IRAQ Map Geography People Economy Military Library of Congress Country Study


Dead foreigners mutilated,dragged through Iraqi city (Globeandmail, Apr 1, 2004)


Ritual Ashura self-mutilation - children in Baghdad

The new Iraqi government is thanking US-led coalition for liberating Iraq
Sunni Muslim Arab terrorists murdered tens of thousands of Shiites after liberation of Iraq
Shiite Muslim Arab terrorists murdered tens of thousands of Sunnis after liberation of Iraq | Iraqis turn to fake IDs as protection
Piracy at sea
Female Genital Mutilation
Islamists are wiping out Mandaean minority
History now smiles on Israel's removal of Saddam's nuclear program in 1981

Before USA and UK occupied distant Iraq for preventive security reasons:
State Sponsor of Terrorism - Genocide and Gendercide - Religious Persecution
Use of WMD against own people: Iraq repeatedly used chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds in 1988 and against Muslim Iran in 1983-1988 -182,000 Iraqi Kurds killed during the Anfal campaign in 1986-1989 - Tyran Saddam's persistent record of lying meant no one believed him when he at the last moment actually removed the weapons of mass destruction
290,000 Iraqis disappeared into the regime's deadly maw - Child soldiers
The Mother of All Connections: Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda
Occupied and plundered Arab Kuwait from 1990-1991 - Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein during the 1990 invasion of Arab Kuwait - Marsh Arabs suffered ethnic cleansing and repression
Invaded Muslim Iran causing war from 1980-1988 and 1,000,000 dead
Launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia in 1991
Invaded Israel in 1948 with the declared intent of destroying her
Launched missile attacks in 1991 on Israeli civilian targets
Sponsored suicide terrorism against Israeli civilians
Tyrant Saddam Hussein provided funding to Al-Jazeera TV
Tyrant Saddam Hussein in Forbes Report 2003 "The World's Richest People"

Compare Freedom Score of Iraq (Not Free) and Israel (Free)
Source: Freedom House (PDF, 187 KB)

Compare Human Development Index of Iraq (---) and Israel (0.905) (PDF, 670 KB)
Source: United Nations Human Development Report 2003

Compare Corruption Index of Iraq (2.3), Israel (7.3), Germany (7.3) and USA (7.7)
Source: Transparency International (PDF, 1.8 MB)

Practice of mutilating execution method with hand grenades in Saddam Hussein's Iraq
These pictures are not suitable for children. They are extremely disturbing!!!

From "The Threatening Storm" by Kenneth Pollack, a Middle East scholar who served two tours of duty in Bill Clinton's National Security Council: "This is a regime that will gouge out the eyes of children to force confessions from their parents and grandparents. This is a regime that will crush all the bones in the feet of a 2-year-old girl to force her mother to divulge her father's whereabouts. . . . This is a regime that will burn a person's limbs off to force him to confess or comply. This is a regime that will slowly lower its victims into huge vats of acid, either to break their will or as a means of execution. . . . This is a regime that will drag in a man's wife, daughter, or other female relative and repeatedly rape her in front of him. This is a regime that will force a white-hot metal rod into a person's anus or other orifices. This is a regime that employs thalium poisoning, widely considered one of the most excruciating ways to die. This is a regime that will behead a young mother in the street in front of her house and children because her husband was suspected of opposing the regime. This is a regime that used chemical warfare . . . not just on the 15,000 killed and maimed at Halabja but on scores of other villages all across Kurdistan."

Iraqi stamps with personality cult: on tyran Saddam Hussein's birthday flowers from the dead

Saddam's Chemical Weapons Campaign: Halabja, March 16, 1988 (U.S. State Department, Mar 14, 2003): "Saddam Hussein is the first world leader in modern times to have brutally used chemical weapons against his own people."

Roadside Sarin. The WMD we haven't found is still a threat. (Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2004): "Yesterday's report that a roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded recently near a U.S. convoy in Baghdad isn't impressing most of the press corps. They're dismissing it as no big deal--though we'd guess it was a rather large event for the two U.S. explosives experts lucky enough to escape with only minor exposure. Along with VX nerve gas, sarin is among the deadliest chemical toxins around. That it has now been used by our enemies in one of their improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, is at least notable as a reminder that we still don't know what happened to Saddam's WMD. We should want to solve this mystery before it turns up in other weapons targeting Americans, whether in Iraq or elsewhere."

