Diplomatic relations
Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. 1 ...
between
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
began when the U.S. first recognized Iraq on January 9, 1930, with the signing of the Anglo-American-Iraqi Convention in London by
Charles G. Dawes
Charles Gates Dawes (August 27, 1865 – April 23, 1951) was an American banker, general, diplomat, composer, and Republican politician who was the 30th vice president of the United States from 1925 to 1929 under Calvin Coolidge. He was a co-reci ...
, U.S. Ambassador to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. The historiography of Iraq–United States relations prior to the 1980s is considered relatively underdeveloped, with the first in-depth academic studies being published in the 2010s. Today, the United States and Iraq both consider themselves as strategic partners, given the American political and military involvement after the invasion of Iraq and their mutual, deep-rooted relationship that followed. The United States provides the Iraqi security forces millions of dollars of
military aid
Military aid is aid which is used to assist a country or its people in its defense efforts, or to assist a poor country in maintaining control over its own territory. Many countries receive military aid to help with counter-insurgency efforts. Mi ...
and training annually as well as uses its military bases.
In 2020, Iraq voted to ask the United States and its coalition members to withdraw all of their troops from the country, with U.S. President Trump asserting that sanctions will be imposed against Iraq if the United States' troops were forced to exit Iraq. Meanwhile, Iraq has prepared a mechanism for the withdrawal of coalition troops from the country and begun discussing it with coalition members. According to the office of Iraq's Prime Minister, the United States has promised to follow up on unauthorized use of Iraqi airspace and violations of its sovereignty.
Ottoman Empire
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
commercial interaction with the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
(which included the area that later became modern
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
) began in the late 18th century. In 1831, Chargé d'Affaires David Porter became the first American diplomat in the Ottoman Empire, at the capital city of
. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the United States supported Great Britain's administration of Iraq as a mandate, but insisted that it be groomed for independence, rather than remain a colony.
U.S. recognizes Iraq
The U.S. recognized Iraq on January 9, 1930, when
Charles G. Dawes
Charles Gates Dawes (August 27, 1865 – April 23, 1951) was an American banker, general, diplomat, composer, and Republican politician who was the 30th vice president of the United States from 1925 to 1929 under Calvin Coolidge. He was a co-reci ...
, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, signed the Anglo-American-Iraqi Convention in London. According to the preamble of the convention, "the United States of America recognizes Iraq as an independent State." In this treaty, the U.S. also acknowledged that "special relations" existed between the U.K. and Iraq because the latter was a mandate under British protection according to the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
. In 1932, Iraq terminated its mandate status. Diplomatic relations and the American Legation in Iraq were established on March 30, 1931, when Alexander K. Sloan (then serving as Consul in Iraq) was appointed
Chargé d'Affaires
A ''chargé d'affaires'' (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador ...
of the American Legation at
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
. The U.S. upgraded its diplomatic representation in Iraq from a
Legation
A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, minister. Ambassadors diplomatic rank, out ...
to an
Embassy
A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...
on December 28, 1946.
Arab Union
On May 28, 1958, the U.S. recognized the
Arab Union
The Arab Union is a theoretical political union of the Arab states. The term was first used when the British Empire promised the Arabs a united independent state in return for revolting against the Ottoman Empire, with whom Britain was at war. ...
that formed between Iraq and the
Hashemite
The Hashemites ( ar, الهاشميون, al-Hāshimīyūn), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921 ...
Kingdom of
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
. U.S. recognition of the new state was accorded in an exchange of notes between the American Embassy at Baghdad and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...
of the Arab Union. In announcing U.S. recognition, the
Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
noted that the Arab Union's constitution stipulated that "external affairs will remain as they are at the present time" with the two Kingdoms that had joined to form the new state. Consequently, formal diplomatic relations were not established between the U.S. and the Arab Union, and diplomatic relations continued uninterrupted between the U.S. and Iraq, and the U.S. and Jordan.
Abd al-Karim Qasim
Abd al-Karim Qasim Muhammad Bakr al-Fadhli al-Zubaidi ( ar, عبد الكريم قاسم ' ) (21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963) was an Iraqi Army brigadier and nationalist who came to power when the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown ...
. Concerned about the influence of
Iraqi Communist Party
The Iraqi Communist Party ( ar, الحزب الشيوعي العراقي '; ku, Partiya Komunista Iraqê حزبی شیوعی عێراق) is a communist party and the oldest active party in Iraq. Since its foundation in 1934, it has dominated the ...
(ICP) members in Qasim's administration, and hoping to prevent "
Ba'athist
Ba'athism, also stylized as Baathism, (; ar, البعثية ' , from ' , meaning "renaissance" or "resurrection"Hans Wehr''Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic'' (4th ed.), page 80) is an Arab nationalist ideology which promotes the creation a ...
or
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
exploitation of the situation," President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
had established a Special Committee on Iraq (SCI) in April 1959 to monitor events and propose various contingencies for preventing a communist takeover of the country. Qasim undertook numerous repressive measures against the communists throughout 1960, and this—combined with the
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
administration's belief that Iraq was not important to the broader
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
—resulted in the disestablishment of the SCI within days of Kennedy's inauguration as President. However, subsequent events would return Iraq to the attention of American officials.
On June 25, 1961, Qasim mobilized troops along the border between Iraq and
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
, declaring the latter nation "an indivisible part of Iraq" and causing a short-lived " Kuwait Crisis." The U.K.—which had just granted Kuwait independence on June 19 and whose economy was heavily dependent on Kuwaiti oil supplies—responded on July 1 by dispatching 5,000 troops to the country to deter any Iraqi invasion. At the same time, Kennedy briefly dispatched a U.S. Navy task force to
Bahrain
Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
, and the U.K. (at the urging of the Kennedy administration) brought the dispute to
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
, where the proposed resolution was
vetoed
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto pow ...
by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. The situation was finally resolved in October, when the British troops were withdrawn and replaced by a 4,000-strong
Arab League
The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...
force. The Kennedy administration's initially "low-key" response to the stand-off was motivated by the desire to project an image of the U.S. as "a progressive
anti-colonial
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...
power trying to work productively with
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism ( ar, القومية العربية, al-Qawmīya al-ʿArabīya) is a nationalist ideology that asserts the Arabs are a nation and promotes the unity of Arab people, celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language an ...
" as well as the preference of U.S. officials to defer to the U.K. on issues related to the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...
.
Following Kurdish leader
Mustafa Barzani
Mustafa Barzani ( ku, مەلا مستهفا بارزانی, Mistefa Barzanî; 14 March 1903 – 1 March 1979) also known as Mela Mustafa (Preacher Mustafa), was a Kurdish leader, general and one of the most prominent political figures in mode ...
's 1958 return to Iraq from exile in the Soviet Union, Qasim had promised to permit autonomous rule in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but by 1961 Qasim had made no progress towards achieving this goal. In July 1961, following months of violence between feuding Kurdish tribes, Barzani returned to northern Iraq and began retaking territory from his Kurdish rivals. Although Qasim's government did not respond to the escalating violence, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party
The Kurdistan Democratic Party ( ku, Partiya Demokrat a Kurdistanê; پارتی دیموکراتی کوردستان), usually abbreviated as KDP or PDK, is the largest party in Iraqi Kurdistan and the senior partner in the Kurdistan Regional Gov ...
(KDP) sent Qasim a list of demands in August, which included the withdrawal of Iraqi government troops from Kurdish territory and greater political freedom. For the next month, U.S. officials in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and Iraq predicted that a war was imminent. Faced with the loss of northern Iraq after non-Barzani
Kurds ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...
seized control of a key road leading to the Iranian border in early September and ambushed and massacred Iraqi troops on September 10 and September 12, Qasim finally ordered the systematic bombing of Kurdish villages on September 14, which caused Barzani to join the rebellion on September 19. As part of a strategy devised by
Alexander Shelepin
Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (; 18 August 1918 – 24 October 1994) was a Soviet politician and security and intelligence officer. A long-time member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he served as First Depu ...
in July 1961 to distract the U.S. and its allies from the Soviet Union's aggressive posture in Berlin, the Soviet
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
revived its connections with Barzani and encouraged him to revolt, although Barzani had no intention to act as their proxy. By March 1962, Barzani's forces were in firm control of Iraqi Kurdistan, although Barzani refrained from taking major cities out of fear that the Iraqi government would launch reprisals against civilians. The U.S. refused Kurdish requests for assistance, but Qasim nevertheless castigated the Kurds as "American stooges" while absolving the Soviets of any responsibility for the unrest.
