Military of Iraq: Encyclopedia II - Military of Iraq - History

Military of Iraq - History

The Iran-Iraq War ended with Iraq supporting the largest military of the Middle East, with more than 70 army divisions and over 700 aircraft within its air force. Losses during the invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait by a United Nations coalition resulted in the reduction of Iraq's ground forces to 23 divisions and the air force to less than 300 aircraft. Military and economic sanctions prevent Iraq from rebuilding its military power, however, Iraq still maintained a standing military of about 375,000 troops. It was during the late 80's until 2003 the worlds 4th biggest, only beaten by USA, Soviet Union and China.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Iraq had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. UN weapons inspectors probably destroyed all of them. During new weapons inspections in 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix, searched Iraqi sites again, but found no new weapons. In late 2003, an American-led coalition invaded and occupied Iraq. After a year-long investigation by an American weapons inspections team, headed by David Kay, found that no large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (though a clandestine network of laboratories did exist).

Military of Iraq - Order of battle pre-2003

Before January 10, 2003, the Iraqi Army fielded at least 11 infantry, 3 mechanized, and 3 armored divisions. In addition, the Iraqi Republican Guard fielded 3 armored divisions, 2 mechanized divisions, and 1 motorized infantry division, while the Special Republican Guard fielded 6 brigades, including two tank brigades and an anti-aircraft brigade..

• Republican Guard (RG)-- 80-100,000 troops located along the Tigris, to the north and south of Baghdad
• Special Republican Guard (SRG) -- 15-20,000 troops located along the Tigris, just south of Baghdad
• Regular Army -- 375,000 troops located primarily in eastern Iraq
• Iraqi Special Forces -- Six brigades
• Fedayeen Saddam and other paramilitary forces

Number of equipment as of 2003 is presented inside parenthesis.

Tanks (Total: 2,200)

The Iraqi tank forces consist mainly of old Soviet gear. The Type-69/59 are Chinese copies of the Soviet T-55/54 tanks. (see List of Soviet tanks)

• T-72 (700)
• T-62 (500)
• T-55/54 (500)
• Type-69 (350)
• Type-59 (150)

AIFV/APCs (Total: 3,800)

• AML-60/-90 (300+)
• BMP-1/-2 (900)
• BRDM-2 (1300+)
• EE-9 (600+)
• EE-3 (300+)
• FV-601 (100+)
• FV-701 (90+)
• PT-76 (100)
• MT-LB (1,500+)
• YW-531 (1,000+)

Towed Artillery (Total: 1,900)

• M-56 105 mm
• D-74 122 mm
• D-30 122 mm (100+)
• M-1938 122 mm (400+)
• M-46 130 mm
• Type-59-1 130 mm
• M-1937 152 mm
• M-1943 152 mm
• G-5 155 mm (100+)
• GHN-45 155 mm (200+)
• M-114 155 mm

Self-Propelled Artillery (Total: 150)

• 2S1 SP 122 mm
• 2S3 SP 152 mm
• M-109A1/A2 SP 155 mm
• AUF-1 SP 155 mm (85+)
• Majnoon SP 155 mm
• Al Fao SP 210 mm

Multiple Rocket Launchers (Total: 200)

• BM-21 MRL 122 mm
• ASTROS II MRL 127 mm (60+)
• BM-13/-16 MRL 132 mm
• ASTROS SS-30 MRL 180 mm
• Ababeel-50 MRL 262 mm (50+)
• ASTROS SS-60 300 mm

Surface-to-Surface Missiles

• Frog-7 (50)
• Scud-B (27?)
• Al Abbas
• Al Hussein
• Al Samoud

Fighters

The J-7 is a Chinese copy of the MiG-21.

• Dassault Mirage F1
• Su-20/Su-22
• Sukhoi Su-25
• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23
• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25
• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29
• J-7

Surface-to-Air Missiles

• Crotale
• Roland
• SA-2 Guideline
• SA-3
• SA-7 Grail
• SA-6
• SA-9

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki