First Gulf War Īfter the 1991 First Gulf War, during which the port was bombed, control of the inlet leading to Umm Qasr was transferred to Kuwait. The port of Basra, located on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, became unusable as it was just miles from the Iranian border. Iran–Iraq War ĭuring the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), the ports importance increased as fighting restricted access to other ports further east along the Shatt al-Arab. The port opened for business in July 1967. The port facilities were built by a consortium of companies from West Germany, Sweden and Lebanon, with Iraqi Republic Railways services connecting it to Basra and Baghdad. Founded in 1961, it was intended to serve as Iraq's only "deep water" port, reducing the country's dependence on the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway that marks the border with Iran. The new regime of General Abdul-Karim Qassem undertook mass planning of the economy of Iraq, based on oil export and factory based production, which required new shipping facilities. In 1958 after the coup d'etat of the Iraqi Army known as the 14 July Revolution, the Iraqi Navy established a base there. It fell back into obscurity after the war, but the government of King Faisal II sought to establish a permanent port there in the 1950s. During the Second World War a temporary port was established there by the Allies to unload supplies to dispatch to the Soviet Union. Umm Qasr was originally a small fishing town, but was said to have been the site of Alexander the Great's landing in Mesopotamia in 325 BC.
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