Research Guides: Iraq: Introduction

Introduction to the Collections

The collections cover the political and social conditions in Iraq under Saddam Hussein from 1968 to 2003 and the US military occupation of Iraq in 2003 are well documented. Records of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party of Iraq, with more than ten million digitized pages and one hundred video files, are one of the largest digital collections in the archives. Below, you will find archival, library, digital materials, and articles related to the history and politics of Iraq.

Archival Collections

ROBERT L. BARTLEY - Correspondence, writings, and printed matter relating to political and economic conditions in the United States, international relations, international economic conditions, and the publication of the Wall Street Journal.

JOHN R. BRUNING COLLECTION - Videorecordings of interviews of American and Japanese World War II pilots and German World War II submarine commanders; veterans' World War II-era photographs and ephemera; CDs of scanned images relating to World War II; photocopies of National Archives records relating to World War II; and digital videorecordings and photographs relating to American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

DAN CALDWELL PAPERS - Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University's Seaver College and chairperson of the Committee on Student Veterans. The Dan Caldwell papers contains notes, manuscript drafts, his research on permissive action links (PALs), and research materials related to U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

WILLIAM CARTER SLIDES - Depicts Kurdish rebel soldiers in Iraq. Includes slides of the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, and a printed article by William Carter relating to Kurdish resistance to the Iraqi government.

CITIZENS OF FREE KUWAIT ISSUANCES - Video tapes and memorabilia, relating to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

LARRY JAY DIAMOND CLIPPINGS COLLECTION - Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he directs the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. With Abbas Milani, he coordinates the Hoover Institution Project on Democracy in Iran. His research focuses on comparative trends in the stability of democracy in developing countries and post communist states and on US foreign policy.

JAMES F. HITSELBERGER COLLECTION - Broadsides, flyers, leaflets, serial issues, and sound recordings, relating to political conditions in Iran under the reign of the Shah, the Iranian political opposition, the revolution of 1979, post-revolutionary conditions in Iran, and political opposition to the new Iranian regime. Includes many issuances of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and of various Iranian émigré student groups in the United States and elsewhere, and sound recordings of political demonstrations. Also includes flyers, leaflets, serial issues and photographs relating to the post-2003 insurgency and American military occupation in Iraq.

HIZB AL-BA'TH AL-'ARABI AL-ISHTIRAKI IN IRAQ [BA'TH ARAB SOCIALIST PARTY OF IRAQ] RECORDS - Correspondence, reports, membership and personnel files, judicial and investigatory dossiers, administrative files and registers, and videorecordings relating to political conditions in, and governance of, Iraq. Collected by the Iraq Memory Foundation [Mu'assasat al-dhakirah al-'Iraqiyah] from the Ba'th Regional Command headquarters and from secondary sources.

INVENTORY OF THE MULTI-COUNTRY NEWSPAPER COLLECTION - The Multi-Country newspaper collection consists of forty-four unique titles from thirty different countries: Algeria, Angola, Brazil, Burma, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, French West Africa, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Indochina, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Mali, Madagascar, Manchuria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Reunion, San Marino, Sarawak, South Africa, Tanganyika, Thailand and Vietnam.

J.C. HUREWITZ PAPERS - The J. C. Hurewitz papers consisted originally of a collection of printed materials, much of it relating to the history of the British mandate of Palestine. The increment to the papers greatly expands the volume of the collection, making it a significant addition to the holdings of the archives on the history and politics of the Middle East.

IRAN FREEDOM FOUNDATION RECORDS - The collection relates to the Iranian revolution of 1979, subsequent political conditions and civil rights abuses in Iran, the Iran-Iraq War, Iranians in the United States and elsewhere, and American foreign policy toward Iran. It contains correspondence, press releases, appeals, clippings, speeches and writings, financial records, reports, bulletins, newsletters, pamphlets, serial issues, photographs, sound recordings, and videotapes.

IRAQ PRINTED MATERIAL - Relates to the history of Iraq and to political, social, and economic conditions in Iraq. Includes 24 slides of scenes in Iraq.

