Military

Expansion
Arishtha, Viraj, Gargi, Maher, Jash, Dhairya
 Military Expansion
The Iraqi Army in its modern form was first created by the United Kingdom during
the inter-war period of de facto British control of Mandatory Iraq. Following the
invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces in 2003, the Iraqi Army was rebuilt along U.S. lines with
enormous amounts of U.S. military assistance at every level. Because of the Iraqi
insurgency that began shortly after the invasion, the Iraqi Army was later designed to
initially be a counter-insurgency force. With the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2010,
Iraqi forces have assumed full responsibility for their own security. A New York Times
article suggested that, between 2004 and 2014, the U.S. had provided the Iraqi Army
with $25 billion in training and equipment in addition to an even larger sum from the
Iraqi treasury.

Gargi
 Military Expansion
During the late 1970s and the mid-1980s, the Iraqi armed forces underwent many
changes in size, structure, arms supplies, hierarchy, deployment, and political character.
Between 1980 and the summer of 1990 Saddam boosted the number of troops in the
Iraqi military from 180,000 to 900,000, creating the fourth-largest army in the world.
With mobilization, Iraq could raise this to 2 million men under arms--fully 75% of all
Iraqi men between ages 18 and 34. The number of tanks in the Iraqi military rose from
2,700 to 5,700 and artillery pieces went from 2,300 to 3,700.

Viraj
 Military Expansion
During the 1980’s, with the help of various foreign companies, Saddam Hussein was
producing significant quantities of Distilled Mustard, a blister agent, together with
Tabun and VX, both of which attack the human nervous system.
The biological weapons industry increased in capacity and began producing agents
such as anthrax, typhoid and cholera.
Saddam did try to make nuclear weapons but all attempts were unsuccessful.

Jash
 Military Expansion
Oil made it possible for Saddam to expand his military and keep his weaponry updated.
Countries that were a major supplier was:
- Soviet Russia
- France
- Yugoslavia
- Brazil
- Other major European states did provide arms

Saddam wished to build up his chemical, biological and nuclear arsenal.

In July 1979 Saddam built his first chemical warfare plant near Akashat.

Maher
 Military Expansion
The armed forces of Iraq have a long but generally politicized and unsuccessful
history. They were initially formed in the early 1920s. Six military coup d'états were
mounted by the Army between 1936 and 1941. The armed forces first saw combat in
the Anglo-Iraqi War of 1941. They fought against Israel in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War,
in the 1967 Six-Day War, and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Two wars with the Kurds
were fought from 1961 to 1970 and in 1974 and 1975. A much larger conflict was the
Iran–Iraq War, initiated by the Iraqis in 1980, which continued until 1988. Thereafter
Iraq began the invasion of Kuwait, which led to the Persian Gulf War of 1991, which
led in turn to confrontations over the Iraqi no-fly zones during the 1990s, and finally
the Iraq War of 2003. Two strong categories for Iraq have been logistics and combat
engineering. Iraqi soldiers have also usually fought hard in difficult situations.

Dhairya
Arishtha
Thank You