Saddam Hussein was the ruthless dictator of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. He ruled Iraq with a brutal hand. He used fear and terror to stay in power over the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Iran in 1980 and carried on a war for seven years and 11 months, making it the longest conventional war in the 20th Century. The war ended in a stalemate with approximately 500,000 Iraqis and 400,000 Iranians dead. Both sides, major oil producers, suffered economic losses of half-a-trillion dollars.
On July 8, 1982, Saddam Hussein was visiting the town of Dujail when a group of Dawa militants shot at his motorcade. In response to this assassination attempt, the entire town was punished. More than 140 fighting-age men were arrested and never
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It is estimated that chemical weapons were used on approximately 40 Kurdish villages. on March 16, 1988 and continuing all night, the Iraqis rained down volley after volley of bombs filled with a deadly mixture of mustard gas and nerve agents on Halabja.
Immediate effects of the chemicals included blindness, vomiting, blisters, convulsions, and asphyxiation. Approximately 5,000 women, men, and children died within days of the attacks. Long-term effects included permanent blindness, cancer, and birth defects. An estimated 10,000 lived, but live daily with the disfigurement and sicknesses from the chemical weapons.
On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded the country of Kuwait. The invasion was induced by oil and a large war debt that Iraq owed Kuwait. The six-week, Persian Gulf War pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991. As the Iraqi troops retreated, they were ordered to light oil wells on fire. Over 700 oil wells were lit, burning over one billion barrels of oil and releasing dangerous pollutants into the air. Oil pipelines were also opened, releasing 10 million barrels of oil into the Gulf and tainting many water sources. The fires and the oil spill created a huge environmental disaster. In response, the United States defended Kuwait in the Persian Gulf
Can you imagine being convicted of first degree murder at only 17 years of age? Adnan Syed couldn't believe it either. In fact he was mortified when they charged him of brutally suffocating, his ex-girlfriend Hea Min Lee, to death. Adnan Syed was a pawn that the Baltimore detectives played with, a mere dupe to cast off as the true killer. Syed is like many Americans, he was never granted a fair trial. There is some actors that make Syed guilty, but perhaps it was just pure coincidence that got Adan wrapped up in this whole mess. One simply can't overlook the major factors that make him innocent enough to grant him a second trial. Adan has spent half of his life in prison, due to a wrongful conviction that happened many
In September 1980, a very destructive war with Iran was started by Saddam Hussein. This was a result of an invasion in Iran. This invasion spurred an eight year war. Saddam used c...
The task of the United States demonizing Saddam Hussein was facilitated by many factors, both real and imaginary; a mixture of true facts and public relations image making. On the fact side, Saddam Hussein was indeed a dictator, and responsible for some true atrocities. Hussein ruled with an iron fist. Most accounts of political analysts looking at Iraq agree that his rein was one characterized by fear of the state.
On March 18, 2003 the United States invaded Iraq. (The Washington Post) The War with Iraq is a very divisive issue around the world. Turn on any news show and you will see a daily debate on the pros and cons of going to war. Because of the situations that have occurred between the United States and Iraq, very different views and perceptions have developed. Much debate on the justification of the United States for being in Iraq, let alone overthrowing its “government”, has been presented from both sides – the Hawks and the Doves.
Poison gas was perhaps the most feared weapon out of all. Created to overcome the long stalemate style of trench warfare, its purpose was to draw out soldiers hiding in the trenches. One side would throw the poison gas into the enemy trenches and they would either wait for their enemy to come out into open fire or perish in the trenches. The first poison gas used in battle was chlorine at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915 by the Germans. Shortly after, followed the phosgene. The effects of these gases were ghastly. Chlorine was the most deadly as "within seconds of inhaling its vapor, it destroys the victim's respiratory organs, bringing on choking attacks" (Duffy). Phosgene had similar effects, except the fact that the effects started kicking in after 48 hours of inhalation. In September 1917, the Germans introduced the mustard gas or Yperite which was contained in artillery shells against the Russians at Riga. Those exposed t...
To begin, during World War one Germans first developed poisonous gas and brought them into war by 1915. Chlorine was the first gas brought into trench warfare as a grenade-like projectile. In the beginning of poisonous gas usage, soldiers didn’t know that the poisonous gas existed so the gas cloud unknowingly forming put soldiers into fear and would cause a few casualties. Soon after, France developed phosgene gases that is 18 times more powerful than chlorine gas. In the first appearance of phosgene gas, which was at Ypres, soldiers would get blinded. Germans further developed another gas, mustard gas. Mustard gas was the most brutal and more developed. It was produced in 75 or 105 shells rather than the regular grenade-like projectiles. Mustard gas caused painful blisters internally and externally, burns skin and more. The introduction to mustard gas brought the most disabled soldiers, deaths, terror and overall brought emotional and physical pain to those affected.
casualty," textbook of military medicine: Medical aspects of chemical and biological warfare. Retrieved from http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/bw_ii/bw_s02.htm
On August 2nd, 1990 Iraqi military forces invaded and occupied the small Arab state of Kuwait. The order was given by Iraqi dictatorial president Saddam Hussein. His aim was apparently to take control Kuwait's oil reserves (despite its small size Kuwait is a huge oil producer; it has about 10 per cent of the world's oil reserves ). Iraq accused Kuwait, and also the United Arab Emirates, of breaking agreements that limit oil production in the Middle East. According to Saddam Hussein, this brought down world oil prices severely and caused financial loss of billions of dollars in Iraq's annual revenue.