IRAQI SUBJECT COLLECTION - Reports, leaflets, other printed matter, computer disk, video tape, and miscellany, relating to political, social and economic conditions in Iraq, and to the Gulf War of 1991 and the Iraq War of 2003.

KANAN MAKIYA PAPERS - Correspondence, writings, notes, interview transcripts, conference papers, government publications, printed matter, and audiovisual materials relating to the history of the Middle East, political conditions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Iraqi opposition to it.

KURDISH SUBJECT COLLECTION - Serial issues, pamphlets, leaflets, other printed matter, video tape, and miscellany, relating to the condition of Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, and to the movement for an independent Kurdistan.

SAMUEL LAZAR MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS - Correspondence, speeches, press releases, serial issues, and photographs relating to Iraqi-American relations, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Israeli bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

BARRY R. MCCAFFREY MISCELLANY - Official history and video tape of operations of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) during the Persian Gulf War.

H.R. MCMASTER PAPERS - Speeches and writings, correspondence, notes, manuals, handbooks, studies, reports, instructional materials, printed matter, audiovisual material, and memorabilia, relating to American tank military operations during the Gulf War of 1991, to American military operations during the Afghan War of 2001 and the Iraq War of 2003, and to military science, American military history, and American military policy.

MACIEJ MILCZANOWSKI PHOTOGRAPHS - Digital photographic images of coalition military forces and bases in Iraq. Also includes images of archeological sites in Iraq.

MILITANT PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION - Photographs, drawings, and printed reproductions of illustrations depicting activities of anti-war, civil rights, labor, racial justice, women's rights, and other protest movements in the United States and other countries, mainly from the 1960s through the 1990s.

THOMAS HUBBARD VAIL MOTTER COLLECTION - Newsletters issued aboard the United States Army transport ship Siboney, December 29, 1941 to February 1, 1942, relating to ship activities and war news. The ship transported the United States Military North African Mission, Military Mission to Iran, and Military Mission to the USSR, from New York to Eritrea and Iraq.

MU'ASSASAT AL-DHAKIRAH AL-'IRAQIYAH [IRAQ MEMORY FOUNDATION RECORDS] - File-based videorecordings, videocassettes, optical discs, and transcripts, as well as brochures and legal and financial records relating to political conditions and human rights violations in Iraq under the Ba'th party regime. Includes digitized video testimony of survivors.

PARABEL PROJECT RECORDS - Writings, translations, notes, and questionnaire responses relating to a comparative study of underground movements in China, France, Italy, Kurdistan, and Poland, 1939-1947.

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY RADIO FREE IRAQ RECORDS - American radio broadcasting organization operating Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The Radio Free Iraq records contain program logs. Target regions include Iraq.

LAURA RAUCH PHOTOGRAPHS - Photographs depicting American military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

HERBERT ROMERSTEIN PAPERS - Pamphlets, leaflets, serial issues, studies, reports, and synopses of intelligence documents relating to the Communist International, communism and communist front organizations in the United States, Soviet espionage and covert operations, and propaganda and psychological warfare, especially during World War II.

HENRY S. ROWEN PAPERS - Correspondence, speeches and writings, notes, reports, memoranda, meeting materials, studies, printed matter, photographs, and videorecordings relating to American economic and foreign policy, defenses and military policy, arms control, oil and nuclear energy sources, peaceful nuclear excavation, and the Persian Gulf War.

GEORGE PRATT SHULTZ PAPERS - Correspondence, speeches and writings, memoranda, reports, studies, printed matter, photographs, phonotapes, videotapes, and memorabilia, relating to American domestic policy and foreign relations, especially during the presidential administrations of Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

HARLEY C. STEVENS - Texts of treaties, concessions, and agreements between various oil companies and governments of the Middle East, relating to Middle Eastern oil concessions.

UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE VIDEO TAPES - Relates to various aspects of American foreign and domestic policy.

