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1. Women and the Iraq War, 20 Years Later: The Consequences of War, Sanctions, and Occupation for Women and the Continuing Struggle for Women’s Rights

Author:
David Cortright, Anna Romandash, and Marcelle Al-Zoughbi
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
This report marks 20 years since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. It recounts the impacts of war and critiques the strategy of using military intervention to enhance women’s rights. It is presented in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which urges all actors to “adopt a gender perspective.” Our analysis traces the deterioration of social and economic conditions for women caused by U.S. policy and the resulting rise of extremism and sectarian warfare. We also address the role of Iraqi women in mobilizing movements to assert their rights and oppose violence. In telling this story, we rely extensively on the voices of Iraqi women who experienced and studied these events. A gender perspective means going beyond the view of women as victims to address the political agency of women as they struggle for political, economic, and social justice. We use “feminist discovery” to examine the lived experience of Iraqi women and gain a better understanding of the realities of war.1 This report draws lessons for the future of U.S. and international security policy and examines the agenda for women’s rights today as defined by Iraqi women and their international supporters.
Topic:
War, Women, Feminism, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and United States of America

2. Dispatches: Life Beyond the Borders

Author:
Shano Mohammed
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
I was born in March 1991, at the back of a lorry carrying nearly 100 women and children fleeing the horrors of Saddam Hussein’s regime. My life started amid the Kurdish uprising in Iraq, during which my family sought refuge in the Kurdish region of neighboring Iran. Being born under these circumstances, in war-torn, conflict-ridden, indeed blood-soaked Kurdistan, shaped my life and colored my personality in ways that I continue to discover every day. My mother was forced into a marriage at the age of twelve, to an older man, who abused her for sport. My faint memory of home is of the recurring cries, screams, aches, and pains of mother and daughters abused by father and brother, while outside the confines of my so-called home, everyday life teemed with loud explosions and airstrikes. Everyone seemed to proceed with their ordinary lives, but I could not.
Topic:
War, Kurds, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

3. The Legal Role of Government in Protecting Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Sites in the War-Affected Countries: The Case of Iraq and Syria

Author:
Rukhsar Ahmad
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
Conserving cultural heritage and archaeological sites have become a serious national concern in the Middle East for the war-affected countries, including Iraq and Syria. Because looting and violence have caused massive destruction of cultural heritage and archaeological sites, this study aimed to analyze the legal background concerning the protection of cultural heritage and archaeological sites in the context of Iraq and Syria during 2014 with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This study used the content analysis method and cross-country analyses for Iraq and Syria. The study is guided by two main questions: What is the government's legal role in protecting cultural heritage and archaeological sites? Are there any legal authorities in Iraq and Syria to protect cultural heritage and archaeological sites during war and conflict? In the end, this paper suggests that protecting cultural heritage is the legal responsibility of government which is supposed to be enforced in the legal foundation of the state as a national sovereign power.
Topic:
War, Governance, Culture, Legal Theory, Heritage, and Archaeology
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

4. The Cost of Debt-financed War: Public Debt and Rising Interest for Post-9/11 War Spending

Author:
Heidi Peltier
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Throughout the 18 years the U.S. has been engaged in the “Global War on Terror,” mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government has financed this war by borrowing funds rather than through alternative means such as raising taxes or issuing war bonds. Thus, the costs of the post-9/11 wars include not only the expenses incurred for operations, equipment, and personnel, but also the interest costs on this debt. Since 2001 these interest payments have been growing, resulting in more and more taxpayer dollars being wasted on interest payments rather than being channeled to more productive uses. This paper calculates that the debt incurred for $2 trillion in direct war-related spending by the Department of Defense and State Department has already resulted in cumulative interest payments of $925 billion. Even if military interventions ceased immediately, interest payments would continue to rise, and will grow further as the U.S. continues its current military operations.
Topic:
Debt, War, Military Spending, and 9/11
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, Syria, North America, and United States of America

