An Iraqi girl gets a close look at an Iraqi National Guardsman patrolling Haifa Street in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 7, 2005. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
|
INDEPTH: IRAQ
The story of Iraq
CBC News Online | April 27, 2006
The land occupied by the modern state of Iraq is among the most historic on Earth. Home to humanity's first civilization, Sumer, it has been the backdrop to thousands of years of momentous human events.
What is currently Iraq resulted from the break-up of the Ottoman Empire after World War One. When France and Britain divvied up the Middle East, Britain got the "Fertile Crescent," the arc of land including today’s Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Egypt.
The borders of these nations had no roots in history but were simply agreed upon by France and Britain. Like the nations formed out of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire in the same period, or the crumbling of other colonial empires 40 years later, this was to cause many problems.
Initially the government of Iraq was a monarchy. Through the 1920s and 1930s, Iraq slowly gained more independence. There were many factions within the country competing for power and Iraq remained politically unstable. One thing generally agreed on, however, was dissatisfaction with the national borders that had been dictated by foreigners.
From the beginning Iraq wanted to have Kuwait included in its territory. In 1939, Iraq set out to conquer the tiny land, which was still a colony of Britain. At the last moment, however, the King of Iraq died in a car crash and the invasion was called off. In 1961, when Britain granted Kuwait its independence, Iraq began invasion preparations, only backing down when Britain sent troops back into the region.
In 1958, the Iraqi monarchy – the same family that continues to rule neighbouring Jordan – was overthrown and Iraq became an Islamic republic. The king and most of his family were slaughtered in the coup. The next year, there was another coup attempt, but it failed. One of the members of the hit squad was a young officer who would later become famous: Saddam Hussein.
In these postwar years Iraq, like many of its neighbours, continued to be politically unstable. During the Cold War, the United States needed an Islamic ally strong enough to counterbalance Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, and by 1956 the U.S. began sending technical and military assistance to Iraq. Eventually, as the Shah's Iran emerged as a power, Iraq declined in importance.
By the 1970s, Iraq had been under military rule for 20 years. By then, no matter who was the official leader, the man behind the throne was Saddam Hussein. In 1979, he put an end to the charade and took sole power himself, purging his few remaining rivals.
That was the year of Iran's revolution. With the Shah replaced by a radically anti-American government, the U.S. suddenly focused its attention on Iraq. For the next decade, billions of dollars in aid poured in. As well as weapons, Iraq was also given the technology to establish a respectable communications network and industrial base.
A major American motivation for aid to Iraq during this period was the Iran-Iraq War started by Saddam in 1980. Though the border between the countries remained unchanged, the fighting cost some one million lives and shattered the economies of both nations.
By 1988, the U.S. could take comfort in the knowledge that its erstwhile client, Iran, had lost its impressive military capacity, and a strong and pliable
regime had emerged in Baghdad.
Everything changed in 1990. It was in that year that Saddam Hussein renewed his nation's threat to Kuwait. This time it was not about territory, but money.
The Iran-Iraq war had been largely financed by the oil-rich gulf states, especially Kuwait. Now that the war was over, Kuwait demanded its loans be paid back. What's more, the price of oil, which had provided Iraq with most of its income, was low. Saddam accused Kuwait of deliberately flooding the market to pressure Iraq.
Apparently the United States told Iraq it was not officially interested in the issue. Saddam Hussein took this to mean he had a free hand in dealing with his grievances, so on August 2, 1990, he invaded Kuwait, his troops easily overrunning the little country. The United Nations condemned the action and, in a series of resolutions, not only imposed a complete blockade on Iraq but authorized member states to reverse the invasion by any means.
The U.S. took it from there, engaging in a military and diplomatic frenzy that resulted in a multinational force composed of several NATO countries including Britain, France and Canada, as well as neighbouring Arab states previously hostile to the U.S. Even former Warsaw Pact countries sent in units.
Gulf War |
When the UN deadline for Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait expired on January 15, 1991, the coalition launched a massive attack on Iraq. The American air forces employed their most advanced Cold War technologies to destroy Iraq's air defence network, and from then on owned the skies.
Due to American military control of information, people outside Iraq saw only pinpoint, surgical strikes from "smart" bombs and missiles. However, the reality was quite different; the vast majority of air strikes were carried out using old-fashioned unguided bombs. In total, the equivalent of seven Hiroshima bombs hit Iraq, killing some 100,000 people, mostly members of the military. In addition, tens of thousands of deaths were attributed to less direct results of the bombing,
including many from disease and malnutrition.
When the ground war began Iraqi forces crumpled in the face of American hammer-blows. By the time the fighting stopped on February 28, 1991, not only had Iraqi forces been thrown from Kuwait, they had been nearly annihilated. And Iraq itself was starving and in ruins.
