(Al Jazeera)
On January 25 the Federal Supreme Court said that sending money to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was illegal. The decision was the result of a lawsuit filed by Basra parliamentarian Mustafa Jabar Sanad. He was drawn to action by members of the Coordination Framework who are opponents of the Kurds and objected to the Kazemi and new Sudani governments sending monthly payments to the KRG without a budget agreement.
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| (AP) |
1941 UK Foreign Office decided to give money to Regent to help him return to power
(Musings On Iraq review Persian Gulf Command, A History of the Second World War In Iran and Iraq)
(Musings On Iraq review Rashid Ali al-Gailani, The National Movement in Iraq 1939-1941)
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| (Getty) |
1927 1st student strike in Iraq over Lebanese teacher writing book which attacked Shiites
Teacher fired and book banned Students called for freedom of speech and teacher be reinstated Broken up by fire dept and police Al-Ahali leaders arrested
(Musings On Iraq review The Modern History of Iraq)
(Musings On Iraq review Red Star Over Iraq, Iraqi Communism Before Saddam)
(Musings On Iraq review Iraq’s Democratic Moment)
(Musings On Iraq A History Of The Iraqi Communist Party Interview With Univ of East Anglia’s Johan Franzen)
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| (AP) |
1917 British captured Ottoman fort at Khadairi Bend in campaign to recapture Kut
1920 Turkish National Pact said Turkey gave up rights to all Ottoman provinces with Arab
majorities including Basra and Baghdad Did not include Mosul province which Turkey claimed had Turkish majority Kurds called Turks
(Musings On Iraq review Turkey, the US and Iraq)
 |
| (Belfer Center) |
1925 League of Nations Commission on Mosul arrived in province to protests Was to
determine who would get Mosul Iraq or Turkey Commission interviewed hundreds of locals and mapped economy land trade routes ethnicities
(Musings On Iraq review The Modern History of Iraq)
(Musings On Iraq How The Ottoman Province Of Mosul Became Part Of Iraq)
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| (Medium) |
1941 Cabinet met and decided to resign to force PM Gaylani to resign He refused PM asked
Golden Square officers to resolve dispute Regent said he could pick PM Told military to stay out of politics
Feith, Douglas, War and Decision, Inside The Pentagon At The Dawn Of The War On Terrorism, New York: Harper Collins, 2008
Douglas Feith was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Bush administration. War and Decision, Inside The Pentagon At The Dawn Of The War On Terrorism is his attempt to answer the critics of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. His problem was that he tried to make this argument using what was known in 2008 when the justifications for war had been disproven. He twists and turns events and omits others to try to say that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States while blaming the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and Paul Bremer for everything that went wrong. War and Decision is an amazing example of verbal gymnastics but ironically exposes many of the problems with the Iraq War.
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| (Al Mirbad) |
865 Mutazz acknowledged as the new Abbasid caliph in Baghdad
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| (Al Sharqiya) |
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| (AP) |
1969 Former MP Bajari during spy trial claimed opposition leaders were trying to
overthrow Pres Bakr’s govt
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| (David Kay) |
1920 British cabinet decided Iraqi oil would be developed by a public company Foreign Secretary Curzon
overturned decision
(Musings On Iraq review The Modern History of Iraq)
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| (Bechtel) |
1921 Gertrude Bell wrote that British officers in Mosul province thought they could convince Kurds to
vote for Faisal as king in referendum They didn’t
(Musings On Iraq review Gertrude Bell And Iraq)
(Musings On Iraq review Gertrude Bell, Explorer of the Middle East)
(Musings On Iraq movie review Letters from Baghdad)
(Musings On Iraq review Desert Queen, The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia)
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| (AFP) |
1916 Battle of Hanna Defile British attacked Ottomans but failed 2,741 British casualties
Was defeat in British effort to relieve siege at Kut
1915 UK troops and ships attacked Turks and Arabs in Ruta Creek, Basra Turned back Did wound Ottoman
commander in Basra who was sent to Baghdad
(Musings On Iraq review When God Made Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921)
Van Buren, Peter, We Meant Well, How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2011
Martin van Buren was a State Department official who was sent to Iraq for one year to head an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (ePRT) in 2009. His book We Meant Well, How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People reads like a travel journal. The highlight of the book is his description of how ridiculous the U.S. rebuilding effort was. That’s overshadowed by van Buren’s cynicism and immaturity which dominates his writing.
 |
| (Wikipedia) |
1915 Ottoman governor of Baghdad wrote US consulate that British were distributing
money to clerics in Najaf and Karbala
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| (Kurdistan 24) |
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| (AP) |
1914 US consulate report UK forces in Basra under constant harassment by tribes
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| (AP) |
(UNSCOM)
1913 US consul in
Baghdad wrote if British took Mesopotamia there would be little resistance
because
public so apathetic
Iraq was relatively quiet for another week. Security incidents were in single digits once again the second week of January while a pro-Iran group carried out a rare attack.
