Iraq

Name

Under the Sassanid dynasty, there was a region called "Iraq Arabi" which referred to the southern part of modern Iraq. Al-Iraq was the name used by the Arabs themselves for the land since the 6th century.

History

Ancient history

The Republic of Iraq sits on land that is historically known as Mesopotamia (Al-Rafidayn in Arabic and Beth Nahrain in Aramaic), which means 'land between the rivers' in Greek, also largely comprising the eastern and bigger arm of the Fertile Crescent. This land was home to some of the world's first civilizations, including the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian whose influence extended into neighboring regions as early as 5000 BC, and Median (Medes) cultures. These civilizations produced some of the first writing, science, mathematics, law and philosophy in the world, making the region the center of what is commonly called the "Cradle of Civilization". Ancient Mesopotamian civilization dominated other civilizations of its time.

Beginning in the seventh century AD, Islam spread to what is now Iraq. Ali, the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law moved his capital to Kufa "fi al-Iraq" when he became the fourth caliph. The Umayyads ruling from Damascus in the 7th century ruled the province of Iraq.

Muhammad's grandson, Hussein ibn Ali, and all of his family, were slaughtered and taken prisoner in the infamous Battle of Karbala. For this reason, the city of Karbala to this day is a large center of pilgramage for many Shia Muslims.

Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, was the leading city of the Arab and Muslim world for five centuries. In 1258, Baghdad was devastated by the Mongols and was later occupied by the Ottoman Turks. Ottoman rule over Iraq lasted until World War I when the Ottomans sided with Germany and the Central Powers. During World War I, the Ottomans were driven from much of the area by the United Kingdom during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

According to legend, Al-Qurnah, near the southern borders of Iraq at the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates is the location of the Garden of Eden[link], the original home of humanity in the Jewish/Christian/Islamic faiths. A dead tree in the town is said to be the original Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Modern history

Iraq was granted independence in 1932, though the British retained military bases and transit rights for their forces in the country. In response to a pro-Nazi coup d'etat by former Prime Minister Rashid Ali the British invaded Iraq in 1941 resulting in the Anglo-Iraqi War. A military occupation followed, ending on October 26, 1947.

The Hashemite monarchy was reinstalled by the British and lasted until 1958, when it was overthrown through a coup d'etat by the Iraqi army, known as the 14 July Revolution. The coup brought Brigadier General Abdul Karim Qassim's government to power (which withdrew from the Baghdad Pact and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union) from 1958 till 1963. In 1963, he was overthrown by Colonel Abdul Salam Arif. Salam Arif died in 1966 and his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, assumed the presidency.

In 1968, Rahman Arif was overthrown by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party led by General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. The Ba'ath's ruling clique named Saddam Hussein vice-chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council and vice president of Iraq. After years of consolidating defacto control over the nation, Hussein formally acceded to the presidency in 1979 and took control of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), Iraq's supreme executive decision making body, executing many of his opponents in the process. Saddam Hussein would go on to serve nearly 25 years as president, and preside over a highly tumultuous period for the country, both domestically and internationally. Internally, Saddam implemented a harsh police state and personality cult with widespread torture and murder of dissident Iraqis.

Taking advantage of perceived Iranian disorder in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, Iraq invaded Iran launching the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988. During this long conventional war, Iraq attacked Iran with chemical weapons and deliberately killed many Iranian civilians with such weapons#redirect [[Template:Fact]]. Throughout the conflict, world powers supplied arms to Iraq. The U.S. sold Iraq $200 million (0.5% of total arms sales to Iraq) in weapons. In the end, Iran repelled Iraq to a standstill and the political boundary between both countries was restored. The Iran-Iraq war claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives and an estimated 160,000 to 240,000 Iraqis died.[link]

In 1988, the Saddam government launched the al-Anfal campaign, which led to the deaths of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq, including the use of chemical weapons; an act that Human Rights Watch characterised as genocide.[link] U.S. President Ronald Reagan failed to condemn the attacks on Kurds. However, the U.S. stopped selling arms to Iraq after that year. During this campaign, the Iraqi government executed approximately 182,000 Kurds. [link]

