In July 1979 the president, Ahmed Hasan Al-Bakr, was replaced by Saddam Hussein, his vice president, chosen successor, and the true ruler of Iraq. Saddam then assumed both of the vacated offices and purged political rivals in order to assure his position.
Once more the political situation flared into hostilities with Iran. On September 17, 1980 Saddam declares the Iraqi/Iranian borders agreement (Algiers Agreement) null and void, claiming the whole of Shatt el-Arab back to Iraq.
The Iran-Iraq War, which began 5 days later on September 22, 1980, lasted for eight years and had a crippling effect on the economy of both countries; in which after eight years of war no territory had been gained by either side but an estimated one million lives had been lost.
The Iran-Iraq War was then in its eighth year, when on Wednesday 16th March 1988, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who led the campaigns against the Iraqi Kurds in the late eighties, orchestrated a genocide, by attacking Halabja, a predominantly Iraqi Kurdish village in northeastern Iraq near the front lines with Iran, with mustard gas and nerve agents.
Read Full Article »
