Iraq Project

Iraq

By Kevin Li, Fred Bondar, and Varshita Jakkaraju

1970 - Iraqi-Kurdish Autonomy Agreement An agreement was reached between the Iraqi government and the Kurds on March, 1970, following the aftermath of the first Kurdish-Iraqi War, which gave the Kurds a variety of of rights and benefits, including autonomous rule.

1973 - Iraq Fights in Arab-Israeli War Iraq joins the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli War, intervening on the Syrian Front. The war, however, ultimately ends in Arab defeat.

1975 - Fighting Breaks Out Again Five years after the Autonomy agreement between the Iraqis and the Kurds, the flame is rekindled in the second Kurdish-Iraqi War, after the Kurdish people call out for their independence. The war ends with the defeat of the Kurds, resulting in a large number of deaths on both sides and renewed anger between the two.

1979 - Saddam Hussein Takes Power After Al-Bakr stepped down from presidency - often hypothesised to have been a forced resignation - Saddam Hussein takes power and executes his political rivals. Hussein’s reign ushers in a whole new era in the country.

1980 - The Iran-Iraq War Begins Iraq declares war on Iran. The war is largely the result of a variety of political, economic, and territorial conflicts - an example being Hussein’s fear of the recent Shi’ite uprising in Iran, which he was believed would incite rebellion into Iraq’s own Shi’ite population. Other disputes included oil and control over the Shatt Al Arab. The war was ultimately considered to be a stalemate.

1990 - Iran Invades Kuwait Blaming Kuwait for falling oil prices - which were damaging Iraq’s economy, Saddam Hussein invades the country in early August, quickly overrunning the Kuwait Armed Forces within a few days. The country is then annexed by Iraq in the following days, giving Hussein the country's large oil supply.

1991 - The Persian Gulf War Begins Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait eventually catalysts into a global intervention against Iraq, as foreign nations do not take well to the then large amount of oil under Hussein’s control. Operation Desert Storm, a U.S led coalition of 32 different countries, succeeds in soundly defeating the Iraqi resistance - freeing Kuwait, and dealing a severe blow to Iraq and Hussein’s power.

2002 - George W. Bush Identified Iraq as Evil In the state of the union speech, President George W. Bush marks Iraq, along with a few other countries, as an "axis of evil." With this, he promises that that the U.S. "will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." War is then permitted during the same year.

2003 - The Iraq War Begins Under the rationale that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction, which could have posed a serious threat to the world, the U.S and its allies launched an invasion against Iraq following Hussein’s refusal to leave the country.

2011 - The Iraq War Ends After eight years, the war finally ends - resulting in a range of effects, including Saddam Hussein’s capture as well as the then current Ba’athist government’s collapse. The sudden lack of central authority, however, leaves a huge power void within the country, leading to violent internal conflicts between the Shias and Sunnis - this being the primary foundation of the chaos in the country today.

Iran-Iraq war begins, however, the war ends in stalemate (in a tie) after 8 years of war; 1.5 million people died total from both sides

Saddam Hussein takes over and is known to be a ruthless dictator and corrupted many things in the country including the election so much that many other candidates were afraid to run for office

Images

US troops lowering the Iraq-America flag, symbolising America pulling out of Iraq

President Bush announces the war with Iraq from the Oval Office. Most people supported the war when it was first announced for they believed that Iraq was holding nuclear weapons.

Iraq’s current state, although there is a democracy, the government is still filled with corruption and the people are at a state of unrest because they want change

Information About Iraq Date of Independence/Founding

Iraq gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire after the British terminated its mandate over the Arab nations.

Form of Government and Current Leader

The form of government is a Federal Republic. It is, however, unstable and weak. The current president of Iraq is Fuad Masum.

Suffrage: Who Get to Vote?

Iraq has the illusion of a democracy, so everyone 18 and older gets to vote; however, the voting ballots are often corrupt and so is the presidential race.

Basis of Economy

GDP Per Capita

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GDP: $522,700,000 Iraq’s economy is dominated by oil exports Iraq’s Imports are largely food, medicinal, and manufactured goods

GDP Per Capita is 14,571.00 USD in (2016)

Information About Iraq (Cont’d) Life Expectancy Status of Civil Rights

Diplomatic Relations Military Spending Religious and Ethnic Makeup of Nation Additional Facts

Life expectancy is on average 68 years for men and 73 years for women.

