The retrospective history of the Republic of Iraq

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The history of the Gulf War (1990-91)

Ancient Mesopotamia and general history

Timeline: Iraq: BBC News, A chronology of key events, 8 June 2001. A brief chronology of events from 1920.
Iraq discovers pre-Islamic castle: BBC News, 3 March 2000. Iraqi archaeologists have discovered a 1,400-year-old palace dating back to the pre-Islamic era in southern Iraq. Aggar said other houses and palaces discovered during the excavation were constructed in the Parthian and Sassanid style.

Iraq as a British colony (1920-1963)

Iraq: The imperial precedent: By Charles Tripp, Le Monde diplomatique, January 2003. The founding of the state of Iraq. It was an accidental result of the British invasion of Ottoman Mesopotamia in 1914. The new political order established under direct Western control immediately faced rebellion among Iraqi army officers on the streets of Baghdad and throughout the Shi'ite centre and south of the country, and so the British restored the old regime as a client hierarchy 1914-21. Hussein is heir of this tradition of client authoritarianism.
British Imperialism Has Long History Of Aggression In Iraq: By Jonathan Silberman, Militant, 8 March 1998. Faced by a growing popular insurrection against its imperial dominance of Iraq in 1920, London carried out an aerial bombing campaign of civilian villages. Churchill agreed on the use of chemical weapons, of poison gas against uncivilized tribes. The use of troops and extreme brutality has characterized the British rulers' relation with the Gulf region ever since it took advantage of the break up of the Ottoman Empire to create a colony in Mesopotamia.
Zionists Double Crossed Iraqi Jews: The Cartel Cons Humanity: By Henry Makow, 4 February 2003. In 1950 began the persecution of the ancient Jewish community in Baghdad. Exodus of Jews resulted from terrorist bombings of synagogue. Evidence that Zionists were behind it. By January 1952, all but 6,000 had fled to Israel where as Arab Jews, they were treated as second-class citizens, reduced to taking the menial jobs vacated by the Palestinians.

The Arab Socialist Ba'th Party (ASBP) before Hussein (1958-1979)

Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power: From Richard Sanders, 24 October 2002. A collection of extracts. The CIA-organized regime change was a coup in 1963 against President Abdul Karim Kassim that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and murder to bring Saddam Hussein's beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. Saddam's background; the Baath Party; the role of Kuwait.
Who armed Saddam?: In the 1970s, Saddam approached the USSR, until then his conventional weapons supplier, to buy a plant to manufacture chemical weapons, but his request was refused. Saddam then began courting the West and received a much more favourable response. The U.S. facilitated the production of chemical weapons and boosted his military capability. France and Britain facilitated his ability to strike Iran, and France in 1976 supplied a uranium reactor. Until December 1989, the U.S. supplied biological pathogens for use in warheads

New course under the Presidency of Saddam Hussein and the War on Iran (1979-1988)

Saddam's Green Light: By Robert Parry, The Consortium. In summer of 1980, the Saudis turned to Saddam, with his Soviet-supplied army, to stabilize the Gulf region and protect the oil fields. At the same time, the U.S. wanted Saddam to counter the new regime in Iran. The result was Iraq's invasion of Iran in September 1980 and eight years of war between the two. Subsequent investigations concerning President Carter's giving Saddam a green light to attack Iran.
The Saddam in Rumsfeld's Closet: By Jeremy Scahill, Counterpunch, 2 August 2002. The meeting in late December 1983 between Hussein and Rumsfeld paved the way for an official restoration of relations between Iraq and the US as a way to deal with Mideast problems. Gulf nations told to end hostilities toward Iraq and help Iraq defeat Iran. Association of Rumsfeld and Iraq' use of mustard gas and nerve agent bombs. U.S. arming of Iraq after 1982.
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup Trade in Chemical Arms; Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds: By Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, 29 December 2003. Instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald Rumsfeld, who met in December 1983 Hussein to normalize U.S.-Iraqi relations at at time when Iraq was regularly using chemical weapons. Priot to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, The US provided intelligence, cluster bombs, facilitated Iraq's chemical and biological miltiary technology. U.S. officials saw Iraq in the 1980s as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism that allied states.
Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas: By Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times, 18 August 2002. A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war.
U.S. Companies Behind Iraq Weapons Program: By Mitchel Cohen, 23 December 2002. Biological agents shipped by US corporations to Iraq, with George H.W. Bush's approval as head of the CIA and later as Vice President under Ronald Reagan. These included anthrax, brucellosis, gas gangrene, and toxic varieties of E.Coli and Salmonella bacteria.

Incursion into Kuwait and prelude to the Gulf War (1988-1990)

Iraq: yet again, they are lying to us: By John Pilger, New Statesman, 20 March 2000. 1989 arms-to-Iraq scandal. Lies by the British Foreign Office. Denial that the embargo on Iraq has killed half a millian children there in eights years. The so-called oil-for-good deal. Lies that Iraq not disarmed and fear of general ban on weapons of mass destruction in the region.