In December 1961, Qasim's government passed Public Law 80, which restricted the British- and American-owned
Iraq Petroleum Company
The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It is jointly owned by some of the world's ...
(IPC)'s concessionary holding to those areas in which oil was actually being produced, effectively expropriating 99.5% of the IPC concession. U.S. officials were alarmed by the expropriation as well as the recent Soviet veto of an Egyptian-sponsored UN resolution requesting the admittance of Kuwait as a UN member state, which they believed to be connected. Senior
National Security Council
A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
(NSC) adviser
Robert Komer
Robert William "Blowtorch Bob" Komer (February 23, 1922 – April 9, 2000) was an American national security adviser known for managing Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support during the Vietnam War.
Early life and education
Born ...
worried that if the IPC ceased production in response, Qasim might "grab Kuwait" (thus achieving a "stranglehold" on Middle Eastern oil production) or "throw himself into Russian arms." At the same time, Komer made note of widespread rumors that a nationalist coup against Qasim could be imminent, and had the potential to "get Iraq back on more neutral keel." Following Komer's advice, on December 30 Kennedy's
National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils.
National sec ...
McGeorge Bundy
McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Founda ...
sent the President a cable from the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, John Jernegan, which argued that the U.S. was "in grave danger fbeing drawn into costly and politically disastrous situation over Kuwait." Bundy also requested Kennedy's permission to "press
State
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
" to consider measures to resolve the situation with Iraq, adding that cooperation with the British was desirable "if possible, but our own interests, oil and other, are very directly involved."
In April 1962, the State Department issued new guidelines on Iraq that were intended to increase American influence in the country. Around the same time, Kennedy instructed the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA)—under the direction of Archie Roosevelt, Jr.—to begin making preparations for a military coup against Qasim. On June 2, Iraqi Foreign MinisterHashim Jawad ordered Jernegan to leave the country, stating that Iraq was also withdrawing its ambassador from Washington in retaliation for the U.S. accepting the credentials of a new Kuwaiti ambassador on June 1, which Iraq had repeatedly warned would result in a downgrading of diplomatic relations. Despite the Iraqi warnings, senior U.S. officials were stunned by the downgrade; Kennedy had not been informed of the likely consequences of accepting the Kuwaiti ambassador. By the end of 1962, a series of major defeats at the hands of Kurdish rebels had severely damaged both the Iraqi army's morale and Qasim's popular support. From September 1962 through February 1963, Qasim repeatedly blamed the "criminal activities" of the U.S. for the battlefield successes of the Kurds, but the State Department rejected requests from the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Baghdad, Roy Melbourne, to publicly respond to Qasim's allegations out of fear that doing so would jeopardize the remaining U.S. presence in Iraq. On February 5, 1963 Secretary of State
Dean Rusk
David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving Secretary of State after Cordell Hull from the F ...
informed the U.S. embassy in Iraq that the State Department was "considering carefully whether on balance U.S. interests would be served tthis particular juncture by abandoning tspolicy of avoiding public reaction to Qasim's charges," with the reluctance stemming from the desire to avoid compromising the CIA's "significant intelligence collecting operations": On February 7, State Department executive secretary William Brubeck informed Bundy that Iraq had become "one of the more useful spots for acquiring technical information on Soviet military and industrial equipment and on Soviet methods of operation in nonaligned areas." The CIA had earlier penetrated a top-secret Iraqi-Soviet
surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
project, which yielded intelligence on the Soviet Union's ballistic missile program. With access to crucial intelligence hanging in the balance, U.S. officials were showing "great reluctance about aggravating Qasim."
After reaching a secret agreement with Barzani to work together against Qasim in January, the anti-imperialist and anti-communist Iraqi Ba'ath Partyoverthrew and executed Qasim in a violent coup on February 8, 1963. While there have been persistent rumors that the CIA orchestrated the coup, publicly declassified documents and the testimony of former CIA officers do not support claims of direct American involvement, although the CIA was actively seeking to find a suitable replacement for Qasim within the Iraqi military and the U.S. had been notified of two aborted Ba'athist coup plots in July and December 1962. Despite evidence that the CIA had been closely tracking the Ba'ath Party's coup planning since "at least 1961," the CIA official working with Roosevelt to instigate a military coup against Qasim, and who later became the head of the CIA's operations in Iraq and Syria, has "denied any involvement in the Ba'ath Party's actions," stating instead that the CIA's efforts against Qasim were still in the planning stages at the time. By contrast, Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt states that "Scholars remain divided in their interpretations of American foreign policy toward the February 1963 coup in Iraq," but cites "compelling evidence of an American role in the coup."
Qasim's former deputy
Abdul Salam Arif
ʿAbd al-Salam Mohammed ʿArif al-Jumayli ( ar, عبد السلام محمد عارف الجميلي'; 21 March 1921 – 13 April 1966) was the second president of Iraq from 1963 until his death in a plane crash in 1966. He played a leading role ...
(who was not a Ba'athist) was given the largely ceremonial title of President, while prominent Ba'athist general
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr ' (1 July 1914 – 4 October 1982) was the fourth president of Iraq, from 17 July 1968 to 16 July 1979. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and i ...
was named Prime Minister. The most powerful leader of the new government was the secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party,
Ali Salih al-Sa'di
Ali Salih al-Sa'di ( ; 1928 - September 19, 1977) was an Iraqi politician. He was General Secretary of the Iraqi branch of the Baath Party from the late 1950s until the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état. From February 8, 1963 (Ramadan Revolution ...
, who controlled the militant National Guard and organized a massacre of hundreds—if not thousands—of suspected communists and other dissidents in the days following the coup. The Kennedy administration viewed the prospect of an Iraqi shift in the Cold War with cautious optimism. However, U.S. officials were worried that a renewal of conflict with the Kurds could threaten the Iraqi government's survival. While Barzani had released 1,500 Arab prisoners of war as a gesture of good faith, Iraqi
Foreign Minister
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...
Talib El-Shibib
Talib El-Shibib (22 March 1934 – 12 October 1997) was an Iraqi politician. Born in Babylon Province, he studied engineering at Imperial College in London.
El-Shibib was elected to the leadership of Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and was one of ...
told Melbourne on March 3 that the government was unwilling to consider any concessions beyond cultural autonomy and was prepared to use anti-Barzani Kurds and Arab tribes in northern Iraq to co-opt the Kurds's guerrilla methods. On May 4, Melbourne delivered a message warning Shibib of the U.S. government's "serious apprehensions at hetrend of events" and urging Iraqi officials to make "serious counter-proposals." Nevertheless, on May 22 al-Bakr bluntly told Melbourne he "could not permit this Kurdish challenge to Iraqi sovereignty to continue ormuch longer." The fighting resumed on June 10, when the Iraqi government—which had amassed 45,000 troops in Iraqi Kurdistan—arrested members of the Kurdish negotiating delegation and declared martial law throughout northern Iraq. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union actively worked to undermine the Ba'athist government, suspending military shipments to Iraq in May, convincing its ally
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
to sponsor charges of genocide against Iraq at the UN General Assembly from July to September, and sponsoring a failed communist coup attempt on July 3. The Kennedy administration responded by urging Arab allies of the U.S. to oppose the genocide charge at the UN and by approving a $55 million arms deal for Iraq. Furthermore, "Weldon C. Mathews has meticulously established that National Guard leaders who participated in human rights abuses had been trained in the United States as part of a police program run by the
International Cooperation Administration
The International Cooperation Administration (ICA) was a United States government agency operating from June 30, 1955 until September 4, 1961, responsible for foreign assistance and 'nonmilitary security' programs. It was the predecessor of the ...
and
Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bil ...
