1.
Ministry of Defence (Iraq)
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The Ministry of Defence is the Iraq government agency responsible for Defence of Iraq. It is also involved with internal security, the Ministry was dissolved by Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2 of mid-2003. It was formally re-established by CPA Order 61 of February 22,2004, in the interim period, the CPA Office of Security Affairs served as the de facto Ministry of Defence. The Iraqi Counter Terrorism Bureau directs the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Command, as of 30 June 2009, there had been legislation in progress for a year to make the Iraqi CTB a separate ministry. The position of Minister of Defence became vacant in the previous Iraqi cabinet, while it was vacant, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki served as the acting defence minister. Saadoun al-Dulaimi later served as Minister of Defence from 2011 to 2014, khaled al-Obaidi currently serves as defence minister in the Iraqi cabinet of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. The previous Minister of Defence, Lieutenant General Abd al-Qadr Muhammed Jassim al-Obaidi, is a Sunni career military officer and he had limited experience and faced a number of hurdles impeding his effective governance. Some of the problems included inheriting a staff that is notorious for favorism, corruption. He was a rival of the former Minister of the Interior Jawad al-Bolani, National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rubai and he has been criticized for not being able to stand up to the Badr Organization and Mehdi Army members which dominate his own party. In addition, as a Sunni he faced inherent challenges working within a Shiite-dominated government, previous defence ministers under Saddam Husseins regime included Ali Hassan al-Majid. Iraqs very first minister of defence was Jafar al-Askari, RAND, Developing Iraqs Security Sector, The Coalition Provisional Authoritys Experience,2005, p. 27-32 Ministry of Defence Ministry of Defence
2.
Saddam Hussein
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Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries, the state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraqs economy to grow at a rapid pace, positions of power in the country were mostly filled with Sunni Arabs, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population. Saddam formally rose to power in 1979, although he had been the de facto head of Iraq for several years prior. He suppressed several movements, particularly Shia and Kurdish movements, seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, and maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. Whereas some in the Arab world lauded Saddam for his opposition to the United States, the total number of Iraqis killed by the security services of Saddams government in various purges and genocides is unknown, but the lowest estimate is 250,000. Saddams Baath party was disbanded and elections were held, following his capture on 13 December 2003, the trial of Saddam took place under the Iraqi Interim Government. On 5 November 2006, Saddam was convicted of charges of crimes against humanity related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shiites and his execution was carried out on 30 December 2006. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam and he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein Abd al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born, shortly afterward, Saddams 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three and his mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return, at about age 10, Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Kharaillah Talfah. Later in his relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he attended a high school in Baghdad. After secondary school Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in 1957 at the age of 20 to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Baath Party, during this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher. Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, in Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites. Moreover, the nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt profoundly influenced young Baathists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya
3.
Iraqi Army
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The Iraqi Army, officially the Iraqi Ground Forces, is the ground force component of the Iraqi military, having been active in various incarnations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The Iraqi Army in its form was first created by the United Kingdom during the inter-war period of de facto British control of Mandatory Iraq. Following the invasion of Iraq by U. S. forces in 2003, because of the Iraqi insurgency that began shortly after the invasion, the Iraqi Army was later designed to initially be a counter-insurgency force. With the withdrawal of U. S. troops in 2011, the threat of war with newly forming Republic of Turkey, which claimed the Ottoman vilayet of Mosul as part of their country, led the British to form the Iraqi Army on 6 January 1921. The Mussa Al-Kadhum Brigade consisted of officers, whose barracks were located in Kadhimyah. The United Kingdom provided support and training to the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Army Day celebrates the soldiers that fight for Iraq. From 1533 to 1918, Iraq was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, after 1917, the United Kingdom took control of the country. The first Iraqi military forces established by the British were the Iraq Levies, in August 1921, the British installed Hashemite King Faisal I as the client ruler of the British Mandate of Iraq. Faisal had been forced out as the King of Syria by the French, likewise, British authorities selected Sunni Arab elites from the region for appointments to government and ministry offices in Iraq. The British and the Iraqis formalized the relationship between the two nations with the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1922, with Faisals ascension to the throne, the Iraqi Army became the Royal Iraqi Army. In 1922, the army totalled 3,618 men and this was well below the 6,000 men requested by the Iraqi monarchy and even less than the British set limit of 4,500. Unattractive salaries hindered early recruiting efforts, at this time, the United Kingdom maintained the right to levy local forces like the British-officered Iraq Levies which were under direct British control. With a strength of 4,984 men, the Iraq Levies outnumbered the army with its British set limit of 4,500 men. In 1924, the RIrA grew to 5,772 men and and it was to stay at 7,500 men until 1933. The force now had six battalions, three cavalry regiments, two mountain regiments, and one field battery. In 1932, the Kingdom of Iraq was granted official independence, the pro-British faction was represented by politicians such as Nuri as-Said who did not oppose a continued British presence. The anti-British faction was represented by such as Rashid Ali al-Gaylani who demanded that remaining British influence in the country be removed. From 1936 to 1941, five coups by the RIrA occurred during each year led by the officers of the Army against the government to pressure the government to concede to Army demands
4.
