"The light of civilization first dawned in the Middle East along what is known by historians as the fertile cresent - a cresent-shaped region stretching from just south of modern-day Jerusalem then northward along the Mediterranean coast to present-day Syria and eastward through present-day Iraq then southward along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf."
Arif Babul "The Fertile Crescent," http://visav.phys.uvic.ca, April 11, 2007

"Iraq played a unique role in the evolution of human civilization, with the oldest known communities of human settlement having been located on the banks of its twin rivers [Tigris and Euphrates]...Mesopotamia witnessed the dawn of human civilization over 100,000 years ago [~98000 B.C.] when Paleolithic age man gathered in the fertile Mesopotamian plain."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. xlv, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"The word 'Mesopotamia' is in origin a Greek name (mesos 'middle' and potamos 'river', so 'land between the rivers'). The name is used for the area watered by the Euphrates and Tigris and its tributaries, roughly comprising modern Irak and part of Syria. South of modern Bagdad, the alluvial plains of the rivers were called the land of Sumer and Akkad in the third millennium. Sumer is the most southern part, while the land of Akkad is the area around modern Bagdad, where the Euphrates and Tigris are close to each other...

Two cultural groups form the principle elements in the population of Mesopotamia before the beginning of history and in the millennium thereafter (the 3rd millennium BCE). These are the Sumerians and the Akkadians...

The people responsible for the first monumental temples and palaces, for the founding of the first city states and most likely for the invention of writing (all in the period of 3100-3000 BCE) are the Sumerians...

Akkadians, speaking a Semitic language, may have been present in Mesopotamia since the time the Sumerians arrived, or they may have diffused into the region later. Their culture intermingled and they must have been living peacefully together. On Sumerian clay tablets dated around 2900-2800 BCE found in Fara, Semitic (Akkadian) names are attested for the first time."
John Heise "Prehistory in Mesopotamia," www.sron.nl, April 17, 2007

"A new and powerful state, Babylonia, arose in Mesopotamia around 2000 B.C. The Babylonians were a Semitic people from the Syrian Desert who, under the leadership of Hamurabi (1792-1750 B.C.), unified all of Mesopotamia.

In addition to being a great conqueror, Hamurabi is recognized as an important lawgiver...Hamurabi's Code of Law entails over 300 paragraphs and imposed a uniform social order over a diverse area...

The Babylonian Empire dissolved within 150 years of Hamurabi's death; the Hittites sacked Babylon in 1595."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. xlvii, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"Beginning in approximately 1600 B.C., Indo-European-speaking tribes invaded India; other tribes settled in Iran and Europe. One of these groups, the Hittites, allied itself with the Kassites, a people of unknown origins. Together, they conquered and destroyed Babylon.

...in the twelfth century B.C., the Hittites were destroyed, and no great military power occupied Mesopotamia until the ninth century B.C."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 10, U.S. Government, 1990

"The Assyrians ('children of Ashur') were a Semitic race, at first colonists form Babylonia and its subjects. Later, around 1300 BC, they rose up and conquered Babylon...The Assyrian kings were first based in Ashur, but then built Nineveh as a more secure retreat from the invading Babylonians...

Ashurbanipal (669-626 BC)...was the last of the great Assyrian kings...In 626 BC Ashurbanipal died, though it is not known how. Fourteen years later the Babylonian king Nabopolassar...launched an effective onslaught on the Assyrian cities of the north...Nabopolassar ended the Assyrian control of Babylonia and created the Chaldean empire. When he died he bequeathed the liberated empire to his son Nebuchadnezzar II..."
Geoff Simons Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam, p. 146, St. Martin's Press, 1994

"During the hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, numerous Indo-European speaking tribes, known collectively as the Persians, were scattered throughout most of southwestern Iran. Prior to 550 BC, the Persians were under the control of the Medes. In that year, the Persians, under the direction of their powerful leader Cyrus, conquered the Medes and took over all territory formerly under Median control...By 539, the Persians had also captured the land of the Chaldeans.

In 530, Cyrus died and was succeed by his son Cambyses (530-522). Cambyses expanded the borders of the Persian empire to include Egypt...Cambyses' successor was Darius I (522-486), who seized control after a period of civil unrest."
EMuseum Minnesota State University, Mankato, "The Chaldeans," www.mnsu.edu, April 17, 2007

"Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great...in 336 BC...inherited a powerful yet volatile kingdom. He quickly dealt with his enemies at home and reasserted Macedonian power within Greece. He then set out to conquer the massive Persian Empire.