." Because, in the words of State Department official James Spain, the "policy of the nationalist Arabs who dominate the Baghdad government does in fact come close to genocide"—as well as a desire to eliminate the Soviets' "Kurdish Card"—the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Robert C. Strong, informed al-Bakr of a Barzani peace proposal delivered to the U.S. consul in
Tabriz
Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...
(and offered to convey a response) on August 25. While a Barzani-initiated ceasefire would have allowed the government to claim victory, al-Bakr "expressed astonishment" over American contacts with the Kurds, asking why the message had not been delivered through the Soviets. Wolfe-Hunnicutt argues that the Kennedy administration's provision of military aid to the Ba'athist government, including
napalm
Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated al ...
weapons, emboldened Iraqi hardliners and was counter-productive to the administration's stated preference for a diplomatic settlement to the
First Iraqi–Kurdish War
The First Iraqi–Kurdish WarMichael G. Lortz. (Chapter 1, Introduction). ''The Kurdish Warrior Tradition and the Importance of the Peshmerga''. pp.39-42. (Arabic: الحرب العراقية الكردية الأولى) also known as Aylul revo ...
. An offer by Iraqi general Hasan Sabri al-Bayati to reciprocate this gesture by sending a Soviet
T-54
The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of Soviet main battle tanks introduced in the years following the World War II, Second World War. The first T-54 prototype was completed at Nizhny Tagil by the end of 1945.Steven Zaloga, T-54 and T-55 Mai ...
tank in Iraq's possession to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad for inspection became something of a "scandal" as Bayati's offer had not been approved by al-Bakr, Shibib, or other senior Iraqi officials and was rescinded by the Ba'ath Party leadership after they became aware of it.
The Ba'athist government collapsed in November 1963 over the question of unification with Syria (where a different branch of the Ba'ath Party had seized power in March) and the extremist and uncontrollable behavior of al-Sa'di's National Guard. President Arif, with the overwhelming support of the Iraqi military, purged Ba'athists from the government and ordered the National Guard to stand down; although al-Bakr had conspired with Arif to remove al-Sa'di, on January 5, 1964, Arif removed al-Bakr from his new position as
Vice President
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
, fearful of allowing the Ba'ath Party to retain a foothold inside his government. On November 21, 1963, the Kennedy administration determined that because Arif remained the Iraqi head of state, diplomatic relations with Iraq would continue unimpeded.
Lyndon Johnson administration
Under the Presidencies of Arif, and, especially, his brother
Abdul Rahman Arif
Hajj ʿAbd al-Rahman Mohammed ʿArif al-Jumayli ( ar, عبد الرحمن محمد عارف الجميلي, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿĀrif; 14 April 191624 August 2007) was a career soldier and the third president of Iraq from 16 April 1966 to 17 Ju ...
, the U.S. and Iraq developed closer ties than at any point since the 1958 revolution. The
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
administration favorably perceived Arif's proposal to partially reverse Qasim's nationalization of the IPC's concessionary holding in July 1965 (although the resignation of six cabinet members and widespread disapproval among the Iraqi public forced him to abandon this plan), as well as pro-Western lawyer
Abdul Rahman al-Bazzaz
Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz (Arabic: عبد الرحمن البزاز; 20 February 1913 – 28 June 1973) was an Iraqi politician, reformist and writer. He was a pan-Arab nationalist and served as the Dean of Baghdad Law College and later as Prime M ...
's tenure as Prime Minister; Bazzaz attempted to implement a peace agreement with the Kurds following a decisive Kurdish victory at the Battle of Mount Handren in May 1966. Abdul Rahman Arif (hereinafter referred to as "Arif") was considered "one of the few forces of moderation" in Iraq, having established a friendship with ambassador Strong prior to assuming the presidency and making a number of friendly gestures to the U.S. between April 1966 and January 1967. At Arif's request, President Johnson met five Iraqi generals and Iraqi ambassador Nasir Hani in the White House on January 25, 1967, reiterating his "desire to build an ever closer relationship between hetwo governments." According to Johnson's
National Security Adviser A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils.
National sec ...
,
Walt Whitman Rostow
Walt Whitman Rostow (October 7, 1916 – February 13, 2003) was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as National Security Advisor to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969.
Rostow worked ...
, the NSC even contemplated welcoming Arif on a state visit to the U.S., although this proposal was ultimately rejected due to concerns about the stability of his government. Prior to the outbreak of the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
, Iraqi Foreign Minister
Adnan Pachachi
Adnan al-Pachachi or Adnan Muzahim Ameen al-Pachachi ( ar, عدنان الباجه جي) (14 May 1923 – 17 November 2019) was a veteran Iraqi and Emirati politician and diplomat. Pachachi was Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nation ...
met with a number of U.S. officials to discuss the escalating Middle East crisis on June 1, including U.S. ambassador to the UN
Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Joseph Goldberg (August 8, 1908January 19, 1990) was an American statesman and jurist who served as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Labor, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the 6th United States Ambassador to ...
,
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
The Under Secretary for Political Affairs is currently the fourth-ranking position in the United States Department of State, after the secretary, the deputy secretary, and the deputy secretary of state for management and resources. The current un ...
Eugene V. Rostow
Eugene Victor Rostow (August 25, 1913 – November 25, 2002) was an American legal scholar and public servant. He was Dean of Yale Law School and served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson. In the ...
Dean Rusk
David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving Secretary of State after Cordell Hull from the F ...
, and President Johnson himself. The political atmosphere engendered by the costly Arab defeat prompted Iraq to break relations with the U.S. on June 7, and ultimately ensured the collapse of Arif's relatively moderate government. Like his brother, Arif previously tried to balance radical and moderate elements in Iraq, but this balancing act was upended by the war as Arif moved to placate the ascendant Iraqi nationalists, notably by reappointing
Tahir Yahya
Tahir Yahya ( ar, طاهر يحيى; 1916 – 1986) was Prime Minister of Iraq twice, from 1963 to 1965 and a short term in 1967–1968. He was educated at the Baghdad Military College and the Staff College. Born in Tikrit 1916. He was the 4th chi ...
to the position of prime minister. Yahya had announced his intention to create a national oil company during his first premiership in late 1963, laying the groundwork for the
Iraq National Oil Company
The Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) was founded in 1966 by the Iraqi government. It was empowered to operate all aspects of the oil industry in Iraq except for refining which was already being run by the Oil Refineries Administration (1952) and l ...
(INOC). During his second term as prime minister from July 1967 to July 1968, Yahya moved to revitalize the INOC and sought to work with
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and the Soviet Union to develop the technical capacity to nationalize the IPC outright, pledging to use Iraq's "oil as a weapon in the battle against Israel."
Before leaving Baghdad on June 10, 1967, U.S. ambassador Enoch S. Duncan handed over the keys to the U.S. embassy to Belgian ambassador Marcel Dupret. Belgium became the
protecting power
A protecting power is a country that represents another sovereign state in a country where it lacks its own diplomatic representation. It is common for protecting powers to be appointed when two countries break off diplomatic relations with e ...
for the U.S. in Baghdad, where lower-ranking American diplomats remained in the old embassy compound as the U.S. Interests Section of the Belgian Embassy. India agreed to serve as the protecting power for Iraq in Washington. Following the break in diplomatic relations, there were very few contacts between American and Iraqi officials until early 1972. In May 1968, the CIA produced a report titled "The Stagnant Revolution," stating that radicals in the Iraqi military posed a threat to the Arif government, and while "the balance of forces is such that no group feels power enough to take decisive steps," the ensuing gridlock had created "a situation in which many important political and economic matters are simply ignored." In June, the Belgians relayed a message from the U.S. State Department to Iraqi officials, offering to resume normal relations if Iraq agreed to provide compensation for damage to the U.S. embassy and consulate incurred during an earlier protest and met other conditions, including an end to the Iraqi boycott of U.S. goods and services imposed after
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
's 1967 victory; although U.S. officials were hoping to prevent a coup, there is no indication of any Iraqi response to this overture. On July 17, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—led by al-Bakr as president, Abd ar-Rahman al-Dawud as defense minister, and
Abd ar-Razzaq an-Naif
Abd ar-Razzaq Said al-Naif ( ar, عبد الرزاق النايف; 1934 – 10 July 1978) was an Iraqi military officer and general and was briefly Prime Minister of Iraq during 1968 until he was deposed.
