Iran-Iraq War Totally Explained

Everything about Iraq-iran War totally explained

The Iran-Iraq War, also known as the Imposed War (جنگ تحمیلی, Jang-e-tahmīlī) and Holy Defense (دفاع مقدس, Defā'-e-moghaddas) in Iran, and Saddām's Qādisiyyah (قادسيّة صدّام, Qādisiyyat Ṣaddām) in Iraq, was a war between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran lasting from September 1980 to August 1988. It was commonly referred to as the "Gulf War" or Persian Gulf War until the Iraq-Kuwait conflict of (1990–91), and for a while thereafter as the First Persian Gulf War. The Iraq-Kuwait conflict, while originally known as the Second Persian Gulf War, later became known simply as the Persian Gulf War.
The war began when Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long suppressed Shia majority influenced by Iran's Islamic revolution. Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of revolutionary chaos in Iran and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and within several months were repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years Iran was on the offensive. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003.
The war is noted for being very similar to the Western Front of World War I, with Iraq paralleling Germany and Iran the Allies. Tactics used included trench warfare, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, use of barbed wire, human wave attacks and Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons (such as mustard gas) against Iranian troops and civilians as well as Iraqi Kurds. The front was static throughout most of the war, except for the first year, in which the Iraqis advanced deep into Iran but were thrown back (again analogous to Germany in World War I).

Background

Early history

Although the Iran-Iraq war from 1980–1988 was a war for dominance of the Persian Gulf region, the roots of the war go back many centuries. There has been rivalry between kingdoms of Mesopotamia (the Tigris-Euphrates valley, modern Iraq) and the rugged highlands to the East (Persia or modern Iran) since the beginning of recorded history in Sumer.
Of strategic importance was the question of sovereignty over the resource-rich province of Khuzestan. Before the Ottoman empire 1299-1922, Iraq was part of Persia. The rising power of the Ottomans put an end to this when Suleyman I annexed Arabian Iraq. The Turkish Sultan and general, Murad IV recaptured Baghdad from the Safavids of Persia in 1638 via the Treaty of Zuhab (Peace of Qasr-e-Shirin). The border disputes between Persia and the Ottomans never ended. Between 1555 and 1918, Persia and the Ottoman empire signed no fewer than 18 treaties delineating their disputed borders. Today's border comes from the Treaty of Zuhab. Modern Iraq was created from the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, formed after the final collapse of the Ottoman empire following the First World War, thereby inheriting all the disputes with Persia.
Saddam Hussein biographers have described Saddam's anti-Iranianism, developed in his formative years living with his virulently anti-Iranian uncle Khairallah Talfah as a factor in his later foreign policy, including the Iran-Iraq War. Talfah was the author of, a pamphlet Saddam's government was later to republish.

Post-colonial era

On 18 December 1959, the new leader of Iraq Abdul Karim Qassim, declared: "We don't wish to refer to the history of Arab tribes residing in Al-Ahwaz and Mohammareh [Khorramshahr]. The Ottomans handed over Mohammareh, which was part of Iraqi territory, to Iran." The Iraqi regime's dissatisfaction with Iran's possession of the oil-rich Khuzestan province wasn't limited to rhetorical statements; Iraq began supporting secessionist movements in Khuzestan, and even raised the issue of its territorial claims at the next meeting of the Arab League, without success. Iraq showed reluctance in fulfilling existing agreements with Iran—especially after the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the rise of the Ba'ath Party, when Iraq decided to take on the role of "leader of the Arab world".
   In 1969, the deputy prime minister of Iraq stated: "Iraq's dispute with Iran is in connection with Arabistan (Khuzestan) which is part of Iraq's soil and was annexed to Iran during foreign rule." Soon Iraqi radio stations began exclusively broadcasting into "Arabistan", encouraging Arabs living in Iran and even Balūchīs to revolt against the Shah of Iran's government. Basra TV stations even began showing Iran's Khuzestan province as part of Iraq's new province called Nasiriyyah, renaming all Iranian cities with Arabic names.
   In 1971, Iraq broke diplomatic relations with Iran after claiming sovereignty rights over the islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb in the Persian Gulf, following the withdrawal of the British. Iraq then expropriated the properties of 70,000 Iranians and expelled them from its territory, after complaining to the Arab League and the UN without success.
   One of the factors contributing to hostility between the two powers was a dispute over full control of the Shatt al-Arab waterway at the head of the Persian Gulf, an important channel for the oil exports of both countries.
   In addition to Iraq's fomenting of separatism in Iran's Khuzestan and Iranian Balochistan provinces, both countries encouraged separatist activities by Kurdish nationalists in the other country.During the first few years of the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war, the Iraqi government tried to accommodate the Kurds in order to focus on the war against Iran. In 1984, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan agreed to cooperate with Baghdad, but the Kurdish Democratic Party remained opposed .
   In 1974 Iraq attacked Iranian forces, with heavy casualties on both sides. In 1975, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had sanctioned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to attack Iraq over the waterway, then under Iraqi control; soon afterward, both nations signed the Algiers Accord, where Iraq made territorial concessions — including the waterway — in exchange for normalized relations.
   The relationship between Iranian and Iraqi governments briefly improved in 1978, when Iranian agents in Iraq discovered a pro-Soviet coup d'etat against the Iraqi government. When informed of this plot, Saddam Hussein, who was Vice President at the time, ordered the execution of dozens of his army officers, and to return the favor, expelled Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled leader of clerical opposition to the Shah, from Iraq.