Kurds rejoice at Chemical Ali's capture, want him tried in Halabja (Kurdistan Regional Government, Aug 21, 2003): "Iraqi Kurds hailed on Thursday the capture of Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for ordering a gas attack that killed thousands of their own in 1988, stressing he should go on trial and pay for his crimes."

STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG) BEFORE THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE, AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE (CIA, Oct 2, 2003)

Thank You . An Iraqi poet celebrates the dictator's fall.(Awad Nasir, Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2003): "It is not only the people of Iraq who are grateful for the end of a nightmare. A majority of Arabs and Muslims are also grateful. The chorus of lamentation for Saddam consists of a few isolated figures espousing the bankrupt ideologies of pan-Arabism and Islamism. A Moroccan Islamist tells us that the American presence in Iraq is "a punishment from Allah" for Muslims because of their "weakening faith." But if the toppling of a tyrant is punishment, then I pray that Allah will bring similar punishments on other Arab nations that endure despotic rule."

WMD, R.I.P. Everyone now agrees it was right to attack Iraq pre-emptively (Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2004): "A familiar news story: A hard-line government uses its powerful military to launch a unilateral pre-emptive strike. The United Nations and Europe are horrified, along with most of the American media. They condemn the strike and brush off claims that it was justified as an act of self-defense against an unpredictable tyrant. So was it a terrible mistake, a lamentable error of judgment? Not at all. History now smiles on Israel's elimination of Saddam's nearly completed weapon of mass destruction more than 20 years ago."

Shaking Up the Neighbors (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, Aug 6, 2003): "Shortly after the 25-member Governing Council was appointed in Iraq, the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, questioned the U.S.-appointed Council's legitimacy. "If this Council was elected," complained Mr. Moussa, "it would have gained much power and credibility." I love that quote. I love it, first of all, for its bold, gutsy, shameless, world-class hypocrisy. Mr. Moussa presides over an Arab League in which not one of the 22 member states has a leader elected in a free and fair election."

A Moral Failure. Why did so many on the left march to save Saddam Hussein? (Norman Geras, Aug 4, 2003): "Here is one approximate measure of the barbarities of the Baathist regime I have just referred to. It comes not from the Pentagon, or anyone in the Bush administration, or from Tony Blair or those around him. It comes from Human Rights Watch. According to Human Rights Watch, during 23 years of Saddam's rule some 290,000 Iraqis disappeared into the regime's deadly maw, the majority of these reckoned to be now dead. Rounding this number down by as much as 60,000 to compensate for the "reckoned to be," that is 230,000. It is 10,000 a year. It is 200 people every week. And I'll refrain from embellishing with details, which you should all know, as to exactly how a lot of these people died. Had the opposition to the war succeeded, this is what it would have postponed--and postponed indefinitely--bringing to an end. This is how almost the whole international left expressed its moral solidarity with the Iraqi people. Worse still, some sections of the left seemed none too bothered about making common cause with, marching alongside, fundamentalist religious bigots and known racists; and there were also those who dismissed Iraqi voices in support of the war as coming from American stooges--a disgraceful lie."

Lesson for the 'Don't-Touch-Saddam' lobby (Paris based Iranian Amir Taheri, JP, Jun 13, 2003)

IRAQ WAR: "INSTANT LESSONS LEARNED". Military Operations, Rumsfeld Doctrine, Post-Conflict Challenges (CSIS Analysis, Apr 30, 2003)

Anatomy of the Three-Week War. It was more that we were good rather than they were bad. (Victor Davis Hanson, NRO, Apr 17, 2003)

Arab and Muslim Media Reactions to the Fall of Baghdad (MEMRI, Apr 11, 2003)

SOURCES OF REVENUE FOR SADDAM & SONS. A Primer on the Financial Underpinnings of the Regime in Baghdad (The Coalition for International Justice, Sep 2002) (PDF, 448 KB): "... Saddam, aided variously by his two sons and close relations before them, has managed to earn more than $2 billion a year in hard currency by illegally exploiting the UN system and running extensive smuggling operations outside it."

UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which demanded that Saddam Hussein comply "immediately" with the 16 preceding resolutions, declared it his "final opportunity" to do so, and promised "serious consequences" if he failed to do so.