After the war, UN weapons inspectors were dispatched to Iraq. Their
mission was to locate all stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and the
means of producing them.
Soon after the shooting had stopped, it emerged that Iraq had spent years
secretly trying to produce atomic, biological and chemical (ABC) weapons. It had
used chemical weapons, the cheapest of the three, in 1988 against a Kurdish
uprising. But nuclear and biological weapons are much more expensive and
difficult to develop, and were not yet complete.
It also emerged that Iraq had not worked on these weapons in a vacuum. Many
Western companies had provided technology not only for these programs, but
for ballistic missile development as well.
The extent of the weapons programs, and the secrecy surrounding them, left the inspectors with a difficult job. The inspections dragged on while devastating political and economic sanctions continued. Trade with Iraq was forbidden until the country was certified as being free of ABC weapons.
The inspectors met resistance from Iraqi authorities. On one hand, the inspection teams acted rather like spies, scouring the country and making surprise visits to factories, warehouses and laboratories. On the other hand, there seemed no end to the investigations, and after a time it began to appear as if it were an elaborate act, the real goal being to keep the
sanctions in place.
From the UN – particularly the U.S. – perspective, Iraqi resistance to the inspections was proof of hidden weapons of mass destruction. The sooner the weapons were found the sooner they would be destroyed – and the sanctions lifted. But until Iraq was certified as being without ABC weapons, the blockade would continue.
Iraq is a poor country. It is also a part of a region whose main wealth lies in its oil, rather than in agriculture. The sanctions have left Iraq starving. Everything is in short supply, especially food and medicine. It has been estimated that more than a million people have died as a result of the privations. Many of those who died have been women and children.
As the suffering became clear to the UN, the Security Council offered a special arrangement to Iraq, whereby it could sell its oil on the market and would receive, instead of money, food and medicine. Saddam Hussein, however, refused to accept the deal. The sanctions are a potent political weapon for him. As long as the suffering continues, he can play the part of the champion of the Iraqi people.
Saddam and the U.S. government now existed in two solitudes. Saddam bemoaned the suffering caused by the sanctions, while refusing the oil-for-food deal, and demanded an end to inspections while hindering their progress.
On June 27, 1993, when former American president George Bush was visiting Kuwait, there was an alleged attempt on his life. President Clinton retaliated with a cruise missile attack on Iraq. This was the first wave of what would become another cycle of tension between Iraq and the United States. In 1994, elite Iraqi Republican Guard units moved near the Kuwaiti border and U.S. troops were deployed to the Persian Gulf once again. When it became clear the Americans meant business, Saddam backed down.
From then on the tension revolved solely around the UN weapons inspections. It became a dreary rhythm: Saddam blusters, the inspectors are hindered, the American military flexes its muscle, and Saddam backs down. In early 1998, it happened once again, but a diplomatic mission by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan secured an agreement that was supposed to solve the problem once and for all.
By August 1998, the tension resurfaced. On November 14, U.S. planes were said to be on their way to bombard Iraq when Saddam sent a letter promising full access. The attack was halted but in December 1998, Britain and the U.S launched Operation Desert Fox and began a series of about 100 air strikes on Iraq that continued throughout 1999.
December 1999 brought good news to the Iraqi people when the UN Security Council voted to relieve sanctions against the country.
The new millennium began on a promising note for the country, which opened its international airport after a 10-year closure. After a decade of absence, Iraq was asked to attend the Arab League summit in 2000.
The following year Iraq was accused of being behind the anthrax deaths of five Americans, which prompted Bush to push for weapons inspections.
Weapons of mass destruction
Late in 2002, Iraq submitted a 12,000-page declaration claiming it had no banned weapons and agreed to open the country to another round of weapons inspections under the direction of chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. Blix concluded in January 2003 that "Iraq hasn't come to terms yet with the world's demand that it give up its weapons, and had yet to co-operate fully in the search for them."
On Feb. 14, 2003, Blix admitted that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. Regardless, the U.S. continued to present its case to rid Iraq of Saddam, and on March 17, 2003, Bush warned Saddam to leave or face the U.S. army. Saddam stayed in Iraq and on March 19, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom began to unfold, officially coming to an end on May 1, 2003, when Bush announced the conflict was over.
In June 2003, Bush told U.S. troops in Qatar that the invasion of Iraq was justified and vowed to "reveal the truth" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But a month later, Washington admitted that claims Bush made in his state of the union address about Iraq's nuclear program were wrong, and the CIA claimed responsibility for providing the incorrect information.
In July 2004, the U.S. Senate released a scathing report saying pre-war intelligence claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was wrong and overstated.
Saddam captured
Over the next four months, the U.S. gained custody of Saddam and former Iraqi defence minister Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali." Saddam was captured in a tiny bunker near his hometown of Tikrit, while Hassan al-Majid negotiated his own surrender.
