title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Faced with such losses, Khomeini appointed the cleric Hashemi Rafsanjani as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, though he had in actuality occupied that position for months. Rafsanjani ordered a last desperate counter-attack into Iraq, which was launched 13 June 1988. The Iranians infiltrated through the Iraqi trenches and moved into Iraq and managed to strike Saddam's presidential palace in Baghdad using fighter aircraft. After three days of fighting, the decimated Iranians were driven back to their original positions again as the Iraqis launched 650 helicopter and 300 aircraft sorties.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 18 June, Iraq launched Operation Forty Stars ( "chehel cheragh") in conjunction with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) around Mehran. With 530 aircraft sorties and heavy use of nerve gas, they crushed the Iranian forces in the area, killing 3,500 and nearly destroying a Revolutionary Guard division. Mehran was captured once again and occupied by the MEK. Iraq also launched air raids on Iranian population centres and economic targets, setting 10 oil installations on fire.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 25 May 1988, Iraq launched the first of five Tawakalna ala Allah Operations, consisting of one of the largest artillery barrages in history, coupled with chemical weapons. The marshes had been dried by drought, allowing the Iraqis to use tanks to bypass Iranian field fortifications, expelling the Iranians from the border town of Shalamcheh after less than 10 hours of combat.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 25 June, Iraq launched the second Tawakal ala Allah operation against the Iranians on Majnoon Island. Iraqi commandos used amphibious craft to block the Iranian rear, then used hundreds of tanks with massed conventional and chemical artillery barrages to recapture the island after 8 hours of combat. Saddam appeared live on Iraqi television to "lead" the charge against the Iranians. The majority of the Iranian defenders were killed during the quick assault. The final two Tawakal ala Allah operations took place near al-Amarah and Khaneqan. By 12 July, the Iraqis had captured the city of Dehloran, inside Iran, along with 2,500 troops and much armour and material, which took four days to transport to Iraq. These losses included more than 570 of the 1,000 remaining Iranian tanks, over 430 armored vehicles, 45 self-propelled artillery, 300 towed artillery pieces, and 320 antiaircraft guns. These figures only included what Iraq could actually put to use; total amount of captured materiel was higher. Since March, the Iraqis claimed to have captured 1,298 tanks, 155 infantry fighting vehicles, 512 heavy artillery pieces, 6,196 mortars, 5,550 recoilless rifles and light guns, 8,050-man-portable rocket launchers, 60,694 rifles, 322 pistols, 454 trucks, and 1,600 light vehicles. The Iraqis withdrew from Dehloran soon after, claiming that they had "no desire to conquer Iranian territory". History professor Kaveh Farrokh considered this to be Iran's greatest military disaster during the war. Stephen Pelletier, a Journalist, Middle East expert, and author, noted that "Tawakal ala Allah ... resulted in the absolute destruction of Iran's military machine."


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: During the 1988 battles, the Iranians put up little resistance, having been worn out by nearly eight years of war. They lost large amounts of equipment. On 2 July, Iran belatedly set up a joint central command which unified the Revolutionary Guard, Army, and Kurdish rebels, and dispelled the rivalry between the Army and the Revolutionary Guard. However, this came too late and, following the capture of 570 of their operable tanks and the destruction of hundreds more, Iran was believed to have fewer than 200 remaining operable tanks on the southern front, against thousands of Iraqi ones. The only area where the Iranians were not suffering major defeats was in Kurdistan.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Saddam sent a warning to Khomeini in mid-1988, threatening to launch a new and powerful full-scale invasion and attack Iranian cities with weapons of mass destruction. Shortly afterwards, Iraqi aircraft bombed the Iranian town of Oshnavieh with poison gas, immediately killing and wounding over 2,000 civilians. The fear of an all out chemical attack against Iran's largely unprotected civilian population weighed heavily on the Iranian leadership, and they realized that the international community had no intention of restraining Iraq. The lives of the civilian population of Iran were becoming very disrupted, with a third of the urban population evacuating major cities in fear of the seemingly imminent chemical war. Meanwhile, Iraqi conventional bombs and missiles continuously hit towns and cities, destroying vital civilian and military infrastructure, and increasing the death toll. Iran replied with missile and air attacks, but not sufficiently to deter the Iraqis.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: With the threat of a new and even more powerful invasion, Commander-in-Chief Rafsanjani ordered the Iranians to retreat from Haj Omran, Kurdistan on 14 July. The Iranians did not publicly describe this as a retreat, instead calling it a "temporary withdrawal". By July, Iran's army inside Iraq had largely disintegrated. Iraq put up a massive display of captured Iranian weapons in Baghdad, claiming they captured 1,298 tanks, 5,550 recoil-less rifles, and thousands of other weapons. However, Iraq had taken heavy losses as well, and the battles were very costly.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In July 1988, Iraqi aircraft dropped bombs on the Iranian Kurdish village of Zardan. Dozens of villages, such as Sardasht, and some larger towns, such as Marivan, Baneh and Saqqez, were once again attacked with poison gas, resulting in even heavier civilian casualties. On 3 July 1988, the USS "Vincennes" shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 passengers and crew. The lack of international sympathy disturbed the Iranian leadership, and they came to the conclusion that the United States was on the verge of waging a full-scale war against them, and that Iraq was on the verge of unleashing its entire chemical arsenal upon their cities.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: At this point, elements of the Iranian leadership, led by Rafsanjani (who had initially pushed for the extension of the war), persuaded Khomeini to accept a ceasefire. They stated that in order to win the war, Iran's military budget would have to be increased eightfold and the war would last until 1993. On 20 July 1988, Iran accepted Resolution 598, showing its willingness to accept a ceasefire. A statement from Khomeini was read out in a radio address, and he expressed deep displeasure and reluctance about accepting the ceasefire,


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom. Happy are those who have lost their lives in this convoy of light. Unhappy am I that I still survive and have drunk the poisoned chalice...


