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| See also: | Other events of 1981 List of years in Iraq | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 1981 in Iraq .
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| See also: | Other events of 1981 List of years in Iraq | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 1981 in Iraq .
Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later its Iraqi regional branch. Ideologically, he espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, while the policies and political ideas he championed are collectively known as Saddamism.
Iraq under the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party saw severe violations of human rights. Secret police, state terrorism, torture, mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, deportations, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, assassinations, chemical warfare, and the destruction of the Mesopotamian marshes were some of the methods Saddam Hussein and the country's Ba'athist government used to maintain control. Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, which violated the Charter of the United Nations. The total number of deaths and disappearances related to repression during this period is unknown, but is estimated to be at least 250,000 to 290,000 according to Human Rights Watch, with the great majority of those occurring as a result of the Anfal genocide in 1988 and the suppression of the uprisings in Iraq in 1991. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.
Saddam Hussein, the deposed president of Iraq, was captured by the United States military in the town of Ad-Dawr, Iraq on 13 December 2003. Codenamed Operation Red Dawn, this military operation was named after the 1984 American film Red Dawn.
Events in the year 2002 in Iraq.
The Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory was based on false claims by the United States government alleging that a secretive relationship existed between Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda between 1992 and 2003. U.S. president George W. Bush used it as a main reason for invading Iraq in 2003.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait began on 2 August 1990 and marked the beginning of the Gulf War. After defeating the State of Kuwait on 4 August 1990, Iraq went on to militarily occupy the country for the next seven months. The invasion was condemned internationally, and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted numerous resolutions urging Iraq to withdraw from Kuwaiti territory. The Iraqi military, however, continued to occupy Kuwait and defied all orders by the UNSC. After initially establishing the "Republic of Kuwait" as a puppet state, Iraq annexed the entire country on 28 August 1990; northern Kuwait became the Saddamiyat al-Mitla' District and was merged into the existing Basra Governorate, while southern Kuwait was carved out as the all-new Kuwait Governorate. By November 1990, the adoption of UNSC Resolution 678 officially issued Iraq an ultimatum to withdraw unconditionally by 15 January 1991 or else be removed by "all necessary means" from Kuwaiti territory. In anticipation of a war with Iraq, the UNSC authorized the assembly of an American-led military coalition.
The trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office.
United States support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, in which it fought against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, military intelligence, and special operations training. The U.S. refused to sell arms to Iraq directly due to Iraq's ties to Palestinian groups which the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations such as the Palestinian Liberation Front and Abu Nidal Organization, but several sales of "dual-use" technology have been documented; notably, Iraq purchased 45 Bell helicopters for $200 million in 1985. Of particular interest for contemporary Iran–United States relations are accusations that the U.S. government actively encouraged Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, supported by a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence and generally regarded as the conventional wisdom in the Arab world, but several scholars and former U.S. government officials deny that any such collusion occurred, and no direct documentary proof of it has been found.
The 1991 Iraqi uprisings were ethnic and religious uprisings against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq that were led by Shia Arabs and Kurds. The uprisings lasted from March to April 1991 after a ceasefire following the end of the Gulf War. The mostly uncoordinated insurgency was fueled by the perception that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had become vulnerable to regime change. This perception of weakness was largely the result of the outcome of the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, both of which occurred within a single decade and devastated the population and economy of Iraq.
In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Iraqi Army initiated two failed and one successful (1978–1991) offensive chemical weapons (CW) programs. President Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) pursued the most extensive chemical program during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), when he waged chemical warfare against his foe. He also used chemicals in 1988 in the Al-Anfal Campaign against his civilian Kurdish population and during a popular uprising in the south in 1991.
Iraq–Israel relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Republic of Iraq. Due to Iraq's non-recognition of Israel as a legitimate state since the latter's establishment in 1948, the two countries have not had any formal diplomatic relations. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was a part of the Arab coalition that declared war on and invaded Israel shortly after its establishment, sparking the First–Arab Israeli War, and the two states have since then been in a continuous state of hostilities. Iraqi forces also participated in the Third Arab–Israeli War and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War in 1967 and 1973, respectively.
Iraq–Saudi relations are the bilateral and diplomatic relations between the Republic of Iraq and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Both sovereign states share the Iraq–Saudi Arabia border.
House of Saddam is a 2008 British docudrama television miniseries that charted the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein. A co-production between BBC Television and HBO Films, the series was first broadcast on BBC Two in four parts between 30 July and 20 August 2008.
The interrogation of Saddam Hussein began shortly after his capture by U.S. forces in December 2003, while the deposed president of Iraq was held at the Camp Cropper detention facility at Baghdad International Airport. Beginning in February 2004, the interrogation program, codenamed Operation Desert Spider, was controlled by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. Standard FBI FD-302 forms filed at the time were declassified and released in 2009 under a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request filed by the National Security Archive. Saddam, identified as "High Value Detainee #1" in the documents, was the subject of 20 "formal interviews" followed by five "casual conversations." Questioning covered the span of Saddam's political career, from 2003 when he was found hiding in a "spider hole" on a farm near his home town of Tikrit, back to his role in a failed 1959 coup attempt in Iraq, after which he had taken refuge in the very same place, one report noted.
Ba'athist Iraq, officially the Iraqi Republic (1968–1992) and later the Republic of Iraq (1992–2003), was the Iraqi state between 1968 and 2003 under the rule of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. This period began with high economic growth, but ended with the country facing severe levels of socio-political isolation and economic stagnation. By the late 1990s, the average annual income had decreased drastically due to a combination of external and internal factors. UNSC sanctions against Iraq, in particular, were widely criticized for negatively impacting the country's quality of life, prompting the establishment of the Oil-for-Food Programme. The Ba'athist period formally came to an end with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the Ba'ath Party has since been indefinitely banned across the country.
Iraqi nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts the belief that Iraqis form a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Iraqis of different ethnoreligious groups such as Mesopotamian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Yazidis, Mandeans, Shabaks and Yarsans.
Hussein Rashid Mohammed al-Tikriti is a former Iraqi military commander, who formerly served as the General Secretary of the General Command of the Armed Forces of Iraq.
The following lists events that happened during 1959 in Iraq.
The Iraqi invasion of Iran began on 22 September 1980, sparking the Iran–Iraq War, and lasted until 5 December 1980. Iraq attacked under the impression that Iran would not be able to respond effectively due to internal socio-political turmoil caused by the country's Islamic Revolution one year earlier. However, Iraqi troops became increasingly bogged down in the face of fierce Iranian resistance, which greatly stalled their advance into western Iran. In just over two months, the invasion was brought to a halt, but not before Iraq had managed to occupy more than 25,900 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi) of Iranian territory.
The 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge, also called the Comrades Massacre, was a public purge of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party orchestrated on 22 July 1979 by then-president Saddam Hussein six days after his arrival to the presidency of the Iraqi Republic on 16 July 1979.