)

(Musings On Iraq review The Longest War, The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict)

1988 Saddam accused residents in Halabja of working with Iran Said “Kill them all” Ordered mustard

and nerve gas attack upon town Killed 5,000 Kurds to recapture town

(Musings On Iraq Iraq’s 1988 Assault Upon Halabja, And Its Conflation With The Anfal Campaign)

(Musings On Iraq Origins Of Iraq’s WMD Programs)

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

with foreigners and always defeated

(Musings On Iraq interview with National Univ of Singapore’s Fanar Haddad on the Impact of the 1991 Uprising)

(Musings On Iraq Remembering The 1991 Uprising In Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq Saddam’s View of Iraq’s 1991 Uprising)

(Musings On Iraq When The US Helped Start A Rebellion In Iraq That It Didn’t Want)

(Musings On Iraq review Iraq in Wartime, Soldiering, Martyrdom, and Remembrance)

1992 Baghdad set off car bomb in Irbil after warning Kurds not to ally with foreign powers

1994 Ahmed Chalabi and Chibli Mallat created Iraq Trust Claimed it wanted to settle Iraqi exiles using

frozen Iraqi assets in US and England Was actually attempt by Chalabi to take control of money

2003 Azores summit with Bush PM Blair Portuguese PM Barroso Bush said that Iraq war would start in

days not weeks Agreed to give 2^nd UN resolution 24 more hours

(Musings On Iraq review Leap of Faith, Hubris Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy

Tragedy)

(Musings On Iraq Review Hubris, The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, And The Selling Of The Iraq War)

(Musings On Iraq review The Bush Administrations and Saddam Hussein, Deciding on Conflict)

2003 Bush and PM Blair gave UN 24 hour ultimatum to enforce its own resolutions on Iraq disarming or

they would invade

2003 PM Blair got transcript of 60 Minutes interview with Pres Chirac who said he wanted 30 more days

for UN inspections

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

(Musings On Iraq Review The Report of the Iraq Inquiry, Executive Summary)

2003 VP Cheney told Meet The Press that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq Said that

Army Chief of Staff Gen Shinseki was wrong that US would need more troops to occupy Iraq than invade Told NBC that if world didn’t deal with Iraq it would go back to producing WMD Was already reconstituting its nuclear weapons program Claimed UN inspectors were wrong about Iraq’s weapons program in general citing Iraq buying aluminum tubes which US claimed were for centrifuges Said Iraq had long standing relationship with Al Qaeda

(Musings On Iraq How A Contested Aluminum Tubes Story Became The Basis For War With Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq How US Intelligence Created An Iraqi Nuclear Threat In 2002)

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

(Musings On Iraq UN Inspectors Were Right Iraq Was Not A Threat)

(Musings On Iraq Iraq’s Rejection of UN Inspectors Led To Mistrust Over WMD and 2003 Invasion)

(Musings On Iraq review Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq review What Happened, Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception)

(Musings On Iraq review Hard Lessons, The Iraq Reconstruction Experience)

2003 ORHA staff that was to run postwar Iraq began leaving US for Kuwait

(Musings On Iraq review Iraq and Back, Inside The War To Win The Peace)

(Musings On Iraq Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction Hard Lessons Chapter 4 Staging in Kuwait)

2003 Report US and France sources for all of Iraq’s germ samples for its biological weapons program in

the 1980s

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 claims about Iraq’s links to terrorism

2006 New Iraqi parliament seated after Dec 05 elections

2007 2 PM Maliki aides said premier told Sadr to stand down Mahdi Army at start of Surge In return

Maliki would push US to focus upon insurgency rather than militias

2007 ISI set off chlorine bombs in Amiriya Fallujah Fallujah and Ramadi 2 Awakening sheikhs killed

(Musings On Iraq The Demise But Not Death of Al Qaeda In Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq How A Change In Perceptions Led To The Anbar Awakening)

(Musings On Iraq interview with author Carter Malkasian on Anbar Awakening)

(Musings On Iraq interview with author Green on Fallujah during the Surge)

(Musings On Iraq review Confronting Al Qaeda, The Sunni Awakening and American Strategy In Al Anbar)

(Musings On Iraq review The Marines Take Anbar, The Four-Year Fight Against Al Qaeda)

(Musings On Iraq review Illusions of Victory, The Anbar Awakening And The Rise Of The Islamic State)

(Musings On Iraq review Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency)

(Musings On Iraq review The Sheriff of Ramadi, Navy SEALS and the Winning of Anbar)

(Musings On Iraq review Fallujah Redux The Anbar Awakening and the Struggle With Al Qaeda)

2007 Sadr called on followers to resist U.S. occupation 1000s of Sadrists marched

2008 US-Iraqi meeting discussed security in Basra US said couldn’t be taken care of until Mosul op over

PM Maliki said he was going to take on security in Basra and that he was going to lead effort personally

2008 Mahdi Army fought police in 2 villages in Diyala

(Musings On Iraq Diyala Province Backgrounder)

2008 Fmr head of Defense Policy Board Perle NYTimes OpEd said plan to turn over Iraq to Iraqis right

after invasion Stopped by Sec State Powell Natl Sec Adv Rice and CIA Dir Tenet Said US thought it knew better than Iraqis Said Iraqi opposition should have run Iraq Said underestimated how badly Bush admin could mess things up

2008 CPA head Bremer NYTimes OpEd Said US didn’t have postwar Iraq plan Didn’t have

counterinsurgency plan after invasion Only sent half the troops necessary Regretted not pushing for better military plan

(Musings On Iraq review Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq review Losing Iraq, Inside The Post War Reconstruction Fiasco)

(Musings On Iraq review Leap of Faith, Hubris Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy

Tragedy)

2008 Report 1/3 or more of fuel from Baiji refinery stolen in 07 Believed worth $2bil ISI thought

to make up to $100,000/day from refinery Feb 08 head of intel at refinery arrested for smuggling and supporting insurgents

2008 Report PM Maliki advisor said would take years to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure Adv to Electricity

Min said budget for reconstruction only half of what was needed Power plants only producing at 50% capacity

2015 PM Abadi asked US for airstrikes to help Tikrit operation that was stalled Would put ISF backed by

Coalition airstrikes in lead in war

2015 Report Iran sent short range ballistic missiles to its allies in the Hashd for Tikrit operation

(Musings On Iraq News Of Iran Moving Missiles Into Iraq Continue)

2018 Turkey launched operation against PKK moving 15km into Irbil province

2018 Hundreds protested in Baghdad over lack of services Blocked a main road

View the Iraq History Timelines