What Does Disarmament Look Like? (White House, Jan 2003) (PDF, 112 KB)

Iraq, Israel and the United Nations. Double standards (Economist, Oct 10, 2002): " ... a quite distinct sort of claim is also made in the “double standards” debate. This holds that Israel stands in breach of Security Council resolutions in just the way Iraq does, and therefore deserves to be treated by the UN with equal severity. Not so."

Iraq's Designation as State Sponsor of Terrorism by the United States

Iraq's Designation by the United States as “Country of Particular Concern” Under the International Religious Freedom Act.

President George W. Bush, Feb 13, 2002: “This enemy reaches across oceans; it targets the innocent. There are no rules of war for these cold-blooded killers. They seek biological and chemical and nuclear weapons to commit murder on a massive scale. This enemy will not be restrained by mercy, or by conscience. This enemy will be stopped, and it will be stopped by the might and will of the United States and our friends and our allies."

Abu Nidal organization (ANO) a.k.a. Fatah Revolutionary Council, Arab Revolutionary Brigades, Black September, and Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims (Patterns of Global Terrorism -2001, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. U.S. State Department: "Has received considerable support, including safehaven, training, logistic assistance, and financial aid from Iraq, Libya, and Syria (until 1987), in addition to close support for selected operations."

Palestinians mourn fall of their hero Saddam after flow of dollars for 'martyrs' dries up (Justin Huggler, Independent, May 7, 2003)

Palestinians are driven from homes by armed Iraqis (Jack Fairweather, The Daily Telegraph, Jun 9, 2003): For all its golden words in support of the Palestinian cause, the [Iraqi] government refused to let them own their homes and restricted their employment to manual labour ... While the Palestinian cause may stir the passions of Arabs across the Middle East, Palestinians themselves are often regarded with suspicion. Palestinian militants were involved in civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon. In 1991, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were evicted from Kuwait after the emirate was liberated from the Iraqis. And in 1993 and 1994, hundreds were evicted from Libya on the grounds that Yasser Arafat had supported Saddam. Now it is the Palestinians in Baghdad who are the victims of the political upheaval."

Genocide in Iraq. The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (Human Rights Watch): “By our estimate, in Anfal at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 persons, many of them women and children, were killed out of hand between February and September 1988. Their deaths did not come in the heat of battle -- "collateral damage" in the military euphemism. Nor were they acts of aberration by individual commanders whose excesses passed unnoticed, or unpunished, by their superiors. Rather, these Kurds were systematically put to death in large numbers on the orders of the central government in Baghdad -- days, sometimes weeks, after being rounded-up in villages marked for destruction or else while fleeing from army assaults in "prohibited areas".

Saddam Hussein: crimes and human rights abuses (UK Government Report) (PDF, 202 KB)

Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction: The British Government Dossier (PDF, 438 KB)

Iraq’s Military Forces And Weapons of Mass Destruction (CSIS, Jan 2003) (PDF, 600 KB)

Iraqi Denial and Deception for Weapons of Mass Destruction & Ballistic Missile Programs (UK Government Report) (PDF, 2.5 MB)

How Iraq conceals and obtains its Weapons of Mass Destruction (Ibrahim al-Marashi, Meria, March 2003)

Apparatus of Lies. Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003 (White House)

US National Strategy to Weapons of Mass Destruction (PDF, 424 KB)

Iraq. Failing to Disarm (U.S. Secretary of State Addresses the U.N. Security Council)

Human Rights Watch: This report is a narrative account of a campaign of extermination against the Kurds of northern Iraq. "It is the product of over a year and a half of research, during which a team of Middle East Watch researchers has analyzed several tons of captured Iraqi government documents and carried out field interviews with more than 350 witnesses, most of them survivors of the 1988 campaign known as Anfal. It concludes that in that year the Iraqi regime committed the crime of genocide."

Human Rights Watch Report 2002 (Iraq): "The Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussain perpetrated widespread and gross human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests of suspected political opponents and their relatives, routine torture and ill-treatment of detainees, summary execution of military personnel and political detainees as part of a 'prison cleansing' campaign, and forced expulsions of Kurds and Turkmen from Kirkuk and other regions."

Iraq-Iran War 1980-1988 (Encyclopaedia.com):
"Estimates of the number of dead range up to 1.5 million."