Iraq's interim government council agreed on a temporary constitution that limited the role of Islamic law in the country, allowed some autonomy for Kurds and set aside 25 per cent of the seats in the legislature for women.
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners
In April 2004, the U.S. military charged six soldiers after photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison were published. The British military also began investigating the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. Bush issued an apology for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and promised a full investigation, while Rumsfeld, as secretary of defence, assumed full responsibility for the abuses.
In apparent retaliation, an American civilian, who identified himself as Nick Berg, was beheaded with a knife by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. A video of the decapitation was aired on a website with links to al-Qaeda.
Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits was sentenced to a year in prison for his role in the abuse of the Iraqi detainees.
In October 2004, Staff Sgt. Ivan (Chip) Frederick pleaded guilty to five charges in connection to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and was sentenced to eight years in prison. The same month, American and Iraqi investigators unearthed a mass grave containing 100 bodies near Hatra in northern Iraq, believed to be those of Kurds killed during the late 1980s.
New allegations of Iraqi prisoner abuse at the hands of U.S. soldiers were made public on Dec. 21, 2004. Internal FBI memos, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, included details of detainees in Iraq being chained for long periods and left in cold prison cells. There were also accounts of torture at the Guantanamo Bay prisoner camp in Cuba.
Iraq's government
In May 2004, Iraq's Governing Council formed its cabinet and named former Baathist party loyalist Ayad Allawi as prime minister. Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, the head of Iraq's Governing Council, was named president of the country after the Americans' preferred candidate, Adnan Pachachi, turned down the post.
The UN Security Council unanimously voted to transfer sovereignty in Iraq to a national government and end the rule of the Coalition Provisional Authority on June 30, 2004, but the U.S. transferred sovereignty to Iraq two days ahead of schedule in an apparent bid to foil disruptions by insurgents. The country's new government was formally sworn in and former U.S. governor Paul Bremer left the country.
Iraq was given legal custody of Saddam and 11 others, including former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz and Hassan al-Majid. The 12 become criminal defendants, instead of prisoners of war, although they're still held in prisons run by the U.S. and guarded by its military.
More beheadings
In the fall of 2004, the al-Qaeda-linked group, Tawhid and Jihad, posted further images of beheadings on a website. The bodies of two Americans, one identified as Eugene Armstrong and the other unidentified, were later recovered. British hostage Kenneth Bigley was also beheaded. A second British captive, Margaret Hassan, is seen in a video, aired on Al-Jazeera, pleading for her life and begging Britain to pull its troops out of Iraq. Al-Jazeera later received a tape of Hassan being shot. Her body has not been recovered.
Iraqis go to the polls
Bush was re-elected in November 2004; during the same month, voter registration in Iraq began.
Several Iraqi political parties called for the national election to be postponed for at least six months, until the safety of voters could be guaranteed, but the prime minister rejected any delay.
Armed insurgents targeted Iraqi electoral officials in an attempt to undermine the Jan. 30, 2005, vote. As well, Sunnis vowed to boycott the election.
Iraq promised to boost its army's size to help protect voters and Britain pledged extra troops.
In December 2004, the U.S. increased its troops in Iraq to 150,000, but Prime Minister Paul Martin ruled out sending Canadian troops.
The election was deemed a success, as millions cast their ballots. A coalition of candidates headed by Ayed Allawi placed third, behind the Iraqi United Alliance (backed by Shia clergy) and the Kurdistan Alliance.
The coalition government that emerged was only to be in place temporarily. Its job was to draft a constitution and govern the country until the December 2005 election, held to pick politicians to sit in Parliament for four years, forming the country's first full-term democratically elected government.
Iraqis elect a government
On April 22, 2006, more than four months after elections were held, a prime minister-designate was named. Shia politician and Dawa Party member, Jawad al-Maliki was nominated.
The unusual delay was caused by internal disputes among Shias, Sunnis and Kurds since elections in December 2005. The Kurds and Sunnis did not want the former Shia prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to return for a second term.
At the beginning of April 2006, Jaafari stood aside in favour of Maliki, who was more acceptable to the Kurds and the Sunnis. The squabbling between the various political parties engendered an outburst in sustained sectarian violence. Some commentators described the fighting as tantamount to a civil war.
As prime minister-designate, Maliki's was given 30 days to form a government of national unity by appointing a cabinet that would include Kurds, Shia and Sunni Arabs. This was a strategy to pull Iraq back from the brink of civil war.
Jalal Talabani was re-elected as President and Tariq al-Hashimi was elected as Iraq's new Sunni vice-president.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Iraq to meet with Maliki and other members of the new government.
^TOP
|
|
 |
 MENU |
|
|
| EXTERNAL LINKS: |
|
|
| MORE: |
|
|
|
CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. Links will open in new window.
