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. On October 7, 1959 Qassem was wounded in the shoulder in an assassination attempt. The journalist Richard Sale reported in 2003, citing unnamed former U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials and the writer Adel Darwish, that a young Saddam Hussein was part of a "CIA-authorized six-man squad" tasked with killing Qasim and was later paid and trained by the CIA in Beirut and watched over in Cairo; the CIA declined to comment, and the historian Bryan Gibson has cited declassified records showing that on October 1, 1959 Allen Dulles told the National Security Council only that an attempt might be made in the next two months.²

On February 8, 1963 Qassem was overthrown and killed in a coup led by the Ba'ath Party. White House aide Robert Komer told President John F. Kennedy the Iraqi revolution was "almost certainly a net gain for our side," and Secretary of State Dean Rusk asked on February 9 for authority to recognize the new regime. The role of the CIA is disputed: Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staff member, said the CIA chose the Ba'ath Party "as its instrument" and was behind the coup; a former very senior CIA official told United Press International the Agency was "absolutely stunned"; and the same report cited unnamed former U.S. intelligence officials as saying the CIA gave Iraqi National Guardsmen lists of suspected communists, who were then shot.² 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 2003.¹

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. A State Department memorandum of October 7, 1983 stated that the policy of strict neutrality had been modified, except for arms sales, since the summer of 1982, and assumed that tactical intelligence would continue; a presidential directive of April 5, 1984 (NSDD 139) ordered a plan to prevent Iraq's defeat; and on November 29, 1984 Secretary of State George Shultz told Tariq Aziz that superior intelligence must be an important factor in Iraq's defense. Meanwhile the administration ran 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.