Early life
General Al-naif graduated fro ...
as prime minister— seized power in a bloodless coup, placing Arif on a plane to London. Remembering the collapse of the short-lived coalition government in 1963, al-Bakr quickly ordered Naif and Dawud (neither of whom were Ba'athists) to be removed from their posts and exiled on July 30, cementing the Ba'ath Party's control over Iraq until the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. al-Bakr was then named prime minister and commander-in-chief of the army.
On August 2, Iraqi Foreign Minister Abdul Karim Sheikhli announced that Iraq would seek close ties "with the socialist camp, particularly the Soviet Union and the
Chinese People's Republic
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
." By late November, the U.S. embassy in Beirut reported that Iraq had released many leftist and communist dissidents, although "there asno indication ...
hey had
Hey or Hey! may refer to:
Music
* Hey (band), a Polish rock band
Albums
* ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014
* ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980
* ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...
been given any major role in the regime." As the Arif government had recently signed a major oil deal with the Soviets, the Ba'ath Party's rapid attempts to improve relations with Moscow were not a complete shock to U.S. policymakers, but they "provided a glimpse at a strategic alliance that would soon emerge." In December, Iraqi troops based in Jordan "made international headlines" when they began shelling Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley, which led to a strong response by the Israeli Air Force. al-Bakr claimed that a "fifth column of agents of Israel and the U.S. was striking from behind," and, on December 14, the Iraqi government alleged it had discovered "an Israeli spy network" plotting to "bring about a change in the Iraqi regime," arresting dozens of individuals and eventually executing 9 Iraqi Jews in January 1969. U.S. officials found the charges improbable, as Iraqi Jews were "under constant surveillance nd thereforewould make poor recruits for any Israeli espionage or sabotage net." Contributing to the growing atmosphere of crisis, the Ba'ath Party also escalated the conflict with Barzani by providing aid to
Jalal Talabani
Jalal Talabani ( ku, مام جەلال تاڵەبانی, translit=Celal Talebanî; ar, جلال طالباني ; 1933 – 3 October 2017) was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the sixth president of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as ...
's rival Kurdish faction. From the beginning, Johnson administration officials were concerned about "how radical" the Ba'athist government would be—with John W. Foster of the NSC predicting immediately after the coup that "the new group ... will be more difficult than their predecessors"—and, although initial U.S. fears that the coup had been supported by the "extremist" sect of the Ba'ath Party that seized control of Syria in 1966 quickly proved unfounded, by the time President Johnson left office there was a growing belief "that the Ba'ath Party was becoming a vehicle for Soviet encroachment on Iraq's sovereignty."
Alleged U.S. support for 1970 anti-Ba'athist coup attempt
The
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
administration was confronted with an early foreign policy crisis when Iraq publicly executed 9 Iraqi Jews on fabricated espionage charges at the end of January 1969. The Nixon administration initially sought to stay the executions by convincing American allies with close ties to Iraq—such as France,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
—to apply pressure on the government, but Iraqi officials responded "in no uncertain terms, to stay out of raq'sdomestic affairs." The U.S. also urged UN Secretary General
U Thant
Thant (; ; January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian to hold the position. He held t ...
to intervene, but he was unable to influence Baghdad's decision. Nixon's Secretary of State,
William P. Rogers
William Pierce Rogers (June 23, 1913 – January 2, 2001) was an American diplomat and attorney. He served as United States Attorney General under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and United States Secretary of State under President Richard Nixo ...
, condemned the executions as "repugnant to the conscience of the world," while U.S. ambassador to the UN
Charles Yost
Charles Woodruff Yost (November 6, 1907 – May 21, 1981) was a career U.S. Ambassador who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971.
Biography
Yost was born in Watertown, New York. He attended t ...
took the matter to the UN Security Council, stating that Iraq's actions were "designed to arouse emotions and to intensify the very explosive atmosphere of suspicion and hostility in the Middle East." In early 1968, the U.K. had announced its intention to withdraw its forces from "East of Suez"—including the Persian Gulf region—thus alarming U.S. officials and prompting the Johnson administration to formulate what became known as the "twin pillar policy," in which the U.S. would support Iran and
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
in their efforts to maintain the Gulf's stability. The Nixon administration would ultimately revise this policy by focusing on building up Iran, then ruled by Nixon's old friend Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monothe ...
(hereinafter referred to as "the Shah"), as the dominant regional power. The Shah distrusted the Ba'athist government in Iraq, which he considered a "bunch of thugs and murderers." Following Iraq's provocative actions in January 1969, the Shah sought to "punish" Iraq, and possibly win partial Iranian sovereignty over the
Shatt al-Arab
The Shatt al-Arab ( ar, شط العرب, lit=River of the Arabs; fa, اروندرود, Arvand Rud, lit=Swift River) is a river of some in length that is formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the town of al-Qurnah in ...
waterway—which a 1937 treaty had given Iraq almost complete control over—through a series of coercive measures: At the beginning of March, he arranged for Iran's Kurdish allies to attack IPC installations around Kirkuk and Mosul, causing Iraq millions of dollars in damage; in April, he unilaterally abrogated the 1937 treaty; and in January 1970, he sponsored a failed coup attempt against the Iraqi government. The Shah knew that most of Iraq's army was deployed in Kurdistan—while an additional three Iraqi brigades were stationed in Jordan—thus Iraq was in no position to retaliate militarily, but he offered to "break off supplies to the Kurds in return for concessions in the Shatt," a proposal Iraq rejected.
The Shah's aggressive actions convinced Iraq to seek an end to the Kurdish War. In late December 1969, al-Bakr sent his deputy,
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
, to negotiate directly with Barzani and his close aide Dr.
Mahmoud Othman
Mahmoud Ali Othman (born 1938) was a member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council created following the United States's 2003 invasion of Iraq. A Kurd and Sunni Muslim, Othman was a member of the Political Bureau Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). ...
. The Shah was outraged when he learned of these negotiations, and sponsored a coup against the Iraqi government, which was scheduled for the night of January 20–21, 1970. However, Iraq's security forces had "complete recordings of most of the meetings and interviews that took place," foiling the plot, expelling the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, and executing "at least 33 conspirators" by January 23. On January 24, Iraq announced its support for Kurdish autonomy, and on March 11, Saddam and Barzani reached an agreement (dubbed the "March Accord") "to recognize the binational character of Iraq ... ndallow for the establishment of a self-governing region of Kurdistan," which was to be implemented by March 1974, although U.S. officials were skeptical that the agreement would prove binding.
There were allegations of American involvement in the failed 1970 coup attempt, which involved a coalition of Iraqi factions, including Kurdish opponents of the Ba'ath Party. Edmund Ghareeb claimed that the CIA reached an agreement to help the Kurds overthrow the Iraqi government in August 1969, although there is little evidence to support this claim, and the CIA officer in charge of operations in Iraq and Syria in 1969 "denied any U.S. involvement with the Kurds prior to 1972." The State Department was informed of the plot by Iraqi businessman Loufti Obeidi on August 15, but strongly refused to provide any assistance. Iraqi exile Sa'ad Jabr discussed the coup planning with officials at the U.S. embassy in Beirut on December 8; embassy officials reiterated that the U.S. could not involve itself in the conspiracy, although on December 10 the State Department authorized the embassy to tell Jabr "we would be prepared to consider prompt resumption of diplomatic relations and would certainly be disposed to cooperate within the limits of existing legislation and our overall policy" if the "new government prove to be moderate and friendly."