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| (Wikipedia) |
1943 Iraq declared war on Axis
(Musings On Iraq review Persian Gulf Command, A History of the Second World War In Iran and Iraq)
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| (AP) |
1915 Sir Percy Cox reported some Arab sheikhs had given up ties with UK and joined Turks
following calls for jihad
 |
| (AP) |
1928 Abdul Sadoun became PM for 3rd time Would be PM 4 times Replaced Askari who was
forced to resign over opposition to his conscription plan for army Sadoun compromise between King and England to try to get Anglo-Iraq Treaty passed
(Musings On Iraq review The Chatham House Version and other Middle-Eastern Studies)
(Musings On Iraq review Iraq Between the Two World Wars, The Militarist Origins of Tyranny)
 |
| (Getty Images) |
1916 British attacked Ottomans at Wadi River but stopped 1,613 British casualties 2,000
Turkish ones Ottomans retreated next day
Makiya, Kanan, Republic Of Fear, The Politics of Modern Iraq, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998
Originally released in 1989 Kanan Makiya’s Republic of Fear, The Politics of Modern Iraq was a huge hit in the West as a diatribe against the rule of Saddam Hussein. The front cover has a blurb from the New York Times Book Review saying it was “required reading” to understand Iraq. Subsequent histories of the country would often cite this work. What people usually said about it however and what it was actually about are very different. Republic of Fear was not focusing upon the crimes of Saddam through murder, torture and imprisonment although it starts with that, but was actually an argument against Baathist ideology. Makiya argued that the problems with Iraq started with pan-Arabism and Baathism which led to Saddam but his thesis was deeply flawed and full of major problems.
 |
| (Wikipedia) |
866 Papers of Abbasid Caliph Mutasin’s resignation signed
 |
| (Wikipedia) |
1258 Mongols began siege of Baghdad Would eventually kill the entire population of the
city
 |
| (IOM) |
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| (White House) |
1917 British failed at 2nd attack upon Ottomans at Khadairi Bend outside Kut
1916 British took Shaikh Saad after Ottomans retreated but not before inflicting heavy
British casualties
866 Abbasid Caliph Mutasin deposed by his adviser Ibn Tahir
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| (Al Sumaria) |
866 Ibn Tahir negotiated deal to split revenues of Baghdad with Samarra and depose Abbasid Caliph
Mutasin in return
1909 Riots in Mosul killed Sheikh Said Sufi leader in Sulaymaniya Led his followers to
revolt cutting off trade in northern Mosul province
Gordon, Michael and Trainor, General Bernard, Cobra II, The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, New York: Vintage Books, 2007
Cobra II, The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by New York Times journalist Michael Gordon and former General Bernard Trainor is about the invasion of Iraq and the immediate aftermath. It is a traditional account of those events documenting how the U.S. focused upon overthrowing Saddam at the expense of planning for the aftermath. That led to instability and civil war in Iraq. It also makes the common argument that if the U.S. had only made better decisions like sending more troops Iraq could have worked out.
 |
| (Wikipedia) |
1909 Riot in Mosul after Kirkuk soldier insulted a woman Organized by elites opposed to
Ottoman reforms 60 killed
 |
| (Wikipedia) |
1916 British attacked Shaikh Saad in campaign to relieve troops trapped at Kut Turned back
by Ottomans 600 British casualties
 |
| (Jason Institute) |
1916 Sykes and Picot drafted deal on dividing Ottoman Empire Baghdad and Basra vilayets
would go to UK Mosul to France Would also include independent Arab state for Sharif Hussein
(Musings On Iraq review Empires of the Sand, The Struggle For Mastery In The Middle East 1789-1923)
 |
| (Reuters) |
1915 Suleiman Bey took over Iraq Command for Ottomans Called on Arab sheikhs to join war against
British and planned on retaking Basra
 |
| (Wikipedia) |
1914 UK set out from Qurna, Basra north Found Tigris River had been blocked Gunboats
couldn’t follow Forced UK to retreat back to Qurna
(Musings On Iraq review When God Made Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921)
1638 Ottoman Sultan Murad IV began siege of Baghdad Captured it by end of year Massacred Shiites