Iraq's last Jews wait in fear for war (Times Online, Oct 18, 2002): "Fifty years ago there were about 350,000 Jewish people in Iraq. When the British marched into Baghdad at the end of the First World War a fifth of its citizens were estimated to be Jewish. Today 38 remain in the capital. In Basra, the once prosperous port in the south, there is just one old woman. In Mosul and Amarah, and other Iraqi cities where Jews had lived for more than two millennia, their communities have vanished without trace."

Kurdistan Regional Government [in Iraq], official website: "The KRG is the authority that rules over much of the liberated area of Iraqi Kurdistan. Its domain includes the provinces of Erbil and Duhok with the city of Erbil as its capital."

“The Arabs Should Leave Kurdistan Again”. Interview: Massoud Barzani (Andrea Nuesse, Frankfurter Rundschau, Sept. 16, 2003)

Genocides Against the Assyrian Nation (Assyrian International News Agency)
Assyria Online

If You Harbor a Terrorist. Striking Syria to save Iraq (Barbara Lerner, NRO, Oct 27, 2003): "What will it take to win the second great battle of Iraq, the battle against terrorism on Iraqi soil? Thousands of additional Coalition troops and billions of dollars in donor aid will make it easier to hold the line, but I'm afraid it won't be enough, by itself, to ensure another Coalition triumph there in a year or two. We have to add a new element to the mix, and it's not another U.N. resolution. It's another "shock and awe" campaign, this one designed to convince Iraq's neighbors that when we say they must shut off the flow of foreign terrorists into Iraq, we mean it."

Optimists in Iraq. The natives must not be reading Reuters (Wall Street Journal, Mar 19, 2004): "...Iraqis really do believe they've been liberated. That's the finding of the latest National Survey of Iraq, conducted in February by Oxford Research International. While Iraqis say security, or the lack of it, remains their largest problem, they also report that their lives and prospects have improved since the fall of Saddam Hussein."

Iraqi Special Tribunal (official website, June 14, 2005): Established according to the statute no. (1) dated 10.12.2003 enacted by the Iraqi Governing Counsel.

The Iraqi draft constitution - Long litany of contradictions (Professor Shlomo Avineri, JP, Aug 28, 2005): "... even if ratified, it has a slim chance of becoming the operative basic document that could keep Iraq together. ... Some of the absurdities are glaring: After declaring Islam to be the official religion of the state and the basic source of its legislation, Article 2(a) states that "no law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam." Yet this is immediately followed by Article 2(b) which stipulates that "no law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy." How these two contradictory statements can be reconciled is never spelled out. ... none other than the general-secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, has realized it and claimed that the draft does away with the exclusively Arab nature of Iraq. He is right. Article 3 defines Iraq as a "multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-sect country" and Article 4 states that "Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages of Iraq," adding that other Iraqi citizens, "like Turkomen and Assyrians are guaranteed the right of education for their children in their mother tongue."
Opting out of Arabism in Iraq (Professor Barry Rubin, JP, Aug 29, 2005): "There is one other fascinating definition of identity: the Arabs of Iraq – and not Iraq as a whole – are said to be part of the Arab nation. THIS DETAIL is psychologically explosive on a regional level. It means that non-Arab groups can opt out of Arabism. Arab nationalism would thus become a form of ethnic sympathy rather than national policy. This would be a real nail in the coffin of the way the Arab world has been organized in the past half century. Regarding communal relations within Iraq, the constitution is very tolerant. Arabic and Kurdish have joint status as official languages, while Turkoman – a point that should please Turkey – and Assyrian will have equal status in regions where people who speak them live. It is important to remember that federalism is completely unknown in the Arab world. Strong central governments have been seen – with good reason – to be the only protection against anarchy and the collapse of the state. Therefore, it is understandable that few Arabs think it will work in Iraq, and they might be right."

Piracy attacks in Iraqi watersin 2005 (International Maritime Bureau, Jan 31, 2006)

Iraq related documents at Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Iraq - 2001 (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of U.S. Department of State)
Library of Congress's Country Studies (Iraq)
CIA World Factbook (Iraq): "Despite restored diplomatic relations in 1990, lacks maritime boundary with Iran and disputes land boundary, navigation channels, and other issues from eight-year war; in November 1994, Iraq formally accepted the UN-demarcated border with Kuwait which had been spelled out in Security Council Resolutions 687 (1991), 773 (1993), and 883 (1993); this formally ends earlier claims to Kuwait and to Bubiyan and Warbah islands although the government continues periodic rhetorical challenges; dispute over water development plans by Turkey for the Tigris and Euphrates rivers."