Kurdish intervention, 1972–1975
In the aftermath of the March Accord, Iranian and Israeli officials tried to persuade the Nixon administration that the agreement was part of a Soviet plot to free up Iraq's military for aggression against Iran and Israel, but U.S. officials refuted these claims by noting that Iraq had resumed purging ICP members on March 23, 1970, and that Saddam was met with a "chilly" reception during his visit to Moscow on August 4–12, during which he requested deferment on Iraq's considerable foreign debt. Iraqi–Soviet relations improved rapidly in late 1971 in response to the Soviet Union's deteriorating alliance with Egyptian leader
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
, who succeeded
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...
following Nasser's death on September 28, 1970. However, even after Iraq signed a secret arms deal with the Soviets in September 1971, which was finalized during Soviet Defense Minister
Andrei Grechko
Andrei Antonovich Grechko (, ; – 26 April 1976) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union (from 1955). He was Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1976.
Early life
Grechko was the thirteenth child born to a family of Ukrainian peasant ...
's December trip to Baghdad and "brought the total of Soviet military aid to Iraq to above the $750 million level," the State Department remained skeptical that Iraq posed any threat to Iran. On April 9, 1972, Soviet Prime Minister
Alexei Kosygin
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨɡʲɪn; – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premi ...
signed "a 15-year treaty of friendship and cooperation" with al-Bakr, but U.S. officials were not "outwardly perturbed" by this development, because, according to the NSC staff, it was not "surprising or sudden but rather a culmination of existing relationships."
It has been suggested that Nixon was initially preoccupied with pursuing his policy of
détente
Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
with the Soviet Union and with the May 1972 Moscow Summit, but later sought to assuage the Shah's concerns about Iraq during his May 30–31 trip to Tehran. In a May 31 meeting with the Shah, Nixon vowed that the U.S. "would not let down tsfriends," promising to provide Iran with sophisticated weapons ("including F-14s and F-15s") to counter the Soviet Union's agreement to sell Iraq
Mig-23
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-23; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generatio ...
jets. According to Nixon's National Security Adviser and later Secretary of State,
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
, and numerous scholars, Nixon also agreed to a covert operation to assist Barzani's Kurdish rebels while in Tehran. (Barzani had resumed his alliance with Iran and Israel after a December 1970 assassination attempt on his son
Idris Idris may refer to:
People
* Idris (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname
* Idris (prophet), Islamic prophet in the Qur'an, traditionally identified with Enoch, an ancestor of Noah in the Bible
* Idris G ...
, which he held the Ba'ath Party responsible for.) There is, however, no official record that this occurred, with the only record that Nixon approved the operation being an August 1 memo from Kissinger to
40 Committee
Executive oversight of United States covert operations has been carried out by a series of sub-committees of the National Security Council (NSC).
Birth of covert operations in the Cold War
At the beginning of the Cold War, it was not inevitable th ...
principals. It is therefore plausible that two additional factors ultimately convinced Nixon to approve the operation, despite widespread opposition to supporting the Kurds within the State Department and CIA: Iraq's complete nationalization of the IPC on June 1, after Iraq began exporting oil from North Rumaila to the Soviet Union in April; and the July 18 withdrawal of 15,000 Soviet military personnel from Egypt, which Kissinger's deputy, General
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. (; December 2, 1924February 20, 2010) was United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Prior to and in between these c ...
, Jr., predicted on July 28 "will probably result in more intense Soviet efforts in Iraq."
From October 1972 until the abrupt end of the Kurdish intervention after March 1975, the CIA "provided the Kurds with nearly $20 million in assistance," including 1,250 tons of non-attributable weaponry. The main goal of U.S. policy-makers was to increase the Kurds's ability to negotiate a reasonable autonomy agreement with the government of Iraq. To justify the operation, U.S. officials cited Iraq's support for
international terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
and its repeated threats against neighboring states, including Iran (where Iraq supported Baluchi and Arab separatists against the Shah) and Kuwait (Iraq launched an unprovoked attack on a Kuwaiti border post and claimed the Kuwaiti islands of
Warbah
Warbah Island ( ar, جزيرة وربة) is an island belonging to Kuwait, located in the Persian Gulf, near the mouth of the Euphrates River. It is located roughly east of the Kuwaiti mainland, north of Bubiyan Island, and south of the Iraqi ...
and
Bubiyan
Bubiyan Island ( ar, جزيرة بوبيان) is the largest island in the Kuwaiti coastal island chain situated in the north-western corner of the Persian Gulf, with an area of . Bubiyan Island is part of the Shatt al-Arab delta. The Mubarak Al ...
in May 1973), with Haig remarking: "There can be no doubt that it is in the interest of ourselves, our allies, and other friendly governments in the area to see the Ba'thi regime in Iraq kept off balance and if possible overthrown." After Nixon's resignation in August 1974, President
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
was briefed about the Kurdish intervention on a "need-to-know" basis—leaving Kissinger, former CIA director and ambassador to Iran
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
, Arthur Callahan (chief of the CIA Station in Tehran), and Callahan's deputy—to actually implement the U.S. policy. To prevent leaks, the State Department was not informed of the operation. In fact, the State Department had dispatched Arthur Lowrie to establish a U.S. Interests Section in Baghdad shortly prior to Nixon's decision to support the Kurds; the Interests Section officially opened on October 1, 1972. Lowrie repeatedly warned that there was a power struggle between moderates and extremists within the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, and that the Shah's aggressive posture towards Iraq, combined with the Ba'ath Party's belief that the U.S. sought to overthrow it, empowered the extremists while forcing Iraq to turn towards the Soviet Union for arms resupply. Helms and the CIA rejected Lowrie's analysis and his proposal that the U.S. try to improve relations with Iraq, with Helms stating " eare frankly skeptical that in practice we could help the moderates without building up our extremist enemies." The CIA went further, producing a report that cautioned "''the level of political violence is very high'' ... This is not a happy situation nor a happy government for the US to try to do business with." After a failed coup attempt on June 30, 1973, Saddam consolidated control over Iraq and made a number of positive gestures towards the U.S. and the West, such as refusing to participate in the Saudi-led oil embargo following the
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...
, but these actions were largely ignored in Washington.
On March 11, 1974, the Iraqi government gave Barzani 15 days to accept a new autonomy law, which "fell far short of what the regime had promised the Kurds in 1970, including long-standing demands like a proportional share of oil revenue and the inclusion of the oil-rich and culturally significant city of Kirkuk into the autonomous region" and "gave the regime a veto over any Kurdish legislation." Barzani allowed the deadline to lapse, triggering the outbreak of the
Second Iraqi–Kurdish War
The Second Iraqi–Kurdish War was the second chapter of the Barzani rebellion, initiated by the collapse of the Kurdish autonomy talks and the consequent Iraqi offensive against rebel KDP troops of Mustafa Barzani during 1974–1975. The war ca ...
in April. Although the CIA had stockpiled "900,000 pounds of non-attributable small arms and ammunition" to prepare for this contingency, the Kurds were in a weak position due to their lack of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. Moreover, Soviet advisers contributed to a change in Iraq's tactics that decisively altered the trajectory of the war, allowing the Iraqi army to finally achieve steady gains against the Kurds where it had failed in the past. To prevent a collapse of the Kurdish resistance, Kissinger negotiated a deal with Israel to provide the Kurds with $28 million in heavy weaponry, but all assistance came to a sudden end shortly after the Shah and Saddam embraced one another at a press conference in Algiers on March 6, 1975: Saddam had agreed to a concession on the border of the Shatt al-Arab waterway in return for an end to "all subversive infiltration from either side." The increasingly overt Iranian involvement necessary to stave off a Kurdish defeat—including the presence of Iranian soldiers dressed in Kurdish uniforms, who participated in combat for as long as 10 days at a time, thus raising the possibility that further escalation might lead to "open war" between Iran and Iraq—combined with assurances from Arab leaders including Sadat, King
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal ( ar, الحسين بن طلال, ''Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ṭalāl''; 14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 11 August 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of ...