5. The Human Cost of U.S. Interventions in Iraq: A History From the 1960s Through the Post-9/11 Wars

Author:
Zainab Saleh
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
For decades, U.S. policy actions towards Iraq have had devastating consequences for the Iraqi people. This paper situates the U.S. “war on terrorism” in Iraq since 2003 within a longer trajectory of U.S. intervention in that country since the 1960s and shows that we can only understand the full human costs of current interventions when we see them in broader historical context. The author, Zainab Saleh, an assistant professor of anthropology at Haverford College, was born in Iraq and lived there until 1997. Later, she conducted ethnographic research with Iraqis who had migrated to London since the late 1970s. The Iraqis she knew and met felt they were pawns at the mercy of global powers. When the U.S. invaded Iraq and brought down Hussein in 2003, Iraqis saw the United States' true motive as continuing a well-established pattern of pursuing U.S. economic interests in the region. Since the 1960s, Iraqi arms purchases have bolstered American military-industrial corporations and stable access to Middle East oil has secured U.S. dominance in the global economy. The paper tells the story of one Iraqi woman, Rasha, who was forced by the violence in her country to flee to London. Rasha’s displacement and her family’s history of dispossession – her father imprisoned, her family impoverished, friends murdered and her own life threatened – show the deep human effects of decades of U.S. intervention. In 1963, under pretext of protecting the region from a communist threat, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency backed a coup by the Arab nationalist Ba‘th party after Iraq nationalized most of its oil fields. During the 1980s, the United States supported Saddam Hussein’s regime and prolonged the Iran-Iraq War in order to safeguard its national interests in the region, including weakening Iran to prevent it from posing a threat to U.S. power. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, U.S. policy shifted from alignment to “dual containment” of Iraq and Iran, a posture which culminated in the Gulf War of 1991 to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. In the 1990s, the United States justified its imposition of economic sanctions by claiming a goal of disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and protecting allies. In 2003, the U.S. packaged its invasion of Iraq as delivering U.S. values—namely, freedom and democracy—to the Iraqi people. Saleh writes, “The imperial encounter between Iraq and the United States has made life deeply precarious for Iraqis. For decades, they have lived with fear for their own and their family’s lives, the loss of loved ones and homeland, the realities of economic hardship, and the destruction of the fabric of their social lives.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, War, History, Counter-terrorism, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

6. Turkish AK Parti’s Posture towards the 2003 War in Iraq The Impact of Religion amid Security Concerns

Author:
Alberto Gasparetto
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
This paper focuses on Turkey’s foreign policymakers’ attitudes in the context of the 2003 US decision to wage war against Iraq. The main goal is to assess and downplay the impact of religion in relation to security-related concerns. Drawing on official speeches, interviews, declarations by key figures in the foreign policy process, the paper argues that religion is nothing more than an intervening factor in the case of Turkey’s approach to the 2003 war in Iraq. Therefore, notwithstanding the role of Islamist elites in the foreign policy decision-making of Turkey, Turkey’s foreign affairs were rather inspired by realist behaviour, driven by pragmatic considerations, aimed at pursuing rationalist goals.
Topic:
Security, Religion, War, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Iraq, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, North America, and United States of America

7. Contemporary Chemical Weapons Use in Syria and Iraq by the Assad Regime and the Islamic State

Author:
Dr. Robert J. Bunker
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
This monograph focuses on an understudied, but yet a critically important and timely component of land warfare, related to the battlefield use of chemical weapons by contemporary threat forces. It will do so by focusing on two case studies related to chemical weapons use in Syria and Iraq by the Assad regime and the Islamic State. Initially, the monograph provides an overview of the chemical warfare capabilities of these two entities; discusses selected incidents of chemical weapons use each has perpetrated; provides analysis and lessons learned concerning these chemical weapons incidents, their programs, and the capabilities of the Assad regime and the Islamic State; and then presents U.S. Army policy and planning considerations on this topical areas of focus. Ultimately, such considerations must be considered vis-à-vis U.S. Army support of Joint Force implementation of National Command Authority guidance.
Topic:
War, Islamic State, Conflict, Syrian War, Army, and Chemical Weapons
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America