Against overwhelming odds, he led his army to victories across the Persian territories of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt without suffering a single defeat. His greatest victory was at the Battle of Gaugamela, in what is now northern Iraq, in 331 BC. The young king of Macedonia, leader of the Greeks, overlord of Asia Minor and pharaoh of Egypt became Great King of Persia at the age of 25."
BBC "Historic Figures: Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC)," ww.bbc.co.uk, April 19, 2007

"In 126 B.C., the Parthians (or Arsacids), an intelligent, nomadic people who had migrated from the steppes of Turkestan to north-eastern Iran, captured the Tigris-Euphrates river valley...

With the exception of the Roman occupation under Trajan (98-117 A.D.) and Septimius Severus (193-221 A.D.), the Arsacids ruled until a new force of native Iranian rulers, the Sassanids, conquered the region in 227 A.D. Little information is available on the Sassanid occupation, which lasted until 636 A.D."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 14, U.S. Government, 1990

"Events in Arabia changed rapidly and dramatically in the sixth century A.D. when Muhammad, a member of the Hashimite clan of the powerful Quraysh tribe of Mecca, claimed prophethood and began gathering adherents for the monotheistic faith of Islam that had been revealed to him.

The conversion of Arabia proved to be the most difficult of the Islamic conquests because of entrenched tribalism. Within one year of Muhammad's death in 632, however, Arabia was secure enough for the Prophet's secular successor, Abu Bakr (632-634), the first caliph and the father-in-law of Muhammad, to begin the campaign against the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire...

Arabic replaced Persian as the official language, and it slowly filtered into common usage..."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 16, U.S. Government, 1990

"The original split between Sunnis and Shia occurred soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, in the year 632. There was a dispute in the community of Muslims in present-day Saudi Arabia over the question of succession...Most of the Prophet Muhammad's followers wanted the community of Muslims to determine who would succeed him. A smaller group thought that someone from his family should take up his mantle. They favored Ali [Ali ibn Abu Talib], who was married to Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah.

'Shia believed that leadership should stay within the family of the Prophet' notes Gregory Gause, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Vermont. 'And thus they were the partisans of Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. Sunnis believed that leadership should fall to the person who was deemed by the elite of the community to be best able to lead the community. And it was fundamentally that political division that began the Sunni-Shia split.' The Sunnis prevailed and chose a successor to be the first caliph."
Mike Shuster "The Origins of the Shia-Sunni Split," NPR, www.npr.org, April 2, 2007

"The Islamic state expanded very rapidly after the death of Muhammad through remarkable successes both at converting unbelievers to Islam and by military conquests of the Islamic community's opponents...Immediately after the Prophet's death in 632, Abu Bakr, as the first Caliph, continued the effort to abolish paganism among the Arab tribes, and also to incorporate Arabia into a region controlled by the political power of Medina...

During the reigns of the first four caliphs [Abu Bakr (632-634), Umar (634-644), Uthman ibn Affan (644-656), Ali abn Abu Talib (656-661)], Islam spread rapidly...

The Muslim triumphs in the Near East can be partly accounted for by the long series of wars between the Byzantine and Persian empires...In 636, Arab armies conquered Syria. The Muslims then won Iraq from the Persians and, within ten years after Muhammad's death, subdued Persia itself. The greater part of Egypt fell with little resistance in 640 and the rest shortly afterward. By the end of the reigns of the first four caliphs, Islam had vastly increased its territory in the Near East and Africa."
International World History Project "Islam From The Beginning To 1300," http://history-world.org, April 17, 2007

"After the death of Muhammad in 632, a series of four caliphs (Arabic: khalifa, "successor") [Abu Bakr (632-634), Umar (634-644), Uthman ibn Affan (644-656), Ali abn Abu Talib (656-661)], known as the Rightly Guided, succeeded. Under their command, the Arab armies carried the new faith from Arabia to the shores of the Mediterranean and to the eastern reaches of Iran.