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The news of the end of the war was greeted with celebration in Baghdad, with people dancing in the streets; in Tehran, however, the end of the war was greeted with a somber mood.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Operation Mersad ( "ambush") was the last big military operation of the war. Both Iran and Iraq had accepted Resolution 598, but despite the ceasefire, after seeing Iraqi victories in the previous months, Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) decided to launch an attack of its own and wished to advance all the way to Tehran. Saddam and the Iraqi high command decided on a two-pronged offensive across the border into central Iran and Iranian Kurdistan. Shortly after Iran accepted the ceasefire the MEK army began its offensive, attacking into Ilam province under cover of Iraqi air power. In the north, Iraq also launched an attack into Iraqi Kurdistan, which was blunted by the Iranians.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 26 July 1988, the MEK started their campaign in central Iran, Operation Forough Javidan (Eternal Light), with the support of the Iraqi army. The Iranians had withdrawn their remaining soldiers to Khuzestan in fear of a new Iraqi invasion attempt, allowing the Mujahedeen to advance rapidly towards Kermanshah, seizing Qasr-e Shirin, Sarpol-e Zahab, Kerend-e Gharb, and Islamabad-e-Gharb. The MEK expected the Iranian population to rise up and support their advance; the uprising never materialised but they reached deep into Iran. In response, the Iranian military launched its counter-attack, Operation Mersad, under Lieutenant General Ali Sayyad Shirazi. Iranian paratroopers landed behind the MEK lines while the Iranian Air Force and helicopters launched an air attack, destroying much of the enemy columns. The Iranians defeated the MEK in the city of Kerend-e Gharb on 29 July 1988. On 31 July, Iran drove the MEK out of Qasr-e-Shirin and Sarpol Zahab, though MEK claimed to have "voluntarily withdrawn" from the towns. Iran estimated that 4,500 MEK were killed, while 400 Iranian soldiers died.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The last notable combat actions of the war took place on 3 August 1988, in the Persian Gulf when the Iranian navy fired on a freighter and Iraq launched chemical attacks on Iranian civilians, killing an unknown number of them and wounding 2,300. Iraq came under international pressure to curtail further offensives. Resolution 598 became effective on 8 August 1988, ending all combat operations between the two countries. By 20 August 1988, peace with Iran was restored. UN peacekeepers belonging to the UNIIMOG mission took the field, remaining on the Iran–Iraq border until 1991. The majority of Western analysts believe that the war had no winners while some believed that Iraq emerged as the victor of the war, based on Iraq's overwhelming successes between April and July 1988. While the war was now over, Iraq spent the rest of August and early September clearing the Kurdish resistance. Using 60,000 troops along with helicopter gunships, chemical weapons (poison gas), and mass executions, Iraq hit 15 villages, killing rebels and civilians, and forced tens of thousands of Kurds to relocate to settlements. Many Kurdish civilians fled to Iran. By 3 September 1988, the anti-Kurd campaign ended, and all resistance had been crushed. 400 Iraqi soldiers and 50,000–100,000 Kurdish civilians and soldiers had been killed.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: At the war's conclusion, it took several weeks for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran to evacuate Iraqi territory to honor pre-war international borders set by the 1975 Algiers Agreement. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The Security Council did not identify Iraq as the aggressor of the war until 11 December 1991, some 11 years after Iraq invaded Iran and 16 months following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The Iran–Iraq War was the deadliest conventional war ever fought between regular armies of developing countries. Encyclopædia Britannica states: "Estimates of total casualties range from 1,000,000 to twice that number. The number killed on both sides was perhaps 500,000, with Iran suffering the greatest losses." Iraqi casualties are estimated at 105,000–200,000 killed, while about 400,000 had been wounded and some 70,000 taken prisoner. Thousands of civilians on both sides died in air raids and ballistic missile attacks. Prisoners taken by both countries began to be released in 1990, though some were not released until more than 10 years after the end of the conflict. Cities on both sides had also been considerably damaged. While revolutionary Iran had been bloodied, Iraq was left with a large military and was a regional power, albeit with severe debt, financial problems, and labour shortages.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: According to Iranian government sources, the war cost Iran an estimated 200,000–220,000 killed, or up to 262,000 according to the conservative Western estimates. This includes 123,220 combatants, 60,711 MIA and 11,000–16,000 civilians. Combatants include 79,664 members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and additional 35,170 soldiers from regular military. In addition, prisoners of war accounted for 42,875 Iranian casualties, captured and kept in Iraqi detention centres from 2.5 to more than 15 years after the war was over. According to the Janbazan Affairs Organization, 398,587 Iranians sustained injuries that required prolonged medical and health care following primary treatment, including 52,195 (13%) injured due to the exposure to chemical warfare agents. From 1980 to 2012, 218,867 Iranians died due to war injuries and the mean age of combatants was 23 years old. This includes 33,430 civilians, mostly women and children. More than 144,000 Iranian children were orphaned as a consequence of these deaths. Other estimates put Iranian casualties up to 600,000.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Both Iraq and Iran manipulated loss figures to suit their purposes. At the same time, Western analysts accepted improbable estimates. By April 1988, such casualties were estimated at between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqis dead, and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians. Shortly after the end of the war, it was thought that Iran suffered even more than a million dead. Considering the style of fighting on the ground and the fact that neither side penetrated deeply into the other's territory, USMC analysts believe events do not substantiate the high casualties claimed. The Iraqi government has claimed 800,000 Iranians were killed in action, four times more than Iranian official figures, whereas Iraqi intelligence privately put the number at 228,000–258,000 as of August 1986. Iraqi losses were also revised downwards over time.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: With the ceasefire in place, and UN peacekeepers monitoring the border, Iran and Iraq sent their representatives to Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate a peace agreement on the terms of the ceasefire. However, peace talks stalled. Iraq, in violation of the UN ceasefire, refused to withdraw its troops from of disputed territory at the border area unless the Iranians accepted Iraq's full sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Foreign powers continued to support Iraq, which wanted to gain at the negotiating table what they failed to achieve on the battlefield, and Iran was portrayed as the one not wanting peace. Iran, in response, refused to release 70,000 Iraqi prisoners of war (compared to 40,000 Iranian prisoners of war held by Iraq). They also continued to carry out a naval blockade of Iraq, although its effects were mitigated by Iraqi use of ports in friendly neighbouring Arab countries. Iran also began to improve relations with many of the states that opposed it during the war. Because of Iranian actions, by 1990, Saddam had become more conciliatory, and in a letter to the future fourth President of Iran Rafsanjani, he became more open to the idea of a peace agreement, although he still insisted on full sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: By 1990, Iran was undergoing military rearmament and reorganization, and purchased $10 billion worth of heavy weaponry from the USSR and China, including aircraft, tanks, and missiles. Rafsanjani reversed Iran's self-imposed ban on chemical weapons, and ordered the manufacture and stockpile of them (Iran destroyed them in 1993 after ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention). As war with the western powers loomed, Iraq became concerned about the possibility of Iran mending its relations with the west in order to attack Iraq. Iraq had lost its support from the West, and its position in Iran was increasingly untenable. Saddam realized that if Iran attempted to expel the Iraqis from the disputed territories in the border area, it was likely they would succeed. Shortly after his invasion of Kuwait, Saddam wrote a letter to Rafsanjani stating that Iraq recognised Iranian rights over the eastern half of the Shatt al-Arab, a reversion to "status quo ante bellum" that he had repudiated a decade earlier, and that he would accept Iran's demands and withdraw Iraq's military from the disputed territories. A peace agreement was signed finalizing the terms of the UN resolution, diplomatic relations were restored, and by late 1990-early 1991, the Iraqi military withdrew. The UN peacekeepers withdrew from the border shortly afterward. Most of the prisoners of war were released in 1990, although some remained as late as 2003. Iranian politicians declared it to be the "greatest victory in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran".


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Most historians and analysts consider the war to be a stalemate. Certain analysts believe that Iraq won, on the basis of the successes of their 1988 offensives which thwarted Iran's major territorial ambitions in Iraq and persuaded Iran to accept the ceasefire. Iranian analysts believe that they won the war because although they did not succeed in overthrowing the Iraqi government, they thwarted Iraq's major territorial ambitions in Iran, and that, two years after the war had ended, Iraq permanently gave up its claim of ownership over the entire Shatt al-Arab as well.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 9 December 1991, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, UN Secretary General at the time, reported that Iraq's initiation of the war was unjustified, as was its occupation of Iranian territory and use of chemical weapons against civilians:


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: That [Iraq's] explanations do not appear sufficient or acceptable to the international community is a fact...[the attack] cannot be justified under the charter of the United Nations, any recognized rules and principles of international law, or any principles of international morality, and entails the responsibility for conflict. Even if before the outbreak of the conflict there had been some encroachment by Iran on Iraqi territory, such encroachment did not justify Iraq's aggression against Iran—which was followed by Iraq's continuous occupation of Iranian territory during the conflict—in violation of the prohibition of the use of force, which is regarded as one of the rules of jus cogens...On one occasion I had to note with deep regret the experts' conclusion that "chemical weapons ha[d] been used against Iranian civilians in an area adjacent to an urban center lacking any protection against that kind of attack."