8. Executive Summary: The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, Vol. 2

Author:
Joel D. Rayburn, Frank K. Sobchak, Jeanne F. Godfroy, Matthew D. Morton, James S. Powell, and Matthew M. Zais
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Originally commissioned by Chief of Staff of the Army General Raymond T. Odierno, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army’s interim examination of military operations in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. This study, published in two volumes, is a narrative history that tells the story of U.S. forces in Iraq, mainly from the perspective of the theater command in Baghdad and the operational commands immediately subordinate to it. It focuses at the operational level of war, exploring the decisions and intent of the senior three- and four-star commanders and how these decisions effected the course of the war over time. This work was built from over 30,000 pages of previously unavailable declassified documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with senior defense leaders. While the Army will eventually publish a comprehensive, official “Green Book” history that describes Operation Iraqi Freedom in greater depth, this study is being released now in order that key lessons, insights, and innovations from this period of the conflict are available to the next generation of Soldiers and leaders to study, learn from, and adapt to ensure the future readiness of our Army and the Joint Force.
Topic:
War, History, Military Affairs, Army, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

9. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War — Volume 2: Surge and Withdrawal, 2007-2011

Author:
Joel D. Rayburn and Frank K. Sobchak
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The Iraq War has been the costliest U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War. To date, few official studies have been conducted to review what happened, why it happened, and what lessons should be drawn. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army’s initial operational level analysis of this conflict, written in narrative format, with assessments and lessons embedded throughout the work. This study reviews the conflict from a Landpower perspective and includes the contributions of coalition allies, the U.S. Marine Corps, and special operations forces. Presented principally from the point of view of the commanders in Baghdad, the narrative examines the interaction of the operational and strategic levels, as well as the creation of theater level strategy and its implementation at the tactical level. Volume 1 begins in the truce tent at Safwan Airfield in southern Iraq at the end of Operation DESERT STORM and briefly examines actions by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the interwar years. The narrative continues by examining the road to war, the initially successful invasion, and the rise of Iraqi insurgent groups before exploring the country’s slide toward civil war. This volume concludes with a review of the decision by the George W. Bush administration to “surge” additional forces to Iraq, placing the conduct of the “surge” and its aftermath in the second volume. This study was constructed over a span of 4 years and relied on nearly 30,000 pages of hand-picked declassified documents, hundreds of hours of original interviews, and thousands of hours of previously unavailable interviews. Original interviews conducted by the team included President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every theater commander for the war, among many others. With its release, this publication, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, represents the U.S. Government’s longest and most detailed study of the Iraq conflict thus far.
Topic:
Government, War, History, Conflict, Army, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

10. Not Our War: Iraq, Iran and Syria’s Approaches towards the PKK

Author:
I. Aytac Kadioglu
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Terrorist violence led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is one of the major issues of Turkey since the 1980s. This violence is based upon Kurdish ethnic identity aimed towards establishing an independent Kurdish state in Turkey’s southeast, northern Iraq, northern Syria and north-western Iran. Despite this aim, the terrorist campaign of the PKK predominantly targets security forces and civilians in Turkey. However, the existence of a terrorist group such a long time raises a question of the impact of external support on the formation and maintenance of the PKK. While Turkey has criticised constantly its southern neighbours on the PKK’s activities and tactics, the regional approaches have been largely neglected in the existing scholarly literature. This article aims to close this gap by focusing on the role played by Iraq, Iran and Syria in the PKK terrorism and Turkey’s counter-terrorism policies. The article argues that the major reasons for the unsuccessful result of Turkey’s effort to destroy the PKK were the approaches of ignorance of the PKK activities and the use of the group as a trump card by the three neighbours and insufficient policies to keep under control the regional dimension of the conflict. The article critically analyses historical relationships between these three states and Turkey to explore how the regional dimension has affected the resolution of this conflict.
Topic:
Terrorism, War, Ethnicity, Conflict, and State Sponsored Terrorism
Political Geography:
Iraq, Europe, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, Syria, and Kurdistan