However, following the assassination of Ali ibn Abi Talib—Muhammad's cousin, son-in-law, and fourth caliph (r. 656–61)—in 661, Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria under the Rightly Guided Caliphs, seized power and established the Umayyad caliphate, the first Islamic dynasty (661–750). During Mu'awiya's reign (661–80), the seat of Islamic power was transferred from the Arabian Peninsula to Syria."
Suzan Yalman "The Art of the Umayyad Period (661-750 A.D.)," www.metmuseum.org, April 17, 2007

"Abbaside, [is an] Arab family descended from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammad. The Abbasids held the caliphate from 749 to 1258...Under the Umayyad caliphs the Abbasids lived quietly until they became involved in numerous disputes, beginning early in the 8th cent. The family then joined with the Shiite faction in opposing the Umayyads, and in 747 the gifted Abu Muslim united most of the empire in revolt against the Umayyads. The head of the Abbasid family became caliph as Abu al-Abbas as-Saffah late in 749."
Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, "Iraq," www.bartleby.com, April 17, 2007

"The Abbasid caliphs' power subsequently weakened, and in 1258, Baghdad was overrun by Mongolian conquerers under Hulagu Khan, who killed the last Caliph, massacred Baghdad's population and destroyed the city and countryside.

In 1401 the Mongol leader Tamerlane (Timur the Lame) sacked Baghdad and massacred many of its inhabitants. By the beginning of the 16th century Baghdad's irrigation systen was in dis-repair and the population was reduced to 150,000. Iraq became a land of small kingdoms."
GlobalSecurity.org "Baghdad," www.globalsecurity.org, April 19, 2007

"From the sixteeenth to the twentieth century, the course of Iraqi history was affected by the continuing conflicts between the Safavid Empire in Iran and the Ottoman Turks. The Safavids...sought to control Iraq both because of the Shia holy places at An Najaf and Karbala and because Baghdad, the seat of the old Abbasid Empire, had great symbolic value.

The Ottomans, fearing that Shia Islam would spread to Anatolia (Asia Minor), sought to maintain Iraq as a Sunni-controlled buffer state...In 1509 the Safavids...conquered Iraq, thereby initiating a series of protracted battles with the Ottomans.

The major impact of the Safavid-Ottoman conflict on Iraqi history was the deepening of the Shia-Sunni rift...Iraq's Sunni population suffered immeasurably during the brief Safavid reign (1623-1638), while Iraq's Shias were excluded from power altogether during the longer period of Ottoman supremacy (1638-1916)."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 25, U.S. Government, 1990

"In Baghdad, Hasan Pasa (1704–24), the Ottoman governor of Georgian origin sent from Istanbul, and his son Ahmed Pasa (1724–47) established a Georgian mamluk (slave) household, through which they exercised authority and administered the province. The mamluks...were mostly Christian slaves from the Caucasus who converted to Islam, were trained in a special school, and were then assigned to military and administrative duties...

When Ahmed Pasa died in 1747...his mamluks constituted a powerful, self-perpetuating elite corps of some 2,000 men. After attempts to prevent these mamluks from assuming power failed, the Ottomans were obliged to accept their rule. By 1750 Süleyman Abu Layla, son-in-law of Ahmed Pasa and already governor of Al-Basrah, had reentered Baghdad and been recognized as the first Mamluk pasha of Iraq.

In the second half of the 18th century, Iraqi political history is largely the story of the autonomous Georgian Mamluk regime."
Encyclopedia Britannica "Iraq: The 18th-century Mamluk Regime," www.britannica.com, April 18, 2007

"Ottoman rule was unstable; Baghdad, for example, had more than ten governors between 1831 and 1869. In 1869, however, the Ottomans regained authority when the reform-minded Midhat Pasa was appointed governor of Baghdad. Midhat immediately set out to modernize Iraq on the Western model. The primary objectives of Mihat's reforms, called tanzimat, were to reorganize the army, to create codes of criminal and commercial law, to secularize the school system, and to improve provincial administration."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 27, U.S. Government, 1990

"Because of Iraq's strategic location astride the land routes to India and Britain's other Asian colonies, the British became more and more interested in Iraqi affairs. English, French, and Italian agencies and consulates opened offices in Basra, while a British steamship company established a near monopoly on Tigris River boat traffic between Basra and Baghdad."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. lv, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"In spite of the European commercial and consular presence in Iraq, it remained more isolated from European influences than the Arab lands adjacent to the Mediterranean...

In Syria, Arab nationalist and separatist organizations appeared after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. In Iraq, however, there was scant nationalist opposition to Ottoman rule...

