Spokane’s Refugees: Iraq

   The United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Much good and bad has come as a result of this invasion.  One tragedy has been the creation of millions of refugees.  Many of these Iraqi refugees have now come to Spokane. In this next installation of our series on refugees’ countries of origin, we’ll take a look at Iraq.

Iraq

   Officially called the Republic of Iraq, and alternatively as Mesopotamia, this country is bordered by Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Iraq is immediately in the center of the "Fertile Crescent," the birthplace of Old World civilization, and has been continually occupied by civilizations since 6000 BCE: Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Babylon, Assyria, the Achaemenid Empire, the Seleucid Empire, Parth, Rome, and Persia. The Islamic Caliphate later took control. Later, the Mongol Empire invaded, and then the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, the United Kingdom drove the Ottoman Empire out of the area and took control over Transjordan (containing Iraq) and Palestine. Iraq was given independence under King Faisal in 1932; in 1958 King Faisal II was overthrown by a coup of the Iraqi Army, and in 1979 Suddam Hussein took power. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and economic sanctions were placed against the country from 1990 to 2003.

   The country has been called al-Iraq since the 6th century CE, and the name "the land of iraq" means "the fertile land" or "deep-rooted land."

   There are numerous languages used in Iraq, predominatly Arabic and Kurdish, but also including Aramaic, Armenian, and South Azeri.