bombing Iraqi border towns. Or how about all the attempts Hussein made to stop the war and every time IRAN said hell no? And of course then there's the US of A involvement. Again. As usual.
*****
Iran publicly announced their intentions of overthrowing Saddam's regime for months before the start of the Iran-Iraq war.
Iran bombed an Iraqi university, killing and wounding many students; Iran carried out some 25 assassination attempts (some successful) on various of Saddam's government members.
Iran gave the Kurds money & equipment to use to overthrow Saddam's regime. Iran then bombed several of Iraq's border towns, killing hundreds of civilians. The US Pentagon's own report talks about the many attempts Saddam made for a diplomatic solution with Iran; each of which Iran refused. Saddam was secular, Iran wanted Iraq to be fundamental Islamist.
http://www.ndu.edu/library/n2/n015602O.pdf The Iranian bombing of the Iraqi border towns was the actual start of the war, although the USA calls the start the day Iraq attacked Iran back.
1980 4 September - Iran shells Iraqi border towns (Iraq considers this as the start of the Iran/Iraq war).http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/737483.stm Failed Diplomacy (Hussein's)In 1979, after the Islamic Revolution swept Iran, resulting in the overthrow of the Shah, Iran began publicly urging the Iraqi population to rise up and overthrow the Iraqi government because of fundamental differences in the respective regimes.
The new Iranian regime declared Iran to be the "Islamic Republic" and in its constitution described the government as "a system based on the belief in…religious leadership and continuous guidance." The Iraqi Bathist regime was a secular government, and Saddam urged Arab nationalism over religious fundamentalism—he wanted to foster a homogenous society of Shia, Sunni and Kurds.
A senior Iranian Mullah announced, "We have taken the path of true Islam and our aim in defeating Saddam Hussein lies in the fact that we consider him the main obstacle to the advance of Islam in the region."Hussein was full of
early diplomatic and domestic attempts to subdue the Iraqi unrest and ensure peace with Iran. In 1979, Saddam allocated 80 million dollars for Shia and Sunni shrines, mosques and the welfare of pilgrims. He publicly backed clerics who supported his regime and he also conveyed support for all religions and sects. In late 1979, Saddam resorted to projecting himself as a pious Muslim by praying at numerous holy shrines, both Sunni and Shia. As a further measure of conciliation towards the Shia, he declared Shia holy leader Imam Ali’s birthday as a national holiday.
In July 1979, Saddam reiterated interest in establishing close relations with Iran "based on mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs." The Ayatollah rejected Hussein's offer. Again taking the initiative, Saddam asked to visit Tehran in August of 1979, but the request was denied by the Iranian leadership.Referances:
-"Deciding on War" in Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography
King’s College, University of London
-"Roots of Conflict: After the Iranian Revolution" in The Longest
War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict
Routledge Holdings, Inc, New York, NY,
-The Iran-Iraq War: The Feud, the Tragedy, the Spoils
World Policy Journal vol. 2, Fall 1985
-**Time, 25 July 1983, p. 28, quoted in Mansour Farhang, "The Iran-Israel Connection," in _Consistency of U.S. Foreign Policy: The Gulf War and the Iran-ContraAffair, ed. Abbas Alnasrawi and Cheryl Rubenberg, Belmont, MA: AAUG, 1989, p. 96.
-National Defense University; National War College
Iran-Iraq War; Exceeding Means
http://www.ndu.edu/library/n2/n015602O.pdf Iran-Iraq War1979
-July 16: President Al-Bakr resigns and is succeeded by vice president Saddam Hussein.
1980
-April 1: The pro-Iranian Da'wah Party claims responsibility for an attack on Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz at Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad.
-September 4: Iran shells Iraqi border towns; Iraq considers this the start of the Iran/Iraq war.