In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War. In response to the invasion, a multi-national UN coalition, led by the United States, successfully drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Over 20,000 Iraqi soldiers died[link] in the conflict while less than 1000 coalition soldiers died. Estimates of civilian deaths in the Gulf War range as high as 111,000. [link]

In April 1991, the Shi'ites in southern Iraq rebelled against Saddam Hussein. Human Rights Watch claimed that Iraqi leaders privately admitted to the killing of nearly 250,000 when suppressing the uprising.[link]

In the aftermath of the Gulf War, much of the international community isolated Iraq as a pariah state. The United Nations implemented economic sanctions against the country, designed as leverage to press for Iraqi disarmament. The sanctions achieved at best mixed results. Russia, Syria and countries in eastern Europe smuggled weapons in to Iraq in violation of the UN embargo.[link]

Some observers have blamed the sanctions for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children during this period, while others have similarly argued that many of the targeted officials of the Iraqi regime actually benefited from them. Over the years, the Iraqi government may have received as much as $11 billion through abuse of the Oil-for-Food Programme, a program which provided relief to Iraqi citizens suffering under the sanctions.[link]

Citing UN Security Council Resolution 688, the U.S., U.K. and France declared no-fly zones over Iraq to protect those areas from further assault by Saddam Hussein. U.S. and U.K. aircraft would occasionally respond to Iraqi anti-aircraft attacks with retaliatory bombing raids and gunfire. While these zones were patrolled through the 1990's, Saddam Hussein's government was unable to attack the Kurdish north and the Shi'ite south as it had in 1988 and 1991, respectively.

Following its defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq's offensive military capability was declared to have been "virtually eliminated."[link] Through 2002 however, companies from 14 countries helped rebuild Saddam's arsenal by selling weaponry to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions.[link]

National Geographic estimates that the Iraqi government may have killed anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 Iraqi civilians during Saddam Hussein's rule.

Post-Saddam Iraq

In October 2002, US President George W. Bush argued that Iraq was a "threat to peace" in general and to the United States in particular based on Saddam's "history of aggression," "pursuit of weapons of mass destruction," "ballistic missiles" and "support for terrorist groups."[link] Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with 13 different United Nations resolutions continued though early 2003.[link]

In March 2003, the United States launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The U.S.'s chief ally in this was the United Kingdom. 49 countries composed the "Coalition of the willing," though only 25 nations sent armed forces to the campaign.

Saddam Hussein was deposed, and captured in December 2003. He is being tried for war crimes by the Iraqi government at the Iraqi Special Tribunal. In Saddam Hussein's place, the US and its allies established a Coalition Provisional Authority to govern Iraq. The United Nations approved of the interim arrangement and lifted all Iraqi sanctions in May 2003 [link]. Occupation government authority was then transferred to an Iraqi Interim Government in 2004.

Elections were held in May 2005 for the Iraq Transitional Government, and then in December 2005 to elect a permanent government for 2006-2010. Insurgencies, US military assaults on militants operating in Sunni areas, frequent terrorist attacks, prison abuse and sectarian violence has plagued the country since the invasion. Over 140,000 U.S. and allied troops presently remain in the country as internal security is assumed by the Iraqi National Guard. Over 3 million Iraqi refugees who had fled to camps in Saudi Arabia and Iran have returned to start new lives in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Prior to the United States invasion, the UN and many western nations announced serious misgivings as to the accuracy of WMD claims. Following the invasion, the Pentagon and CIA organized the Iraq Survey Group. It conducted a six-month intensive search which did not find weapons of mass destruction. The survey did discover that Iraq procured basic ballistic missile technology from North Korea in 2002 and was designing longer range missiles - both actions in violation of United Nations resolutions.[link]

The Duelfer Report concluded that "Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed." The report also noted that "Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary." [(PDF)]

In June 2006, John Negroponte wrote that "since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent." [(PDF)] The Washington Post reported that the shells "had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988." [link]

Iraq is still torn by an active, mainly homegrown Sunni insurgency [link] with suicide attacks executed largely by foreign jihadists.[link] Over 2,700 coalition military personnel have been killed so far[link], while Iraqi civilians have suffered far worse with approximately 40,000 killed.[link]

In 2006, Iraq was ranked as the fourth most unstable country in the world on Foreign Policy's "Failed States Index." [link]

See also Human rights in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Politics

More information on politics and government of Iraq can be found at the Politics and government of Iraq series.

