Editing Iran–Iraq War (section)

====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 />