Houari Boumédiène
Houari Boumédiène ( ar, ; ALA-LC: ''Hawwārī Būmadyan''; born Mohammed Ben Brahim Boukherouba; 23 August 1932 – 27 December 1978) was an Algerian politician and army colonel who served as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Alge ...
that "Saddam Hussein was ready to pull Iraq out of heSoviet orbit if Iran would take away the urdish revoltwhich was forcing them into the arms of the Soviets"—also helped convince the Shah that an accommodation with Iraq was necessary and desirable. In the aftermath, over 100,000 Kurds fled to Iran, while the Iraqi government brutally consolidated its control over Iraqi Kurdistan—destroying as many as 1,400 villages by 1978, imprisoning 600,000 Kurds in resettlement camps, and ultimately waging a campaign of genocide against the Kurds in 1988.
A leaked Congressional investigation led by
Otis Pike
Otis Grey Pike (August 31, 1921 – January 20, 2014) was an American lawyer and politician who served nine terms as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York from 1961 to 1979.
Early life
Pike was born in R ...
and a February 4, 1976 ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' article written by
William Safire
William Lewis Safire (; Safir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009Safire, William (1986). ''Take My Word for It: More on Language.'' Times Books. . p. 185.) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He w ...
have heavily influenced subsequent scholarship regarding the conduct of the Kurdish intervention. As a result, there is a widespread belief that U.S. officials prodded Barzani into rejecting the Iraqi government's initial offer of autonomy, cynically agreed to "sell out" the Kurds at the Shah's behest, refused to provide any humanitarian assistance for Kurdish refugees, and failed to respond to "a heartbreaking letter" Barzani sent Kissinger on March 10, 1975, in which he stated: "Our movement and people are being destroyed in an unbelievable way with silence from everyone." In fact, declassified documents reveal that U.S. officials warned Barzani against his proposal to declare autonomy unilaterally, as they knew doing so would provoke the Iraqi government, even as the goal of permanently dividing Iraq and maintaining an autonomous Kurdish government would require massive resources irreconcilable with
plausible deniability
Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to denial, deny knowledge of or responsibility for any damnable actions committed by members of their organizational hierarchy. Th ...
. However, Barzani could never have accepted Iraq's "watered-down autonomy law," as it was inconsistent with the terms of the March Accord and ignored outstanding Kurdish demands. The Shah's "sell-out" blindsided American and Israeli officials, as well as his own advisers; Kissinger had personally lobbied the Shah against reaching any agreement with Iraq, and questioned the logic of "trad nga valuable coercive asset ... for a modest border concession." The U.S. provided $1 million in aid to Kurdish refugees—and, on March 17, Kissinger responded to Barzani's letter: "We can understand that the difficult decisions which the Kurdish people now face are a cause of deep anguish for them. We have great admiration for the courage and dignity with which those people have confronted many trials, and our prayers are with them." With neither Iran nor
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
willing to allow their territory to be used to support the Kurds, the U.S. and Israel were forced to abandon their assistance. According to Bryan R. Gibson, "The Pike Report ignored inconvenient truths; misattributed quotes; falsely accused the United States of not providing the Kurds with any humanitarian assistance; and, finally, claimed that Kissinger had not responded to Barzani's tragic plea, when in fact he had ... This was not the 'textbook case of betrayal and skulduggery' that the Pike Report had led many people to believe." Gibson concedes that U.S. involvement was self-serving and "advanced America's Cold War interests, though not entirely at the expense of the Kurds."
Joost Hiltermann
Joost R. Hiltermann is a Dutch activist, journalist and writer. He is the Program Director, Middle East and North Africa, MENA for International Crisis Group. He was previously its Chief Operating Officer.
Education
Hiltermann earned an MA degr ...
offers a contrasting analysis: "The exoneration shouldn't go unqualified. Kissinger cared for the Kurds only to the extent that they could be used in the pursuit of US interests, and he would surely have abandoned them sooner or later."
Iran-Iraq War and resumption of diplomatic ties
Even though Iraqi interest in American technical expertise was strong, prior to 1980 the government did not seem to be seriously interested in re-establishing diplomatic relations with the United States. The Ba'ath Party viewed the efforts by the United States to achieve "step-by-step" interim agreements between
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the
Arab countries
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western As ...
and the diplomatic process that led to the
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retrea ...
as calculated attempts to perpetuate Arab disunity. Consequently, Iraq took a leading role in organizing Arab opposition to the diplomatic initiatives of the United States. After
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Iraq succeeded in getting members of the League of Arab States (
Arab League
The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...
) to vote unanimously for Egypt's expulsion from the organization.
A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former U.S. policymakers shows that the U.S. provided intelligence and logistical support, which played a role in arming Iraq during the
Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...
. Under the
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
administrations, the U.S. authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous
dual-use technology
In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.
(items with both military and civilian applications), including chemicals which can be used in manufacturing of pesticides or chemical weapons and live viruses and bacteria, such as
anthrax
Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium ''Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The sk ...
and
bubonic plague
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium (''Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well a ...
used in medicine and the manufacture of vaccines or weaponized for use in biological weapons.
A report of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs concluded that the U.S. under the successive presidential administrations sold materials including anthrax, and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992. The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: "The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think it's a devastating record."''Sunday Herald'' (Scotland) September 8, 2002. According to several former officials, the State and Commerce departments promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S. exports and acquire political leverage over Saddam.
Relations between the U.S. and Iraq were strained by the
Iran–Contra affair
The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...
.
The U.S. provided critical battle planning assistance at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program. The U.S. carried out this covert program at a time when Secretary of State
George P. Shultz
George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...
,
United States Secretary of Defense
The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The s ...
Frank C. Carlucci
Frank Charles Carlucci III ( ; October 18, 1930 – June 3, 2018) was an American politician and diplomat who served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. He was the f ...
and National Security Adviser General
Colin L. Powell
Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...
were publicly condemning Iraq for its use of poison gas, especially after Iraq attacked
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
villagers in
Halabja
Halabja ( ku, هەڵەبجە, Helebce, ) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about northeast of Baghdad and from the Iranian border.
The city lies at the base of what is often referred to ...
in March 1988. U.S. officials publicly condemned Iraq's employment of
mustard gas
Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...
,
sarin
Sarin (NATO designation GB G-series, "B"">Nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for Nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.VX and other poisonous agents, but sixty
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...
officers were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq. It has long been known that the U.S. provided intelligence assistance, such as satellite photography, to Saddam's regime. Carlucci said: "My understanding is that what was provided" to Iraq "was general order of battle information, not operational intelligence." "I certainly have no knowledge of U.S. participation in preparing battle and strike packages," he said, "and doubt strongly that that occurred." "I did agree that Iraq should not lose the war, but I certainly had no foreknowledge of their use of chemical weapons." Secretary of State Powell, through a spokesman, said the officers' description of the program was "dead wrong," but declined to discuss it. His deputy, Richard L. Armitage, a senior defense official at the time, used an expletive relayed through a spokesman to indicate his denial that the United States acquiesced in the use of chemical weapons.
Concern about the 1979
Islamic Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...
in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and about the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
prompted Iraq to reexamine seriously the nature of its relationship with the United States. This process led to a gradual warming of relations between the two countries. In 1981 Iraq and the United States engaged in low level, official talks on matters of mutual interest such as trade and regional security. In March 1982 the USA decided to remove Iraq from its list of countries supporting terrorism in order to be able to help Saddam Hussein to win the Iraq-Iran war. Following, the United States extended credits to Iraq for the purchase of American agricultural commodities, the first time this had been done since 1967. More significant, in 1983 the Baathist government hosted a United States special Middle East envoy, the highest-ranking American official to visit
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
in more than sixteen years. In a U.S. bid to open full diplomatic relations with Iraq, the country was removed from the U.S. list of
State Sponsors of Terrorism
"State Sponsors of Terrorism" is a designation applied by the United States Department of State to countries which the Department alleges to have "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism". Inclusion on the list imposes ...