After the Islamic Revolution

The Pan-Islamism and revolutionary Shia Islamism of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran; and the Arab nationalism of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime were central to the conflict.
Saddam Hussein was keenly interested in elevating Iraq to a strong regional power. A successful invasion of Iran would enlarge Iraq's oil reserves and make Iraq the dominant power in the Persian Gulf region.
On several occasions Saddam the Islamic conquest of Iran in propagating his position against Iran. For example, on 2 April 1980, half a year before the outbreak of the war, in a visit by Saddam to al-Mustansiriyyah University in Baghdad, drawing parallels with the 7th century defeat of Persia in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, he announced:

In your name, brothers, and on behalf of the Iraqis and Arabs everywhere we tell those Persian cowards and dwarfs who try to avenge Al-Qadisiyah that the spirit of Al-Qadisiyah as well as the blood and honor of the people of Al-Qadisiyah who carried the message on their spearheads are greater than their attempts."

In turn the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini believed Muslims, particularly the Shias in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, whom he saw as oppressed, could and should follow the Iranian example, rise up against their governments to join a united Islamic republic. Khomeini and Iran's Islamic revolutionaries despised Saddam's secularist, Arab nationalist Ba'athist regime in particular as un-Islamic and "a puppet of Satan," and called on Iraqis to overthrow Saddam and his regime. At the same time severe officer purges (including several executions ordered by Sadegh Khalkhali, the post-revolution sharia ruler), and spare parts shortages for Iran's American-made equipment, had crippled Iran's once mighty military. The bulk of the Iranian military was made up of poorly armed, though committed, militias. Iran had minimal defenses in the Shatt al-Arab river.
Iraq started the war believing that Sunnis of Iran would join the opposing forces, failing to fully appreciate the power of Iranian nationalism over historically clan-centered differences, and the power of Iranian government control of the press. Few of the ethnic Arabs of Khuzestan or Sunnis of Iran collaborated with Iraqis.
Iran's embassy in London was attacked by Iraqi-sponsored terrorist forces a few months prior to the war in 1980, in what came to be known as the Iranian Embassy Siege.
The UN Secretary General report dated 9 December 1991 (S/23273) explicitly cites "Iraq's aggression against Iran" in starting the war and breaching International security and peace.

Timeline

September 1980: Iraqi invasion

The two nations severed diplomatic relations in June 1980, and sporadic border clashes increased. On September 17, in a statement addressed to the Iraqi parliament, Saddam Hussein stated that "The frequent and blatant Iranian violations of Iraqi sovereignty...have rendered the 1975 Algiers Agreement null and void... This river...must have its Iraqi-Arab identity restored as it was throughout history in name and in reality with all the disposal rights emanating from full sovereignty over the river." Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran on September 22 1980. Iraq's pretext was an alleged assassination attempt on Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in southern Iraq, which Saddam Hussein blamed on "Iranian agents", in one of his speeches.
   "Relations deteriorated rapidly until in March 1980, Iran unilaterally downgraded its diplomatic ties to the charged'affaires level, withdrew its ambassador, and demanded that Iraq do the same. The tension increased in April following the attempted assassination of Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and, three days later, the bombing of a funeral procession being held to bury students who had died in an earlier attack. Iraq blamed Iran, and in September, attacked. Abrogating the Algiers Agreement, the main Iraqi thrust was in the Khuzistan province.
   The initial aim of Iraq was to capture the Shatt al-Arab waterway. To this end, Saddam told his generals to capture the Iranian province of Khuzestan, and prepare significant defenses along the front-line. Saddam was hoping to show the world the limited nature of his invasion by demonstrating that he was only interested in the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
As part of this plan, Saddam planned to launch a number of offensives across the length and breadth of the Iran-Iraqi border. Iraq had mobilized 10 divisions for the invasion, while Iran countered with only 8 regular army divisions and one brigade. Of these divisions, only four of those were deployed to the border. Iran's newly instated Islamic regime had little trust in the regular army, believing that they were a threat to the revolutionary regime. Consequently, the Iranian government attempted to boost the capabilities of militia groups, chiefly the Pasdaran and the Basij.
   The objectives of Iraq's invasion of Iran were:

Control over the Shatt al-Arab waterway

Acquisition of the three islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, on behalf of the UAE.

Annexation of Khuzestan to Iraq

Overthrow of the revolutionary regime in Tehran
The surprise offensive advanced quickly against the still disorganized Iranian forces, advancing on a wide front into Iranian territory along the Mehran-Khorramabad axis in central Iran and towards Ahvaz in the oil-rich southern province of Khuzestan.

