| وزارة الدفاع | |
 | |
 | |
| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed |
|
| Jurisdiction | Government of Iraq |
| Headquarters | Green Zone,Baghdad |
| Annual budget | $21.1 Billion (2024)[1] |
| Minister responsible | |
| Website | www |
The Ministry of Defence (Arabic:وزارة الدفاع العراقية) is acentral governmentministry of Iraq responsible fornational defence. It is also involved withinternal security.
The Ministry directs all theIraqi Armed Forces, comprising a Joint Headquarters, theIraqi Ground Forces Command (which controls the Army), theIraqi Special Operations Forces, theIraqi Army, theIraqi Navy (including Marines), and theIraqi Air Force.[2]
The Ministry was dissolved byCoalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2 of mid-2003. It was formally re-established by CPA Order 67 of 21 March 2004. In the interim period, the CPA Office of Security Affairs served as thede facto Ministry of Defence.[3]
The Iraqi Counter Terrorism Bureau directs the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Command, which is a further military force answerable to thePrime Minister of Iraq directly. As of 30 June 2009, there had been legislation in progress for a year to make the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Bureau a separate ministry.[4]
The position ofMinister of Defence became vacant in the previous Iraqi cabinet, approved on 21 December 2010. While it was vacant, Prime MinisterNouri al-Maliki served as the acting defence minister.Saadoun al-Dulaimi later served as Minister of Defence from 2011 to 2014.Khaled al-Obaidi served as defence minister in the Iraqi cabinet of Prime MinisterHaider al-Abadi.Juma Inad served as defence minister from May 2020 to October of 2022 under the caretaker government ofMustafa al-Kadhimi.Thabit al-Abassi serves as the current minister of defence as of 2022.
The previous Minister of Defence, Lieutenant GeneralAbd al-Qadr Muhammed Jassim al-Obaidi, is aSunni career military officer and political independent. He had limited experience and faced a number of hurdles impeding his effective governance. Some of the major problems included inheriting a staff that is notorious for favouritism, corruption, and deeply divided along sectarian and ethnic lines. He was a rival of the former Minister of the Interior Jawad al-Bolani,National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rubai, and Minister of Staff for National Security Affairs Shirwan al-Waili. He has been criticized for not being able to stand up to theBadr Organization andMehdi Army members which dominate his own party. In addition, as a Sunni he faced inherent challenges working within a Shiite-dominated government.
On 19 September 2005,The Independent reported that approximately one billion US dollars have been stolen by top ranking officials from the Ministry of Defence includingHazim al-Shaalan andZiyad Cattan.[5]
Previous defence ministers underSaddam Hussein's regime includedAli Hassan al-Majid ('Chemical Ali'). Iraq's first minister of defence wasJafar al-Askari (1920–1922).
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(April 2017) |
| Name | Portrait | Term of office | Political party | Prime Minister | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jafar al-Askari |  | 23 October 1920 | 16 November 1922 | Abd Al-Rahman Al-Gillani | |||
| Nuri as-Said |  | 20 November 1922 | 2 August 1924 | ||||
| Yasin al-Hashimi |  | 2 August 1924 | 2 June 1925 | ||||
| Nuri as-Said | | 26 June 1925 | 8 January 1928 | ||||
| Abd al-Muhsin as-Sa'dun | .jpg) | 14 January 1928 | 20 January 1929 | ||||
| Muhammad Amin Zaki |  | 28 April 1929 | 25 August 1929 | ||||
| Nuri al-Sa’id | | 19 September 1929 | 19 March 1930 | ||||
| Jafar al-Askari |  | 23 March 1930 | 27 October 1932 | ||||
| Rashid al-Khawja | 3 November 1932 | 18 March 1933 | |||||
| Jalal Baban | 20 March 1933 | 28 October 1933 | |||||
| Name | Portrait | Term of office | Political party | President | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abd al-Karim Qasim |  | 14 July 1958 | 8 February 1963 | Independent | Muhammad Najib ar-Ruba'i | ||
| Salah Mahdi Ammash | 8 February 1963 | 10 November 1963 | Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | Abdul Salam Arif | |||
| Hardan al-Tikriti |  | 10 November 1963 | 2 March 1964 | ||||
| Tahir Yahya |  | 2 March 1964 | 3 September 1965 | Arab Socialist Union | |||
| Arif Abd ar-Razzaq |  | 6 September 1965 | 16 September 1965 | Arab Socialist Union | |||
| Abd al-'Aziz al-'Uqaili | 21 September 1965 | 18 April 1966 | |||||
| Shakir Mahmud Shukri | 18 April 1966 | 17 July 1968 | Abdul Rahman Arif | ||||
| Name | Portrait | Term of office | Political party | President | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ibrahim Abdel Rahman Dawoud | 17 July 1968 | 30 July 1968 | Independent | Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr | |||
| Hardan al-Tikriti | | 30 July 1968 | April 1970 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Hammad Shihab |  | April 1970 | 30 June 1973 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Abdullah al-Khadduri(acting) | 30 June 1973 | 11 November 1974 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | ||||
| Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr |  | 11 November 1974 | 15 October 1977 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Adnan Khairallah |  | 15 October 1977 | 4 May 1989 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | Saddam Hussein | ||
| Abdul Jabbar Shanshal |  | 4 May 1989 | 1990 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Saadi Toma |  | 12 December 1990 | 6 April 1991 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Ali Hassan al-Majid |  | 1991 | 1995 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Sultan Hashim | .jpg) | 1995 | 2003 | Iraqi Ba'ath Party (Iraq Region) | |||
| Name | Portrait | Term of office | Political party | Prime Minister | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ali Allawi |  | April 2004 | June 2004 | Independent | Ayad Allawi | ||
| Hazim al-Shaalan | June 2004 | 1 June 2005 | Iraqi National Congress | ||||
| Saadoun al-Dulaimi |  | 1 June 2005 | 6 March 2006 | Independent | Ibrahim al-Jaafari | ||
| Abdul Qadir Obeidi |  | 6 March 2006 | 21 December 2010 | Independent | Nouri al-Maliki | ||
| Nouri al-Maliki |  | 21 December 2010 | 17 August 2011 | State of Law Coalition | |||
| Saadoun al-Dulaimi | | 17 August 2011 | 18 October 2014 | Unity Alliance of Iraq | |||
| Khaled al-Obaidi |  | 18 October 2014 | 19 August 2016 | Unity Alliance of Iraq | Haider al-Abadi | ||
| Othman al-Ghanmi (interim) |  | 19 August 2016 | 30 January 2017 | State of Law Coalition | |||
| Erfan al-Hiyali |  | 30 January 2017 | 24 June 2019[citation needed] | State of Law Coalition | |||
| Najah al-Shammari | .jpg) | 24 June 2019[6] | 6 May 2020[7] | Adil Abdul-Mahdi | |||
| Juma Inad |  | 6 May 2020 | 27 October 2022[8] | Independent | Mustafa Al-Kadhimi | ||
| Thabit al-Abassi | .jpg) | 27 October 2022 | Incumbent | Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani | |||
| Military | |
|---|---|
| Paramilitary |
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| Law enforcement | |
| Intelligence | |
