From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary EnglishIraqI‧raq /ɪˈrɑːk. -æk/ an oil-producing country in southwest Asia, between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Population: 31,858,481 (2014). Capital: Baghdad. Under its leader Saddam Hussein, Iraq was at war with Iran from 1980 to 1988. In 1990 it invaded Kuwait and this led to the Gulf War. In 2003, military forces led by the US invaded Iraq to remove Hussein from power, and to find the weapons of mass destruction that they believed he was hiding. They caught Saddam Hussein but did not find any weapons of mass destruction. Hussein was executed in 2006 and a council of Iraqi leaders ruled the country until elections in 2010. US military forces left Iraq in 2011. —Iraqi noun, adjective