Gulf War
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The Iraqi Armys occupation of Kuwait that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. US President George H. W. Bush deployed US forces into Saudi Arabia, an array of nations joined the coalition, the largest military alliance since World War II. The great majority of the military forces were from the US, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid around US$32 billion of the US$60 billion cost, the war was marked by the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the US network CNN. The war has also earned the nickname Video Game War after the daily broadcast of images from cameras on board US bombers during Operation Desert Storm. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on 17 January 1991 and this was followed by a ground assault on 24 February. This was a victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait. The coalition ceased its advance, and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel. The following names have been used to describe the conflict itself, Gulf War, a problem with these terms is that the usage is ambiguous, having now been applied to at least three conflicts, see Gulf War. The use of the term Persian Gulf is also disputed, see Persian Gulf naming dispute, with no consensus of naming, various publications have attempted to refine the name. Other language terms include French, la Guerre du Golfe and German, Golfkrieg, German, Zweiter Golfkrieg, French, most of the coalition states used various names for their operations and the wars operational phases. Operation Desert Storm was the US name of the conflict from 17 January 1991. Operation Desert Sabre was the US name for the offensive against the Iraqi Army in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations from 24–28 February 1991, in itself. Operation Desert Farewell was the given to the return of US units and equipment to the US in 1991 after Kuwaits liberation. Operation Granby was the British name for British military activities during the operations, Opération Daguet was the French name for French military activities in the conflict. Operation Friction was the name of the Canadian operations Operazione Locusta was the Italian name for the operations, in addition, various phases of each operation may have a unique operational name. The US divided the conflict into three campaigns, Defense of Saudi Arabian country for the period 2 August 1990, through 16 January 1991
5.
The Guardian
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The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, known from 1821 until 1959 as the Manchester Guardian. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, the Scott Trust became a limited company in 2008, with a constitution to maintain the same protections for The Guardian. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to the benefit of an owner or shareholders, the Guardian is edited by Katharine Viner, who succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. In 2016, The Guardians print edition had a daily circulation of roughly 162,000 copies in the country, behind The Daily Telegraph. The newspaper has an online UK edition as well as two international websites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US, the newspapers online edition was the fifth most widely read in the world in October 2014, with over 42.6 million readers. Its combined print and online editions reach nearly 9 million British readers, notable scoops include the 2011 News International phone hacking scandal, in particular the hacking of murdered English teenager Milly Dowlers phone. The investigation led to the closure of the UKs biggest selling Sunday newspaper, and one of the highest circulation newspapers in the world, in 2016, it led the investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing the then British Prime Minister David Camerons links to offshore bank accounts. The Guardian has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the paper is still occasionally referred to by its nickname of The Grauniad, given originally for the purported frequency of its typographical errors. The Manchester Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with backing from the Little Circle and they launched their paper after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre protesters. They do not toil, neither do they spin, but they better than those that do. When the government closed down the Manchester Observer, the champions had the upper hand. The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, the prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty. Warmly advocate the cause of Reform, endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and. Support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, in 1825 the paper merged with the British Volunteer and was known as The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer until 1828. The working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called the Manchester Guardian the foul prostitute, the Manchester Guardian was generally hostile to labours claims. The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators –, if an accommodation can be effected, the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. CP Scott made the newspaper nationally recognised and he was editor for 57 years from 1872, and became its owner when he bought the paper from the estate of Taylors son in 1907. Under Scott, the moderate editorial line became more radical, supporting William Gladstone when the Liberals split in 1886
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
David Petraeus
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David Howell Petraeus AO is a retired American military officer and public official. He served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from September 6,2011, prior to his assuming the directorship of the CIA, Petraeus was a highly decorated four-star general, serving over 37 years in the United States Army. His last assignments in the Army were as commander of the International Security Assistance Force and Commander, Forces Afghanistan from July 4,2010, to July 18,2011. His other four-star assignments include serving as the 10th Commander, U. S, Central Command from October 13,2008, to June 30,2010, and as Commanding General, Multi-National Force – Iraq from February 10,2007, to September 16,2008. As commander of MNF-I, Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq, Petraeus has a B. S. degree from the United States Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1974 as a distinguished cadet. In his class were three other future generals, Martin Dempsey, Walter L. Sharp and Keith B. Alexander. He was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College class of 1983. He subsequently earned an M. P. A. in 1985 and he later served as Assistant Professor of International Relations at the United States Military Academy and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University. Petraeus has repeatedly stated that he has no plans to run for elected political office, on June 30,2011, Petraeus was unanimously confirmed as the Director of the CIA by the U. S. Senate 94–0. Petraeus relinquished command of U. S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on July 18,2011, and retired from the U. S. Army on August 31,2011. On November 9,2012, General Petraeus resigned from his position as Director of the CIA, citing his extramarital affair, eventually, Petraeus pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information. Petraeus was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, the son of Miriam, a librarian, and Sixtus Petraeus and his mother was American, a resident of Brooklyn, New York. His father had sailed to the United States from the Netherlands at the start of World War II and they met at the Seamens Church Institute of New York and New Jersey and married. Sixtus Petraeus commanded a Liberty ship for the U. S. A. for the duration of World War II, the family moved after the war, settling in Cornwall-on-Hudson, where David Petraeus grew up and graduated from Cornwall Central High School in 1970. Petraeus went on to the United States Military Academy at West Point, Petraeus was on the intercollegiate soccer and ski teams, was a cadet captain on the brigade staff, and was a distinguished cadet academically, graduating in the top 5% of the Class of 1974. In the class yearbook, Petraeus was remembered as always going for it in sports, academics, leadership, while a cadet, Petraeus started dating the daughter of Army General William A. Knowlton, Hollister Holly Knowlton. Two months after graduation, Petraeus married her, Holly, who is multi-lingual, was a National Merit Scholar in high school, and graduated summa cum laude from Dickinson College. They have a daughter and son, Anne and Stephen, Petraeus administered the oath of office at his sons 2009 commissioning into the Army after his sons graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8.
