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Geo-Political History of Iraq |
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Geo-Political History of Iraq |
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"From a translation of Iraq's transcript of the meeting, released that September, press and pundits concluded that [U.S. Ambassador] Ms. Glaspie had (in effect) given Saddam a green light to invade [Kuwait]." Christian Science Monitor, May 27, 1999
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
| Iraq Geo-Political Historical Timeline (supporting articles below) | ||
| 1928 |  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1983 | |
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| 1963 | ||
| 1968 | ||
| 1972 | ||
| 1979 | ||
| 1982 | ||
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A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite by Said K. Aburish The book sets out the details not only of how the CIA closely controlled the planning stages but also how it played a central role in the subsequent purge of suspected leftists after the 1963 coup. The author reckons that 5,000 were killed, giving the names of 600 of them - including many doctors, lawyers, teachers and professors who formed Iraq's educated elite. The massacre was carried out on the basis of death lists provided by the CIA. |
U.S. Plans Major Gesture to Iran
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 17, 2000; Page A01
While stopping short of an apology, Albright will acknowledge past American meddling in Iran, including the CIA-backed coup that toppled Iran's leftist prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and restored its monarchy in 1953. She also will express regret for Washington's "shortsighted" support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, according to an administration official who has read the speech.
Speakout: America's shameful Mideast history
By Wadi Muhaisen, Special to the News
November 22, 2002
In 1963, Qassem was overthrown - with the help of the CIA's electronic command center in Kuwait - by a coalition of army officers and Ba'athists. Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party would later consolidate their hold on power in a bloody 1968 coup.
Unsavory allies stack CIA's deck
Sunday, August 24, 2003
By Nir Rosen, Special to the Post-Gazette
The CIA's relationship with Iraq is rumored to go back to Saddam's exile in Egypt before the Baathists seized power in 1968. Saddam was a regular visitor in the American embassy in Cairo. In 1968 the CIA assisted the anti-Communist Baathists in their successful coup, going so far as to provide lists of Communists who were later assassinated.
By Anthony LoBaido
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
After the assassination, Saddam fled to Egypt, where he remained between 1959 and 1963. He was reportedly first recruited by the CIA while living in exile in Egypt. At that time, Saddam made many visits to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, even though he was on the run for having tried to assassinate Iraq's head of state.
Christian Science Monitor
from the October 23, 2002 edition
Saddam Hussein: 'Not a lunatic'In 1972, when Hussein nationalized the oil industry, he told local industry employees of his intentions only two hours before the official announcement.
Extended U.S. Loan Guartees were south for Baghdad.
R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer
October 25, 1992; Page a4
"This is just another example of how the Bush administration ignored the warning signs in its blind pursuit of closer ties with Saddam Hussein," Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said.
U.S. News MAY 18, 1992
By Stephen J. Hedges; Brian Duffy
It was a triumph of American intelligence. What nobody knew at the time, however, was that U.S. taxpayers had helped finance the research and development of the missile technology inside the big new Iraqi rocket....According to an April 1990 memorandum obtained from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, CCC loan money obtained by an Iraqi intermediary from the Atlanta branch of Italy's state-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavoro was apparently used to purchase nuclear triggers later seized by British Customs inspectors....In October 1989, the bureaucrats' labors completed, their report was presented to President Bush, who promptly signed it. The document is recorded as National Security Decision Directive 26. It concludes that it was in the "national interest" of the United States to seek "improved relations" with the government of Saddam Hussein. Endorsement of the policy came just a month later. The Bush administration pushed through $1 billion more in CCC loan guarantees for Iraq.
U.S. supplied the kinds of germs Iraq later used for biological weapons, documents show
Mon Sep 30, 2:21 PM ET
By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Iraq's bioweapons program that President George W. Bush ( news - web sites) wants to eradicate got its start with help from the United States two decades ago, according to U.S. government records getting new scrutiny in light of the discussion of war against Iraq.
Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas
By PATRICK E. TYLER
New York Times, August 18, 2002
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — 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, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program.
Following Iraq's bioweapons trail
September 26, 2002
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease- producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American- exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.
How Saddam Happened -America helped make a monster
By Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas
NEWSWEEK Sept. 23 issueThe last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago, Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the historic moment.
