Iraq, officially Republic of Iraq, republic (1995 est. pop.
20,644,000), 167,924 sq mi (434,924 sq km), SW Asia, bordered by the Persian
Gulf, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia (S), Jordan and Syria (W), Turkey (N), and Iran
(E). Principal cities include Baghdad (the capital), Basra, and Mosul. Iraq is
an almost landlocked country, its only outlet to the sea a short stretch of
coast on the Persian Gulf. It is composed of a mountainous region in the
northeast and the vast Syrian Desert, inhabited by a few nomadic shepherds, in
the southwest; in-between is the heart of the country, a fertile lowland region
watered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Although about one third of the
labor force is engaged in agriculture, oil production, notably in the great
fields of Mosul and Kirkuk, dominates the economy. Iraq is among the largest oil
producers of the Middle East. Its petroleum resources were nationalized in 1972,
and oil revenues were used to promote industrialization and to transform Iraq
into a military power. The UN-sponsored economic embargo imposed after the
invasion of Kuwait has severely reduced Iraq's oil exports and devastated the
economy. The country has a small, diversified industrial sector, with textiles,
shoes, processed food, and building materials among its products. Iraq is a
major producer of dates; other crops include cotton, cereals, and vegetables.
Agriculture depends largely on irrigation. Most of the population are Muslim
Arabs, divided religiously into the Sunnis of central Iraq and Shiites of the
south. The Kurds, who inhabit the north (see Kurdistan), are
the principal minority. Arabic is the official language in most of the country;
Kurdish is official in northern sections; Assyrian and Armenian are spoken by
some.
History Modern Iraq is approximately coextensive with ancient
Mesopotamia, and prior to the Arab conquest in the 7th cent. AD it was the site
of a number of flourishing civilizations, including Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and
Babylonia. In the 8th cent., as capital of the Abbasid caliphate, Baghdad became
an important center of learning and the arts. Mesopotamia fell to the Ottoman
Turks in the 16th cent.
The British invaded Iraq in World War I, and in 1920 the country became a
League of Nations mandate under British administration. Iraq was made a kingdom
under Faisal I in 1921, and the British mandate was terminated in 1932, although
British military bases remained. Meanwhile, the first oil concession had been
granted in 1925, and in 1934 the export of oil began. Domestic politics were
marked by turbulence, and the country experienced seven military coups between
1936 and 1941.
Following an army coup in 1958, Iraq became a republic under Gen. Abdul Karim
Kassem. The chronic Kurdish problem flared up in 1962, when tribes demanding an
autonomous Kurdistan gained control of much of N Iraq. The rebellion collapsed
(1975), but intermittent warfare continued. In 1968 a coup brought the Ba'ath
party to power, and in 1979 Saddam Hussein became party leader and Iraq's
president. Opposition within Iraq grew among the Shiites, who were the majority
of the population yet were excluded from political control.
Iraq launched (1980) a costly war against Iran that ended (1988) in a
stalemate. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, which it had previously claimed,
provoking the Persian Gulf War; economic sanctions were also imposed, and
remained in effect long after the war, although they were modified in 2002 to
emphasize military-related goods. The war ended (1991) with Iraq ousted from
Kuwait. Following the war, Iraqi Shiites and Kurds revolted. The uprisings were
crushed, but both groups were provided (1992) with limited UN protection, which
proved ineffective in the case of the Shiites; the Kurds established a
self-proclaimed autonomous region in N Iraq. An Iraqi military buildup near the
Kuwait border in 1994 led to the deployment of U.S. troops in Kuwait.
In 1996, Iraq reached an accord with the UN that allowed it to sell $1
billion worth of oil every 90 days, with the money set aside for food and
medicine and compensation to Kuwaitis. Iraq destroyed at least some chemical
weapons under UN supervision, but inspections imposed as part of the conditions
for ending the Gulf War found evidence of chemical warheads and of a program to
produce materials for nuclear weapons. Beginning in late 1997, Iraq resisted
cooperating with the weapons inspections; this led to a U.S. military buildup in
the Persian Gulf. U.S. and British bombing raids against Iraq began in Nov. 1998
and have persisted on a smaller scale.
In 2002 the U.S. threatened military action against Iraq over its failure to
permit weapons inspections, leading Iraq to announce that inspectors could
return. In November the UN established a strict timetable for the resumption of
inspections and Iraq permitted inspectors to return. Although inspectors did not
find evidence of weapons or weapons programs, Iraq failed to assist in them in
their attempts to determine that such programs no longer existed. Meanwhile, the
U.S. and Britain continued to prepare for war with Iraq, and in Mar. 2003
demanded that Hussein step down or face an invasion. On Mar. 19, 2003, they
launched an airstrike aimed at Hussein personally, and sizable ground troops
began invading the following day. After less than a month of fighting, Hussein's
rule had collapsed, and U.S. and British forces had established a controlling
presence in the major urban areas, although pockets of resistance remained.
Hussein survived the war and went into hiding, and guerrilla attacks by what
were believed to be Ba’ath loyalists and Islamic militants became an ongoing
problem in the following months, largely in Sunni-dominated central Iraq. The
Kurdish-dominated north and Shiite-dominated south were generally calmer. L.
Paul Bremer 3d was appointed as civilian head of the occupation. UN economic
sanctions were lifted in May, 2003, and in mid-July an interim Governing Council
consisting of representatives of Iraqi opposition groups was established.