. Ostensibly, this was because of improvement in the regime's record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about
he Iraqis'
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
continued involvement in terrorism ... The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran." In 1984, when the United States inaugurated "
Operation Staunch Operation Staunch was launched in the spring of 1983 by the United States State Department to stop the flow of U.S. arms to Iran.
Background
The Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the hostage crisis in Tehran frustrated American policymakers ...
" to halt shipment of arms to Iran by third countries, no similar embargo was attempted against Iraq because Iraq had expressed its desire to negotiate an end to the war. All of these initiatives prepared the ground for Iraq and the United States to reestablish diplomatic relations in November 1984. Iraq was the last of the Arab countries to resume diplomatic relations with the U.S.
In early 1988, Iraq's relations with the United States were generally cordial. The relationship had been strained at the end of 1986 when it was revealed that the United States had secretly sold arms to Iran during 1985 and 1986, and a crisis occurred in May 1987 when an Iraqi pilot bombed an American naval ship in the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...
, a ship he mistakenly thought to be involved in Iran-related commerce. Nevertheless, the two countries had weathered these problems by mid-1987. Although lingering suspicions about the United States remained, Iraq welcomed greater, even if indirect, American diplomatic and military pressure in trying to end the war with Iran. For the most part, the Iraqi government believed the United States supported its position that the war was being prolonged only because of Iranian intransigence.
Gulf War and Iraq disarmament crisis
On July 25, 1990 following tensions with Kuwait, Saddam met with United States Ambassador to Baghdad,
April Glaspie
April Catherine Glaspie (born April 26, 1942) is an American former diplomat and senior member of the Foreign Service, best known for her role in the events leading up to the Gulf War.
Early life
Glaspie was born in Vancouver, British Columbi ...
, in one of the last high-level contacts between the two Governments before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Iraqi Government officials published a transcript of the meeting, which also included the Iraqi Foreign Minister,
Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz ( ar, طارق عزيز , 28 April 1936 – 5 June 2015) was an Iraqi politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s wh ...
. A copy was provided to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' by
ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
, which was translated from Arabic. The U.S. State Department has declined to comment on its accuracy.
Glaspie is quoted saying to Saddam:
I have a direct instruction from the President to seek better relations with Iraq ... 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. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60s uring another Iraq-Kuwait border conflict The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly ... Frankly, we can see only that you have deployed massive troops in the south. Normally that would not be any of our business. But when this happens in the context of what you said on your national day, then when we read the details in the two letters of the Foreign Minister, then when we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq, then it would be reasonable for me to be concerned. And for this reason, I received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship—not in the spirit of confrontation—regarding your intentions.
However, Tariq Aziz told
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
''
Frontline
Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield.
Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to:
Books and publications
* ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant
* ''Frontlines ...
'' in 1996 that the Iraqi leadership was under "no illusion" about America's likely response to the Iraqi invasion: "She laspiedidn't tell us anything strange. She didn't tell us in the sense that we concluded that the Americans will not retaliate. That was nonsense you see. It was nonsense to think that the Americans would not attack us." And in a second 2000 interview with the same television program, Aziz said:
There were no mixed signals. We should not forget that the whole period before August 2 witnessed a negative American policy towards Iraq. So it would be quite foolish to think that, if we go to Kuwait, then America would like that. Because the American tendency ... was to untie Iraq. So how could we imagine that such a step was going to be appreciated by the Americans? It looks foolish, you see, this is fiction. About the meeting with April Glaspie—it was a routine meeting. There was nothing extraordinary in it. She didn't say anything extraordinary beyond what any professional diplomat would say without previous instructions from his government. She did not ask for an audience with the president. She was summoned by the president. He telephoned me and said, "Bring the American ambassador. I want to see her." She was not prepared, because it was not morning in Washington. People in Washington were asleep, so she needed a half-hour to contact anybody in Washington and seek instructions. So, what she said were routine, classical comments on what the president was asking her to convey to President Bush. He wanted her to carry a message to George Bush—not to receive a message through her from Washington.
Due to ongoing concerns over the security situation in Iraq, the U.S. State Department invalidated U.S. passports for travel to or through Iraq on February 8, 1991. The
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
cease-fire was negotiated at Safwan, Iraq on March 1, 1991, taking effect on April 11, 1991.
According to former U.S. intelligence officials interviewed by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', the CIA indirectly supported a bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq conducted by the
Iraqi National Accord
The Iraqi National Accord (Arabic Language, Arabic: الوفاق الوطني العراقي ''Al-Wifaq Al-Watani Al-'Iraqi''), known inside Iraq as Wifaq, is an Iraqi political party founded by Iyad Allawi, Tahsin Muallah and Salah Omar al-Ali in ...
insurgents, led by
Iyad Allawi
Ayad Allawi ( ar, إيَاد عَلَّاوِي ; born 31 May 1944) is an Iraqi politician. He served as the vice president of Iraq from 2014 to 2015 and 2016 to 2018. Previously he was interim prime minister of Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and the ...
. The campaign had no apparent effect in toppling Saddam's rule, but the CIA was also involved in a failed 1996 coup against Saddam
- and in October 1998, regime change became official U.S. policy with enactment of the "
Iraq Liberation Act
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy stating that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." It was signed i ...
."
As a result of the war, Iraq and the United States broke off diplomatic relations for a second time. From 1990 to 2003,
protecting power
A protecting power is a country that represents another sovereign state in a country where it lacks its own diplomatic representation. It is common for protecting powers to be appointed when two countries break off diplomatic relations with e ...
in Washington, while Poland served as the
protecting power
A protecting power is a country that represents another sovereign state in a country where it lacks its own diplomatic representation. It is common for protecting powers to be appointed when two countries break off diplomatic relations with e ...
for the United States in Baghdad. Diplomatic relations would not be restored until the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003 and established an American-aligned government.
2003 invasion of Iraq
After the
United Nations Security Council Resolution 687
United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 was adopted on 3 April 1991. After reaffirming resolutions United Nations Security Council Resolution 660, 660, United Nations Security Council Resolution 661, 661, United Nations Security Council Re ...
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
known as the
Iraq Resolution
The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002,
In the lead-up to the invasion, the U.S. and U.K. emphasized the argument that
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
was developing
weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...
and that he thus presented a threat to his neighbors and to the global community. Throughout late 2001, 2002, and early 2003, the Bush Administration worked to build a case for invading Iraq, culminating in then Secretary of State
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...
's February 2003 address to the Security Council.
Accusations of faulty evidence and alleged shifting rationales became the focal point for critics of the war, who charge that the Bush Administration purposely fabricated evidence to justify an invasion that it had long planned to launch.
The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with the U.S., joined by the U.K. and several coalition allies, launching a "
shock and awe
Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. Though ...
" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as U.S. forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam was captured during
Operation Red Dawn
Saddam Hussein, the deposed president of Iraq, was captured by the United States military forces in the town of Ad-Dawr, Iraq on 13 December 2003. Codenamed Operation Red Dawn, this military operation was named after the 1984 American film ''Red ...
the occupation
''The Occupation'' is a single-player adventure video game developed by White Paper Games and released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on 5 March 2019. The game takes place in a single government building, in real-time over fou ...
led to a widespread
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
between
Shias
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most n ...
and
Sunnis
Sunni Islam () is the largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word ''Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia ...
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
,
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...
, and other intelligence agencies largely discredited evidence related to Iraqi weapons as well as links to
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
democracy in Iraq
Democracy for the government of Iraq has been a long sought after goal by politicians, activists, and revolutionaries. It is considered to be a new, "fledgeling process" or phenomenon in Iraq, commonly afflicted by corruption, civil and ethnic con ...
