The 30 Year Anniversary of Iraq’s Civil War

This April marks the 30th anniversary of the Iraqi civil war which broke out following the liberation of Kuwait by allied coalition forces on 28 February 1991. After the war in Iraq had ended and Kuwait liberated I was one of the first journalist to return to Iraq and I found a country embroiled in a civil war. In the south, the Iraqi armed forces were fighting against Shi'ite Moslem insurgents, and in the north, they were at war with Kurdish separatist. The leadership was eager to show the outside world that they were in control of the entire country. Nearly every day, the ministry of information would take the international press on government-sponsored trips to either of the two hotspots to show that the fighting only amounted to minor skirmishes. In all the towns and cities that we visited, Iraqi soldiers looked to be in control, but it was obvious that significant fighting had taken place. The centers of Karbala and Najaf, the two holy Shi’te Moslem shrines, had been so shot [Read more...]