Guerrilla warfare
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The term, the diminutive form of war in Spanish, is usually translated as little war, and the word, guerrilla, has been used to refer to the concept since the 18th century, and perhaps earlier. In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla is a guerrillero if male, the term guerrilla was used in English as early as 1809, to refer to the fighters, and also to denote a group or band of such fighters. However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes the style of warfare. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, guerrillas usually carries positive connotations, and is often used by such fighters themselves and by their sympathizers, while their foes in many cases call them terrorists. Making an objective definition of the difference between a guerrilla and a terrorist has proven a difficult task, the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one. The Guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are preferred targets. All of that is to weaken the strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe, however, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves, at least one author credits the ancient Chinese work The Art of War with providing instruction in such tactics to Mao. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War or 600 BC to 501 BC, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare and this directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics were employed by prehistoric tribal warriors against enemy tribes. Evidence of conventional warfare, on the hand, did not emerge until 3100 BC in Egypt. Since the Enlightenment, ideologies such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism, because of the innovative tactics he used during his command, he made himself the name of Terror Romanorum. A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency operation involves actions taken by the government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it. Counter-insurgency operations are common during war, occupation and armed rebellions, the two most influential of scholars of counter-insurgency have been Westerners whose job it had been to fight insurgents. Robert Thompson fought during the Malayan Emergency and David Galula fought during the Algerian War, together these officers advocated multi-pronged strategies to win over the civilian population to the side of the counter-insurgent. The widely distributed and influential work of Sir Robert Thompson, counter-insurgency expert of the Malayan Emergency, thompsons underlying assumption was that the counter-insurgent was committed to improving the rule of law and bettering local governance
9.
Mosul
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Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq. Since October 2016 it has been the site of an operation led by the Iraqi Government, under Haider al-Abadi, in an effort to dislodge. The city has been under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since June 2014, and no westerner has entered the city until the latest initiative. The Battle of Mosul, an offensive to retake the city begun in October 2016, is the largest deployment of Iraqi forces since the 2003 invasion by U. S. Located some 400 km north of Baghdad, Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank. The metropolitan area has grown to encompass substantial areas on both the Left Bank and the Right Bank, as the two banks are described by the locals compared to the direction of Tigris. Mosuls population grew rapidly around the turn of the millennium and by 2004 was estimated to be 1,846,500, an estimated half million people fled Mosul in the second half of 2014 when the IS fought with government forces for control of the city. On November 17,2014, ISIS attacked the city of Mosul, ultimately killing seven civilians, while some residents returned, more fled in 2015 as fighting and violence increased, and US bombings pounded the city. Historically, important products of the area include Mosul marble and oil, the city of Mosul is home to the University of Mosul and its renowned Medical College, which together was one of the largest educational and research centers in Iraq and the Middle East. The University has since been closed, the Islamic States leadership in Mosul has kept the Medical College open but it is reported to be barely functional. The name of the city is first mentioned by Xenophon in his expeditionary logs in Achaemenid Assyria of 401 BC, there, he notes a small Assyrian town of Mépsila on the Tigris somewhere about where modern Mosul is today. Be that as it may, the name Mepsila is doubtless the root for the modern name, in its current Arabic form and spelling, the term Mosul, or rather Mawsil, stands for the linking point – or loosely, the Junction City, in Arabic. Mosul should not be confused with the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh and this area is known today as the town of Nebi Yunus and is now populated largely by Kurds. It is the only neighborhood in Mosul. The site contains the tomb of the Biblical Jonah, as he lived and died in the capital of ancient Assyria. Today, this area has been absorbed into the Mosul metropolitan area. The indigenous Assyrians still refer to the city of Mosul as Nineveh. The ancient Nineveh was succeeded by Mepsila after the fall of Assyria between 612-599 BC at the hands of a coalition of Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Scythians, Cimmerians and Sagartians, the Assyrians largely abandoned the city, building new smaller settlements such as Mepsila nearby
10.
United States Armed Forces
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President
Iraq