Thus, it is hardly surprising that Arab nationalism had made little impact on Iraq before World War I...It was the British, whose interests in the Persian Gulf and the Tigris-Euphrates region had grown steadily since the late 18th century, who ultimately brought an end to the Ottoman presence in Iraq."
Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, "Iraq," www.bartleby.com, April 19, 2007

"Discovery of oil in 1908 at Masjid-i Suleiman in Iran...gave impetus to quest for oil in Mesopotamia. Oil pursuits in Mesopotamia were concentrated in Mosul, one of three provinces or 'vilayets' constituting Iraq under the Ottoman rule. Mosul was the northern province, the other two being Baghdad (in the middle) and Basra (in the south) provinces. Foreign geologists visited the area under the disguise of archeologists...

Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), [was] founded in 1911...Notwithstanding its name, TPC did not have Turkish participation."
Ferruh Demirmen "Oil in Iraq: The Byzantine Beginnings," Global Policy Forum, April 25, 2003

"In 1912 a group representing British, German, and Dutch interests formed the Turkish Petroleum Company, which, on the eve of the war [World War I], was given a concession to explore for oil in the vilayets [provinces] of Mosul and Baghdad...

After war was declared, a British expeditionary force soon landed at the head of the gulf and on November 22, 1914, entered Al-Basrah. In a campaign aimed at taking Baghdad, the British suffered a defeat at Al-Kut (Kut al-'Amarah) in April 1916, but a reinforced British army marched into Baghdad on March 11, 1917.

An administration staffed largely by British and Indian officials replaced the Ottoman provincial government in occupied Iraq, but Mosul remained in Ottoman hands until after the Armistice of Mudros (October 30, 1918), which brought an end to the war in the Middle East. Under the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Turkey (the successor to the Ottoman Empire) gave up all claims to its former Arab provinces, including Iraq."
Encyclopedia Britannica "Iraq: The End of Ottoman Rule," www.britannica.com, April 18, 2007

"As early as the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, Britain had obtained tacit consent from its wartime allies to occupy Iraq. British control was formalized in April 1920 at the San Remo conference of Allied powers, which granted Britain a mandate to establish a civil administration for the governing of Iraq, which had been under a British military occupation and administration since the end of 1918."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. lv, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"The [Sykes-Picot] agreement was superceded by another which established a mandate system of French and British control, sanctioned by the new League of Nations.

Under the mandate system, Syria and Lebanon went to the French. The British took over Palestine and three Ottoman provinces of Mesopotamia and created modern-day Iraq."
Mike Shuster "The Middle East and the West: WWI and Beyond," NPR, www.npr.org, April 2, 2007

"In a supplemental oil agreement in San Remo, France was granted 25 percent share in Mesopotamian oil (effectively pre-war German share in TPC). It was stipulated that any company formed to develop Mesopotamian oil fields would be under permanent British control.

A 'native company' would have the right to 20 percent participation in such company. The agreement called for close cooperation between Britain and France on oil exploitation in Persia and Mesopotamia."
Ferruh Demirmen "Oil in Iraq: The Byzantine Beginnings," Global Policy Forum, April 25, 2003

"By July 1920, Mosul was in rebellion against British rule, and the insurrection moved south down the Euphrates River vally...

Ath Thawra al Iraqiyya al Kubra, or The Great Iraqi Revolution (as the 1920 rebellion is called), was a watershed event in contemporary Iraqi history. For the first time, Sunnis and Shias, tribes and cities, were brought together in a common effort...

The 1920 rebellion brought these groups together, if only briefly; this constituted an important first step in the long and arduous process of forging a nation-state out of Iraq's conflict-ridden social structure."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 34-35, U.S. Government, 1990

"1920 - Treaty of Sevres, signed by the defeated Ottoman government, provides for a Kurdish state, subject to the agreement of the League of Nations. Article 64 of the Treaty gives Kurds living in the Mosul vilayet [province] the option of joining a future independent Kurdistan."
BBC News "Timeline: Iraqi Kurds," http://news.bbc.co.uk, April 20, 2007

"...[The British] were faced with the dilemma of finding a ruler for Iraq who would be acceptable to the local population but who would also be willing to allow them to preserve an influential role in the affairs of the country, especially in its foreign relations. At the March 1921 Cairo Conference, their choice fell on the Hashimite Amir Faysal...His Hashimite lineage made him acceptable to both Sunni and Shi'i Muslims..."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. lvi, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"Many of the conservative notables came from Sunni sayyid families, and the political elite of Feisal's Iraq came to have a strongly Sunni orientation. Over the period of 1921-1936 seventy-one per cent of cabinet posts were occupied by Sunnis and only twenty-four per cent by Shias."
Geoff Simons Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam, p. 195, St. Martin's Press, 1994

"The establishment of the monarchy was the first step in setting up a national regime. Two other steps followed immediately: the signing of a treaty of alliance with Great Britain and the drafting of a constitution. It was deemed necessary that a treaty precede the constitution and define relations between Iraq and Britain. The treaty was signed on October 10, 1922...