WASHINGTON POST - December 30, 2002, Page A01
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds
MIDDLE EAST AREA BRIEF FOR 25 JULY 1990 - 1. IRAQ-KUWAIT: IS BAGHDAD
declassified intelligence document, click to see documentBaghdad has demanded that Kuwait cease its oil-exploitation activity just south of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. Kuwait has a drilling rig in operation about 1 kilometers from the border and is producing oil from wells located 2 to 5 KM from the border. The Iraqis claime Kuwait has illegally extracted 2.4 billion worth of oil over the past 10 years from Iraq's Rumaylah oilfield, which extends south into Kuwait.
Unwilling to trim spending and unable to expend oil production, Saddam is trying to raise oil prices by exploiting widespread sentiment in OPEX to rein in overproducers. Iraq has demanded that Kuwait and the UAE stop producing above their OPEC quotas. Baghdad has also demanded compensation for losses incurred because of Kuwait's perceived economic "aggression" against Iraq.
U.S. News MAY 18, 1992
By Stephen J. Hedges; Brian Duffy
In Washington, Ex-Im Bank reports predicted as early as April 1989 that Iraq might soon be at war with "Syria ... or even Saudi Arabia or Kuwait over simmering territorial claims." Concerns such as these, however, were steamrollered in the State Department's determined push for "improved relations" with Baghdad.
U.S. News MAY 18, 1992
By Stephen J. Hedges; Brian Duffy
After the conclusion of its eight-year war with Iran, in August 1988, Iraq refused to begin paying down some $80 billion in debt incurred during the conflict. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad were aware of the problem and reported on it in numerous cables. Lenders also complained.
U.S. News MAY 18, 1992
By Stephen J. Hedges; Brian Duffy
Iraq accuses Kuwait of stealing $2.5 billion worth of Iraqi oil and demands compensation. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens briefs senior U.S. officials on Iraq's nuclear-weapons program. The Senate and House consider trade sanctions against Iraq, which the White House opposes. As thousands of Iraqi troops and armored vehicles gather along the border with Kuwait, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie meets with Hussein, who tells her that Iraq is ready to fight any foe over a matter of honor. Glaspie, following State Department policy, tells Hussein that U.S. "has no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border dispute with Kuwait." On the last day of the month, Glaspie promises Iraq that State is still working to reinstate $500 million in suspended agricultural loan guarantees.
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/Dillard.html
Prelude to Operation DESERT STORM
The events that led to creation of a new joint air campaign target planning organization began in July 1990, when General Schwarzkopf conducted the large joint command post exercise, "Internal Look," at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The exercise tested aspects of the plan for the defense of the Arabian peninsula. General Schwarzkopf quickly determined that neither the CENTCOM nor the CENTAF staff was fully capable of planning large joint air operations for an Iraqi invasion scenario.
Concurrent with the "Internal Look" exercise, the Persian Gulf crisis escalated, and on 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. General Schwarzkopf’s immediate requirements were to develop a military strategy and courses of action to stop the potential Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia. To meet the invasion threat, General Schwarzkopf requested the Air Staff’s assistance in developing an air campaign plan against Iraq.
In war, some facts less factual
By Scott Peterson September 6, 2002
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW - When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf – to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait – part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.
But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.
"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.
from the February 07, 2003 edition
A war's likely toll on Iraqis
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Since then, Iraqi reports of many civilian deaths tied to UN sanctions - especially those of small children - have become suspect as well.
Based on past experience, some observers are also suspicious of US assertions. Prior to the Gulf War, a Kuwait teenager testified to Congress that she witnessed Iraqi troops taking infants from incubators and leaving them to die.
It turned out that the girl - the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US - had never worked at the hospital, and that a Washington public relations firm had arranged her testimony to build political support for US intervention.
British magazine The New Statesman
author John Pilger
Minutes after Yemen voted against the resolution to attack Iraq, a senior American diplomat told the Yemeni ambassador: 'That was the most expensive No vote you ever cast.' Within three days, a U.S. aid program of $70 million to one of the world's poorest countries was stopped. Yemen suddenly had problems with the World Bank and the IMF; and 800,000 Yemeni workers were expelled from Saudi Arabia.
United Press International (UPI)
Published 1/25/2003 5:10 PMBelieving that the U.S.-led coalition was about to continue its push north after liberating Kuwait during the 1991-92 Gulf War, thousands of Shiites in the south rose up in open revolt against Saddam.