In the war this chemical was transported through artillery shells into the battle field where it lingered for an amount of time ranging from days to weeks or even sometimes months, it all was reflected on the weather conditions. Mustard gas wasn’t necessarily used as a forceful killing weapon but was morely used to pollute the battlefield and weaken the enemy. Victims of mustard gas began to experience a painful aching in their eyes, blisters and also proceeded to vomit. Many soldiers were secured to their beds because the whole process was exceedingly painful. This chemical caused a number of different symptoms, internal and external bleeding and attacking the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. Usually it took a person a course of four to five weeks before they died of the mustard gas poisoning. Mustard gas contributed to the event of chemical warfare becoming one of the major components in the war, which is one example of how this weapon changed the nature of the war. During the later on stages of war, gas usage increased majorly and the overall effectiveness decreased. The United Nations adopted the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 to exterminate the use of mustard gas and other chemical based weapons. I think that chemical weapons were banned because as long as they were continually being used as a large percentage, there would be a risk, especially if they fell into the wrong
First, Saddam Hussein was the president of Iraq, a position that gave him power to lead the country, to invest money and to create a network of contacts with other countries. In Iraq, Saddam was a dictator since the political system was absolute monarchy. Thus, if Saddam had an idea it was almost certain he could and would make it happen. Saddam “is a rational and political calculator who can reverse himself on a dime if his regime is threatened” . The presidential position gave him the power of decisions because he did not have to consult anyone. Also, Hussein could invest as much money as he wanted and where he wanted. The large freedom of decision in his presidency is what makes him such a negative leader. For instance, the holy grail of Saddam was to possess a nuclear bomb . Having this idea in mind, “[Saddam] was spending billions on a program to develop biological and nuclear arms and exotic long-range delivery systems” . To achieve his objective Sa...
He became the fifth president of Iraq in July 16, 1979 and being Iraqi President he was responsible for many torturings, killings and of ordering the 1988 cleansing of Kurds in Northern Iraq. He expels 40,000 Shiite Muslims and orders the execution of Ayatollah Mohammed al-Bakr Sadr, an ally of Ayatollah Khomeini, in response to Khomeini's call for the overthrow of the mostly Sunni Muslim Baathist regime. He also orders to the destruction of Dujail, a village in northern Iraq to kill over 140 people in 1982. In March 16, 1988 he orders a poison gas attack on Kurds in Halabja in northern Iraq and as the result more than 5,000 people were
In 1980, Saddam started Iran-Iraq war and it was lasted until 1988. And during that war, weapons of mass destruction WMD (poison gas) are used. Once the war with Iran ended, Saddam decided to embark another lunatic adventure: in 1990, he tried to grab 19 % of the world’s oil supply by evading Kuwait in
Chemical Warfare, the surprise attack, no one saw it coming. Started by the Germans attacking Belgium, and it created a deadly beast. Ranging from large bomb-like objects, to tear gas, many lives were lost from this mass destruction. Chemical weapons can have benefits, but so many effects are negative. To understand how deadly chemical warfare is, at the end of World War I over 1.3 million people died due to chemical weapons. April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first large scale chemical weapon in Belgium, therefore causing more than 1,000 deaths and over 7,000 injuries. This kind of warfare changed how people viewed conflict. War became very inhumane, it
A key figure in the history of Iraq is a man named Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was the president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. Hussein’s rule over Iraq was filled with war and invasions. Two Iraq conflicts which are important to understanding the later Iraq invasion are the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Kuwait. Due to the fact that this research paper is primarily focused on the events of the Iraq invasion, this paper will only discuss the primary factors of the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Kuwait, which have a relevance to the events later to come in Iraq. The Iran-Iraq war took place in from 1980 to 1988. The primary factor important to this essay is Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran’s forces. The primary factor which is
First, over the decades chemical weapons evolved becoming more lethal and easier to create causing the threat for a chemical attack to increase exponentially. Chemicals become weaponized substances designed to inflict bodily harm or kill humans (“Chemical Weapons”). Chemical warfare is the use of chemical weapons to kill enemies or civilians or to prevent the enemy from using resources, mainly agriculture (“Chemical Warfare”). The most common place chemical weapons prevalent around the world are sarin, VX, and mustard and tear gas (“Chemical Warfare”). These weapons are classified into four different categories depending on their functions; nerve agents, blister agents, blood agents, and respiratory agents (“Chemical Warfare”). Nerve agents such as sarin and Tabun cause the human central nervous system to shut down, which shuts down the heart and brain (“Chemical Warfare”). Developed in the 1930’s Sarin, the first mass produced nerve agent, was created by almost every major country until the Geneva Convention in the 1970’s (“Chemical Warfare”). Destroying tissue around the eyes and...