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: He also stated that had the UN accepted this fact earlier, the war would have almost certainly not lasted as long as it did. Iran, encouraged by the announcement, sought reparations from Iraq, but never received any.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Iran and Iraq relations remained balanced between a cold war and a cold peace. Despite renewed and somewhat thawed relations, both sides continued to have low level conflicts. Iraq continued to host and support the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, which carried out multiple attacks throughout Iran up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq (including the assassination of Iranian general Ali Sayyad Shirazi in 1998, cross border raids, and mortar attacks). Iran carried out several airstrikes and missile attacks against Mujahedeen targets inside of Iraq (the largest taking place in 2001, when Iran fired 56 Scud missiles at Mujahedeen targets). In addition, according to General Hamdani, Iran continued to carry out low-level infiltrations of Iraqi territory, using Iraqi dissidents and anti-government activists rather than Iranian troops, in order to incite revolts. After the fall of Saddam in 2003, Hamdani claimed that Iranian agents infiltrated and created numerous militias in Iraq and built an intelligence system operating within the country.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In 2005, the new government of Iraq apologised to Iran for starting the war. The Iraqi government also commemorated the war with various monuments, including the Hands of Victory and the al-Shaheed Monument, both in Baghdad. The war also helped to create a forerunner for the Coalition of the Gulf War, when the Gulf Arab states banded together early in the war to form the Gulf Cooperation Council to help Iraq fight Iran.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The economic loss at the time was believed to exceed $500 billion for each country ($1.2 trillion total). In addition, economic development stalled and oil exports were disrupted. Iraq had accrued more than $130 billion of international debt, excluding interest, and was also weighed down by a slowed GDP growth. Iraq's debt to Paris Club amounted to $21 billion, 85% of which had originated from the combined inputs of Japan, the USSR, France, Germany, the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom. The largest portion of Iraq's debt, amounting to $130 billion, was to its former Arab backers, with $67 billion loaned by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Jordan. After the war, Iraq accused Kuwait of slant drilling and stealing oil, inciting its invasion of Kuwait, which in turn worsened Iraq's financial situation: the United Nations Compensation Commission mandated Iraq to pay reparations of more than $200 billion to victims of the invasion, including Kuwait and the United States. To enforce payment, Iraq was put under a comprehensive international embargo, which further strained the Iraqi economy and pushed its external debt to private and public sectors to more than $500 billion by the end of Saddam's rule. Combined with Iraq's negative economic growth after prolonged international sanctions, this produced a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 1,000%, making Iraq the most indebted developing country in the world. The unsustainable economic situation compelled the new Iraqi government to request that a considerable portion of debt incurred during the Iran–Iraq war be written off.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The war had its impact on medical science: a surgical intervention for comatose patients with penetrating brain injuries was created by Iranian physicians treating wounded soldiers, later establishing neurosurgery guidelines to treat civilians who had suffered blunt or penetrating skull injuries. Iranian physicians' experience in the war informed the medical care of U.S. congresswoman Gabby Giffords after the 2011 Tucson shooting.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In addition to helping trigger the Persian Gulf War, the Iran–Iraq War also contributed to Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf War. Iraq's military was accustomed to fighting the slow moving Iranian infantry formations with artillery and static defenses, while using mostly unsophisticated tanks to gun down and shell the infantry and overwhelm the smaller Iranian tank force; in addition to being dependent on weapons of mass destruction to help secure victories. Therefore, they were rapidly overwhelmed by the high-tech, quick-maneuvering Coalition forces using modern doctrines such as AirLand Battle.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: At first, Saddam attempted to ensure that the Iraqi population suffered from the war as little as possible. There was rationing, but civilian projects begun before the war continued. At the same time, the already extensive personality cult around Saddam reached new heights while the regime tightened its control over the military.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: After the Iranian victories of the spring of 1982 and the Syrian closure of Iraq's main pipeline, Saddam did a volte-face on his policy towards the home front: a policy of austerity and total war was introduced, with the entire population being mobilised for the war effort. All Iraqis were ordered to donate blood and around 100,000 Iraqi civilians were ordered to clear the reeds in the southern marshes. Mass demonstrations of loyalty towards Saddam became more common. Saddam also began implementing a policy of discrimination against Iraqis of Iranian origin.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In the summer of 1982, Saddam began a campaign of terror. More than 300 Iraqi Army officers were executed for their failures on the battlefield. In 1983, a major crackdown was launched on the leadership of the Shia community. Ninety members of the al-Hakim family, an influential family of Shia clerics whose leading members were the émigrés Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, were arrested, and 6 were hanged.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The crackdown on Kurds saw 8,000 members of the Barzani clan, whose leader (Massoud Barzani) also led the Kurdistan Democratic Party, similarly executed. From 1983 onwards, a campaign of increasingly brutal repression was started against the Iraqi Kurds, characterised by Israeli historian Efraim Karsh as having "assumed genocidal proportions" by 1988. The al-Anfal Campaign was intended to "pacify" Iraqi Kurdistan permanently. By 1983, the Barzanis entered an alliance with Iran in defense against Saddam Hussein.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: To secure the loyalty of the Shia population, Saddam allowed more Shias into the Ba'ath Party and the government, and improved Shia living standards, which had been lower than those of the Iraqi Sunnis. Saddam had the state pay for restoring Imam Ali's tomb with white marble imported from Italy. The Baathists also increased their policies of repression against the Shia. The most infamous event was the massacre of 148 civilians of the Shia town of Dujail.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Despite the costs of the war, the Iraqi regime made generous contributions to Shia "waqf" (religious endowments) as part of the price of buying Iraqi Shia support. The importance of winning Shia support was such that welfare services in Shia areas were expanded during a time in which the Iraqi regime was pursuing austerity in all other non-military fields. During the first years of the war in the early 1980s, the Iraqi government tried to accommodate the Kurds in order to focus on the war against Iran. In 1983, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan agreed to cooperate with Baghdad, but the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) remained opposed. In 1983, Saddam signed an autonomy agreement with Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), though Saddam later reneged on the agreement. By 1985, the PUK and KDP had joined forces, and Iraqi Kurdistan saw widespread guerrilla warfare up to the end of the war.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Israeli-British historian Ephraim Karsh argued that the Iranian government saw the outbreak of war as chance to strengthen its position and consolidate the Islamic revolution, noting that government propaganda presented it domestically as a glorious "jihad" and a test of Iranian national character. The Iranian regime followed a policy of total war from the beginning, and attempted to mobilise the nation as a whole. They established a group known as the Reconstruction Campaign, whose members were exempted from conscription and were instead sent into the countryside to work on farms to replace the men serving at the front.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Iranian workers had a day's pay deducted from their pay cheques every month to help finance the war, and mass campaigns were launched to encourage the public to donate food, money, and blood. To further help finance the war, the Iranian government banned the import of all non-essential items, and launched a major effort to rebuild the damaged oil plants.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: According to former Iraqi general Ra'ad al-Hamdani, the Iraqis believed that in addition to the Arab revolts, the Revolutionary Guards would be drawn out of Tehran, leading to a counter-revolution in Iran that would cause Khomeini's government to collapse and thus ensure Iraqi victory. However, rather than turning against the revolutionary government as experts had predicted, Iran's people (including Iranian Arabs) rallied in support of the country and put up a stiff resistance.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In June 1981, street battles broke out between the Revolutionary Guard and the left-wing Mujaheddin e-Khalq (MEK), continuing for several days and killing hundreds on both sides. In September, more unrest broke out on the streets of Iran as the MEK attempted to seize power. Thousands of left-wing Iranians (many of whom were not associated with the MEK) were shot and hanged by the government. The MEK began an assassination campaign that killed hundreds of regime officials by the fall of 1981. On 28 June 1981, they assassinated the secretary-general of the Islamic Republican Party, Mohammad Beheshti and on 30 August, killed Iran's president, Mohammad-Ali Rajai. The government responded with mass executions of suspected MEK members, a practice that lasted until 1985.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In addition to the open civil conflict with the MEK, the Iranian government was faced with Iraqi-supported rebellions in Iranian Kurdistan, which were gradually put down through a campaign of systematic repression. 1985 also saw student anti-war demonstrations, which were crushed by government forces.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: NEDSA commander announced in September 2020 that Iran spent $19.6 billion in the war. The war furthered the decline of the Iranian economy that had begun with the revolution in 1978–79. Between 1979 and 1981, foreign exchange reserves fell from $14.6 billion to $1 billion. As a result of the war, living standards dropped dramatically, and Iran was described by British journalists John Bulloch and Harvey Morris as "a dour and joyless place" ruled by a harsh regime that "seemed to have nothing to offer but endless war". Though Iran was becoming bankrupt, Khomeini interpreted Islam's prohibition of usury to mean they could not borrow against future oil revenues to meet war expenses. As a result, Iran funded the war by the income from oil exports after cash had run out. The revenue from oil dropped from $20 billion in 1982 to $5 billion in 1988. French historian Pierre Razoux argued that this sudden drop in economic industrial potential, in conjunction with the increasing aggression of Iraq, placed Iran in a challenging position that had little leeway other than accepting Iraq's conditions of peace.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In January 1985, former prime minister and anti-war Islamic Liberation Movement co-founder Mehdi Bazargan criticised the war in a telegram to the United Nations, calling it un-Islamic and illegitimate and arguing that Khomeini should have accepted Saddam's truce offer in 1982 instead of attempting to overthrow the Ba'ath. In a public letter to Khomeini sent in May 1988, he added "Since 1986, you have not stopped proclaiming victory, and now you are calling upon population to resist until victory. Is that not an admission of failure on your part?" Khomeini was annoyed by Bazargan's telegram, and issued a lengthy public rebuttal in which he defended the war as both Islamic and just.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: By 1987, Iranian morale had begun to crumble, reflected in the failure of government campaigns to recruit "martyrs" for the front. Israeli historian Efraim Karsh points to the decline in morale in 1987–88 as being a major factor in Iran's decision to accept the ceasefire of 1988.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Not all saw the war in negative terms. The Islamic Revolution of Iran was strengthened and radicalised. The Iranian government-owned "Etelaat" newspaper wrote, "There is not a single school or town that is excluded from the happiness of 'holy defence' of the nation, from drinking the exquisite elixir of martyrdom, or from the sweet death of the martyr, who dies in order to live forever in paradise."