The invasion stalls

The Iraqi invasion soon encountered unexpected resistance, however, and around March 1981 it stalled. A preemptive strike executed by the Iraqi Air Force on the first day of the war successfully destroyed parts of Iran's airbase infrastructure, but failed to destroy a significant number of aircraft. The IRaF was only able to strike in depth with a few MiG-23BN, Tu-22 and Su-20 aircraft, ineffective in a country as large as Iran. When three MiG-23BN's flew over Tehran, they attacked its airport but damaged only a few aircraft. Over the next day dozens of Iranian F-4s attacked Iraqi targets, and in a few days the IRIAF gained air superiority over IQAF, allowing them to conduct ground attack missions with fighter-bombers and helicopters.
Also, rather than turning against the Ayatollah's government as exiles had promised, the people of Iran rallied around their country and mounted a stiff resistance. An estimated 200,000 additional troops arrived at the front by November, many of them "ideologically committed" volunteers. Iran rejected Iraq's offer, demanding the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime, the repatriation of 100,000 Shi'ites expelled from Iraq before the war, and $150 billion in war reparations.
It is unlikely that anyone in Iran seriously expected that Iraq would accept these terms; and only offered them as a way of getting Saddam to refuse peace, thus making him continue to look like the aggressor. In fact, many within the Iranian government were demanding that the war be expanded into Iraq. On 21 June, Khomeini hinted that the expulsion of Iraqi troops wouldn't be followed by a cessation of Iranian attacks, but by an invasion of Iraq. The following day, the Iranian Chief-of-Staff Shirazi said that the war would continue "until Saddam Hussein is overthrown so that we can pray at the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala and Najaf." This matched a comment made by Khomeini on the issue of a truce with Iraq: "There are no conditions. The only condition is that the regime in Baghdad must fall and must be replaced by an Islamic Republic."

Iranian offensive, blunders, and hardening of Iraqi resolvE

This statement wasn't long in being fulfilled. On 13 July, the Iranians crossed the border, in force, aiming towards the city of Basra, the second most important city in Iraq.
However, in this offensive, the Iranians encountered an Iraqi enemy which had entrenched itself in formidable defenses. Unlike the hastily improvised defenses that the Iraqis had manned in Iran during the 1980-1981 occupation of the conquered territories, the border defenses were, by necessity, well developed even before the war; and the Iraqis were able to utilize a highly-developed network of bunkers and artillery fire-bases. Saddam had also more than doubled the size of the Iraqi army from 1981's 200,000 soldiers (12 divisions and 3 independent brigades) to 1985's 500,000 (23 divisions and nine brigades).
The efforts of Saddam bore fruit. Iran had been using combined-arms operations to great effect when it was attacking the Iraqi troops in its country, and had launched the iconic human-wave attacks with great support from artillery, aircraft, and tanks. However, the increasingly strained relationship between the army and the Revolutionary Guards, meant that the Iranians were now launching human-wave assaults, with no support from other branches of the military. The superior defenses of the Iraqis meant that tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers were lost in most operations after 1982, and the Iraqi defenses would continue to hold in most sectors.
In the Basra offensive, or Operation Ramadan five human-wave attacks were met with withering fire from the Iraqis. The boy-soldiers of the Basij were particularly hard-hit, especially since they were ordered to run into minefields, in order to clear the way for the Pasdaran brigades behind them. The Iranians were also hard-hit by the employment of gas by the Iraqis.

1983-1985: Iraq battered, but not beaten

After the failure of their 1982 summer offensives, Iran believed that a major effort along the entire breadth of the front would yield the victory that they desired. Iranian numerical superiority might have achieved a break-through if they'd attacked across all parts of the front at the same time, but they still lacked the organization for that type of assault. Although some degree of co-operation between the Pasdaran and the regular army had been achieved - meaning the Iranian militias could now rely upon some support - it wasn't enough.
   During the course of 1983, the Iranians launched five major assaults along the front. None meet with substantial success. Khomeini's position on a truce remained unchanged.
   Saddam had hoped that mounting casualties and the lack of progress would force the Iranians to accept peace, but the Khomeini government again re-iterated their demands for the overthrow of the Ba'ath regime in early 1984. Saddam realized that he'd need to adopt a more aggressive posture to bring the Iranians to the bargaining table. He declared that eleven Iranian cities would come under attack unless Iran halted their acts of aggression by 7 February 1984.
   As an answer to this ultimatum, the Iranians launched an attack against Iraqi forces along the northern sector of the front line. Although a minor attack, Saddam stuck to his pledge and ordered aerial and missile attacks against the eleven cities that he'd designated. The bombardment ceased on 22 February. Iran soon retaliated against urban centers, and these exchanges become known as the first "war of the cities". There would be five throughout the course of the war.
   The attacks on the Iranian cities didn't destroy the Iranian government's resolve to fight. On 15 February, the Iranians launched a major attack against the central section of the front where the Second Iraqi Army Corps was deployed. 250,000 Iranians faced 250,000 Iraqis. Of the 250,000 Iranians committed, 190,000 of those were Pasdaran and Basij soldiers, with only 60,000 regular troops engaged in the operation. The offensive did fall under army control, however, and the regular army did plan it.
   From 15 to 22 February, in Operation Dawn 5, and 22 to 24 February, in Operation Dawn 6, the Iranians attempted to capture the vital town of Kut al-Amara and to cut the key highway linking Baghdad and Basra. Capture of this road would have made it extremely difficult for the Iraqis to supply and co-ordinate the defenses, but the Iranian forces only came within of the highway.
   However, Operation Khaibar met with much greater success. Involving a number of thrusts towards the key Iraqi city of Basra, the operation started on the 24 February and lasted until 19 March. The Iraqi defenses, under continuous strain since 15 February, seemed close to breaking conclusively. The Iraqis successfully stabilized the front but not before the Iranians captured part of the Majnun Islands. Despite a heavy Iraqi counterattack coupled with the use of mustard gas and sarin nerve gas, the Iranians held their gains and would continue to hold them almost until the end of the war.