Nonetheless, civil order and the economy appeared to be being restored at a slow
pace that threatened to create animosity toward the occupying forces. The cost
for rebuilding Iraq was estimated by Bremer in late 2003 to be as much as $100
billion over three years. Meanwhile, U.S.-British failure to find biological or
chemical weapons led to charges that Anglo-American leaders had exaggerated the
Iraqi threat to international security.
In Oct., 2003, the UN Security Council passed a British-American resolution
calling for a timetable for democratic self-rule in Iraq to be established by
mid-December. Events, however, led the United States to speed up the process,
and in November the Governing Council endorsed a U.S.-proposed plan that called
for self-rule in mid-2004 under a transitional assembly, which would be elected
by a system of caucuses. However, many Shiites objected to this because it would
not involve elections; they feared a diminished voice in the government and
greater U.S. influence if caucuses were used to choose the assembly. Hussein was
finally captured by U.S. forces in Dec., 2003.
In Jan., 2004, U.S. arms inspectors reported that they had found no evidence
of Iraqi chemical or biological weapons stockpiles prior to the U.S. invasion;
the asserted existence of such stockpiles had been a main justification for the
invasion. (Subsequently, a Senate investigation criticized the CIA for providing
faulty information and assessments concerning Iraq’s weapons. In addition, U.S.
inspectors concluded in Oct., 2004, that although Hussein never abandoned his
goal of acquiring nuclear weapons, Iraq had halted its nuclear program after the
first Persian Gulf War.) An interim constitution was signed by the Governing
Council in March, but many Shiites, including nearly all those on the council,
objected to clauses that would restrict the power of the president and enable
the Kurds potentially to veto a new constitution.
At the end of March, Sunni insurgents in Fallujah attacked a convoy of U.S.
civilian security forces, killing four and desecrating the corpses, which
prompted a U.S. crackdown on the town, a center of Sunni insurgency. The
fighting there in April resulted in the most significant casualties since since
the end of the invasion; the conflict ended with the insurgents largely in
place. At about the same time, U.S. moves against the organization of a radical
Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, led him to call for an uprising. There was
unrest in a number of cities in S central and S Iraq, but by mid-April al-Sadr’s
forces were in control only in the area around An Najaf, a city holy to Shiites,
and a cease-fire took effect in June.
Revelations in May of U.S. abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in
late 2003 and early 2004 sparked widespread dismay and outrage in Iraq, the
United States, and the world. The president of the Governing Council was
assassinated the same month. In June, the United Nations endorsed the
reestablishment of Iraqi sovereignty, and at the end of the month, Iyad Allawi,
a Shiite, became prime minister and Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, a Sunni,
president as the interim constitution took effect. Saddam Hussein and 11 other
former high-ranking Iraqi officials were formally turned over to the new
government and were arraigned.
Large-scale fighting with al-Sadr’s militia occurred again in August,
centered on An Najaf and, to a lesser degree, Sadr City, a Shiite section of
Baghdad, but the militia subsequently abandoned An Najaf and fighting ceased. By
October al-Sadr had shifted to converting his movement into a political force.
Also in August, a 100-member National Council, responsible for overseeing the
interim government and preparing for elections in 2005, was established. In
central Iraq, where a number of Sunni urban areas had been all but ceded to
insurgents, U.S. forces began operations to establish control in the fall of
2004. Estimates of the insurgents’ numbers, including foreign guerrillas, ranged
from 8,000 to 12,000. Some insurgents also resorted to taking hostages and
beheading them. The ongoing violence in Iraq continued to hamper reconstruction,
as a lack of security hindered rebuilding and security needs diverted money away
from rebuilding.
********
Kurdistan, extensive
plateau and mountain region in SW Asia (74,000 sq mi/191,660 sq km), inhabited
mainly by Kurds and including parts of E Turkey, N Syria, NE Iraq, S Armenia,
and NW Iran. Ethnically and linguistically close to the Iranians, the Kurds, who
number about 20 million, were traditionally nomadic herders but are now mostly
seminomadic or sedentary. The majority are Sunni Muslims and speak Kurdish. The
Kurds have traditionally resisted subjugation by other nations. Kurdistan was
conquered by the Arabs and converted to Islam in the 7th cent. The region was
held by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th cent., by the Mongols from the 13th to 15th
cent., and then by the Ottoman Empire.
Since World War I the Kurds have struggled unsuccessfully in the various
countries in which they live for self-determination and independence. In 1946 a
short-lived, Soviet-backed Kurdish republic was formed in Iran. There were
Kurdish uprisings in Iraq in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. After the Persian Gulf
War, Kurdish groups again rose against Iraq but were crushed, and perhaps 1.5
million fled to Turkey and Iran. Returning under UN protection, they established
(1992) an autonomous region in N Iraq, but in 1994 fighting erupted among the
rival Kurdish factions, and control of the area is divided between two rival
groups.
Iraqi Kurds aided U.S.-British forces in 2003 in their war to oust Saddam
Hussein from power. In Turkey, Kurdish guerrillas began fighting the government
in the mid-1980s, and in 1992 Turkey mounted a concerted attack on the rebels.
In 1995 Turkish forces invaded N Iraq in an attempt to destroy guerrilla bases
and supplies. The head of the Kurdish guerrillas was arrested by Turkish
officials in 1999 and sentenced to death for treason; in 2000 the guerrillas
announced they would end their attacks. Some 23,000–30,000 people may have died
in the 15-year war. There was fighting in the early 1990s between Turkish and
Iraqi Kurds as well and Kurdish unrest in Syria in 2004.
********
Copyright (c) 2003 Columbia
University Press. Used by permission of Columbia University Press.
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