UNITED STATES ARMY 8TH PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS BATTALION AIRBORNE ISSUANCES - Propaganda leaflets, flyers and broadsides, distributed in Iraq in conjunction with the Iraq War

UNITED STATES. ARMY. CENTER FOR ARMY LESSONS LEARNED BULLETINS - Relates to considerations relevant to combat readiness. Includes analyses of experiences from the Persian Gulf War and American interventions in Panama and Somalia.

Library Materials

AL-TAQRĪR AL-SANAWĪ 'AN HISĀBAT AL-DAWLAH AL-'IRAQĪYAH. ANNUAL REPORT ON THE FINANCES OF IRAQ BY THE DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF FINANCES, MINISTRY OF FINANCE - Library has: 1944; 1950; 1962

AL-TAQRĪR AL-SANAWĪ. ANNUAL REPORT OF THE IRAQ DEVELOPMENT BOARD - Library has: 1951-56

BAGHDAD, A MONTHLY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE - Library has: 1963:no.5-6

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF WORKS ABOUT IRAQ -2d ed. 87 p., 172 p. ; 24 cm.

GAZETTE - Library has: [1958-76]

IRAN FOREIGN RELATIONS WITH IRAQ PAMPHLET COLLECTION - 1981-1982 5 items

THE IRAQ-IRAN WAR: A BIBLIOGRAPHY - xvi, 124 p. ; 23 cm. Includes Indexes

THE IRAQ-IRAN WAR AND U.S.-IRAQ RELATIONS; AN IRAQI PERSPECTIVE: AN INTERVIEW WITH IRAQI FOREIGN MINISTER TARIQ AZIZ - 40 p. ; 23 cm. National Council Reports: no. 2

THE 'IRAQ CONSTITUTION, 21ST MARCH, 1925. 9PASSED BY THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, JULY 1OTH, 1924, AS AMENDED BY THE LAW OF JULY 29TH, 1925.)... - 1 p. l., 17 p. 35 cm.

IRAQ GOVERMENT GAZETTE - Library has: [1922-37]; [1954-55]

IRAQ PAMPHLET COLLECTION - 22 items 1917-1960

IRAQ POLITICS AND GOVERMENT, 1958- PAMPHLET COLLECTION - 1958-1980 7 items

IRAQ POSTER COLLECTION, APPROXIMATELY 1959- APPROXIMATELY 1965 - 2 posters

IRAQI REVIEW - Library has: v.1(1959)-v.2(1960)

IRAQI TEXTBOOK COLLECTION: HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, ARAB AND ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION - 17 v. : ill., maps ; 24-26 cm.

JANG-I ĪRĀN VA 'IRĀQ - Chāp-i 1. [13], 357, [3] p. : 8 maps ; 22 cm.

L'IRAQ AUJOURD'HUI - Library has: no.1(1976)-no.123(1981)

L'OPINION DE BAGDAD - Library has: v.1:no.22(1973)-v.3:no.71(1975)

MUḤĀḌIR. MINUTES OF THE SENATE - Library has: 1925-34; 1939; 1941-45

NEW IRAQ - Library has: 1959-1962

NEWS FROM IRAQ - Library has: [1954-55]

NEWS OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ - Library has: v.1:no.1-2, no.4-9(1964:Aug.-Dec.); v.2:no.1-7, no. 9-13(1965:Jan-Dec.); v.3:no.1-6(1966:Jan-Sep); v.4:n o.1-3(1967:Jan-Mar.)

