Hattip Dr. Steve, who thought we might enjoy this. Very long with lots of links, so grab the beverage of your choice, get comfortable, and dig in. A taste:
[WarOnTheRocks] The issues putting pressure on the U.S.-Iraqi relationship are daunting. The confrontation between Iran 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
and the United States frequently plays out on Iraqi streets. COVID-19 is spreading at alarming rates and overwhelming Iraq’s beleaguered healthcare system. The collapsing oil market has the country’s finances on the brink. Washington has focused its support to Baghdad on much-needed economic and political reforms, while also encouraging the government’s more assertive stance against Popular Mobilization Forces militias operating beyond the state’s control. Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Fat Tony demanded his rosco back. He didn't say
please...
the Pentagon has sought to help the Iraqi military maintain pressure against the remnants of ISIS while continuing to reduce the number of American troops in the country.
Given everything happening in the bilateral relationship, why was a historical archive based in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, on the agenda of the recent U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue?
The State Department is currently in the process of returning to Iraq some 6.5 million pages of documents from Saddam Hussein’s regime. The archive in question, currently at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, contains mountains of seemingly mundane paperwork generated by the bureaucracy running a single-party state. But it also includes sensitive material pertaining to the membership files of the former ruling Baʿth Party, regime informants, and information gathered by the security services on prominent political figures and ordinary citizens alike.
The U.S. government’s longstanding relationship with Mustafa al-Kadhimi
...erstwhile anti-Saddam activist, in 2016 he was tapped to be Iraq’s spy chief...
, Iraq’s new prime minister who is deeply familiar with the issue of the documents, offers a valuable opportunity for cooperation on this matter and a number of related historical and archival issues. Although improved cultural ties will not mitigate the severe fiscal, public-health, and political challenges facing Iraq, positive developments on this front may create a better environment to address other issues as well. Increased American political support for ongoing diplomatic efforts should help strengthen U.S.-Iraqi relations, foster an increasingly positive relationship between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, and continue to safeguard an important part of Iraq’s historical patrimony for all of its citizens.HISTORY OF THE BAʿTH PARTY ARCHIVE
Secured as a result of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Baʿth Regional Command Collection, also known as the Baʿth Party Archive, will be the final Saddam-regime collection of documents returned to Iraq that were transferred outside the country during the 1991 and 2003 wars. The documents have been in the possession of the Iraq Memory Foundation, a non-governmental organization registered first in Washington, D.C. and later Baghdad, since 2003. In 2005, with the approval of Iraq’s interim government, the Defense Department airlifted the documents out of Iraq for safekeeping in the United States. At the time, the security situation in Baghdad was rapidly deteriorating as the country descended into civil war. Pentagon officials under then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz supported the airlift on the grounds that the documents were useful for understanding the predominantly Sunni-based insurgency battling U.S. troops in central and western Iraq. Upon arriving in West Virginia, Defense Intelligence Agency personnel completed the digitization of the documents, a process that had begun in Baghdad.