This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 22

 

1921 UK Cabinet approved Colonial Sec Churchill’s choice of Faisal as new ruler in

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 Imagining The Nation, Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq)

(Musings On Iraq review The Chatham House Version and other Middle-Eastern Studies)

1933 UK Amb to Iraq said that parliament full of politicians who never meant what they said Institution

was a sham

1945 Arab League formed Iraq was one of the architects

1961 Qasim govt closed KDP newspaper Last Kurdish paper still publishing

1973 Kuwait demanded Iraq withdraw its troops from its territory after gunfight on Mar 20 Iraq refused

1974 CIA memo said neither US nor Iran wanted a Kurdish govt but didn't want its conflict with Iraq

resolved

1975 Iran ended military aid to KDP

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

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

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

(Musings On Iraq review The Great Betrayal, How America Abandoned The Kurds And Lost The Middle East)

(Musings On Iraq When The Shah and Nixon Manipulated The Kurds)

1977 Baath Regional Command kicked out members who wanted leniency after anti-govt riots during

Karbala pilgrimage

1981 Iraq fired missiles at Dezful and Ahvaz Iran in shift in war as Iraq stopped major land attacks

1983 Helicopter crash revealed Italy providing advanced electronic equipment to Iraq

1984 Soviet Union agreed to build a new nuclear power plant in Iraq to replace Osirak facility destroyed

by Israel in 1981

1985 Iraqi counter attack forced Iranians back into Maysan-Basra marshes 

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

1985 Tehran Tabriz Shiraz and Isfahan bombed by Iraqi air force War of Cities

(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 Start of 2^nd Anfal Campaign to destroy PUK and KDP bases in Sulaymaniya and Kirkuk

1988 Qara Dagh, Sulaymaniya hit with chemical artillery shells as start of 2^nd Anfal Campaign

(Musings On Iraq Iraq’s Anfal Campaign And The Destruction Of The Kurdish Opposition)

1990 Canadian Gerald Bull working on supergun for Iraq found dead in Brussels Mossad believed to be

responsible

1991 US shot down another Iraqi fighter after warned it no flights during uprisings

(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)

1991 Turkey held second meeting with KDP and PUK Talabani said this marked a new page in Kurdish-

Turkish relations

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

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

2002 UK Foreign Office Pol Dir Ricketts memo to Foreign Sec Straw said US scrambling to find Iraq-Al

Qaeda links and argument unconvincing

2002 UK Foreign Office Pol Dir Ricketts memo to Foreign Sec Straw said no signs Iraq working on its

WMD or nuke programs

2002 MI6 Dir Gieve letter to Home Office secretary said no evidence Iraq involved in 9/11 Said Iraq not

involved in anti-west terrorism since 93 attempt on ex-Pres Bush

2002 UK Def Min Hoon warned Blair if UK helped overthrow Saddam it would have to stay in Iraq for

years

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

2002 Bush said that Iraq had not allowed verification of its destruction of its WMD

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

2003 British forces seized Rumaila oil field in Basra

(Musings On Iraq review Special Operations Forces in Iraq)

2003 US Marines thought no more resistance within Um Qasr in Basra and moved towards port

2003 US forces reached Nasiriya and secured bridges across the Euphrates

(Musings On Iraq review Voices From Iraq, A People’s History, 2003-2009)

2003 US intel saw trucks full of Fedayeen moving through Karbala Gap 1^st real reports on this force which US knew little about forces

2003 US forces in Samawa attacked for first time by Fedayeen

2003 Saddam received report large U.S. force attacking west Iraq Led him to believe invasion coming

from Jordan not Kuwait

2003 CIA officials told Wash Post they were always skeptical of Iraq-Niger uranium story that was used

in Bush State of Union

(Musings On Iraq How US Intelligence Failed The Iraq-Niger Uranium Story)

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

2003 Sec Def Rumsfeld demanded that all Americans to run Iraqi ministries be from Pentagon ORHA

head Garner said no time for replacements

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

(Musings On Iraq on Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Hard Lessons Chapter 3 The Department of Defense Takes Charge)

(Musings On Iraq review State of Denial, Bush At War, Part III)

2003 International protests in several major cities against Iraq war

2004 Unemployed protest in Basra turned violent Stones and Molotov cocktails thrown at British forces

2004 Natl Sec Adv Rice Wash Post OpEd said would have been irresponsible not to look for link

between Iraq and 9/11

2007 Mahdi Army and insurgents fought in 5 Baghdad neighborhoods Came amidst many western

reports that Mahdi Army had withdrawn from streets

(Musings On Iraq Columbia University Charts Sectarian Cleansing Of Baghdad)

2007 Lord Butler told UK parliament UK and US didn't have conclusive intel on Iraq’s WMD UK intel

said in Aug 02 that it knew little about Iraq’s WMD since 1988 yet Blair told govt intel was extensive and authoritative

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

2007 Spec Insp Gen for Iraq Recon issued review of US reconstruction Said Pentagon had no strategy

before and after invasion No unity of effort Little oversight and coordination between US agencies

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

(Musings On Iraq review State of Denial, Bush At War, Part III)

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

2007 Sadrists attacked Electricity Dist Dept and burned Fadhila HQ in Basra Came after former director

of Electricity Dist Dept who was a Sadrist was arrested by British Sadrists claimed Fadhila behind arrest Former director accused of corruption and fraud Tribes and Sadrists accused Basra governor from Fadhila of corruption nepotism running oil smuggling rings

2007 SCIRI HQ in Kut Wasit hit by mortars as SCIRI-Sadr rivalry increased in city

2007 GAO Report Hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of tons of munitions were left unguarded by

US after 2003 invasion Much of it looted by insurgents US expected friendly environment after invasion which was why left depots unguarded

2008 Basra Ops Command presented security plan to U.S. and PM Maliki Premier said pre-emptive

had to be taken immediately and didn’t want to wait for plan Said he was going to Basra next day Blamed UK for problems in Basra

2008 Gen Petraeus met with PM Maliki to go over proposed Basra op Maliki said he had his own plan

that would start within days Petraeus promised US support

2009 Report US released 100s of prisoners from Camp Bucca under SOFA ISF afraid releasees will

revive militias and insurgency Senior intel officer said some ex-detainees regrouping as special groups in Basra and Baghdad while others joining ISI cells in Baghdad and Anbar

2010 9 provinces from central and southern Iraq demanded recount in election

2010 Iran got Shiite parties to agree to keep Talabani as president

2011 Gorran told Pres Barzani had to make good on his promises of reform after protests in Sulaymaniya

2011 When police tried to break up protest in Halabja violence broke out with one policeman killed

(Musings On Iraq interview with journalist Wladimir Van Wilgenburg on 2011 KRG protests)

2013 ISI took over Buhriz, Kirkuk

2013 Anbar councilman filed lawsuit over provincial vote being postponed in Anbar

2015 Badr head Amiri called Iraqi army weaklings for asking for Coalition air strikes

(Musings On Iraq Badr Organization A View Into Iraq’s Violent Past And Present)

2016 Sadr said he had come up with 90 nominations for Abadi’s new cabinet

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

View the Iraq History Timelines