January 1985 - February 1986: Abortive offensives by Iran and Iraq

With his armed forces now benefiting from the influx of material and financial support from Western powers such as the United States of America and France, Saddam went on the offensive on 28 January 1985, for the first time since late 1980. This offensive, however, didn't produce any significant gains, and the Iranians responded in kind with their own offensive directed against Basra, codenamed Operation Badr, on 11 March 1985. By this time, the failure of the unsupported human wave attacks during 1984 meant that Iran was trying to develop a better working relationship between the army and the Pasdaran. The Iranian government also worked on molding the Pasdaran units into a much more conventional fighting force. The attack did succeed in capturing a part of the Baghdad-Basra highway that had proven elusive during Operation Dawn 5 and Operation Dawn 6. Saddam responded to this strategic emergency by launching chemical attacks against the Iranian positions along the highway and by initiating the second 'war of the cities' with a massive air and missile campaign against twenty Iranian towns, including Tehran.

The Tanker War and U.S. support for Iraq

The Tanker War started when Iraq attacked Iranian tankers and the oil terminal at Kharg island in 1984. Iran struck back by attacking tankers carrying Iraqi oil from Kuwait and then any tanker of the Gulf states supporting Iraq. The air and small boat attacks did very little damage to Gulf state economies and Iran just moved its shipping port to Larak Island in the strait of Hormuz.
In 1982 with Iranian success on the battlefield, the U.S. made its backing of Iraq more pronounced, supplying it with intelligence, economic aid, normalizing relations with the government (broken during the 1967 Six-Day War), and also supplying weapons. President Ronald Reagan decided that the United States "could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran", and that the United States "would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran." President Reagan formalized this policy by issuing a National Security Decision Directive ("NSDD") to this effect in June, 1982.

Attacks on shipping

Lloyd's of London, a British insurance market, estimated that the Tanker War damaged 546 commercial vessels and killed about 430 civilian mariners. The largest portion of the attacks were directed by Iran against Kuwaiti vessels, and on November 1 1986, Kuwait formally petitioned foreign powers to protect its shipping. The Soviet Union agreed to charter tankers starting in 1987, and the United States offered to provide protection for tankers flying the U.S. flag on March 7 1987 (Operation Earnest Will and Operation Prime Chance).

US military actions toward Iran

However, U.S. attention was focused on isolating Iran as well as freedom of navigation, criticizing Iran's mining of international waters, and sponsored, which passed unanimously on July 20, under which it skirmished with Iranian forces. During the Operation Nimble Archer in October 1987, the U.S. attacked Iranian oil platforms in retaliation for an Iranian attack on the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti tanker Sea Isle City.
On April 14 1988, the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts was badly damaged by an Iranian mine, without suffering any casualties. U.S. forces responded with Operation Praying Mantis on April 18, the United States Navy's largest engagement of surface warships since World War II. Two Iranian oil platforms, two Iranian ships and six Iranian gunboats were destroyed. An American helicopter also crashed. According to an investigation conducted by ABC News' Nightline, decoys were set during the war by the US Navy inside the Persian Gulf to lure out the Iranian gunboats and destroy them, and at the time USS Vincennes shot down the Iranian airliner, it was performing such an operation.
In 1996 the U.S. agreed to pay $131,800,000 in compensation for the incident, but expressed regret only for the loss of innocent life, and didn't make a specific apology to the Iranian government.

