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Iraq
Iraq: Before 9/11
Ethnic Map of Iraq
Some Facts about Iraq
• Population: 26 million (down to about 22 million since the
US invaded in 2003 thanks to people fleeing the violence)
• Arabs (75%), Kurds (20%)
• Shi’ites (65% of Iraqi Arabs)
• Sunni (35% of Iraqi Arabs + nearly all Kurds)
• -BUT• Under Saddam Hussein Sunnis had almost all positions of
power.
The Basics 1:
Saddam Hussein: A bad, bad man
Paranoid, brutal, corrupt,
and heavily favoring his
own Sunni minority,
Saddam Hussein became a
dictator in 1979, and led
his country into virtually
nonstop war and
economic ruin despite
Iraq’s vast reserves of oil.
The Basics 2:
Finding Positives
• Forgetting for a moment about the war,
torture, secret police, and money wasted
on statues of himself, Hussein was actually
a fairly progressive leader.
• Under Hussein Iraq developed a modern
economy, had the best education and
health care in the Muslim world, the ethnic
groups got along, women were educated
and had almost complete equality with
men, the most repressive parts of Islam
were discouraged, and the capital
Baghdad was called the “Paris of the
Middle East”.
The Basics 3:
The US and Iraq
(BFFs Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein)
In the 1980s, despite Saddam Hussein’s brutal reign, the United States under
President Reagan gave the Iraqi dictator loans, arms, military training, and
chemical, biological and high-tech weapons. The US shared satellite images
with Iraq so the Iraqis could use chemical weapons against Iranian troops.
The US did not speak out when Hussein used poison gas against his own
people, and in 1982 took Iraq off the list of countries supporting terrorism
despite objections from the US State Department. One week before Iraq’s
1991 invasion of Kuwait, President Bush (the first one) vetoes Congress’
attempt to cut trade with Iraq because of its abuses of human rights.
President Reagan gave Saddam Hussein a gift of cowboy spurs, and Hussein
was even made an honorary citizen of the City of Detroit.
The Basics 4:
Why would we do that?
The US supported a monster like Saddam Hussein for a few
reasons:
• He was more than willing to fight an eight-year war against America’s
enemy Iran.
• The US liked his secular ways and discouragement of hardcore Islam, so
the US saw him as a counterbalance to Iran.
• Arms sales were good for the US economy.
• The US needed to be on good terms with someone possessing so much of
the world’s oil—especially since he was willing to keep it cheap.
• He was not a Communist, so Iraqi oil would not find its way to the Soviet
Union.
Gulf War 1:
Iraq’s Crisis
As the war ended in 1988, Iraq was in crisis.
• Iraq had $60 billion to repay to foreign banks,
• It could no longer pay for the health care, education,
nearly-free food and gas, and other benefits given to its
citizens in better times,
• The price of oil had fallen sharply,
crippling Iraq’s ability to repay its wartime debts.
Gulf War 2:
Kuwait
Tiny Kuwait managed to poke the wounded
Iraqi beast by…
• EXISTING: Kuwait was created in 1963, as
the British would not allow it to reunite
with Iraq. The British wanted an oil-rich and
grateful counterweight to Iraq, and an ally
on the Persian Gulf—the waterway needed
to get the oil onto tankers and out of the
Middle East. The small port Iraq had on the
gulf was at the mercy of the Iranian navy.
• Since 1963 Iraq has maintained that the
land that is Kuwait—oil-rich and
strategically-placed—was taken from them.
Gulf War 3:
Kuwait: Not exactly innocent
Kuwait also angered Iraq by:
NOT NEGOTIATING: Kuwaiti banks would not
give Iraq a break or renegotiate the loans it
could not repay.
CHEATING: Kuwait was selling more oil than agreed upon, driving down the price
even more at a time when Iraq needed it high.
STEALING: Kuwait was engaged in “slant drilling”, with oil wells on the border
taking oil from the ground underneath Iraqi soil using American technology.
TAUNTING: Knowing he had the support of the US, the Foreign Minister of Kuwait
and son of the Emir (King) basically dared Saddam Hussein to do something about
Kuwait’s broken promises to Iraq.
Gulf War 4:
The US Sends Mixed Signals
• Hussein therefore began to think about using his armed forces to insist
upon resolution of the border and monetary disputes. He threatened to
do so about a year before the August 2nd invasion at OPEC (1) and Arab
League meetings; hence the now famous meetings with Robert Dole and
other US senators in April, 1990 and April Glaspie (2) in July, 1990.
• At that July meeting, less than a month before the invasion of Kuwait,
Hussein complained that the borders of Kuwait and Iraq were drawn in
colonial times, by colonial powers. Glaspie replied, “"We studied history
at school. They taught us to say freedom or death. I think you know well
that we... have our experience with the colonialists. We have no opinion
on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.“(3)
Basically, Hussein thought he had a green light from the US to invade Kuwait.
(1)
(2)
(3)
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
US Ambassador to Iraq, who was aware of Iraqi tanks amassed on the Kuwaiti border when she said
this.
Info for this slide taken from http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/blog/harak.html
Gulf War 5:
It Begins
• In August 1990, 100,000 Iraqi troops crossed the border
into Kuwait. Within two days it had full control of tiny
Kuwait. The rich of Kuwait fled—mostly to the luxury hotels
of Paris.
• Somehow, the US was shocked by this and with the
overwhelming support of the American public, the US put
troops in Saudi Arabia (which was scared it was next), thus
beginning Operation Desert Shield.
• When Iraq refused to vacate Kuwait, the US-led coalition
began Operation Desert Storm to kick the Iraqi military out
of Kuwait. Americans were firmly in favor of this.
Gulf War 6:
Iraq’s Strategy
• Unable to stand up to the
world’s largest and bestequipped military, Iraq tried…
• Launching missiles into Israel,
hoping to gain the support of
other Arab countries and make
it an international war. (It didn’t
work.) Israel was terrified Iraq
would use chemical weapons,
but they did not.
• Punishing Kuwait by setting
their oil wells on fire.
Gulf War 7:
A huge victory for the US
It took only a month and a half for
Iraq to agree to leave Kuwait, as the
US was poised to move into Iraq.
Final tally:
• 22,000 Iraqis dead—many of them
caught in the bombing of Baghdad.
Many more were wounded.
• US: 113 dead, less than 1,000
wounded.
Gulf War 8:
before we cheer…
With this decisive victory, the US still resorted to
some actions of questionable morality.
•
The US was accused of targeting civilians in the
bombing of Baghdad, including a direct hit on a
neighborhood bomb shelter by a two-stage firecausing missile that killed almost 900 people.
•
The US used weapons made more explosive
with depleted uranium, which likely caused the
mystery illness called “Gulf War Syndrome”, and
may account for Iraq’s high rate of cancer today.
•
The US bombed the traffic jam of Iraqis who
were retreating back to Iraq, resulting in the
carnage known as the “Highway of Death”.
Hundreds of soldiers who had stopped fighting
were incinerated.
Gulf War 9:
After the War
After the war, Saddam Hussein was still in power, and
killed thousands of Shi’ites and Kurds who tried to gain
greater independence during the war. (The Kurds were
fairly successful, the Shi’ites were slaughtered.)
Much of Baghdad was destroyed, as was Iraq’s economy
and infrastructure.
But Saddam Hussein’s
brutal government still
had a firm grasp on power.