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KIRKUK AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- An Airman and his team discovered fragments of pottery, possibly dating back as far back as 2,000 years during a recent job at Kirkuk Air Base. Tech. Sgt. Kelly Wayment, a heavy equipment operator with the 506th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron here, was carrying out a routine operation near a helicopter landing pad when he noticed something peculiar. Sergeant Wayment was spotting for fellow 506th ECES member Staff Sgt. Michael Massey as he drove a grader over the area. "I noticed something on the ground that looked kind of like a rock," said the...

A military revolt in Iraq overthrows the monarchy and prompts King Hussein of Jordan to call for British and US military help to avert a similar rebellion in his country. ********************************************************************** 1958: Coup in Iraq sparks jitters in Middle East A group of Iraqi army officers have staged a coup in Iraq and overthrown the monarchy. Baghdad Radio announced the Army has liberated the Iraqi people from domination by a corrupt group put in power by "imperialism". From now on Iraq would be a republic that would "maintain ties with other Arab countries". It said some 12,000 Iraqi troops based...

With the approach of a new moon over Iraq next week, and the darkness it will provide for air operations, the days for diplomacy would appear to be dwindling fast. That is why Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, is preparing for an urgent visit to Baghdad, and it is why President Clinton traveled to the Pentagon yesterday to issue his most explicit warning to Saddam Hussein that the United States will use military force if he refuses to allow unrestricted access to U.N. weapons inspectors. In these anxious hours, it is important not to lose sight of what...

Gilgamesh Tomb Believed Found Posted 01-25-2005 10:02:40 (GMT 1-25-2005 (BBC) -- Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history. The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name. Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous...

The Eastern Question that haunted the chancelleries of 19th-century Europe has returned to haunt George Bush and Tony Blair; or rather, the consequences of the failure to find a satisfactory answer to it have blighted all attempts to create a new international order in the aftermath of the cold war. This book is required reading for anyone wanting to have an informed opinion on recent events in Iraq; the fact that its author worked for Blair's "Strategic Futures Unit" makes one wonder why the prime minister did not spend more time reading history and less commissioning dodgy dossiers. There are...

From Winston Churchill in 1921 to Donald Rumsfeld in 2004, what to do with the part of the world we now call Iraq has perplexed even the mightiest of Western politicians. The students I teach at the University of Richmond are puzzled at the complexity of the situation in Iraq. What is the "Sunni triangle"? Why are the Shiite Muslims different, if they too are Arabs? If the Kurds are Sunni, why do they not want to be part of Iraq? Why are brave Americans dying? All these questions have a simple answer — Iraq was a completely new and...

In the early spring of 2003, a quarter of the British army was based in Kuwait, advancing north into familiar territory. In 1916, these soldiers’ great-grandfathers had first advanced up the river Tigris, to defeat and humiliation at Turkish hands. The following year the British returned, advancing to Baghdad and beyond. With General Edmund Allenby’s forces thrusting north through Palestine, aided by an Arab uprising, the British toppled the Ottoman Empire. They stayed on for another 40 years, briefly interrupted by a pro-Nazi seizure of power in Baghdad in 1941. It was a period marked by considerable social and economic...

In the shadow of Babylon If you want to understand Iraq, the British Museum's collection of its treasures offers some crucial clues Neil MacGregor Monday June 14, 2004 The Guardian (UK) The collapse of the Tower of Babel is perhaps the central urban myth. It is certainly the most disquieting. In Babylon, the great city that fascinated and horrified the Biblical writers, people of different races and languages, drawn together in pursuit of wealth, tried for the first time to live together - and failed. The result was bleak incomprehension. Ambitious technology defying the natural order was punished as the...

Jihad against the British, 1920 Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the Arab countries of the old Ottoman Empire were put under the mandated control of the victorious allies. Britain became responsible for Palestine and Iraq (the former Ottoman provinces of Mesopotamia), while France assumed responsibility for Syria and Lebanon. The arrangement was not popular with emerging Arab nationalists, and it was expensive for the countries holding the mandates. It cost the British government $18 million a year to maintain the resident garrison in Iraq of 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops. In addition, there were...

Shocking and awful A series of horrific images and a big American black eye By Kevin Whitelaw Eight decades ago, British commanders called in punishing airstrikes to put down a fierce insurrection in one of its most unruly colonies. After pumping money into Iraq to support a deeply unpopular occupation, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill was fed up. "We are paying 8 millions a year," he fumed, "for the privilege of living on an ungrateful volcano, out of which we are in no circumstances to get anything worth having." America now finds itself struggling to control the same volcano, a nation...