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Iran's regular Army had been purged after the 1979 Revolution, with most high-ranking officers either having fled the country or been executed.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: At the beginning of the war, Iraq held a clear advantage in armour, while both nations were roughly equal in terms of artillery. The gap only widened as the war went on. Iran started with a stronger air force, but over time, the balance of power reversed in Iraq's favour (as Iraq was constantly expanding its military, while Iran was under arms sanctions). Estimates for 1980 and 1987 were:


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The conflict has been compared to World War I in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds. The world powers United States and the Soviet Union, together with many Western and Arab countries, provided military, intelligence, economic, and political support for Iraq. On average, Iraq imported about $7 billion in weapons during every year of the war, accounting for fully 12% of global arms sales in the period. The value of Iraqi arms imports increased to between $12 billion and $14 billion during 1984–1987, whereas the value of Iranian arms imports fell from $14 billion in 1985 to $5.89 billion in 1986 and an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion in 1987. Iran was constrained by the price of oil during the 1980s oil glut as foreign countries were largely unwilling to extend credit to Iran, but Iraq financed its continued massive military expansion by taking on vast quantities of debt that allowed it to win a number of victories against Iran near the end of the war but that left the country bankrupt.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Despite its larger population, by 1988 Iran's ground forces numbered only 600,000 whereas the Iraqi army had grown to include 1 million soldiers.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: During the war, Iraq was regarded by the West and the Soviet Union as a counterbalance to post-revolutionary Iran. The Soviet Union, Iraq's main arms supplier during the war, did not wish for the end of its alliance with Iraq, and was alarmed by Saddam's threats to find new arms suppliers in the West and China if the Kremlin did not provide him with the weapons he wanted. The Soviet Union hoped to use the threat of reducing arms supplies to Iraq as leverage for forming a Soviet-Iranian alliance.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: During the early years of the war, the United States lacked meaningful relations with either Iran or Iraq, the former due to the Iranian Revolution and the Iran hostage crisis and the latter because of Iraq's alliance with the Soviet Union and hostility towards Israel. Following Iran's success of repelling the Iraqi invasion and Khomeini's refusal to end the war in 1982, the United States made an outreach to Iraq, beginning with the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1984. The United States wished to both keep Iran away from Soviet influence and protect other Gulf states from any threat of Iranian expansion. As a result, it began to provide limited support to Iraq. In 1982, Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, outlined U.S. policy towards Iran:


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The focus of Iranian pressure at this moment is Iraq. There are few governments in the world less deserving of our support and less capable of using it. Had Iraq won the war, the fear in the Gulf and the threat to our interest would be scarcely less than it is today. Still, given the importance of the balance of power in the area, it is in our interests to promote a ceasefire in that conflict; though not a cost that will preclude an eventual rapprochement with Iran either if a more moderate regime replaces Khomeini's or if the present rulers wake up to geopolitical reality that the historic threat to Iran's independence has always come from the country with which it shares a border of : the Soviet Union. A rapprochement with Iran, of course, must await at a minimum Iran's abandonment of hegemonic aspirations in the Gulf.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State during the war, testified to Congress in 1984 that the Reagan administration believed a victory for either Iran or Iraq was "neither militarily feasible nor strategically desirable".


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Support to Iraq was given via technological aid, intelligence, the sale of dual-use chemical and biological warfare related technology and military equipment, and satellite intelligence. While there was direct combat between Iran and the United States, it is not universally agreed that the fighting between the United States and Iran was specifically to benefit Iraq, or for separate issues between the U.S. and Iran. American official ambiguity towards which side to support was summed up by Henry Kissinger when he remarked, "It's a pity they both can't lose." The Americans and the British also either blocked or watered down UN resolutions that condemned Iraq for using chemical weapons against the Iranians and their own Kurdish citizens.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: More than 30 countries provided support to Iraq, Iran, or both; most of the aid went to Iraq. Iran had a complex clandestine procurement network to obtain munitions and critical materials. Iraq had an even larger clandestine purchasing network, involving 10–12 allied countries, to maintain ambiguity over their arms purchases and to circumvent "official restrictions". Arab mercenaries and volunteers from Egypt and Jordan formed the Yarmouk Brigade and participated in the war alongside Iraqis.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: According to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, the Soviet Union, France, and China together accounted for over 90% of the value of Iraq's arms imports between 1980 and 1988.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The United States pursued policies in favour of Iraq by reopening diplomatic channels, lifting restrictions on the export of dual-use technology, overseeing the transfer of third-party military hardware, and providing operational intelligence on the battlefield. France, which from the 1970s had been one of Iraq's closest allies, was a major supplier of military hardware. The French sold weapons equal to $5 billion, which made up well over a quarter of Iraq's total arms stockpile. Citing French magazine "Le Nouvel Observateur" as the primary source, but also quoting French officials, the "New York Times" reported France had been sending chemical precursors of chemical weapons to Iraq, since 1986. China, which had no direct stake in the victory of either side and whose interests in the war were entirely commercial, freely sold arms to both sides.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Iraq also made extensive use of front companies, middlemen, secret ownership of all or part of companies all over the world, forged end-user certificates, and other methods to hide what it was acquiring. Some transactions may have involved people, shipping, and manufacturing in as many as 10 countries. Support from Great Britain exemplified the methods by which Iraq would circumvent export controls. Iraq bought at least one British company with operations in the United Kingdom and the United States, and had a complex relationship with France and the Soviet Union, its major suppliers of actual weapons. Turkey took action against the Kurds in 1986, alleging they were attacking the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which prompted a harsh diplomatic intervention by Iran, which planned a new offensive against Iraq at the time and were counting on the support of Kurdish factions.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Sudan supported Iraq directly during the war, sending a contingent to fight at the frontlines. The Sudanese unit consisted to a large degree of Ugandan refugees from the West Nile Region, recruited by Juma Oris.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The United Nations Security Council initially called for a cease-fire after a week of fighting while Iraq was occupying Iranian territory, and renewed the call on later occasions. However, the UN did not come to Iran's aid to repel the Iraqi invasion, and the Iranians thus interpreted the UN as subtly biased in favour of Iraq.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Iraq's main financial backers were the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, most notably Saudi Arabia ($30.9 billion), Kuwait ($8.2 billion), and the United Arab Emirates ($8 billion). In all, Iraq received $35 billion in loans from the West and between $30 and $40 billion from the Persian Gulf states during the 1980s.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The Iraqgate scandal revealed that a branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), in Atlanta, Georgia, relied partially on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans to funnel $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. In August 1989, when FBI agents raided the Atlanta branch of BNL, branch manager Christopher Drogoul was charged with making unauthorised, clandestine, and illegal loans to Iraq—some of which, according to his indictment, were used to purchase arms and weapons technology. According to the "Financial Times", Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, and Matrix Churchill's branch in Ohio were among the companies shipping militarily useful technology to Iraq under the eye of the U.S. government.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: While the United States directly fought Iran, citing freedom of navigation as a major "casus belli", it also indirectly supplied some weapons to Iran as part of a complex and illegal programme that became known as the Iran–Contra affair. These secret sales were partly to help secure the release of hostages held in Lebanon, and partly to make money to help the Contras rebel group in Nicaragua. This arms-for-hostages agreement turned into a major scandal.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: North Korea was a major arms supplier to Iran, often acting as a third party in arms deals between Iran and the Communist bloc. Support included domestically manufactured arms and Eastern-Bloc weapons, for which the major powers wanted deniability. Among the other arms suppliers and supporters of Iran's Islamic Revolution, the major ones were Libya, Syria, and China. According to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, China was the largest foreign arms supplier to Iran between 1980 and 1988.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Besides the United States and the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia also sold weapons to both countries for the entire duration of the conflict. Likewise, Portugal helped both countries; it was not unusual to see Iranian and Iraqi flagged ships anchored at Setúbal, waiting their turn to dock.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: From 1980 to 1987, Spain sold €458 million in weapons to Iran and €172 million to Iraq. Weapons sold to Iraq included 4x4 vehicles, BO-105 helicopters, explosives, and ammunition. A research party later discovered that an unexploded chemical Iraqi warhead in Iran was manufactured in Spain.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Although neither side acquired any weapons from Turkey, both sides enjoyed Turkish civilian trade during the conflict, although the Turkish government remained neutral and refused to support the U.S.-imposed trade embargo on Iran. Turkey's export market jumped from $220 million in 1981 to $2 billion in 1985, making up 25% of Turkey's overall exports. Turkish construction projects in Iraq totaled $2.5 billion between 1974 and 1990. Trading with both countries helped Turkey to offset its ongoing economic crisis, though the benefits decreased as the war neared its end and accordingly disappeared entirely with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the resulting Iraq sanctions Turkey imposed in response.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: American support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, in which it fought against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, and special operations training. The U.S. refused to sell arms to Iraq directly due to Iraq's ties to terrorist groups, but several sales of "dual-use" technology have been documented; notably, Iraq purchased 45 Bell helicopters for $200 million in 1985. Total sales of U.S. dual-use technology to Iraq are estimated at $500 million.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: U.S. government support for Iraq was not a secret and was frequently discussed in open sessions of the Senate and House of Representatives. American views toward Iraq were not enthusiastically supportive in its conflict with Iran, and activity in assistance was largely to prevent an Iranian victory. This was encapsulated by Henry Kissinger when he remarked, "It's a pity they both can't lose."