"War of the Cities"

Toward the end of the war, the land conflict regressed into stalemate largely because neither side had enough self-propelled artillery or air power to support ground advances.
   The relatively professional Iraqi armed forces couldn't make headway against the far more numerous Iranian infantry. The Iranians were outmatched in towed and self-propelled artillery, which left their tanks and troops vulnerable. What followed was the Iranians substituting infantry for artillery.
   Iraq's air force soon began strategic bombing against Iranian cities, chiefly Tehran, in 1985. To minimize losses from the superior Iranian Air Force, Iraq rapidly switched to Scud and Al-Hussein improved Scud launches. In retaliation, Iran fired Scud missiles acquired from Libya and Syria against Baghdad. In all, Iraq launched 520 Scuds and Al-Husseins against Iran and received only 177 in exchange. In October 1986, Iraqi aircraft attacked civilian passenger trains and aircraft, including an Iran Air Boeing 737 unloading passengers at Shiraz International Airport.
   In retaliation for the Iranian Operation Karbala-5, an early 1987 attempt to capture Basra, Iraq attacked 65 cities in 226 sorties over 42 days, bombing civilian neighborhoods. Eight Iranian cities came under attack from Iraqi missiles. The bombings killed 65 children in an elementary school in Borujerd alone. The Iranians also responded with Scud missile attacks on Baghdad and struck a primary school there. These events became known as "the war of the cities".
   By April 1988, however, the Iraqi forces had regrouped sufficiently to begin a new series of devastating attacks on the Iranians, and in quick succession recaptured the strategic al-Faw peninsula (lost in 1986 in Operation Dawn-8) and territory around Basra and also struck deep into the Iranian north, capturing much matériel. British support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war especially illustrated the ways by which Iraq would circumvent export controls. Iraq bought at least one British company with operations in the U.K. and the U.S.
   Iraq had a complex relationship with France and the Soviet Union, its major suppliers of actual weapons, to some extent having the two nations compete for its business. Singapore support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war discusses land mines assembled there, as well as chemical warfare precursors shipped from Singapore, possibly by an Iraqi front company.
   Another country that had an important role in arming Iraq was Italy, whose greatest impact was financial, through the U.S. branch of the state-owned largest bank in Italy. The Italian article is one example of how Iraq circumvented a national embargo, by, as one example, moving land and sea mine production to Singapore.
   Additional country details will be added as the articles become available, in some cases in stub format for individual yet significant support, such as providing the largest amount of precursor chemicals from which chemical weapons were produced.

Iran

While the United States directly fought Iran, citing freedom of navigation as a major casus belli, as part of a complex and partially illegal program (see Iran-Contra Affair), it also supplied weapons to Iran. North Korea was a major arms supplier to Iran. Its support provided included weapons it manufactured, Chinese and Soviet weapons for which the major power wanted deniability of the sale, and other Soviet-bloc weapons for which the major powers wanted deniability.

Both Countries

Besides the US and the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia also sold weapons to both countries for the entire duration of the conflict. Likewise Portugal helped both countries: it wasn't unusual seeing Iranian- and Iraqi-flagged ships side-by-side in Sines (a town with a deep-sea port).

Iran's armament and support

Military armaments/technology

During the early years of the war, Iran's arsenal was almost entirely American-made, left over from the Imperial Armed Forces of the dethroned Shah. Iran's foreign supporters gradually came to include Syria and Libya. Iran purchased weaponry from North Korea and the People's Republic of China, notably the Silkworm anti-ship missile. Iran operated many U.S.-manufactured aircraft. Iranian Armored divisions revolved mainly around M60 and Chieftain tanks. The fleet of around 900 tanks was on par with the British Army and these tanks were the most modern versions available. Iran acquired weapons and parts for its Shah-era U.S. systems through covert arms transactions from officials in the Reagan Administration, first indirectly through Israel and then directly. It was hoped Iran would, in exchange, persuade several radical groups to release U.S. embassy hostages, though this did eventually result. Proceeds from the sales were diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
According to the report of the U.S. Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair issued in November 1987, "the sale of U.S. arms to Iran through Israel began in the summer of 1985, after receiving the approval of President Reagan." These sales included "2,008 BGM-71 TOW anti-Tank missiles, and 235 parts kits for MIM-23 Hawk surface-to-air missiles had been sent to Iran via Israel." Further shipments of up to US$2 billion of American weapons from Israel to Iran, consisting of 18 F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers, 46 A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bombers, and nearly 4,000 missiles were foiled by the U.S. Department of Justice, and "unverified reports alleged that Israel agreed to sell Iran AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, radar equipment, mortar and machinegun ammunition, field telephones, M-60 tank engines and artillery shells, and spare parts for C-130 transport planes." The London Observer also estimated that Israel's arms sales to Iran during the war totaled US$ 500 million annually, For more on Israeli Hawk missile sales to Iran see the Financial Times article, "Arms Embargo Which Cannot Withstand The Profit Motive."

Aircraft

During the war, Iran operated U.S.-manufactured F-4, F-5 and fighters, as well as AH-1 Cobra light attack helicopters, which defended themselves very well against Mi-24s and Gazelle helicopters and had some success defending themselves against Iraqi fighter aircraft. The Iranian Army also possessed M109 Howitzers, Rapier and HAWK missiles, roughly one hundred ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft systems, and Soviet BM-21 multiple rocket launch vehicles (of the Abash variant). It also operated a number of F-14 Tomcat fighters, which, according to a few sources, proved devastating to the Iraqis in the early phases of the war. However, due to the Iranian government's estrangement from the United States, spare parts were difficult to obtain. Despite this the Iranians managed to maintain a constant presence with their Tomcats during the entire conflict, mostly due to a combination of spare parts acquired on the black market and parts made in Iran. These were supported by KC-135s, a refueling tanker based on the Boeing 367-80. Missiles of the IRIAF and Islamic Republic of Iran Army (IRIA) were over 2000 Mavericks, thousands of AIM-9B/J/Ps Sidewinders, and AIM-7Es.