In deference to public opinion in both Britain and Iraq, a protocol to the treaty was signed in April 1923, reducing the period of the treaty from 20 to 4 years. Despite the shortening of British tutelage, the Constituent Assembly demanded complete independence when the treaty was put before it for approval. Ratification of the treaty was accomplished in June 1924, after Britain's warning that nonapproval would lead to the referral of the matter to the League of Nations.

The Constituent Assembly then considered a draft constitution drawn up by a constitutional committee...Discussion on the draft constitution by the Constituent Assembly lasted a month, and after minor modifications it was adopted in July 1924. The Organic Law, as the constitution was called, went into effect right after it was signed by the king in March 1925."
Encyclopedia Britannica "Iraq: British Occupation and the Mandatory Regime," www.britannica.com, April 18, 2007

"The Assyrians, a small Christian community living in Mosul province, were given assurances of security by both Britain and Iraq. When the mandate was ended, the Assyrians began to feel insecure and demanded new assurances. Matters came to a head in the summer of 1933 when King Faysal was in Europe. The opposition, now in power, wanted to impress the public through a high-handed policy toward a minority group. In clashes with the Iraqi troops, several hundred Assyrians were brutally killed."
Encyclopedia Britannica "Iraq: Independence, 1932–39," www.britannica.com, April 18, 2007

"1933 - King Faisal dies. His 21-year-old son Ghazi takes the throne, continuing the Hashemite monarchy."
PBS "Iraq in Transition," www.pbs.org, April 18, 2007

"1936 - In the first of seven military coups over the next six years, Gen. Bakr Sidqi overthrows the parliamentary government with backing from disgruntled political leaders. Other coups involve similar coalitions of military and political leaders."
PBS "Iraq in Transition," www.pbs.org, April 18, 2007

"One of the main consequences of this first coup was that the army officer corps became accustomed to the regular use of military force to bring about changes in government policies and personnel. The other parallel trend was the splintering of Iraq's civilian politicans into a pro-British bloc headed by Nuri al-Sa'id and an anti-British group whose leading spokesman later became Rashid 'Ali al-Kaylani. Because it was anti-British, in the years immediately preceding World War II and during the 1941 Iraqi revolt, this latter group received covert and overt support from Nazi Germany."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. lvii, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"1939 - King Ghazi dies in car accident, leaving his 3-year-old son Faisal II as heir to the throne. His reign is overseen by the regency of Abd al-Ilah, a prince of a prominent Hashemite family and ally of Nuri al-Said, the Iraqi prime minister."
PBS "Iraq in Transition," www.pbs.org, April 18, 2007

"In June 1941, following the flight of the pro-Nazi Rashid Ali and just before British forces re-entered Baghdad, the city's Jews were brutally attacked by Iraqi nationalists. The assault, known as the farhud [violent dispossession], left some 250-300 people, mostly Jews, dead or injured."
Yehouda Shenhav "The Jews of Iraq, Zionist Ideology, and the Property of the Palestinian Refugees of 1948: An Anomaly of National Accounting," International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1999

"In January 1943, under the terms of the 1930 treaty with Britain, Iraq declared war on the Axis powers...Iraq became a base for the military occupation of Iran and of the Levant [countries along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean].

In March 1945, Iraq became a founding member of the British-supported League of Arab States (Arab League), which included Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen...

In December 1945, Iraq joined the United Nations (UN)."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 46, U.S. Government, 1990

"1948 – The 'Wathbah' uprising. This was a protest against the Portsmouth Treaty’s (January 1948) article establishing a board of Iraqis and British to decide on defense matters of mutual interest, especially on control over air bases. The treaty enraged Iraqi nationalists, who were still bitter over British interference in Iraqi affairs and possible complicity in the coup of 1941 that deposed Rashid Ali and what became the second British occupation of Iraq.

