Show Iraq the Money: United States and United Kingdom Technical Assistance to the Baghdad Pact

Date

2018-05

Authors

McCurdy, Coffey

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Abstract

The Baghdad Pact, an agreement intended to provide an avenue for economic, scientific, and military cooperation between Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom (UK), provides a specific example to evaluate the level of technical assistance given to the Baghdad Pact member states by the UK and the United States (US). In order to limit the field, the researcher focuses on atomic assistance given to the Baghdad Pact Nuclear Centre, a training center built in Baghdad that conducted courses on different nuclear techniques requested by the pact member states. From this preliminary basis, the researcher asks, does the US or the UK provided more assistance to the Baghdad Pact Nuclear Centre? Ultimately, the point of the thesis is to ascertain which state, the US or the UK, provided more assistance and in what fashion was the assistance given. To find the answers to these questions, both the UK and US National Archives were assessed for documents relating to the Baghdad Pact and then were narrowed to those discussing the Baghdad Pact Nuclear Centre. Six documents from each archive were selected. The twelve documents are then presented with preliminary findings from each document and then compared to one another to show the level of involvement, gauged by the different types and quantities of technical assistance given to the Baghdad Pact Nuclear Centre. While most would assume that the US was the primary provider of technical assistance to the Baghdad Pact Nuclear Centre, the UK appears to be the largest provider of assistance. The technical assistance being provided to pact member states, by the UK, is quite large, why does the UK find this use of funds necessary? Why is the US largely uninvolved in the Baghdad Pact and its pursuits of atomic knowledge? Both of these questions, while briefly mentioned in this thesis, necessitate more research to better understand both the US and UK's relationship to the Middle East.

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Keywords

Baghdad Pact, Iraq, Baghdad Pact Nuclear Center, technical assistance, atoms for peace, atomic technology, Honors College

Citation

McCurdy, C. (2018). Show Iraq the money: United States and United Kingdom technical assistance to the Baghdad Pact (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.

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