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: A key element of U.S. political–military and energy–economic planning occurred in early 1983. The Iran–Iraq war had been going on for three years and there were significant casualties on both sides, reaching hundreds of thousands. Within the Reagan National Security Council concern was growing that the war could spread beyond the boundaries of the two belligerents. A National Security Planning Group meeting was called chaired by Vice President George Bush to review U.S. options. It was determined that there was a high likelihood that the conflict would spread into Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, but that the United States had little capability to defend the region. Furthermore, it was determined that a prolonged war in the region would induce much higher oil prices and threaten the fragile world recovery which was just beginning to gain momentum. On 22 May 1984, President Reagan was briefed on the project conclusions in the Oval Office by William Flynn Martin who had served as the head of the NSC staff that organized the study. The full declassified presentation can be seen here. The conclusions were threefold: firstly, oil stocks needed to be increased among members of the International Energy Agency and, if necessary, released early in the event of oil market disruption; second, the United States needed to reinforce the security of friendly Arab states in the region; and thirdly, an embargo should be placed on sales of military equipment to Iran and Iraq. The plan was approved by the President and later affirmed by the G-7 leaders headed by Margaret Thatcher in the London Summit of 1984.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: According to "Foreign Policy", the "Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. ... According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983."


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 17 May 1987, an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet launched two Exocet missiles at , a "Perry" class frigate. The first struck the port side of the ship and failed to explode, though it left burning propellant in its wake; the second struck moments later in approximately the same place and penetrated through to crew quarters, where it exploded, killing 37 crew members and leaving 21 injured. Whether or not Iraqi leadership authorised the attack is still unknown. Initial claims by the Iraqi government (that "Stark" was inside the Iran–Iraq War zone) were shown to be false, and the motives and orders of the pilot remain unanswered. Though American officials claimed that the pilot who attacked "Stark" had been executed, an ex-Iraqi Air Force commander since stated he had not been punished, and was still alive at the time. The attack remains the only successful anti-ship missile strike on an American warship. Due to the extensive political and military cooperation between the Iraqis and Americans by 1987, the attack had little effect on relations between the two countries.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: U.S. attention was focused on isolating Iran as well as maintaining freedom of navigation. It criticised Iran's mining of international waters, and sponsored , which passed unanimously on 20 July, under which the U.S. and Iranian forces skirmished during Operation Earnest Will. During Operation Nimble Archer in October 1987, the United States attacked Iranian oil platforms in retaliation for an Iranian attack on the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti tanker "Sea Isle City".


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 14 April 1988, the frigate was badly damaged by an Iranian mine, and 10 sailors were wounded. U.S. forces responded with Operation Praying Mantis on 18 April, the U.S. Navy's largest engagement of surface warships since World War II. Two Iranian oil platforms were destroyed, and five Iranian warships and gunboats were sunk. An American helicopter also crashed. This fighting manifested in the International Court of Justice as "Oil Platforms case (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America)", which was eventually dismissed in 2003.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In the course of escorts by the U.S. Navy, the cruiser shot down Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. The American government claimed that "Vincennes" was in international waters at the time (which was later proven to be untrue), that the Airbus A300 had been mistaken for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat, and that "Vincennes" feared that she was under attack. The Iranians maintain that "Vincennes" was in their own waters, and that the passenger jet was turning away and increasing altitude after take-off. U.S. Admiral William J. Crowe later admitted on "Nightline" that "Vincennes" was in Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles. At the time of the attack, Admiral Crowe claimed that the Iranian plane did not identify itself and sent no response to warning signals he had sent. In 1996, the United States expressed their regret for the event and the civilian deaths it caused.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In a declassified 1991 report, the CIA estimated that Iran had suffered more than 50,000 casualties from Iraq's use of several chemical weapons, though current estimates are more than 100,000 as the long-term effects continue to cause casualties. The official CIA estimate did not include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans of Iran. According to a 2002 article in the "Star-Ledger", 20,000 Iranian soldiers were killed on the spot by nerve gas. As of 2002, 5,000 of the 80,000 survivors continue to seek regular medical treatment, while 1,000 are hospital inpatients.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: According to Iraqi documents, assistance in developing chemical weapons was obtained from firms in many countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France. A report stated that Dutch, Australian, Italian, French and both West and East German companies were involved in the export of raw materials to Iraqi chemical weapons factories. Declassified CIA documents show that the United States was providing reconnaissance intelligence to Iraq around 1987–88 which was then used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Iranian troops and that the CIA fully knew that chemical weapons would be deployed and sarin and cyclosarin attacks followed.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: On 21 March 1986, the United Nations Security Council made a declaration stating that "members are profoundly concerned by the unanimous conclusion of the specialists that chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian troops, and the members of the Council strongly condemn this continued use of chemical weapons in clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which prohibits the use in war of chemical weapons." The United States was the only member who voted against the issuance of this statement. A mission to the region in 1988 found evidence of the use of chemical weapons, and was condemned in Security Council Resolution 612.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: According to W. Patrick Lang, senior defense intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern" to Reagan and his aides, because they "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose". He claimed that the Defense Intelligence Agency "would have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival". The Reagan administration did not stop aiding Iraq after receiving reports of the use of poison gas on Kurdish civilians.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The United States accused Iran of using chemical weapons as well, though the allegations have been disputed. Joost Hiltermann, the principal researcher for Human Rights Watch between 1992 and 1994, conducted a two-year study that included a field investigation in Iraq, and obtained Iraqi government documents in the process. According to Hiltermann, the literature on the Iran–Iraq War reflects allegations of chemical weapons used by Iran, but they are "marred by a lack of specificity as to time and place, and the failure to provide any sort of evidence".


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Analysts Gary Sick and Lawrence Potter have called the allegations against Iran "mere assertions" and stated, "No persuasive evidence of the claim that Iran was the primary culprit [of using chemical weapons] was ever presented." Policy consultant and author Joseph Tragert stated, "Iran did not retaliate with chemical weapons, probably because it did not possess any at the time". Documents uncovered after the 2003 invasion of Iraq show that Iraqi military intelligence was not aware of any large-scale chemical attacks by Iranian forces, although a March 1987 document describes five small-scale chemical attacks perpetrated by the Iranians (four involving mustard gas and one involving phosgene, with the likely source being captured Iraqi munitions), and there are also reports of Iranian use of tear gas and white phosphorus.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: At his trial in December 2006, Saddam said he would take responsibility "with honour" for any attacks on Iran using conventional or chemical weapons during the war, but that he took issue with the charges that he ordered attacks on Iraqis. A medical analysis of the effects of Iraqi mustard gas is described in a U.S. military textbook and contrasted effects of World War I gas.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: At the time of the conflict, the United Nations Security Council issued statements that "chemical weapons had been used in the war". UN statements never clarified that only Iraq was using chemical weapons, and according to retrospective authors "the international community remained silent as Iraq used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian[s] as well as Iraqi Kurds." A 1987 UN report conducted at the behest of both belligerents discovered weapon fragments that established Iraqi responsibility for chemical attacks on Iranian soldiers and civilians, but could not substantiate Iraq's allegations of Iranian chemical weapons use: "Iraqi forces have been affected by mustard gas and a pulmonary element, possibly phosgene. In the absence of conclusive evidence of the weapons used, it could not be determined how the injuries were caused." Evidence suggests that these Iraqi chemical casualties were likely the result of "blowback," whereas the evidence that Iraq submitted to the UN—such as two Iranian 130 mm shells that UN specialists found had "no internal chemical-resistant coating" and were "normally used for filling with high explosives"—did not withstand scrutiny; UN official Iqbal Riza later acknowledged that Iraq's evidence was "clearly fabricated." However, the report's phrasing—"chemical weapons were again used against Iranian forces by Iraqi forces ... now also Iraqi forces have sustained injuries from chemical warfare"—contributed to an erroneous perception that Iran and Iraq were equally at fault.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In response to further Iraqi chemical attacks on Kurdish civilians after the August 1988 ceasefire with Iran, United States senators Claiborne Pell and Jesse Helms called for comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq, including an oil embargo and severe limitations on the export of dual-use technology. Although the ensuing legislation passed in the U.S. Senate, it faced strong opposition within the House of Representatives and did not become law. In a rare rebuke, Secretary of State George Shultz condemned Iraq's "unjustified and abhorrent" chemical attacks, which Shultz's assistant Charles E. Redman characterized as "unacceptable to the civilized world." Even after these pronouncements, however, the State Department advised against sanctions.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Bruce Riedel describes the Iran–Iraq War as "one of the largest and longest conventional interstate wars" of the twentieth century and "the only war in modern times in which chemical weapons were used on a massive scale." Kanan Makiya writes that "there has not been anything like it in the long history of Iraqi–Iranian relations, just like there had been nothing like World War I in the history of Europe."


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Iran's attack on the "Osirak" nuclear reactor in September 1980 was the first attack on a nuclear reactor and one of only a small handful of military attacks on nuclear facilities in history. It was also the first instance of a pre-emptive attack on a nuclear reactor to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon, though it did not achieve its objective, as France repaired the reactor after the attack. (It took a second pre-emptive strike by the Israeli Air Force in June 1981 to disable the reactor, killing a French engineer in the process and causing France to pull out of "Osirak". The decommissioning of "Osirak" has been cited as causing a substantial delay to Iraqi acquisition of nuclear weapons.)


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The Iran–Iraq War was the first conflict in the history of warfare in which both forces used ballistic missiles against each other. This war also saw the only confirmed air-to-air helicopter battles in history with the Iraqi Mi-25s flying against Iranian AH-1J SeaCobras (supplied by the United States before the Iranian Revolution) on several separate occasions. In November 1980, not long after Iraq's initial invasion of Iran, two Iranian SeaCobras engaged two Mi-25s with TOW wire-guided antitank missiles. One Mi-25 went down immediately, the other was badly damaged and crashed before reaching base. The Iranians repeated this accomplishment on 24 April 1981, destroying two Mi-25s without incurring losses to themselves. One Mi-25 was also downed by an Iranian F-14A Tomcat. The Iraqis hit back, claiming the destruction of a SeaCobra on 14 September 1983 (with YaKB machine gun), then three SeaCobras on 5 February 1984 and three more on 25 February 1984 (two with Falanga missiles, one with S-5 rockets). After a lull in helicopter losses, each side lost a gunship on 13 February 1986. Later, a Mi-25 claimed a SeaCobra shot down with YaKB gun on 16 February, and a SeaCobra claimed a Mi-25 shot down with rockets on 18 February. The last engagement between the two types was on 22 May 1986, when Mi-25s shot down a SeaCobra. The final claim tally was 10 SeaCobras and 6 Mi-25s destroyed. The relatively small numbers and the inevitable disputes over actual kill numbers makes it unclear if one gunship had a real technical superiority over the other. Iraqi Mi-25s also claimed 43 kills against other Iranian helicopters, such as Agusta-Bell UH-1 Hueys. Both sides, especially Iraq, also carried out air and missile attacks against population centres.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: In October 1986, Iraqi aircraft began to attack civilian passenger trains and aircraft on Iranian soil, including an Iran Air Boeing 737 unloading passengers at Shiraz International Airport. In retaliation for the Iranian Operation Karbala 5, Iraq attacked 65 cities in 226 sorties over 42 days, bombing civilian neighbourhoods. Eight Iranian cities came under attack from Iraqi missiles. The bombings killed 65 children in an elementary school in Borujerd. The Iranians responded with Scud missile attacks on Baghdad and struck a primary school there. These events became known as the "War of the Cities". The "War of the Cities" resumed and peaked in 1988, when Iraq dropped 40 tons of high explosives on Tehran using modified Scud missiles (dubbed "al-Hussein" missiles) over seven weeks, causing panic among civilians and prompting almost 1 million residents of Tehran to temporarily flee their homes. Nevertheless, scholars have noted that this still "ranks as one of the smallest strategic bombing campaigns in history," paling in comparison to strategic bombing during World War II, which saw 1.2 million tons of bombs dropped on German cities in 1944 alone, or more recent events such as the so-called "Christmas bombings" of North Vietnam, which saw 20,000 tons of bombs dropped on Hanoi and Haiphong in a mere eleven days. In total, 10,000–11,000 civilians died as a result of the aerial bombardment of Iranian cities with the majority of those deaths occurring in the final year of the war.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Despite the war, Iran and Iraq maintained diplomatic relations and embassies in each other's countries until mid-1987.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Iran's government used human waves to attack enemy troops and even in some cases to clear minefields. Children volunteered as well. Some reports mistakenly have the Basijis marching into battle while marking their expected entry to heaven by wearing "Plastic Keys to Paradise" around their necks, although other analysts regard this story as a hoax involving a misinterpretation of the carrying of a prayer book called "The Keys to Paradise"(Mafatih al-Janan) by Sheikh Abbas Qumi given to all volunteers.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: During the Fateh offensive in February 1987, I toured the southwest front on the Iranian side and saw scores of boys, aged anywhere from nine to sixteen, who said with staggering and seemingly genuine enthusiasm that they had volunteered to become martyrs. Regular army troops, the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards and mullahs all lauded these youths, known as baseeji [Basij], for having played the most dangerous role in breaking through Iraqi lines. They had led the way, running over fields of mines to clear the ground for the Iranian ground assault. Wearing white headbands to signify the embracing of death, and shouting "Shaheed, shaheed" (Martyr, martyr) they literally blew their way into heaven. Their numbers were never disclosed. But a walk through the residential suburbs of Iranian cities provided a clue. Window after window, block after block, displayed black-bordered photographs of teenage or preteen youths.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The relationship between these two nations has warmed immensely since the downfall of Saddam Hussein, but mostly out of pragmatic interest. Iran and Iraq share many common interests, as they share a common enemy in the Islamic State. Significant military assistance has been provided by Iran to Iraq and this has bought them a large amount of political influence in Iraq's newly elected Shia government. Iraq is also heavily dependent on the more stable and developed Iran for its energy needs, so a peaceful customer is likely a high priority for Iran, foreign policy wise.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: The Iran–Iraq War is regarded as being a major trigger for rising sectarianism in the region, as it was viewed by many as a clash between Sunni Muslims (Iraq and other Arab States) and the Shia revolutionaries that had recently taken power in Iran. There remains lingering animosity however; despite the pragmatic alliance that has been formed as multiple government declarations from Iran have stated that the war will "affect every issue of internal and foreign policy" for decades to come. The sustained importance of this conflict is attributed mostly to the massive human and economic cost resulting from it, along with its ties to the Iranian Revolution. Another significant effect that the war has on Iran's policy is the issue of remaining war reparations. The UN estimates that Iraq owes about $149 billion, while Iran contends that, with both the direct and indirect effects taken into account, the cost of the war reaches a trillion. Iran has not vocalized the desire for these reparations in recent years, and has even suggested forms of financial aid. This is due most likely to Iran's interest in keeping Iraq politically stable, and imposing these reparation costs would further burden the already impoverished nation. The most important factor that governs Iraq's current foreign policy is the national government's consistent fragility following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Iraq's need for any and all allies that can help bring stability and bring development has allowed Iran to exert significant influence over the new Iraqi state; despite lingering memories of the war. Iraq is far too weak of a state to attempt to challenge Iran regionally, so accepting support while focusing on counter insurgency and stabilization is in their best interest.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: Currently, it seems as though Iraq is being pulled in two opposing directions, between a practical relationship with Iran, who can provide a reliable source of power as well as military support to the influential Shia militias and political factions. The United States is pulling in the opposite direction as they offer Iraq significant economic aid packages, along with military support in the form of air and artillery strikes, all in the hopes to establish a stable ally in the region. If Iraq lurches too far in either direction, then the benefits offered to them by the other side will likely be gradually reduced or cut off completely. Another significant factor influencing relations is the shared cultural interests of their respective citizens, as they both wish to freely visit the multitude of holy sites located in both countries.