Military tactics

Perhaps the most commented-on and unconventional technique of the war was the use of human wave attacks by Iran, including the use of teenage Basij volunteers, some of whom sacrificed their lives running over fields of landmines or charging heavy fire to clear the way for Iranian ground assault or overrun Iraqi positions. Their devotion earned the reverence of pious Iranian revolutionaries and helped drive Iraq from Iran. To this day, the use of estesh-hadiyun (martyrdom-seekers) remains part of Iranian military doctrine.

Iraq's armament and support

Military armaments/technology

Iraq's army was primarily equipped with weaponry it had purchased from the Soviet Union and its satellites in the preceding decade. During the war, it purchased billions of dollars worth of advanced equipment from the Soviet Union, France, as well as from the People's Republic of China, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, and other sources (including Europe and facilities for making and/or enhancing chemical weapons). Germany, and other Western countries (among them United Kingdom, France, Spain (Explosivos Alaveses), Canada, Italy and the United States) provided Iraq with biological and chemical weapons technology and the precursors to nuclear capabilities (see below).
The sources of Iraqi arms purchases between 1970 and 1990 (10% of the world market during this period) are estimated to be:

Suppliers	in Billions (1985 $US)	% of total
Soviet Union	19.2	61
France	5.5	18
People's Republic of China	1.7	5
Brazil	1.1	4
Egypt	1.1	4
Other countries	2.9	6
Total	31.5	98.0

The U.S. sold Iraq $200 million in helicopters, which were used by the Iraqi military in the war. These were the only direct U.S.-Iraqi military sales and were valued to be about 0.6% of Iraq's conventional weapons imports during the war. Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline reported the following, however, on June 9, 1992: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George Bush Sr., operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into [anaggressive power]" and “Reagan/Bush administrations permitted — and frequently encouraged — the flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq.”
According to the New Yorker, the Reagan Administration began to allow Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer to Iraq American howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons.
The United States, United Kingdom, and Germany also provided "dual use" technology (computers, engines, etc.) that allowed Iraq to expand its missile program and radar defenses. The U.S. Commerce Department, in violation of procedure, gave out licenses to companies for $1.5 billion in dual-use items to be sent to Iraq. The State Department wasn't informed of this. Over 1 billion of these authorized items were trucks that were never delivered. The rest consisted of advanced technology. Iraq's Soviet-made Scuds had their ranges expanded as a result.

Aircraft

After suffering a severe blow in the Yom Kippur war, when an entire armored division was sent to help Syria, together with MiGs and other military units, and after the clashes happened with Iran, Sadam Hussein spent much money to build an improved air force although it expanded and upgraded its fleet considerably as the war progressed.
For air defense, MiG-21s, and later even powerful MiG-25s were bought, and Soviet doctrine followed.