-September 22: Iraq attacks Iranian air bases, Iran retaliates by bombing Iraqi military and economic targets.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/Content/Frontline/Timeline_Iraq.asp-Hussein, despite having made significant strides in forging an Iraqi nation-state, feared that Iran's new revolutionary leadership would threaten Iraq's delicate SunniShia balance and would exploit Iraq's geostrategic vulnerabilities--Iraq's minimal access to the Persian Gulf, for example.
-The Iraqis also perceived revolutionary Iran's Islamic agenda as threatening to their pan-Arabism.-The principal events that touched off the rapid deterioration in relations occurred during the spring of 1980.
-In late 1980, Tehran rejected a settlement offer.Iraqi Retreats, 1982-84
-1982; Hussein announced that the Iraqi units would withdraw from Iranian territory.
Saddam ordered a withdrawal to the international borders, believing Iran would agree to end the war. Iran did not accept this withdrawal as the end of the conflict, and continued the war into Iraq. -In late June 1982,
Baghdad stated its willingness to negotiate a settlement of the war and to withdraw its forces from Iran. Iran refused.-1984; Iraq tried to force Iran to the negotiating table by various means.
-Iraq turned to diplomatic and political means. In April 1984, Saddam
Hussein proposed to meet Khomeini personally in a neutral location to discuss peace negotiations. But Tehran rejected this offer and restated its refusal to negotiate.-Iraq sought to involve the superpowers as a means of ending the war.
-Iranian military gains inside Iraq after 1984 were a major reason for increased superpower involvement in the war. In February 1986, Iranian units captured the port of Al Faw, which had oil facilities and was one of Iraq's major oil-exporting ports before the war.
-In early 1987, both superpowers indicated their interest in the security of the region.
-By late spring of 1987, the superpowers became more directly involved because they feared that the fall of Basra might lead to a pro-Iranian Islamic republic in largely Shia-populated southern Iraq. They were also concerned about the intensified Tanker War.
-Iran accepted United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 598, leading to a 20 August 1988 cease-fire.
-Iran acknowledged that nearly 300,000 people died in the war; estimates of the Iraqi dead range from 160,000 to 240,000.
Referances;
-National Defense University; National War College
Iran-Iraq War; Exceeding Means
http://www.ndu.edu/library/n2/n015602O.pdf -Library of Congress;
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iqtoc.html -Library of Congress;
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/irtoc.html -Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm-The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security, 1984-87
London: Jane's Publishing Co
-The Tanker War, 1984-87
http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/iraq/iraq101.htmlAmerica; helping both Iraq and Iran to continue their war
-The Tower Commission; North and CIA officials discussed with their Iranian contacts "Iran's urgent need" for "both intelligence and weapons to be used in offensive operations against Iraq."
-CIA deputy director John McMahon claimed that he warned Poindexter that such intelligence would give the Iranians "a definite edge," with potentially "cataclysmic results," and that he was able to persuade North to provide Iran with only a segment of the intelligence.
-North, however, apparently gave critical data to Iran just before its crucial victory in the Fao Peninsula in February 1986. Despite McMahon's warnings, neither Poindexter nor CIA Director Casey reversed the plans to provide the Iranians with the full intelligence information.
-At the same time that the U.S. was giving Teheran weapons that one CIA analyst believed could affect the military balance, and passing on intelligence that the Tower Commission deemed of "potentially major significance," it was also providing Iraq with intelligence information, some misleading or incomplete.-In 1986, the CIA established a direct Washington-to-Baghdad link to provide the Iraqis with faster intelligence from U.S. satellites.
-Simultaneously, Casey was urging Iraqi officials to carry out more attacks on Iran, especially on economic targets.
Asked what the logic was of aiding both sides in a bloody war, a former official replied, "You had to have been there."Referances:
Tower Commission
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/PS157/assignment%20files%20public/TOWER%20EXCERPTS.htmhttp://www.namebase.org/sources/IE.html "Iran and Iraq Got 'Doctored Data, U.S. Officials Say,"
New York Times, 12 Jan. 1987, pp. A1, A6.
Veil. The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987
Bob Woodward
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