Once Saddam realized the coalition stopped its advance and was not about to come after him in Baghdad, he lost no time fighting back. He ordered his attack helicopters and units of his Special Republican Guards to immediately quell the rebels and to show no mercy.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/842769.asp?vts=011020031325&cp1=1
Hellish scenarios of a new Gulf War
Scorched earth fears tower over 91 fallout in Kuwait
By Miguel Llanos
MSNBC
...Declassified documents show that U.S. troops contributed to the infrastructure damage, destroying some power plants and water storage and treatment facilities and possibly contributing to the spread of diseases such as measles, diarrhea, typhoid and cholera through the population of 1.8 million refugees. By May 1991 some 15,000 to 30,000 had died, according to the United Nations.
The British physicians group Medact is among those who fear that a war for Iraq would lead to even greater human and environmental casualties than during the Gulf War. In a report last November, Medact posed these scenarios:
Airstrikes: U.S.-led bombing hits Iraqi weapons stockpiles, releasing chemical, biological and possibly radioactive pollutants. Health and water infrastructure is also hit, leading to epidemic diseases.
Iraq: Domestic Impact of the War
25 January 1991
Report #1 Highlights
U.S. declassified documents show water, food, and electricity of civilians targetedmany key economic facilities in Iraq have suffered significant damage from coatilition air attacks.
An estimaged one-third of the country's electrical generating capacity and about 90 percent of Baghdad's generating capicity have been knocked out.
Daily life for residents of Baghdad and other areas hit by coalitions attacks reportly has become bleak.
Electricity and telephone service are unavailable in most parts of Baghdad, and water supplies there also have been disrupted, according to press reports.
Food supplies reportly are tightening.
SITUATION REPORT #567 - OUTBREAK OF DISEASE IN IRAQ NOT FROM BW
2/13/1991 see declassified documentOutbreak of Disease in Iraq Not From BW [Biological Weapons]
Egyptian and Soviet press recently have carried stories claming that disease outbreaks in Iraq have resulted from coalition airstrikes on Iraqi biological warefare facilities.
Comment: While outbreaks of disease probably are occuring in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, the cause amost certainly is a lack of sanitation, not exposure to BW agents from destroyed facilities. Media footage showing raw sewage filling some streets in Baghdad and residents washing cookware in polluted Tigris River stronly suggests that endemic diseases are or soon will be on the rise. Moreover, the reported symptons do not match those causes by any BW agent beleived to be in Iraq's arsenal.
http://santafenewmexican.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=2144&dept_id=509832&newsid=7413931&PAG=461&rfi=9
Iraqi Victims of 1991 Bombing Lodge War Crimes Complaint Against Former U.S. President
By RAF CASERT Associated Press 03/18/2003
The complaint centers on the Feb. 13, 1991, bombing of the al-Amiriya shelter in Baghdad, which claimed the lives of 403 people, including 52 children and 261 women. U.S. aircraft attacked the shelter believing it was a command center.
http://thepowerhour.com/postings-four/gulfwar-vet-admits-setting-oil-well-fires-under-UN-command.htmGULF WAR VET ADMITS SETTING OIL WELL FIRES UNDER UN COMMAND!
During the past six years, the American Gulf War Veterans Association has received numerous reports from veterans stating that US forces were responsible for the setting of the oil well fires at the end of the Gulf War.
One veteran has now stepped forward and given a detailed account of how he and others in special teams, moved forward of the front, behind enemy lines ahead of US forces, set explosive and incendiary charges on the well heads, and remained hidden until after the charges were remotely detonated and US forces advanced beyond their position.
"We were mustered into the briefing tent at which point a gentleman whom I first had thought to be an American... but I was concerned because he was wearing a UN uniform and insignias, began to brief us on the operation."
"There was concern that America, the American public, might see this conflict as an unnecessary thing, and we were asked to do this... or we were ordered to do this in order to remove any... to sway any public opinion... American public opinion to remove any doubts whatsoever that Saddam Hussein and his regime were a terrible evil that had to be dealt with."
Stating that he was given a small number of wells to set the charges on: "I carried out my mission parameters and than I withdrew and concealed myself until such a time as the front moved past me."