title: Iran–Iraq War

text: "We are armed with Allahu Akbar", the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolutionary military march song performed by IRGC troops in front of Ayatullah Khomeini in Jamaran Husinie, made a cultural impact during the war.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. Around 1922, he followed his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to Chicago to play in the . In Chicago, he spent time with other popular jazz musicians, reconnecting with his friend Bix Beiderbecke and spending time with Hoagy Carmichael and Lil Hardin. He earned a reputation at "cutting contests", and his fame reached band leader Fletcher Henderson. Henderson persuaded Armstrong to come to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band soloist and recording artist. Hardin became Armstrong's second wife and they returned to Chicago to play together and then he began to form his own "Hot" jazz bands. After years of touring, he settled in Queens, New York, and by the 1950s, he was a national musical icon, assisted in part, by his appearances on radio and in film and television, in addition to his concerts.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: With his instantly recognizable rich, gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer and skillful improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song. He was also skilled at scat singing. Armstrong is renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice as well as his trumpet playing. By the end of Armstrong's life, his influence had spread to popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first popular African-American entertainers to "cross over" to wide popularity with white (and international) audiences. He rarely publicly politicized his race, to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. He was able to access the upper echelons of American society at a time when this was difficult for black men.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong appeared in films such as "High Society" (1956) alongside Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra, and "Hello, Dolly!" (1969) starring Barbra Streisand. He received many accolades including three Grammy Award nominations and a win for his vocal performance of "Hello, Dolly!" in 1964. In 2017, he was posthumously inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901. His parents were Mary Estelle "Mayann" Albert and William Armstrong. Mary Albert was from Boutte, Louisiana, and gave birth at home when she was about sixteen. Less than a year and a half later, they had a daughter, Beatrice "Mama Lucy" Armstrong (1903-1987), who was raised by Albert. William Armstrong abandoned the family shortly thereafter.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Louis Armstrong was raised by his grandmother until the age of five when he was returned to his mother. He spent his youth in poverty in a rough neighborhood known as The Battlefield, on the southern section of Rampart Street. At six he attended the Fisk School for Boys, a school that accepted black children in the racially segregated system of New Orleans.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: At the age of 6, Armstrong lived with his mother and sister and worked for the Karnoffskys, a family of Lithuanian Jews, at their home. He would help their two sons, Morris and Alex, collect "rags and bones" and deliver coal. In 1969, while recovering from heart and kidney problems at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, Armstrong wrote "Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, LA., the year of 1907", a memoir describing his time working for the Karnofsky family.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong writes about singing "Russian Lullaby" with the Karnofsky family when their baby son David was put to bed and credits the family with teaching him to sing "from the heart." Curiously, Armstrong quotes lyrics for it that appear to be the same as the "Russian Lullaby," copyrighted by Irving Berlin in 1927, about twenty years after Armstrong remembered singing it as a child. Gary Zucker, Armstrong's doctor at Beth Israel hospital in 1969, shared Berlin's song lyrics with him, and Armstrong quoted them in the memoir. This inaccuracy may simply be because he wrote the memoir over 60 years after the events described. Regardless, the Karnoffskys treated Armstrong extremely well. Knowing he lived without a father, they fed and nurtured him.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In his memoir, "Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907", he described his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks" who felt that they were better than Jews: "I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for." He wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination." His first musical performance may have been at the side of the Karnoffskys' junk wagon. To distinguish them from other hawkers, he tried playing a tin horn to attract customers. Morris Karnoffsky gave Armstrong an advance toward the purchase of a cornet from a pawn shop.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong wore a Star of David until the end of his life in memory of this family who had raised him.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: When Armstrong was eleven, he dropped out of school. His mother moved into a one-room house on Perdido Street with Armstrong, Lucy, and her common-law husband, Tom Lee, next door to her brother Ike and his two sons. Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also got into trouble. Cornetist Bunk Johnson said he taught the eleven-year-old to play by ear at Dago Tony's honky tonk. (In his later years Armstrong credited King Oliver.) He said about his youth, "Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine — I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans ... It has given me something to live for."


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Borrowing his stepfather's gun without permission, he fired a blank into the air and was arrested on December 31, 1912. He spent the night at New Orleans Juvenile Court, then was sentenced the next day to detention at the Colored Waif's Home. Life at the home was spartan. Mattresses were absent; meals were often little more than bread and molasses. Captain Joseph Jones ran the home like a military camp and used corporal punishment.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong developed his cornet skills by playing in the band. Peter Davis, who frequently appeared at the home at the request of Captain Jones, became Armstrong's first teacher and chose him as bandleader. With this band, the thirteen-year-old Armstrong attracted the attention of Kid Ory.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: On June 14, 1914, Armstrong was released into the custody of his father and his new stepmother, Gertrude. He lived in this household with two stepbrothers for several months. After Gertrude gave birth to a daughter, Armstrong's father never welcomed him, so he returned to his mother, Mary Albert. In her small home, he had to share a bed with his mother and sister. His mother still lived in The Battlefield, leaving him open to old temptations, but he sought work as a musician. He found a job at a dance hall owned by Henry Ponce, who had connections to organized crime. He met the six-foot tall drummer Black Benny, who became his guide and bodyguard. Around the age of fifteen, he pimped for a prostitute named Nootsy, but that relationship failed after she stabbed Armstrong in the shoulder and his mother choked her nearly to death.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: He briefly studied shipping management at the local community college, but was forced to quit after being unable to afford the fees. While selling coal in Storyville, he heard spasm bands, groups that played music out of household objects. He heard the early sounds of jazz from bands that played in brothels and dance halls such as Pete Lala's, where King Oliver performed.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Early in his career, Armstrong played in brass bands and riverboats in New Orleans, first on an excursion boat in September 1918. He traveled with the band of Fate Marable, which toured on the steamboat "Sidney" with the Streckfus Steamers line up and down the Mississippi River. Marable was proud of his musical knowledge, and he insisted that Armstrong and other musicians in his band learn sight reading. Armstrong described his time with Marable as "going to the University", since it gave him a wider experience working with written arrangements. In 1919, Armstrong's mentor, King Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Throughout his riverboat experience, Armstrong's musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music. He became one of the first jazz musicians to be featured on extended trumpet solos, injecting his own personality and style. He also started singing in his performances.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In 1922, Armstrong moved to Chicago at the invitation of King Oliver, although Armstrong would return to New Orleans periodically for the rest of his life. Playing second cornet to Oliver in Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in the black-only Lincoln Gardens in Chicago's black neighborhood, he could make enough money to quit his day jobs. Although race relations were poor, Chicago was booming. The city had jobs for blacks making good wages at factories with some left over for entertainment.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Oliver's band was among the most influential jazz bands in Chicago in the early 1920s. Armstrong lived luxuriously in his own apartment with his first private bath. Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing letters to friends in New Orleans. Armstrong could blow two hundred high Cs in a row. As his reputation grew, he was challenged to cutting contests by other musicians.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: His first studio recordings were with Oliver for Gennett Records on April 56, 1923. They endured several hours on the train to remote Richmond, Indiana, and the band was paid little. The quality of the performances was affected by lack of rehearsal, crude recording equipment, bad acoustics, and a cramped studio. These early recordings were true acoustic, the band playing directly into a large funnel connected directly to the needle making the groove in the master recording. (Electrical recording was not invented until 1926 and Gennett installed it later.) Because Armstrong's playing was so loud, when he played next to Oliver, Oliver couldn't be heard on the recording. Armstrong had to stand fifteen feet away from Oliver, in a far corner of the room.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Lil Hardin, who Armstrong would marry in 1924, urged Armstrong to seek more prominent billing and develop his style apart from the influence of Oliver. At her suggestion, Armstrong began to play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skills; and he began to dress more in more stylish attire to offset his girth. Her influence eventually undermined Armstrong's relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional money that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong's mother, May Ann Albert, came to visit him in Chicago during the summer of 1923 after being told that Armstrong was "out of work, out of money, hungry, and sick"; Hardin located and decorated an apartment for her to live in while she stayed.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the time. He switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence on Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong adapted to the tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and experimenting with the trombone. The other members were affected by Armstrong's emotional style. His act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers. The Henderson Orchestra played in prominent venues for white patrons only, including the Roseland Ballroom, with arrangements by Don Redman. Duke Ellington's orchestra went to Roseland to catch Armstrong's performances.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: During this time, Armstrong recorded with Clarence Williams (a friend from New Orleans), the Williams Blue Five, Sidney Bechet, and blues singers Alberta Hunter, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In 1925, Armstrong returned to Chicago largely at the insistence of Lil, who wanted to expand his career and his income. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as "The World's Greatest Trumpet Player". For a time he was a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife. He formed Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five and recorded the hits "Potato Head Blues" and "Muggles". The word "muggles" was a slang term for marijuana, something he used often during his life.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: The Hot Five included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), Lil Armstrong on piano, and usually no drummer. Over a twelve-month period starting in November 1925, this quintet produced twenty-four records. Armstrong's band leading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded ... always did his best to feature each individual." Among the Hot Five and Seven records were "Cornet Chop Suey", "Struttin' With Some Barbecue", "Hotter Than that" and "Potato Head Blues", all featuring highly creative solos by Armstrong. According to Thomas Brothers, recordings, such as "Struttin' with Some Barbeque", were so superb, "planned with density and variety, bluesyness, and showiness," that the arrangements were probably showcased at the Sunset Café. His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, their famous 1928 "Weather Bird" duet and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to and solo in "West End Blues", remain some of the most influential improvisations in jazz history. Young trumpet players across the country bought these recordings and memorized his solos.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "Whip That Thing, Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, Do That Clarinet, Boy!"