Civil rights status is Iraq remains awful. The biggest problem is ISIS, whose harsh influence over the country has caused many issues. For example: ● Child Soldiers on both sides ● Harsh punishments (Executions) ● Forcing women into sexual slavery Allies: United States, France, Germany, Russia, China Enemies: ISIS Iraq spends approximately 8.7% of their GDP on military expenditures.

The primary religion in Iraq is Islam. The nation’s people are generally divided into Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim, and Kurdish.

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Additional facts ● ● ● ●

Iraq, being home to three different religious and ethnic groups - Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds - is one of the reasons there has been so much internal conflict within the country.

Between 2003 and 2010, approximately 150,000 Iraqis died in the war, with four out of five of the dead being civilian.

Although Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia, international sanctions during the 1990s and the wars have left Iraq in poverty.

Most Christian Iraqis are Roman Catholic. The country forbids Christians to talk about their faith or hold any religious events outside of their church.

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Saddam Hussein introduced a new law that allowed a man who killed a woman in defense of the honor of the family to be exempt from punishment. Consequently, Iraq has seen a resurgence of honor crimes since 2003.

Before Saddam Hussein came to power, Shiite Muslims oppressed the Sunnis. After Saddam assumed power, the roles of oppression were reversed. Then, when Hussein lost power, the roles changed once again to Shiites oppressing Sunnis.

Report Card Human Right’s Grade: D- (REALLY BAD)

The Iraqi government’s ongoing conflict with ISIS creates a harsh environment that discounts the rights of the people. ISIS has executed hundreds of innocent civilians, and the fighting has caused destruction of many homes and shops., resulting in thousands of displaced civilians. Often, civilians are killed both by direct and indirect fire from military forces. There is little freedom of anything at the moment with so much fighting, much less women’s rights, where women are victims of a male dominated society with rape and honor crimes. Furthermore, Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation while they work to promote improvements to women's status in law, education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life. With the constant danger and lack of rights, Iraq is a very unsafe place to be for anyone.

Source: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/iraq

Report Card (Cont’d) Video:

News Article: https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/01/27/iraq-civilians-pay-priceconflict

Improving Human Rights in Iraq At the moment, there is little that can be done to help Iraq. With ISIS, who are committing brutal atrocities, and the Iraqi government clashing, civilians are often caught and killed in collateral damage as well as directed attacks. The only solution - and it’s a tough one - is to get rid of ISIS, through the combined armed interventions of the United States and its allies. This doesn’t mean an airstrike here or there, nor does it constitute just providing mere resources; there needs to be a true, focused war effort against ISIS.. Only then will the conflict and destruction stop and the country be able to improve its current situation.

Terrorism in Iraq With ISIS dominating large parts of Iraq today, terrorism has played a big role not just within the country itself, but also throughout the whole world. The presence of the Islamic State has caused widespread ruin, with buildings being destroyed, livelihoods crushed, a nation in turmoil, and people in constant fear of their lives. The nation has been broken - unstable and on the brink of complete chaos - with the conflict between ISIS and the government only intensifying these apparent issues.

With the recent terrorist bombings in Brussels and Paris, as well as the many terror attacks that have occurred around the world, ISIS and terrorism are bound to become an even larger topic in Iraq.

Current Event Article http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/world/europe/brussels-airpo-explosions.html http://www.theatlantic. com/international/archive/2014/09/obama-iraq-syria-isis-war-sold/380026/ The rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Sunni Islamist militant group that has seized a chunk of land stretching from northern Syria to central Iraq, has caused fear among many national leaders and citizens. The group believes radical interpretations of wahhabism (return to the original state of Islam) and serves as a global threat to the world, as they are not afraid to take the lives of many to reach their goal. Attacks such as the ones on March 22 2016 in the Brussels airport, as the article describes, killed 20-30 people and injured hundreds more making it the 3rd well-known international attack by ISIS, following the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Not only is the rise of ISIS significant to middle eastern countries because of its emergence in Iraq but it is also seen as global threat, for many of its terrorist attacks have been successful. Consequently, because of the threat that ISIS is causing to its allies, countries such as the US are likely to perform offensive attacks. Peter Beinart from The Atlantic states: “It may be worth attacking the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria for purely humanitarian reasons...It may be worth attacking ISIS because of the threat it poses to our allies in the Middle East. If unchecked, the group could destabilize not only Iraq and Syria, but potentially Jordan and Saudi Arabia too�.

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