While waiting in the reception line, to meet the governor, Rashida tried to fill me in on some history.

Saddam headed the Ba’ath party. They were a secular party built along the Soviet Socialist lines. Non-religious, to the point of appointed a Christian Foreign minister, they were primarily Sunni. They repressed both the Kurds in the north and the Shi’a in the southeast. The Iran-Iraq war was as much a religious conflict as a military one. Shi’a Iran vs. Sunni Iraq. Their conflict goes back to who would succeed Prophet Mohammed.

To be a Ba’athist was the only way to power in Iraq. If you weren’t a member you didn’t work for the government, you didn’t teach, you didn’t go to college. When Saddam was overthrown, every Ba’ath was tossed out with him. The Shi’a took control, but they were allied with Iran and opposed by the Sunni Ba’athist and Al-Quada in Iraq. The Kurds in the north largely succeeded in setting up their own government. The allied forces were caught in the middle, shot at by both sides.