IRAQ AND THE IRAQ OCCUPATION

1. IRAQ AND THE IRAQ OCCUPATION

2. “THE LAND BETWEEN THE RIVERS • Iraq occupies ancient “Mesopotamia”- a Greek word meaning “land between the rivers” • The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates.

3. ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS • This area is where the first civilizations arose, as long as 5-6000 years ago. • Here began cultivation of wheat and other crops, the first large cities (Ur, Sumer and others) and our system of time and astronomy. The beginnings of literacy in writing, math and art were here as well. • A succession of civilizations developed, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldeans. Babylon was one of the ancient world’s great cities.

4. ISLAM • After the Arab conquest in 6 , the new city of Baghdad became the center of power and learning in the Islamic world • The Sunni/Shi’a split occurred here, as Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali and his nephew Husain were assassinated.

5. MODERN IRAQ • What is now Iraq became a part of the empire of the Ottoman Turks until World War I, when the land was taken by the British as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided the Turkish provinces in the Middle East between Britain and France.

6. CREATION OF IRAQ • Oil had already been discovered in the vicinity of Mosul by 1918. The British also had an agreement with the ruling family of Kuwait for their oil. The British cobbled together three former Ottoman provinces to create modern Iraq, leaving out Kuwait, which had been part of one of those provinces.

7. IRAQ BECOMES INDEPENDENT • At first, the British thought they could control their new country by using Indian troops. A king, relative of the Sharif of Mecca, was installed. • However, constant uprisings soon led the British to leave Iraq. They bombed frequently and are rumored to have used poison gas on rebel Kurdish villages. Winston Churchill, who’d drawn Iraq’s boundaries, soon came to see it as a drain on Britain’s resources, referred to it as “Messpot,” and compared it to “living on an ungrateful volcano.” • Iraq became independent in 1930, but during World War II the British had to seize airfields there to prevent the Nazis from using them.

8. THE REPUBLIC • Iraq’s king was assassinated in 1957. A socialist army general named Abdul Karim Kassem took power for ten years, until he was assassinated. He established good relations with the Soviets and played both sides in the Cold War. • After Kassem’s assassination, the Ba’ath party came to power.

9. THE BA’ATH PARTY • Name means “Arab renaissance” • Founded by a group of three Arab intellectuals in Syria in the 1930s. Expanded to Iraq in the 1940s. • Stood for “Arab Unity, Freedom (from colonialism) and Socialism (not communism) • Was strictly secular and pan-Arabist (see the party insignia)

10. RISE OF SADDAM • Saddam Hussein was born in the town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad. He was a Sunni Muslim, but was brutalized by his father as a child. • He was close to his uncle, who was a Nazi sympathizer during World War II. • Saddam began his rise in the Baath party as a thug, participating in a failed assassination attempt on Pres. Kassem, later escaping from prison.

11. RISE OF SADDAM CONT’D. • When the Baath party came to power in 1968, Saddam was at first part of the Revolutionary Council • He came to full power as president in 1979.

12. SADDAM AS LEADER • Among his first acts, after executing all of his potential rivals, was to invade Iran and begin a bloody ten-year war. • WHY?