History
Formed in 1969, it was originally created to be the Presidential bodyguard. Its primary objective was to maintain the stability of the regime and provide protection against internal and external enemies. During the Iran-Iraq War, it was expanded into a large military force. It was disbanded along with the rest of Iraqi military after the U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the Coalition Provisional Authority of the occupying U.S. and U.K. forces.
The force's last commander was Qusay Hussein, the younger son of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was so confident about the capability of the guard that he had said: "In history when they write about Napoleon's Guard, they will arrange them next to the Republican Guard of Iraq."
Read more about this topic: Republican Guard (Iraq)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)