Chemical weapons

According to Iraq's report to the UN, the know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained from the United States, West Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the People's Republic of China.
In December 2002, Iraq's 1,200 page Weapons Declaration revealed a list of Eastern and Western corporations and countries, as well as individuals, that exported a total of 17,602 tons of chemical precursors to Iraq in the past two decades. By far, the largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and Federal Republic of Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.
   According to Iraq's declarations, it had procured 340 pieces of equipment used for the production of chemical weapons. More than half came from a US firm via a German company, the remainder mostly from France, Spain, and Austria. In addition, Iraq declared that it imported more than 200,000 munitions made for delivering chemicals, 75,000 came from Italy, 57,500 from Spain, 45,000 from China, and 28,500 from Egypt. Declassified U.S. government documents indicate that the U.S. government had confirmed that Iraq was using chemical weapons "almost daily" during the Iran-Iraq conflict as early as 1983. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld even met with Saddam Hussein the same day the UN released a report that Iraq had used mustard gas and tabun nerve agent against Iranian troops. The New York Times reported from Baghdad on 29 March 1984, that "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with Iraq and the U.S., and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been established in all but name." The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: “The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think it’s a devastating record”.
   According to the Washington Post, the CIA began in 1984 secretly to give Iraq intelligence that Iraq used to "calibrate" its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. In August, the CIA establishes a direct Washington-Baghdad intelligence link, and for 18 months, starting in early 1985, the CIA provided Iraq with "data from sensitive U.S. satellite reconnaissance photography...to assist Iraqi bombing raids." The Post’s source said that this data was essential to Iraq’s war effort.
   In May 2003, an extended list of international companies involvements in Iraq was provided by The Independent. Howard Teicher and Radley Gayle, stated that 31 Bell helicopters that were given to Iraq by U.S. later were used to spray chemical weapons.
   Iraq's chemical weapons program was mainly assisted by German companies such as Karl Kobe, which built a chemical weapons facility disguised as a pesticide plant. Iraq’s foreign contractors, including Karl Kolb with Massar for reinforcement, built five large research laboratories, an administrative building, eight large underground bunkers for the storage of chemical munitions, and the first production buildings. 150 tons of mustard were produced in 1983. About 60 tons of Tabun were produced in 1984. Pilot-scale production of Sarin began in 1984. Germany also supplied reactors, heat exchangers, condensers and vessels. France, Austria, Canada, and Spain provided similar equipment.
   The Al Haddad trading company of Tennessee delivered 60 tons of DMMP, a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in the Gulf War Syndrome. The Al Haddad trading company appears to have been an Iraqi front company. The firm was owned by Sahib Abd al-Amir al-Haddad, an Iraqi-born, naturalized American citizen. Recent stories in The New York Times and The Tennessean reported that al-Haddad was arrested in Bulgaria in November 2002 while trying to arrange an arms sale to Iraq. Al-Haddad was charged with conspiring to purchase equipment for the manufacture of a giant Iraqi cannon, a design based on the Canadian HARP program. In 1984, U.S. Customs at New York's Kennedy Airport stopped an order addressed to the Iraqi State Enterprise for Pesticide Production for 74 drums of potassium fluoride, a dual-use chemical used in the production of Sarin. The order was placed by Al-Haddad Enterprises Incorporates, owned by an individual named Sahib al-Haddad.
   The U.S. firm Alcolac International supplied one dual-use mustard-gas precursor, thiodiglycol, to Iraq & Iran in violation of U.S. export laws but the U.S. Justice Department for illegal exports indicted the company in 1988 only for its illegal exports to Iran and was forced to pay a fine. Overall between 300-400 tons were sent to Iraq. The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Anthrax Bacillus) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding that "these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 agents "with biological warfare significance," including West Nile virus, according to Riegle's investigators.
   A report by Berlin's Die Tageszeitung in 2002 reported that Iraq's 11,000-page report to the UN Security Council listed 150 foreign companies that supported Saddam Hussein's WMD program. Twenty-four U.S. firms were involved in exporting arms and materials to Baghdad.
   The Iraq-gate scandal revealed that an Atlanta branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, relying partially on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. In August 1989, when FBI agents finally raided the Atlanta branch of BNL, the branch manager, Christopher Drogoul, was charged with making unauthorized, clandestine, and illegal loans to Iraq — some of which, according to his indictment, were used to purchase arms and weapons technology.
   The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and ABC's Ted Koppel, covered the Iraq-gate story, and the investigation by the U.S. Congress. This scandal is covered in Alan Friedman's book The Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.
Beginning in September 1989, the Financial Times laid out the first charges that BNL, relying heavily on U.S. government-guaranteed loans, was funding Iraqi chemical and nuclear weapons work. For the next two and a half years, the Financial Times provided the only continuous newspaper reportage (over 300 articles) on the subject. Among the companies shipping militarily useful technology to Iraq under the eye of the U.S. government, according to the Financial Times, were Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, and Matrix Churchill, through its Ohio branch.
In all, Iraq received $35 billion in loans from the West and between $30 and $40 billion from the Gulf States during the 1980s.

Comparison of Iraqi and Iranian military strength

The power of the Iranian and Iraqi forces was unbalanced. The strength of Iraq and Iran is seen on the table by The Economist estimates:

Imbalance of Power (1980-1987)	Iraq	Iran
Tanks in 1980	2700	1740
Tanks in 1987	4500	1000
Fighter Aircraft in 1980	332	445
Fighter Aircraft in 1987	500+	65*
Helicopters in 1980	40	500
Helicopters in 1987	150	60
Artillery in 1980	1000	1000+
Artillery in 1987	4000+	1000+

Casualties on Iranian Side

The infobox for this article shows estimated casualties on the Iranian side of 500,000-1,000,000.
   The official figures from the government of Iran are provided by Emadeddin Baghi.
   At one point, the Iranian army numbered about 305,000 soldiers and unknown number of Basiji militia (approximately 400,000 to 700,000). Iran had something about 700,000 soldiers/Basij in 1987-1988. So the figures of 305,000 Army and 400-700,000 Basij seem to reflect the numbers at one point, not the numbers of all who served during the war. A figure of almost 1,000,000 would mean that almost all Iranian soldiers and militia were either killed, wounded or missing during the war, on the other hand, there were civilian casualties, there was draft, there were replacements. So 1,000,000 KIAs/WIAs is probable. Plus, the death toll for Iranians isn't over yet, due to lasting effects of Iraq's chemical weapons.
   One can count the graves of killed for war+revolution in Beheshte Zahra, known as martyrs in Iran, the main cemetry of Tehran, when war ended. All martyrs, either in war or as a result of actions by MKO etc., are marked separately and are easily countable. They were roughly in blocks of 24, 28, 26 and 32. Each block has around 100 rows and 50 columns, that brings the total number of martyrs buried in Beheshte-Zahra to about 20,000. Considering Tehran had a population of 5-6 million then out of around 55 million, we can estimate the number to be around 200,000 killed, that isn't too far from the official figure after war which is 215,000.

