Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Iraqi Media:

Baghdad, Jan 22, (VOI) – The Iraqi parliament voted by majority on Tuesday over a draft to modify the nation’s flag by removing the three stars and keeping the words Allahu Akbar, or God is Great, a legislator from the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC) said.

“Some 110 members out of 165 present members approved the flag change,” Iman Hamid told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

“The voting came upon a proposal to remove the three stars from the Iraq flag and retaining the Allahu Akbar words in green Arabic Kufi calligraphy,” she said.

The current Iraqi flag has three colors – red, white and black – with three green stars symbolizing the dissolved Baath Party of the former regime. The regime of Saddam Hussein had added Allahu Akbar to the flag months before the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War.

The Iraqi parliament had debated during the past couple of weeks the first and second readings of a draft to change the national flag.
The UIC is the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 83 out of a total 275 seats.

British Media:

Daily Mail:

In a symbol of the violent break with the brutal past under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi parliament has today voted to adopt a new, temporary national flag.

The move has been long demanded by the country’s Kurdish minority who say the Saddam Hussein-era banner is a reminder of the cruelty of his rule.

There was rare unity among members of parliament over the emotional issue. A previous attempt to change the flag, by the interim government in 2004, was universally rejected by Iraqis.

The debate over a post-Saddam flag was accelerated by a planned pan-Arab meeting of politicians in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region on March 10. Kurdish officials had refused to fly the current flag, which is banned in Kurdistan.

The new flag will have a limited shelf-life - it will last for one year, during which time debate will continue on what the final flag should look like.

There was no serious opposition among the Shi’ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs in parliament to the proposed temporary flag - 110 out of the 165 members present supported the change - because it is almost identical to the old one.

It is still red, white and black, but the three green stars in the centre representing unity, freedom and socialism, the motto of Saddam’s now outlawed Baath party, have been removed.

The phrase Allahu Akbar (God is great), added in green Arabic script on Saddam’s orders during the 1991 Gulf War, however, remains. The script was originally in Saddam’s handwriting but the calligraphy was unofficially changed in 2004.