The information provided over a series of meetings with this veteran corroborates the reports from other veterans who are totally unconnected with this individual.
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/peacewatch/peace20030228.html
Story: QUESTIONS REMAIN REGARDING OIL WELL FIRES DURING GULF WAR --- (Audio- Feb. 28, 2003)For the past six years, The American Gulf War Veterans Association has received numerous reports from veterans stating that U.S. forces and not members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard were actually the ones responsible for the setting of the oil well fires at the end of the first Gulf War. Now the 5th member of the military has come forward to tell his story of how he was ordered to set the wells on fire so that Saddam would be blamed for the act. The man you will hear speaking is not the officer who made the statement because he fears reprisals from the government, but his statement is read verbatim.
U.S. Says It Collected Iraq Intelligence Via UNSCOM
By Thomas W. Lippman and Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 8, 1999; Page A01
The United States for nearly three years intermittently monitored the coded radio communications of President Saddam Hussein's innermost security forces using equipment secretly installed in Iraq by U.N. weapons inspectors, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1243-2000Jun15.html
Under Iraqi Skies, a Canvas of Death
Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service
June 16, 2000; Page A1
TOQ AL-GHAZALAT, Iraq - Suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, the forgotten war being waged by the United States and Britain over Iraq visited its lethal routine on the shepherds and farmers of Toq al-Ghazalat about 10:30 a.m. on May 17. Omran Harbi Jawair, 13, was squatting on his haunches at the time, watching the family sheep as they nosed the hard, flat ground in search of grass. He wore a white robe but was bareheaded in spite of an unforgiving sun. Omran, who liked to kick a soccer ball around this dusty village, had just finished fifth grade at the little school a 15-minute walk from his mud-brick home. A shepherd boy's summer vacation lay ahead. That is when the missile landed. Without warning, according to several youths standing nearby, the device came crashing down in an open field 180 meters (200 yards) from the dozen houses of Toq al-Ghazalat. A deafening explosion cracked across the silent land. Shrapnel flew in every direction. Four shepherds were wounded. And Omran, the others recalled, lay dead in the dirt, most of his head torn off, the white of his robe stained red.
U.S. congressman begins humanitarian visit to Iraq
CNN April 17, 2000 Web posted at: 10:25 p.m. EDT (0225 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, is in Iraq to see for himself the effect of almost 10 years of economic sanctions -- imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait -- by visiting a Baghdad hospital.
"It's really to see the humanitarian aspect of the country, to see why so many children are sick, to try to get a feeling as why food and medicine isn't getting through -- what the real problem is," Hall said. One of only a handful of U.S. lawmakers to visit Iraq since the Gulf War, Hall, 58, arrived Monday.
In-depth analysis of the underground revolutionary Ba'ath party ideas, which the United States needs to suppress, with deception and war. Bob Brown, the director of the Kwame Ture Work-Study Institute and Library spoke at a 'teach- in' titled "Pox Americana- Total and Permanent War at Home and Abroad."
Tape: From Ryme Katkhouda, WPFW
LISTEN TO REAL AUDIO CLIP AS AIRED ON PACIFICA'S PEACEWATCH ON 10/21/02
Story: A LOOK AT HOW THE CIA BACKED AND FINANCED SADDAM HUSSEIN 40 YEARS AGO IN AN EFFORT TO ASSASSINATE IRAQ'S THEN PRIME MINSTER
U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials have told UPI that the CIA helped support Saddam Hussein more than 40 years in an attempt to assassinate then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim.
LISTEN TO STORY on Pacifica's Democracy Now
Richard Sale, UPI intelligence correspondent and author of "Saddam Key in early CIA Plot"
Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurdish people Killed thousands in a single day And twelve long years later Uncle Sam said "you can't treat your Kurds this way"So when they talk about American interests And it somehow seems that they're not yours Going all over the world Bombing countries and starting up wars You'd better leave it to the experts Go on back to your Playstations 'Cause our foreign policy only makes sense To CEO's of multinational corporations
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Desert Mirage : The True Story of the Gulf War Martin Yant Carefully documented, scathing indictment of the Persian Gulf War as a "war of deception" amounting to outright fraud by US leaders. Mainstream press and some sources outside it to gather disturbing evidence about this highly groomed war in which "media manipulation and censorship took [on] new and sinister forms." |
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The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm Order the Documentary
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