Weapons of mass destruction

With more than 100,000 Iranian victims of Iraq's chemical weapons during the eight-year war, Iran is one of the countries most severely afflicted by weapons of mass destruction.
   The official estimate doesn't include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans of Iran. According to a 2002 article in the Star-Ledger:
� "Nerve gas killed about 20,000 Iranian soldiers immediately, according to official reports. Of the 90,000 survivors, some 5,000 seek medical treatment regularly and about 1,000 are still hospitalized with severe, chronic conditions."
   Iraq also used chemical weapons on Iranian civilians, killing many in villages and hospitals. Many civilians suffered severe burns and health problems, and still suffer from them. Furthermore, 308 Iraqi missiles were launched at population centers inside Iranian cities between 1980 and 1988 resulting in 12,931 casualties.
   According to retired Colonel Walter Lang, senior defense intelligence officer for the United States Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis wasn't a matter of deep strategic concern" to Reagan and his aides, because they "were desperate to make sure that Iraq didn't lose." He claimed that the Defense Intelligence Agency "would have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival", The Reagan administration didn't stop aiding Iraq after receiving reports of the use of poison gas on Kurdish civilians. There is great resentment in Iran that the international community helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal and armed forces, and also that the world did nothing to punish Saddam's Ba'athist regime for its use of chemical weapons against Iran throughout the war — particularly since the US and other western powers soon felt obliged to oppose the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and eventually invade Iraq itself to remove Saddam Hussein. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency also accused Iran of using chemical weapons. These allegations however, have been disputed. Joost Hiltermann, who was the principal researcher for Human Rights Watch between 1992-1994, conducted a two year study, including a field investigation in Iraq, capturing Iraqi government documents in the process. According to Hiltermann, the literature on the Iran-Iraq war reflects a number of allegations of chemical weapons use by Iran, but these are "marred by a lack of specificity as to time and place, and the failure to provide any sort of evidence". Gary Sick and Lawrence Potter call the allegations against Iran "mere assertions" and state: "no persuasive evidence of the claim that Iran was the primary culprit [ofusing chemical weapons] was ever presented". Policy consultant and author Joseph Tragert also states: "Iran didn't retaliate with chemical weapons, probably because it didn't possess any at the time".
   At his trial in December 2006, Saddam Hussein said he'd take responsibility "with honour" for any attacks on Iran using conventional or chemical weapons during the 1980-1988 war but he took issue with charges he ordered attacks on Iraqis. A medical analysis of the effects of Iraqi mustard gas is described a U.S. military textbook, and contrasted with slightly different effects in the First World War.

Aftermath

The war was extremely costly in lives and material, one of the deadliest wars since World War II (see list of wars and disasters by death toll). It costed Iran an estimated 1 million casualties, even the Iranians are still suffering and dying from the consequences of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The Iranian government-owned Etelaat newspaper wrote:

"There isn't a single school or town that's excluded from the happiness of waging war, from drinking the exquisite elixir of death or from the sweet death of the martyr, who dies in order to live forever in paradise."

   The Iraqi government commemorated the war with various monuments, including the Hands of Victory and the Al-Shaheed Monument, both in Baghdad.
   The war left the borders unchanged. Two years later, as war with the western powers loomed, Saddam recognized Iranian rights over the eastern half of the Shatt al-Arab, a reversion to the status quo ante bellum that he'd repudiated a decade earlier.
   Declassified US intelligence available has explored both the domestic and foreign implications of Iran's apparent (in 1982) victory over Iraq in their then two-year old war.

Final ruling

On 9 December 1991, the UN Secretary-General reported the following to the UN Security Council:

"That Iraq's explanations don't appear sufficient or acceptable to the international community is a fact. Accordingly, the outstanding event under the violations referred to is the attack of 22 September 1980, against Iran, which can't be justified under the charter of the United Nations, any recognized rules and principles of international law or any principles of international morality and entails the responsibility for conflict."
"Even if before the outbreak of the conflict there had been some encroachment by Iran on Iraqi territory, such encroachment didn't justify Iraq's aggression against Iran—which was followed by Iraq's continuous occupation of Iranian territory during the conflict—in violation of the prohibition of the use of force, which is regarded as one of the rules of jus cogens."
"On one occasion I'd to note with deep regret the experts' conclusion that "chemical weapons had been used against Iranian civilians in an area adjacent to an urban center lacking any protection against that kind of attack" (s/20134, annex). The Council expressed its dismay on the matter and its condemnation in resolution 620 (1988), adopted on 26 August 1988."

In media

Al-Hudud al-Multahiba (The Flaming Borders) is an Iraqi film released in 1986. It is considered to be the Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates version of the Iran-Iraq war. The film was a huge hit upon its release, however it isn't well known outside Iraq. Kilomètre zéro is a 2005 French film about a young Iraqi who tries to flee Iraq in the late 1980s. However, he's captured and conscripted into the Iraqi army to fight in the Iran-Iraq War.

Further Information

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