Editing Iran–Iraq War (section)

===Iraq===
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.<ref name=efraimkarsh />

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.<ref name=efraimkarsh /> Saddam also began implementing a policy of discrimination against Iraqis of Iranian origin.<ref name="Farrokh 03" />

In the summer of 1982, Saddam began a [[state terrorism|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 six were hanged.<ref name=efraimkarsh />

The crackdown on Kurds saw the executions of 8,000 members of the [[Barzani Kurds|Barzani clan]], whose head ([[Massoud Barzani]]) also led the Kurdistan Democratic Party. 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 [[Anfal campaign]] was intended to pacify Iraqi Kurdistan permanently.<ref name="efraimkarsh" /> By 1983, the Barzanis had allied with Iran.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Entessar|first=Nader|title=Kurdish Ethnonationalism|date=1992|publisher=Lynn Rienner Publishers|isbn=978-1-55587-250-2|page=131}}</ref>

====Gaining civilian support====
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 [[Ali|Imam Ali]]'s tomb with Italian white marble.<ref name=efraimkarsh /> The Baathists also increased their policies of repression against the Shia. The most infamous event was the [[Dujail Massacre|massacre of 148 civilians]] of the Shia town of [[Dujail]].<ref name="Dujail-Indian Express">{{cite news|title=The Dujail Massacre|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-dujail-massacre-/19772|date=31 December 2006|newspaper=The Indian Express}}</ref>

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.<ref name=bulloch89 />{{rp|75–76|date=November 2012}} 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.<ref name=bulloch89 />{{rp|76|date=November 2012}} 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.<ref name=katzman>{{cite report|url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22079.pdf|title=The Kurds in Post-Saddam Iraq|page=2|date=1 October 2010|access-date=2 August 2011|publisher=Congressional Research Service|author=Katzman, Kenneth|via=Federation of American Scientists|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110815173718/http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22079.pdf|archive-date=15 August 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name=efraimkarsh />