Iraqi politicians have been under significant threat by the various factions that have promoted violence as a political weapon. The ongoing violence in Iraq has been incited by factional assassinations by Shia death squads associated with the government, by Sunni religious extremists that believe an Islamic caliphate should rule, old regime secular groups that had privileges under Saddam and want back the power they had, and Iraqi nationalists that are fighting against the foreign occupation.

The Prime Minister as of April 21, 2006, Nouri al-Maliki, was elected by his Shi'ite majority, the United Iraqi Alliance a day after former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari relinquished his post.

Minority politics

There are a number of ethnic minority groups in Iraq. The three largest of these groups are the Kurds (Muslim and Yezidi), Assyrians, and Turkomans. Other groups include Armenians, Mandeans, Roma, Persians, and Jews. These groups have not enjoyed equal status with the majority Arab populations throughout Iraq's eighty-five year history. Like the Shi'a Muslims, the Ba'ath party harshly oppressed these minorities during its rule of Iraq. However, since the establishment of the "no-fly zones" following the Gulf War, the situation of the Kurds has changed as they have established their own autonomous region. The remainder of these ethnic groups continue to suffer discrimination on religious or ethnic grounds.

Governorates

Iraq is divided into eighteen governorates or provinces (Arabic: muhafadhat, singular - muhafadhah, Kurdish: پاریزگه Pârizgah). Particularly in Iraqi government documents the term "governorate" is preferred. During the Gulf War the Iraqi Government repeatedly referred to the occupied sovereign country of Kuwait as "the Nineteenth Governorate".

Baghdad Salah ad Din Diyala Wasit Maysan Al Basrah Dhi Qar Al Muthanna Al-Qādisiyyah

Babil Karbala An Najaf Al Anbar Ninawa Dahuk Arbil At Ta'mim (Kirkuk) As Sulaymaniyah

Geography

Large parts of Iraq consist of desert, but the area between the two major rivers (Euphrates and Tigris) is fertile, with the rivers carrying about 60 million cubic metres (78 million cu. yd) of silt annually to the delta. The north of the country is largely mountainous, with the highest point being a 3,611 metres (11,847 ft) point, unnamed on the map opposite, but known locally as Cheekah Dar (black tent). Iraq has a small coastline with the Persian Gulf. Close to the coast and along the Shatt al-Arab (known as arvandrūd: اروندرود among Iranians) there used to be marshlands, but many of these were drained in the 1990s. However, since roughly the beginning of the 2003 war, ecological restoration efforts have begun, with moderate success in conserving and regenerating the marshes.

The local climate is mostly desert with mild to cool winters and dry, hot, cloudless summers. The northern mountainous regions experience cold winters with occasional heavy snows, sometimes causing extensive flooding. The capital of Baghdad is situated in the centre of the country, on the banks of the Tigris. Other major cities include Basra in the south and Mosul in the north.

• List of cities in Iraq

Economy

Iraq's economy is dominated by the oil sector, which has traditionally provided about 95% of foreign exchange earnings. In the 1980s financial problems caused by massive expenditures in the eight-year war with Iran and damage to oil export facilities by Iran led the government to implement austerity measures, borrow heavily, and later reschedule foreign debt payments. Iraq suffered economic losses from the war of at least US$100 billion. After hostilities ended in 1988, oil exports gradually increased with the construction of new pipelines and restoration of damaged facilities. A combination of low oil prices, repayment of war debts (estimated at around US$3 billion a year) and the costs of reconstruction resulted in a serious financial crisis which was the main short term motivation for the invasion of Kuwait.

