Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital and largest city of Iraq, situated on the Tigris River in central Iraq, with a metropolitan population of approximately eight million. Founded in 762 CE by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur, Baghdad was for centuries the most important city of the Islamic world. In modern history, it served as the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq (1921-1958) and subsequently as the seat of the republican and Ba'athist governments that followed.¹

Ba'athist Government

Saddam Hussein formally assumed the presidency in Baghdad on July 16, 1979, following his forcing of President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr to resign. Within days, Saddam convened a party congress in Baghdad at which he personally identified alleged conspirators; hundreds of senior Ba'ath Party officials were arrested and subsequently executed. Baghdad became the administrative center of a security state run through the Mukhabarat (Iraqi Intelligence Service) and the Republican Guard, which maintained its primary facilities in and around the capital.¹

Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in December 1983, meeting at the Presidential Palace, as President Ronald Reagan's special envoy. State Department cables documenting the visit were declassified decades later; they confirmed that Rumsfeld discussed the strategic partnership and that U.S. intelligence was aware of Iraqi chemical weapons use against Iranian forces. The visit was followed by expanded CIA intelligence sharing and BNL-financed weapons transfers.²

Iran-Iraq War Command

Baghdad was the headquarters of Iraq's military command throughout the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Iranian ballistic missile and air attacks on Baghdad - the "War of the Cities" exchanges - caused significant civilian casualties and physical damage during the war's later years. Despite this, Baghdad's infrastructure remained largely intact compared to Iranian cities that also sustained attacks.

The city's international airport was a logistics node for the Western arms transfers and dual-use technology shipments that made up the weapons procurement networks examined in the BNL scandal and Arms-to-Iraq affair. Iraqi procurement agents operating from Baghdad front offices directed purchasing through European and American companies.¹

2003 and Aftermath

U.S. and coalition forces entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003, following the invasion that began March 20. The fall of Baghdad was marked by the live-television toppling of a large statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. The city subsequently experienced years of severe sectarian violence, insurgent attacks including vehicle bombs, and the institutional breakdown that followed the dissolution of the Iraqi army and de-Ba'athification program. The Abu Ghraib prison facility west of Baghdad became internationally notorious following the 2004 disclosure of prisoner abuse photographs.²

Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a spider-hole near his birthplace of Tikrit (not Baghdad) on December 13, 2003. He was tried in Baghdad before an Iraqi Special Tribunal and executed by hanging at the Camp Justice execution facility in Baghdad on December 30, 2006.¹