The Fall of Baghdad by Edmund Candler, Manchester Guardian, 16 March 1917 Our vanguard entered Baghdad soon after nine o'clock this morning. The city is approached by an unmetalled road between palm groves and orange gardens. Crowds of Baghdadis came out to meet us: Persians, Krabe, Jew, Armenians, Chaldeans and Christians of diverse sects and races. They lined the streets, balconies and roofs, hurrahing and clapping their hands. Groups of schoolchildren danced in front of us, shouting and cheering, and the women of the city turned out in their holiday dresses. The people of the city have been robbed to...

IRAQ -- VERY INTERESTING -- DID YOU KNOW?????? 1. The Garden of Eden was in Iraq. 2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization! 3. Noah built the ark in Iraq. 4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq. 5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq! 6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor which is in Iraq. 7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq. 8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq. 9. Assyria which is in Iraq conquered the ten tribes of Israel. 10. Amos cried out in Iraq! 11. Babylon which...

<p>The word was whispered and hurled at Thawra Youssef in school when she was 5 years old. Even back then, she sensed it was an insult.</p> <p>Abd. Slave.</p> <p>"The way they said it, smiling and shouting, I knew they used it to make fun of me," said Youssef, recounting the childhood story from her living room couch.</p>

The growing difficulties of the US-led coalition to set up a coherent form of government in Iraq, let alone a democratic one, raise a question which to most statesmen is unthinkable: Perhaps it is not possible to reconstitute Iraq as one state, and alternative options have to be considered, unpalatable as they may appear. Like so many problems of transformation, such as in Eastern Europe, the difficulties in Iraq have deep historical roots. To try to blame everything on the heavy-handedness of the Americans - and their mistakes have been legion - is too simplistic and shallow. Iraq was set...

US policy towards Iraq has always been shaped by the country’s rich oil resources, its strategic location on the Gulf and its regional weight. Iraq ranks only second to Saudi Arabia for its oil resources, and was the world’s second largest oil exporter before the Iraq-Iran war broke out in 1980. The US has always been a key importer of Iraqi oil. Even under the UN sanctions, US companies imported some 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Iraq until the end of 2002.     Based on current estimates, Iraq’s oil reserves stand at about 115 billion barrels, equivalent to the total oil...

Friday, September 19, 2003 | Updated: 14:36 GMT With a Grain of Salt: The Kurds' fight for Kurdistan Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta London, September 19 Kurds are much in the news these days. Apparently, northern Iraq, where the Kurds live, is a haven of peace compared to the sullen environs of Basra, Tikrit and Baghdad with fearful Sunnis, confused and militant Shias, and a host of other groups such as Palestinians, Marsh Arabs, Muslim jehadis etc. From what I gathered, the history of these Kurds is a particularly sad one and it is only now, after almost couple of thousand odd...

HOW IRAQ WAS BORN The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 tried to pick up the pieces after the First World War, disposing of many parts of the world with a varying effectiveness vividly described by Margaret MacMillan in her new book, Paris 1919. The Conference was the closest thing there has ever been to a world government. Well before the war ended, European politicians already were negotiating how to divvy up the Middle East. In 1916, the British and French concluded what was known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, which assigned spheres of influence in the region. Rather than worrying too...

<p>With Arab militants pouring into Iraq to help carry out attacks like the U.N. bombing this week, it's worth traveling back in time a bit to examine just how we got here. Soon after joining Secretary of State George P. Shultz as his legal adviser in 1985, I was invited by Ambassador Richard Fairbanks (former Middle East negotiator) to a dinner in honor of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. The dinner was hosted by Hassib Sabbagh, a prominent and successful Palestinian businessman. Among the many distinguished guests were Donald Rumsfeld, at that point the former Secretary of Defense, some high-level U.S. officials and former officials, and several successful Arab Americans.</p>

Disregarding Iraqi Jewish HistoryBy HonestReporting.comHonestReporting.com | August 1, 2003 While the Palestinian and Israel Prime Ministers visit Washington to pursue high-level diplomatic discussions, a simple yet extraordinary humanitarian event occurred in the Mideast on Friday. Six elderly Iraqi Jews — remainders of what was once a vibrant and ancient community — were flown to safety in Israel, reuniting with long-lost family. The touching event was broadly covered by Western media, but when addressing the historical background of this story, the news outlets were remarkably vague: -- Associated Press: "Iraq once had a community of 130,000 Jews, but about 120,000...

In an eery echo of the British government's current travails, previously unclassified documents have been released in London which recall a proposal more than 60 years ago to fabricate reports about another Hussein in Baghdad. The documents released by the National Archives show that World War Two foreign secretary Anthony Eden, approved a "whispering campaign" to discredit the pro-Nazi mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Hussein. The plot was instigated after Hussein fled Jerusalem in 1940 and was granted refuge by Rashid Ali, then-prime minister of Iraq, where British officials feared the mufti was organizing a terrorist campaign against British troops...