Students demonstrated and clashed with police, killing at least seventy-seven protesters, and this led the regent to renounce the treaty with Britain he had earlier agreed to signing."
James Fearon and David Laitin "Iraq," Stanford University, June 5, 2006

"The Iraqi Baath party was founded in 1951 and had 500 members three years later."
BBC News "The Iraqi Baath Party," http://news.bbc.co.uk, April 18, 2007

"1952 - Large-scale anti-regime protests in Baghdad and elsewhere, triggered by bad harvests and the government’s intransigence in the face of demands for direct elections. The government responded resolutely but not violently: martial law, the banning of political parties, the suspension of several newspapers, and imposition of a curfew. Violence ensued, but there were no reported deaths from this incident."
James Fearon and David Laitin "Iraq," Stanford University, June 5, 2006

"1955 - Iraq adopts the Baghdad Pact, also known as the Central Treaty Organization, binding the country with the United Kingdom, Turkey and Pakistan under the auspices of protecting the region from the encroaching Soviet Union."
PBS "Iraq in Transition," www.pbs.org, April 18, 2007

"...[I]n January 1957, the United States announced the 'Eisenhower Doctrine': a policy whereby the U.S. would dispense economic and military aid to Arab countries willing to take a stand against Communism. Most Arab countries, except Lebanon and Iraq, did not welcome the initiative."
Ted Thornton "History of the Middle East Database: The Arab-Israeli Wars 1948 - 1973," www.nmhschool.org, April 27, 2007

"1958 - Brigadier Abdul Karim Qasim overthrows the Hashemite monarchy in a bloody military coup. King Faisal II, Prince Abd Al-Ilah and Nuri al-Said are all killed. Qasim withdraws Iraq from the Baghdad Pact and begins diplomatic relations with the USSR. Qasim also seeks Kurdish political support by guaranteeing national Kurdish rights and arranging for the release of Kurdish leader Mustafa al-Barzani from the Soviet Union."
PBS "Iraq in Transition," www.pbs.org, April 19, 2007

"In March 1959, a group of disgruntled Free Officers, who came from conservative, well-known, Arab Sunni families and who opposed [Abdul Karim] Qasim's increasing links with communists, attempted a coup. Aware of the planned coup, Qasim had his communist allies mobilize 250,000 of their supporters in Mosul. The ill-planned coup attempt never really materialized and, in its aftermath, the communists massacred nationalists and some well-to-do Mosul families..."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 50, U.S. Government, 1990

"The Kurds and the commuists also participated in the anti-Turkuman, Kirkuk massacres in July 1959. The negative ramifications of these events led Qasim to denounce communist activities and to encourage splits within the ICP [Iraqi Communist Party]."
Edmund A. Ghareeb Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. lxi, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004

"Following the events at Mosul and at Kirkuk, the Baath and its leader, Fuad Rikabi, decided that the only way to dislodge the Qasim regime would be to kill Qasim. The future president, Saddam Husayn, carried out the attempted assassination, which injured Qasim but failed to kill him."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 51, U.S. Government, 1990

"1961 - After Kurds supported the 1958 revolution, in which the new constitution stipulated that the Kurds would have equal status as the Arabs, exiled Kurd leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani, was allowed to return. But things soured, and Kurdish deserters from the army started attacking the regular units. This is the beginning of a long series of armed confrontations between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi state."
James Fearon and David Laitin "Iraq," Stanford University, June 5, 2006

"Sept 1961 - After [Abdul Karim] Qasim rejects Mustafa Barzani's [Kurdish] autonomy plan, he launches a major offensive against Kurds in Iraq; escalates through into early 1962..."
MidEast Web for Coexistence "The Iraq Crisis - Timeline Chronology of Modern Iraqi History," www.mideastweb.org, April 27, 2007

"...[B]y 1968 close family and tribal ties bound the Baath's ruling clique. Most notable in this regard was the emergence of Tikritis- Sunni Arabs from the northwest town of Tikrit- relate to Ahmad Hasan al Bakr. Three of the five members of the Baath's Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) were Tikrities...

Saddam Husayn, a key leader behind the scenes, also was a Tikriti and a relative of Bakr...

