Ba'athist Iraq, retroactively known as the Second Iraqi Republic; and officially the Iraqi Republic and later the Republic of Iraq, was the Iraqi state between 1968 and 2003 under the one-party rule o
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was de jure leader of Iraq from 1968 to 1979.
Adnan Khairallah, Iraqi Defense Minister, meeting with Iraqi soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war.
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (left), the Regional Secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath, shaking hands with Michel Aflaq, principal founder of Ba'athist thought, in 1968.
Saddam Hussein (right) talking with Ba'ath party leader Michel Aflaq
Iraq came under United States military occupation following the invasion of the country on 20 March 2003 by U.S.-led Coalition forces that marked the fall of the Ba'athist regime led by Saddam Hussein
Ba'athist Iraq
…resulted in the toppling of his statue at Firdos Square by Iraqi civilians, ending almost 35 years of Ba'athist rule. The Ba'ath Party was banned by the Coalition Provisional Authority following Iraq's invasion on 16 May, as part of the de-Ba'athification policy undertaken to remove Ba'athist influence from Iraqi political society…
Paul Bremer (second from left) and four members of the Iraqi Governing Council; Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Ahmed Chalabi, Adnan Pachachi, and Adil Abdul-Mahdi (left to right)
Iraq's Republican Palace in Baghdad under CPA occupation in August 2003.