On November 20 2004, the Paris Club of creditor nations agreed to write off 80% ($33 billion) of Iraq's $42 billion debt to Club members. Iraq's total external debt was around $120 billion at the time of the 2003 invasion, and had grown by $5 billion by 2004. The debt relief will be implemented in three stages: two of 30% each and one of 20%. (link goes to Internet Archive version)

After the period of economic sanctions many of Iraq's state-owned enterprises were next to collapse. In 2003 the US led Coalition Provisional Authority drew up a framework for largescale privatization and opened up state-owned services to foreign investors. As of 2005, 64% of Iraq's oil reserves are being developed by multinational corporations, based on contracts with the Oil Ministry known as Production Sharing Contracts.[link] The insurgency campaign over recent years has hugely dampened US and British efforts to bring in such foreign investment and frequent attacks on the oil infrastructure have also had a major economic impact.

Iraqi economic indicators of inflation, unemployment and GDP have improved since Saddam was removed from power. The inflation rate of 70% in 2002 has fallen to 25.4% in 2006. The Iraqi unemployment rate of 60% in 2002 has been reduced to 30% in 2006. Gross domestic product in 2004 was $90 billion, more than double the output of Saddam's last year in power.[link] Among Iraqis, an ABC poll from December 2005 found broad optimism.[link]

Demographics

Around 80% percent of Iraq's population are Arabs; the other major ethnic groups are the Kurds, at around 15%, Assyrians, Turkomans and others around 5%. The minority groups mostly live in the north and northeast of the country. The Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkomans differ from Arabs in many ways, including culture, history, clothing, and language. Other distinct groups are Persians and Armenians. About 100,000–150,000 Mandians live in the southern Iraqi marshlands.

Arabic and Kurdish are official languages. The languages of Aramaic, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic are spoken by the Assyrian population. The Turkomans, as their name implies, speak Turkish. Armenian and Persian are also spoken but to a lesser extent. English is the most commonly spoken Western language.

Religious information from the 2006 edition of the CIA's The World Factbook: There are more members of the Shiite sect (55-60%), mostly Arab, than there are of the Sunni sect (32 - 37%) which is made up of both Arabs and Kurds. Iraqi Christian comprise nearly 3% of the population, about 800,000 people. These are mostly ethnically Assyrian of the Chaldean rite. Bahá'ís, Mandaeans, Shabaks, and Yezidis also exist. Iraq used to have a significant Jewish minority but emigration has reduced this to a very small number.

Demographic information from the 2006 edition of the CIA's The World Factbook:

• Ethnic groups: Arab, 75–80%; Kurdish, 15-20%; Assyrian, Turkoman and others 5%.
• Religions: Muslim 97% (Shi'a 50%-55%, Sunni 32%-37%), Christian or other 3%

Culture

In the most recent millennium, what is now Iraq has been made up of five cultural areas: Sunni Islamic Kurds in the north centered on Arbil; Sunni Islamic Arabs in the center around Baghdad; Shi'a Islamic Arabs in the south centered on Basrah; the Assyrians, a Christian people, living in various cities in the north; and the Marsh Arabs, a nomadic people, who live on the marshlands of the central river.

Music

Main articles: Music of Iraq and Kurdish music

View of Iraq

See also

• Economy: Iraq Stock Exchange, Iraqi Dinar, Economy of Iraq
• Events: 2005 in Iraq, 2004 in Iraq, 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Post-invasion Iraq, 2003-2006, Iraqi insurgency, Iraq War
• Geography: List of places in Iraq, Communications of Iraq, Transportation in Iraq
• Groups: Shiites, Sunni, Kurds, Assyrians, Arab Tribes in Iraq, Maslawi
• Politics: Politics of Iraq, New Iraqi Army, Foreign relations of Iraq, Human rights violations in Iraq, Iraqi insurgency, M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Religion and Politics in Iraq. Shiite Clerics between Quietism and Resistance, with a foreword by Professor Hamid Algar of the University of California at Berkeley. Singapore: Pustaka Nasional, 2004 (ISBN 9971775131) The Law of Iraq
• History: List of Kings of Iraq, List of Presidents of Iraq, List of Prime Ministers of Iraq, British Mandate of Iraq, History of the Jews in Iraq, Iran-Iraq War, History of astrology, Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia, Babylon
• Literature: Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish, Atra-Hasis
• Others: Postage stamps and postal history of Iraq, Gay rights in Iraq, Mesopotamian mythology, Scouting in Iraq, Assyrian Independence

Notes