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate's Little Symphony, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly", which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began scat singing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on the Hot Five recording "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had seldom performed live. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong's new type of jazz.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers, though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators. It was at the Sunset Café that Armstrong accompanied singer Adelaide Hall. It was during Hall's tenure at the venue that she experimented, developed and expanded her scat singing with Armstrong's guidance and encouragement.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In the first half of 1927, Armstrong assembled his Hot Seven group, which added drummer Al "Baby" Dodds and tuba player, Pete Briggs, while preserving most of his original Hot Five lineup. John Thomas replaced Kid Ory on trombone. Later that year he organized a series of new Hot Five sessions which resulted in nine more records. In the last half of 1928, he started recording with a new group: Zutty Singleton (drums), Earl Hines (piano), Jimmy Strong (clarinet), Fred Robinson (trombone), and Mancy Carr (banjo).


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong made a huge impact during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. His music touched well-known writer Langston Hughes. Hughes admired Armstrong and acknowledged him as one of the most recognized musicians of the era. Hughes wrote many books that celebrated jazz and recognized Armstrong as one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance's newfound love of African-American culture. The sound of jazz, along with musicians such as Armstrong, helped shape Hughes as a writer. Just like the musicians, Hughes wrote his words with jazz.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong changed jazz during the Harlem Renaissance. As "The World's Greatest Trumpet Player" during this time, Armstrong cemented his legacy and continued a focus on his vocal career. His popularity brought together many black and white audiences.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong returned to New York in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra for the musical "Hot Chocolates", an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist Fats Waller. He made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'". His version of the song became his biggest selling record yet.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows, and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted warmth to vocals and became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's interpretation of Carmichael's "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that were already standards.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is introduced by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh"..."Sure"..."Way down, way down." In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong "scat singing".


title: Louis Armstrong

text: As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation for jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gravelly coloration of his voice became an archetype that was endlessly imitated. His scat singing was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: The Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson's band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor, later moving to Paris and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, "Ex-Flame", and was also convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town, Armstrong visited New Orleans, had a hero's welcome, and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as Armstrong's Secret Nine and had a cigar named after him. But soon he was on the road again. After a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, he fled to Europe.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: After returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins's erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. He hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, mob troubles and debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result, he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit "Pennies from Heaven". In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943, in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes. Ballrooms closed and there was competition from other types of music, especially pop vocals, becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to finance a 16-piece touring band.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: A widespread revival of interest in the 1940s in the traditional jazz of the 1920s made it possible for Armstrong to consider a return to the small-group musical style of his youth. Armstrong was featured as a guest artist with Lionel Hampton's band at the famed second Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, produced by Leon Hefflin Sr., on October 12, 1946. He also led a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden. During the concert, Armstrong and Teagarden performed a duet on Hoagy Carmichael's "Rockin' Chair" they then recorded for Okeh Records.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser, changed the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 into a six-piece traditional jazz group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and Dixieland musicians, most of whom were previously leaders of big bands. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: This smaller group was called Louis Armstrong and His All Stars and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid "Buddy" Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Mort Herbert, Joe Darensbourg, Eddie Shu, Joe Muranyi and percussionist Danny Barcelona.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: On February 28, 1948, Suzy Delair sang the French song "C'est si bon" at the Hotel Negresco during the first Nice Jazz Festival. Louis Armstrong was present and loved the song. On June 26, 1950, he recorded the American version of the song (English lyrics by Jerry Seelen) in New York City with Sy Oliver and his Orchestra. When it was released, the disc was a worldwide success and the song was then performed by the greatest international singers.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of "Time" magazine, on February 21, 1949. Louis Armstrong and his All Stars were featured at the ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert also at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. held on June 7, 1953, along with Shorty Rogers, Roy Brown, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, Earl Bostic, and Nat "King" Cole.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Over 30 years, Armstrong played more than 300 performances a year, making many recordings and appearing in over thirty films.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: By the 1950s, Armstrong was a widely beloved American icon and cultural ambassador who commanded an international fanbase. However, a growing generation gap became apparent between him and the young jazz musicians who emerged in the postwar era such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Sonny Rollins. The postwar generation regarded their music as abstract art and considered Armstrong's vaudevillian style, half-musician and half-stage entertainer, outmoded and Uncle Tomism. "... he seemed a link to minstrelsy that we were ashamed of." He called bebop "Chinese music". While touring Australia in 1954, he was asked if he could play bebop. "'Bebop?' he husked. 'I just play music. Guys who invent terms like that are walking the streets with their instruments under their arms'".


title: Louis Armstrong

text: After finishing his contract with Decca Records, he went freelance and recorded for other labels. He continued an intense international touring schedule, but in 1959 he suffered a heart attack in Italy and had to rest.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In 1964, after over two years without setting foot in a studio, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record produced that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person to accomplish that feat. His hit dislodged The Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong toured well into his 60s, even visiting part of the Communist Bloc in 1965. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under the sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch" and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical "The Real Ambassadors". By 1968, he was approaching 70 and his health was failing. His heart and kidney ailments forced him to stop touring. He did not perform publicly in 1969 and spent most of the year recuperating at home. Meanwhile, his longtime manager Joe Glaser died. By the summer of 1970, his doctors pronounced him fit enough to resume live performances. He embarked on another world tour, but a heart attack forced him to take a break for two months.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong made his last recorded trumpet performances on his 1968 album "Disney Songs the Satchmo Way".


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong stated, "All white folks call me Louie," suggesting that he himself did not, or that no whites addressed him by one of his nicknames such as Pops. That said, Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he is called "Louie" on stage, such as on the 1952 "Can Anyone Explain?" from the live album "In Scandinavia vol.1". The same applies to his 1952 studio recording of the song "Chloe", where the choir in the background sings "Louie ... Louie", with Armstrong responding "What was that? Somebody called my name?". "Lewie" is the French pronunciation of "Louis" and is commonly used in Louisiana.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong was performing at the Brick House in Gretna, Louisiana, when he met Daisy Parker, a local prostitute, and started an affair as a client. He returned to Gretna on several occasions to visit her. He found the courage to look for her home to see her away from work. There he found out she had a common-law husband. Not long after that fiasco, Parker traveled to Armstrong's home on Perdido Street. They checked into Kid Green's hotel that evening. On the next day, March 19, 1919, Armstrong and Parker married at City Hall. They adopted a three-year-old boy, Clarence, whose mother, Armstrong's cousin Flora, had died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was mentally disabled as a result of a head injury at an early age, and Armstrong spent the rest of his life taking care of him. His marriage to Parker ended when they separated in 1923.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: On February 4, 1924, he married Lil Hardin Armstrong, King Oliver's pianist. She had divorced her first husband a few years earlier. His second wife helped him develop his career, but they separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938. Armstrong then married Alpha Smith. His relationship with Alpha began while he was playing at the Vendome during the 1920s and continued long after. His marriage to her lasted four years; they divorced in 1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club in New York, in October 1942. They remained married until his death in 1971.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong's marriages produced no offspring. However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to be his daughter from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille "Sweets" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club. In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser to pay a monthly allowance of $400 ($ in dollars) to mother and child.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: Armstrong was colorful and charismatic. His autobiography vexed some biographers and historians because he had a habit of telling tales, particularly about his early childhood when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments lack consistency.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: In addition to being an entertainer, Armstrong was a leading personality. He was beloved by an American public that usually offered little access beyond their public celebrity to even the greatest African American performers, and he was able to live a private life of access and privilege afforded to few other African Americans during that era.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: He generally remained politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the black community who expected him to use his prominence within white America to become more outspoken during the civil rights movement. However, he did criticize President Eisenhower for not acting forcefully enough on civil rights.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: The trumpet is notoriously hard on the lips, and Armstrong suffered from lip damage over most of his life. This was due to his aggressive style of playing and preference for narrow mouthpieces that would stay in place more easily, but which tended to dig into the soft flesh of his inner lip. During his 1930s European tour, he suffered an ulceration so severe that he had to stop playing entirely for a year. Eventually he took to using salves and creams on his lips and also cutting off scar tissue with a razor blade. By the 1950s, he was an official spokesman for Ansatz-Creme Lip Salve.


title: Louis Armstrong

text: During a backstage meeting with trombonist Marshall Brown in 1959, Armstrong received the suggestion to see a doctor and receive proper treatment for his lips instead of relying on home remedies, but he did not get around to that until his final years, by which point his health was failing and the doctors considered surgery too risky.