.
UN
Secretary-General
Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder ...
described the war as illegal, saying in a September 2004 interview that it was "not in conformity with the Security Council."
The U.S. began withdrawing its troops in the winter of 2007–08. The winding down of U.S. involvement in Iraq accelerated under President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. The U.S. formally withdrew all combat troops from Iraq by December 2011.
Current status
Because of the primary role taken by the United States government in deposing Saddam Hussein and establishing interim governments to replace his regime, Iraq's relationships with the U.S are expected to remain significant for the foreseeable future.
The
Iraqi insurgency Iraqi insurgency may refer to:
* Iraqi insurgency (2003–2011), part of the Iraq War
** Iraqi insurgency (2003–2006), 2003–2006 phase of the Iraqi insurgency
** Iraqi civil war (2006–2008), multi-sided civil war in Iraq
* Iraqi insurgency (20 ...
, also referred to as the Iraq Crisis, escalated after the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011, resulting in violent conflict with the central government, as well as sectarian violence among Iraq's religious groups. This escalated into a civil war with the conquest of
Fallujah
Fallujah ( ar, ٱلْفَلُّوجَة, al-Fallūjah, Iraqi pronunciation: ) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jew ...
and
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
(ISIL, also known as ISIS). This has resulted in airstrikes by Iran, Syria, and other countries – including the United States.
In January 2017, US President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
issued an executive order banning the entry of all Iraqi citizens, as well as citizens of six other countries. After sharp criticism and public protests as well as lawsuits against the executive order, Trump relaxed the travel restrictions somewhat and dropped Iraq from the list of non-entry countries in March 2017.
As of October 2019, United States continued to use Iraqi bases for conducting operations such as the
Barisha raid
On 26–27 October 2019, the United States conducted a military operation code named Operation Kayla Mueller that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the then-leader and self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist orga ...
Adil Abdul-Mahdi
Adil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki ( ar, عادل عبد المهدي المنتفكي, born 1 January 1942) is an Iraqi politician who served as Prime Minister of Iraq from October 2018 until May 2020, hundreds of protestors of ''Tishreen revolutio ...
condemned America's assassination and stated that the strike was an act of aggression and a breach of Iraqi sovereignty which would lead to war in Iraq. He said the strike violated the agreement on the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq and that safeguards for Iraq's security and sovereignty should be met with legislation. The media office of the Iraqi military's joint operations forces posted a photo of a destroyed vehicle on fire after the attack. The speaker of Iraq's parliament Mohammed al Halbousi vowed to "put an end to the U.S. presence" in Iraq. In August 2020, United States returned the
Ba'ath Party
The Arab Socialist Baʿath Party ( ar, حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي ' ) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bītār, and associates of Zaki al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused B ...
archives to Iraq, including more than 6 million pages, which were discovered in a basement under their headquarters in Baghdad in 2003, before being transferred to the United States in 2005, to be archived by the
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and ...
.
As per two Iraqi government sources, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iraq’s President
Barham Salih
Barham Salih ( ku, بەرھەم ساڵح, Berhem Salih; ar, برهم صالح; born 12 September 1960) is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the eighth president of Iraq from 2018 to 2022.
He is the former prime minister of the Kurdista ...
held a telephonic conversation in the mid of September 2020. In the call Pompeo discussed about bringing back US diplomats from Iraq followed by a threat to shut down the US Embassy in Iraq. Iraqi authorities feared the withdrawal of diplomat(s) would lead to military confrontation with Iran, whom the United States blamed for missile and bomb attacks.
See also
*
1991 uprisings in Iraq
The 1991 Iraqi uprisings were ethnic and religious uprisings in Iraq led by Shi'ites and Kurds against Saddam Hussein. The uprisings lasted from March to April 1991 after a ceasefire following the end of the Gulf War. The mostly uncoordinate ...
*
2017 Mosul airstrike
The 2017 Mosul airstrike, was an American bombing in the al-Aghawat al-Jadidah neighborhood in western Mosul on 17 March 2017 that killed 278 civilians. The incident was the largest single death toll inflicted by a coalition air strike since th ...
Bombing of Iraq (December 1998)
The 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets from 16 to 19 December 1998, by the United States and the United Kingdom. On 16 December 1998, President of the United States Bill ...
*
Casualties of the Iraq War
Estimates of the casualties from the Iraq War (beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the ensuing occupation and insurgency and civil war) have come in several forms, and those estimates of different types of Iraq War casualties vary gr ...
*
CIA activities in Iraq
The United States (U.S.) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in covert actions and contingency planning in Iraq ever since the 1958 overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy, although the historiography of Iraq–United States relations prio ...
*
Criticism of the Iraq War
The U.S. rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States. Putting this controversy aside, both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also crit ...
*
Cruise missile strikes on Iraq (June 1993)
The cruise missiles strike on Iraq in June 1993 were ordered by U.S. President Bill Clinton as both a retaliation and a warning triggered by the attempted assassination by alleged Iraqi agents on former U.S. President George H. W. Bush while ...
*
Embassy of the United States in Baghdad
The Embassy of the United States of America in Baghdad is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America in the Republic of Iraq. Ambassador Alina Romanowski is currently the Chief of Mission.
At , it is the largest embassy in the wor ...
*
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
*
Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq
Iraq under Saddam Hussein saw severe violations of human rights, which were considered to be among the worst in the world. Secret police, state terrorism, torture, mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, deportations, extrajudicial killin ...
*
Iraqi Americans
Iraqi Americans (Arabic: أمريكيون عراقيون) (Kurdish عێراقییە ئەمریکییەکان, Îraqiyên Amerîkî) are American citizens who originate from Iraq. As of 2015, the number of Iraqi Americans is around 145,279, accordi ...
Iraq–Israel relations
Iraq–Israel relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Republic of Iraq. Due to Iraq's non-recognition of Israel as a legitimate state since the latter's establishment in 1948, the two countries have not had a ...
*
Iraq–Russia relations
Iraq–Russia relations (russian: Российско–иракские отношения, ar, العلاقات الروسية العراقية) are the bilateral relations between Iraq and Russia and, prior to Russia's independence, between Ir ...
*
Legality of the Iraq War
The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Poland and a coalition of other countries was a violation of the United Nations Charter, the bedrock of international relations in the post-World War II world. The then U ...
Opposition to the Iraq War
Significant opposition to the Iraq War occurred worldwide, both before and during the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition, and throughout the subsequent occupation. People and groups opposing the war include the gove ...
*
Rationale for the Iraq War
The rationale for the Iraq War, both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent hostilities, was controversial. The George W. Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationaliza ...
*
Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
*
Sanctions against Iraq
The sanctions against Iraq were a comprehensive financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 22, ...
*
Timeline of the Iraq War
The following is a timeline of major events during the Iraq War, following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
2003 March
*March 19: The United States begins the invasion of Iraq; coordinating a satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missile strike on Bag ...
*
United States Ambassador to Iraq
This is a list of United States ambassadors, or lower-ranking heads of a diplomatic mission to Iraq.
* Alexander K. Sloan (1931) – ''Chargé d'Affaires''
* Paul Knabenshue (1932–1942) – ''Minister''
* Thomas M. Wilson (1942) – ''Minister ...
*
United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War
American support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, in which it fought against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, military intelligence, and special opera ...
*
Occupation of Iraq (2003–2011)
The occupation of Iraq was characterized by a large United States military deployment on Iraqi territory, beginning with the U.S.-led invasion of the country in March 2003 which overthrew the Ba'ath Party government of Saddam Hussein and end ...
References
Bibliography
*
* Siracusa, Joseph M., and Laurens J. Visser, "George W. Bush, Diplomacy, and Going to War with Iraq, 2001-2003." ''The Journal of Diplomatic Research/Diplomasi Araştırmaları Dergisi'' (2019) 1#1: 1-2 online
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...