Iraq

Iraq occupies the territory of ancient Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East, bordered by Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria and Jordan to the west, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the south. The modern state emerged from the British Mandate for Mesopotamia following World War I. The Hashemite monarchy established in 1921 was overthrown in a military coup on July 14, 1958, killing King Faisal II and establishing a republic under General Abd al-Karim Qassem.¹

CIA and the Ba'ath Party

Qassem's government included significant participation by the Iraqi Communist Party, which alarmed Central Intelligence Agency planners during the Cold War. CIA support for the Ba'ath Party in Iraq was documented in subsequent investigations. In 1959, a young Saddam Hussein participated in a failed CIA-linked assassination attempt against Qassem.

The Ba'ath Party seized power on February 8, 1963, in a coup that the CIA had advance knowledge of and facilitated. The incoming Ba'athist government received from the CIA lists of suspected communists and leftists; those lists were used to direct the killing of thousands of political opponents in the weeks following the coup. The Ba'ath lost power later in 1963 but returned in a second coup on July 17, 1968, establishing the regime that would govern until 2003.²

Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr served as president until Saddam Hussein forced his resignation on July 16, 1979. Saddam assumed the presidency and within days held a party congress at which he personally identified and had arrested dozens of alleged conspirators; hundreds of senior party figures were subsequently executed.

Iran-Iraq War and Western Support

Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 following the instability created by the Iranian Revolution. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) killed an estimated half-million to one million people and devastated the economies of both countries. The Reagan administration tilted toward Iraq from 1982, providing CIA satellite intelligence, agricultural credits, arms, and dual-use technology to Baghdad - while simultaneously running the covert arms-for-hostages pipeline to Iran that became the Iran-Contra Affair.²

Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam Hussein in December 1983 as a special envoy, cementing the relationship at a moment when U.S. intelligence knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. The financial structure supporting Iraqi arms procurement implicated Banca Nazionale del Lavoro's Atlanta branch in what became the BNL scandal. Chilean arms manufacturer Carlos Cardoen supplied cluster munitions to Iraq through CIA-connected channels. PROMIS software was allegedly sold to Iraqi intelligence in backdoor-equipped form.³

Gulf War and Sanctions

Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, triggering the Gulf War. A U.S.-led coalition of thirty-four nations expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in a six-week air campaign and hundred-hour ground offensive (January 17 - February 28, 1991). Iraq accepted ceasefire terms, including weapons inspections by UNSCOM, but the regime survived under U.S., British, and French air enforcement of northern and southern no-fly zones and comprehensive United Nations economic sanctions. The Oil-for-Food Programme, administered beginning in 1996, was subsequently investigated for systematic corruption involving kickbacks to Iraqi officials and foreign intermediaries.¹

2003 Invasion and Occupation

The September 11, 2001 attacks provided the political context for a renewed push within the George W. Bush administration to remove Saddam Hussein. Intelligence assessments, including the British Downing Street Memo of July 23, 2002, documented that intelligence was being "fixed around the policy." Colin Powell's February 5, 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council advanced claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were subsequently found to be false. U.S. and coalition forces invaded on March 20, 2003; Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. Saddam Hussein was captured near Tikrit on December 13, 2003, and executed on December 30, 2006.¹

The subsequent occupation produced the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and a protracted insurgency. No weapons of mass destruction program was found.