There are a number of languages spoken in Iraq, but Iraqi Arabic is by far the most widely spoken in the country.
Arabic is the majority language, Kurdish is spoken by approximately 20% of the population, South Azeri (called Turkmen locally) by 5% - 10%, and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic by 3% - 5%. Mandaic and other Neo-Aramaic varieties, Shabaki, Armenian, Roma, and Persian are spoken by small numbers of between 25,000 and 100,000 each. There may be a few Chechen, Georgian, and other Caucasian language speakers also.
Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and South Azeri are written with versions of the Arabic script, the Neo-Aramaic languages in the Syriac script and Armenian is written in the Armenian script.
Prior to the invasion in 2003, Arabic was the sole official language. Since the new Constitution of Iraq approved in June 2004, both Arabic and Kurdish are official languages, while Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and South Azeri (referred to as respectively "Syriac" and "Turkmen" in the constitution) are recognized regional languages. In addition, any region or province may declare other languages official if a majority of the population approves in a general referendum.
Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or i/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.
Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.
Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.
Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.
Leila Fadel (born 1981) is an American journalist, currently serving as Cairo bureau chief for the Washington Post.
Fadel worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a crime and higher education reporter. She covered the war in Iraq for Knight Ridder and McClatchy from June 2005 to 2009. She also covered the 2006 Lebanon War.
In 2010, she joined the Washington Post's Middle East team.
On February 2, 2011, Fadel and photographer photographer Linda Davidson were among some two dozen journalists arrested by the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Next day, February 3, Fadel and Davidson were released but placed under house arrest at a hotel. Two local Post employees remained in custody, interpreter Sufian Taha and driver Mansour el-Sayed Mohammed Abo Gouda; according to Fadel, Abo Gouda was beaten.
Fadel grew up in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia; She speaks conversational Arabic. She graduated from Northeastern University in 2004.