Explain The Stages Of The Iraq War

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The War and its Stages In the 8 year long period of conflict between Iran and Iraq, the war had four stages. The first stage dealt with the Iraqi Offensive. This started in September of 1980 and went on for about two months. This phase included Iraq pushing into Iran’s borders and attacking highly populated areas with air strikes. Iraq got 50 miles into Iran in a matter of a couple days. Iraq failed to have air superiority against the Air Force of Iran. However, Iraq actually managed to gain Khorramshahr. In addition to wanting Khorramshahr they also wanted Abadan. Iraq failed to take over Abadan. This was significant due to the fact that it completely altered the course of this war for both Gulf States. This time period in the war was …show more content…

“The War at Sea” was fought by both sides by the navies from both sides. By the end of this phase, Iraq managed to dominate from Khorramshahr to KasrSherin. By taking KasrSherin, Iraq has taken a highly Kurdish populated area in Iran. Fighting in two areas at the same time gave Iraq the advantage to gain these territories from Iran. As the war shifted to the second stage, things started to die down a little bit but still had some conflict. This was because both Iran and Iraq want to save up their supplies because they did not have much support at all when it came to having arms to fight. Iran took advantage of this temporary bump in the road and started to concentrate on making their strategies and tactics efficient enough to win. Iran started to allow People in Iran to volunteer into fighting in the war and reorganized the Air Force. Their mission at this point was to regain the territory they had lost to Iraq. At this time Iraq was at a disadvantage because instead of fighting until they had nothing left, they took a break. This break made Iran catch up and advance in the war against Iraq. The next level in the war had Iran come is as the counter-offensive towards Iraq because of …show more content…

Iraq did this hoping the war would end faster with their victory in hand. By doing this to Iran, it would mean a decrease in Iran’s cash reserves that were available to actually fight the war. In 1982, United Sates started backing up Iraq and started to supply not only economic aid but weapons to fight against Iran. The United Sates involvement here was not secret. It was obvious because the tanks used in the war against Iran had American Flags hanging from them. With the help of the weaponry aid from the United Sates, Iraq was introduced to chemical warfare and started to use chemical warfare against Iran. This was mostly effective going against Iran’s offensive. Iran would eventually use the chemical warfare idea, but that made this tactic unpopular after it became familiar to both sides. The last five years of the war there would be a stalemate. The fight was centered more on the cities within the countries rather than the water and the border that they shared. Iran possessed missiles that were able to hit Baghdad from Iran; the response was drastic from Iraq. Iraq responded by deciding to strike Tehran, the capital of Iran. They attacked Iran with 150 missiles. Homes were being demolished all over the