QUARTERLY BULLETIN OF STATISTICS - Library has: [1963-67]

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IRAQ LIBRARY & ARCHIVES MATERIALS

Digital Materials

MR. BEGIN'S PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE
It had been five weeks since Israel carried out its raid on the nuclear weapons factory in Baghdad, swiftly, successfully, and--according to the terms on which its aircraft had been acquired from the United States--illegally. This exchange frequently reaches the shouting stage, with Mr. Solarz maintaining that "Given a choice between popularity and survival, it's understandable that Israel chose the latter," Mr. Findley maintaining that, "Even if one accepts that Israel had at stake its very survival, it committed an act of aggression, an act of war, and because it used United States-supplied equipment, it made us partners in that act," and Mr. Buckley not shouting, but suggesting that "I find it extremely hard to understand the reasoning that says you can only use American airplanes against Iraq after the A bomb has been launched at Tel Aviv rather than the day before." ... PF: "The New Yorker magazine pointed out that violence can never destroy nuclear weapons." WFB: "They just did."
WHERE ARE WE ON THE WAR POWERS ACT?
The War Powers Act had been brought to the fore again by events in the Persian Gulf: not what we now think of as the Persian Gulf War, but the latter days of the Iran-Iraq war, which had led to attacks on shipping in the Gulf. This had led in turn to a beefing up of the American naval presence there, and some of our ships had been fired on. So: Should President Reagan go to Congress for permission to continue? A brisk and informative discussion. SS: "If there's any one lesson we should have learned from the war in Vietnam, it's that in order to sustain a military presence abroad, we need the support of the Congress and the American people at home." WFB: "Which we didn't have." SS: "Which we didn't have then, and which I think the President does have now, but it's important to send that signal to our friends and foes in the region."
HOW DOES INTERNATIONAL LAW AFFECT FOREIGN POLICY?
Senator Moynihan proves an excellent guide through these thickets, in a discussion prompted by President Bush's having invoked international law as the basis for our countering of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. WFB: "We either know or we don't know that international law has been broken--people disagree about that. Sometimes six lawyers say yes and six lawyers say no...." DPM: "They do that before the Supreme Court five days a week when it's in session, and no one ever doubts that there's a federal legal system.... That law is there, it's in writing, rarely is it truly ambiguous."... WFB: "Can [Bush] say to Congress: I don't need you any more, because the United Nations Charter's the supreme law by which I'm governed in this matter?" DPM: "And under Article 25 a nation must abide by a ruling of the Security Council. I think he could say that. I hope he doesn't."
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT IRAQ/IRAN?
Mr. Bill believes that we have radically mishandled our policy towards Iraq and Iran ever since the Carter Administration. He is not a sparkling speaker, but the information he has to impart has enough intrinsic interest to be well worth listening to. Two samples: "In the international realm, [the Shah] was very shrewd, both in terms of oil politics, as you are talking about, but also in terms of understanding America and understanding Americans. He surrounded himself with individuals that ... could talk baseball with our ambassadors, could talk sailing. He was very, very shrewd. Unfortunately, however, he was not as shrewd with his own people." ... "The sad story of Iraq really began in the early 1980s, whereby the United States began to throw substantial support in the direction of Saddam. In 1972 we took him and his country off our terrorist list. In 1983 we began to share sensitive intelligence information with him. He was involved, of course, in the war with Iran at that time." WFB: "That was a mistake?" JB: "I think it proved to be a great mistake, because we created a Frankenstein. We created our own Frankenstein, who turned on us."
AN IRAQI SOLUTION TO THE IRAQI PROBLEM
Speaker: Allawi, Ali
Date: April 13, 2007
Duration: 1 hr, 5 minutes, 43 seconds
Format: Sound Recording
Medium: speeches (documents)

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IRAQ DIGITAL MATERIALS

Articles

HIẒB AL-BA'TH AL-'ARABĪ AL-ISHTIRĀKĪ RECORDS (BA'TH PARTY RECORDS) - More than ten million digitized page images and fifteen hundred video files collected by the Muʼassasat al-dhākirah al-ʼIrāqīyah (Iraq Memory Foundation) from the Ba'th Regional Command headquarters and other sources are housed in the Hoover Archives. This vast array of digital files illuminates political conditions in, and governance of, Iraq during Saddam Hussein's regime.

MISSION TO BAGHDAD - Just as it might have done a hundred years ago, the Hoover Archives has rescued, protected, and restored a historical treasure. The beneficiaries include scholars, of course, but above all the people of Iraq.

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IRAQ ARTICLES