Less than two months after the formation of the Bakr government, a coaltion of pro-Nasser elements, Arif supporters, and conservatives from the military attempted another coup. This event provided the rationale for numerous purges directed by Bakr and Saddam Husayn."
U.S. Library of Congress Iraq: A Country Study, p. 58-59, U.S. Government, 1990

"The government agreed to officially recognize the Kurds as a 'national' group entitled to a form of autonomous status called self-rule. This would eventually lead to the establishment of a provincial administrative council and an assembly to deal with Kurdish affairs.

The agreement was proclaimed in the Manifesto of March 1970, to go into effect in March 1974, following a census to determine the frontiers of the area in which the Kurds formed the majority of the population."
Encyclopedia Britannica "Iraq: The Revolution of 1968," www.britannica.com, April 19, 2007

"Beginning in 1974–75, under the direction of Saddam, Iraq's relations with its neighbours started to improve. The young vice president realized that the country's near total isolation was threatening the regime's hold on power. The crucial turnaround took place in 1975 when Iraq and Iran signed the Algiers Agreement, in which Iraq agreed to move the maritime boundary between the two countries to the thalweg [a line in a river]—conditioned on Iran's withdrawal of support for the Iraqi Kurds."
Encyclopedia Britannica "Iraq: Foreign policy 1968–80," www.britannica.com, April 19, 2007

"In September 1980, border skirmishes [with Iran] erupted in the central sector near Qasr-e Shirin, with an exchange of artillery fire by both sides. A few weeks later, Saddam Husayn officially abrogated the 1975 treaty [Algiers Accord] between Iraq and Iran and announced that the Shatt al Arab was returning to Iraqi sovereignty...Finally, on September 23, Iraqi troops marched into Iranian territory, beginning what was to be a protracted and extremely costly war."
National Security Archive, George Washington University "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984," www.gwu.edu, April 3, 2007

"When Ronald Reagan becomes president in 1981, he endorses a policy aiming for a stalemate in the war so that neither side emerges from the war with any additional power. But in 1982, fearing Iraq might lose the war, the U.S. begins to help. Over the next six years, a string of CIA agents go to Baghdad. Hand-carrying the latest satellite intelligence about the Iranian front line, they pass the information to their Iraqi counterparts. The U.S. gives Iraq enough help to avoid defeat, but not enough to secure victory."
PBS "The Long Road to War," www.pbs.org, April 3, 2007

"The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism."
National Security Archive, George Washington University "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984," www.gwu.edu, April 16, 2007

"[T]he Department of Commerce approved the licenses for exporting $1.5 billion of dual-use [items that have both civilian and military uses] items to Iraq between 1985 and 1990... Commerce officials told us that because Iraq was removed from antiterrorism controls and because controls on missile technology and chemical and biological warfare were not in place until the late 1980s, few foreign policy controls were placed on exports to Iraq during the 1980s. They said that this, along with the lack of national security controls, resulted in a long list of high-technology items being sold to Iraq during the 1980s.

Commerce data showed that between 1985 and 1990, it approved 771 licenses, valued at $1.5 billion, for sales to Iraq, while only 39 applications were rejected."
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) "Iraq: U.S. Military Items Exported or Transferred to Iraq in the 1980s" (GAO/NSIAD-94-98), February 7, 1994

View the full February 7, 1994 GAO report: Iraq: U.S. Military Items Exported or Transferred to Iraq in the 1980s PDF 1.3 MB.
View an example page of one of the approved licenses, dated 1985 PDF 42.5 KB

"After eight years of fierce and bloody fighting between Iran and Iraq which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, a United Nations-sponsored cease-fire went into effect on 20 August [1988]."
United Nations "Iran-Iraq ceasefire: UN Conducts Peace Talks in Geneva, New York," UN Chronicle, December 1988

"Explosion in Iraqi missile production facility near Baghdad. A British Observer journalist, Farzad Bazoft, is caught investigating [the explosion] and is hanged."
MidEast Web for Coexistence "The Iraq Crisis - Timeline Chronology of Modern Iraqi History," www.mideastweb.org, April 27, 2007

"Hussein accused neighboring Kuwait in July, 1990, with flooding world oil markets, causing oil prices to decrease and threatening Iraq’s attempts to boost its war-torn economy. On Aug. 2, 1990, some 120,000 Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, and Hussein declared its annexation."
The Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, "Iraq," www.bartleby.com, March 28, 2007

On July 25, 1990, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, tells Saddam Hussein "I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
New York Times "Excerpts From Iraqi Document on Meeting with the U.S. Envoy," September 23, 1990

"August 2, 1990 - The United Nations Security Council convenes an emergency session at the request of Kuwait and the United States, and votes 14-0 (with Yemen abstaining) to condemn the invasion and to demand that Iraq withdraw immediately and unconditionally [UN Resoultion 660]...

