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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Of the many conflicts in progress around the world in early
1988, the Iran-Iraq War was by far the bloodiest and the
costliest. The Iran-Iraq War was multifaceted and included
religious schisms, border disputes, and political differences.
Conflicts contributing to the outbreak of hostilities ranged from
centuries-old Sunni-versus-Shia (for
Sunni--see Glossary) and
Arab-versus-Persian religious and ethnic disputes, to a personal
animosity between Saddam Husayn and Ayatollah Khomeini. Above
all, Iraq launched the war in an effort to consolidate its rising
power in the Arab world and to replace Iran as the dominant
Persian Gulf state. Phebe Marr, a noted analyst of Iraqi affairs,
stated that "the war was more immediately the result of poor
political judgement and miscalculation on the part of Saddam
Hussein," and "the decision to invade, taken at a moment of
Iranian weakness, was Saddam's"
(see The Iran-Iraq Conflict
, ch.
1).
Iraq and Iran had engaged in border clashes for many years
and had revived the dormant Shatt al Arab waterway dispute in
1979. Iraq claimed the 200-kilometer channel up to the Iranian
shore as its territory, while Iran insisted that the thalweg--a
line running down the middle of the waterway--negotiated last in
1975, was the official border. The Iraqis, especially the Baath
leadership, regarded the 1975 treaty as merely a truce, not a
definitive settlement.
The Iraqis also perceived revolutionary Iran's Islamic agenda
as threatening to their pan-Arabism. Khomeini, bitter over his
expulsion from Iraq in 1977 after fifteen years in An Najaf,
vowed to avenge Shia victims of Baathist repression. Baghdad
became more confident, however, as it watched the once invincible
Imperial Iranian Army disintegrate, as most of its highest
ranking officers were executed. In Khuzestan (Arabistan to the
Iraqis), Iraqi intelligence officers incited riots over labor
disputes, and in the Kurdish region, a new rebellion caused the
Khomeini government severe troubles.
As the Baathists planned their military campaign, they had
every reason to be confident. Not only did the Iranians lack
cohesive leadership, but the Iranian armed forces, according to
Iraqi intelligence estimates, also lacked spare parts for their
American-made equipment. Baghdad, on the other hand, possessed
fully equipped and trained forces. Morale was running high.
Against Iran's armed forces, including the Pasdaran
(Revolutionary Guard) troops, led by religious mullahs with
little or no military experience, the Iraqis could muster twelve
complete mechanized divisions, equipped with the latest Soviet
materiel. In addition, the area across the Shatt al Arab posed no
major obstacles, particularly for an army equipped with Soviet
river-crossing equipment. Iraqi commanders correctly assumed that
crossing sites on the Khardeh and Karun rivers were lightly
defended against their mechanized armor divisions; moreover,
Iraqi intelligence sources reported that Iranian forces in
Khuzestan, which had formerly included two divisions distributed
among Ahvaz, Dezful, and Abadan, now consisted of only a number
of ill-equipped battalion-sized formations. Tehran was further
disadvantaged because the area was controlled by the Regional 1st
Corps headquartered at Bakhtaran (formerly Kermanshah), whereas
operational control was directed from the capital. In the year
following the shah's overthrow, only a handful of company-sized
tank units had been operative, and the rest of the armored
equipment had been poorly maintained.
For Iraqi planners, the only uncertainty was the fighting
ability of the Iranian air force, equipped with some of the most
sophisticated American-made aircraft. Despite the execution of
key air force commanders and pilots, the Iranian air force had
displayed its might during local riots and demonstrations. The
air force was also active in the wake of the failed United States
attempt to rescue American hostages in April 1980. This show of
force had impressed Iraqi decision makers to such an extent that
they decided to launch a massive preemptive air strike on Iranian
air bases in an effort similar to the one that Israel employed
during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Data as of May 1988
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