August 6, 1990 - U.N. Security Council imposes trade embargo [UN Resolution 661] on Iraq in a 13-0 vote, with Cuba and Yemen abstaining."
CNN "The Unfinished War: A Decade Since Desert Storm," www.cnn.com, April 4, 2007

"Regarding Iraq's actions as a threat to a vital interest of the US...President George Bush ordered warplanes and ground forces to Saudi Arabia after obtaining King Fahd's approval...

Operation Desert Shield, the US military deployment to first defend Saudi Arabia grew rapidly to become the largest American deployment since the Southeast Asia Conflict. The Gulf region was within US Central Command's (CENTCOM) area of responsibility. Eventually, 30 nations joined the military coalition arrayed against Iraq, with a further 18 countries supplying economic, humanitarian, or other type of assistance...

On 17 January 1991, when it became clear that Saddam would not withdraw, Desert Shield became Desert Storm...

After a 38-day air campaign, the Desert Sabre ground offensive began with allied forces sweeping through Iraqi defenses. The Iraqi army was crushed after a mere 100 hours. Iraqi troops--tired, hungry and war-weary from six months of economic blockade and more than a month of relentless allied bombing--surrendered by the thousands."
GlobalSecurity.org "Operation Desert Shield," "Operation Desert Storm," www.globalsecurity.org, April 16, 2007

On April 2, 1991, the U.N. Security Council passes UN Resolution 687 requiring Iraq to "unconditionally accept" the destruction, removal or rendering harmless all "chemical and biological weapons" and to not "acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material;" creating the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to verify the elimination of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs; and mandating that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verify elimination of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
United Nations http://daccessdds.un.org, April 4, 2007

On October 11, 1991, the U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 715 requiring Iraq to submit to UNSCOM and IAEA long-term monitoring of Iraqi WMD programs and approving detailed plans called for in UN Resolutions 687 and 707 for long-term monitoring.
United Nations http://daccessdds.un.org, April 4, 2007

"...[T]wo no-fly zones, one in the north and another in the south of Iraq, were unilaterally created by the US, Britain and France soon after the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq was banned from using all aircraft, including helicopters, in the air exclusion zones.

The Northern Zone was established in April 1991 after Baghdad mobilised helicopter gunships to quell a Kurdish uprising."
BBC News "Containment: The Iraqi No-Fly Zones," http://news.bbc.co.uk, March 28, 2007

"In April 1993, former President George Bush visited Kuwait to commemorate the victory over Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. During Bush's visit, Kuwaiti authorities arrested 17 people allegedly involved in a plot to kill Bush using a car bomb.

The United States sent various personnel to Kuwait to investigate the alleged assassination attempt. Based on interviews of the alleged coconspirators, forensic examinations of the explosive devices, and intelligence reports, the United States Government concluded that Iraq was behind the attempted car bombing. In response, on June 26, 1993, President Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike against an Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) building in Baghdad."

"Q: Do you think that U.S. or U.N. forces should have moved into Baghdad?

Cheney: No.

Q: Why not?

Cheney: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."

[See YouTube video footage from this interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I]

May 1994 - "President Saddam Hussein of Iraq will assume the position of Prime Minister himself, replacing Ahmed Hussein Khudayir al-Samarral, the Iraqi news agency reported today.

Citing an official Government statement...the change was necessary because United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990 have damaged the country's economy, the agency said."
New York Times "Iraqi Leader Assumes Post," May 30, 1994

"1996 June - The CIA recruits officers within Saddam's inner circle to help in a military coup d'état. The plotters were told that the U.S. would recognize them as Iraq's new leaders. They were given special mobile phones with direct lines to the CIA.

But Saddam was ready. A special unit of Iraqi intelligence had studied every coup of the 20th century and they penetrated this one. Saddam's agents burst into homes across Baghdad and tortured and executed hundreds of officers.

Then Saddam's agents found the CIA's phones. An Iraqi intelligence officer placed a call. A U.S. agent answered. He was told, 'Your men are dead. Pack up and go home.'"
PBS "The Long Road to War: Chronology," www.pbs.org, March 29, 2007