Kirkuk
City in IraqWikipedia
57
MENTIONS
26
EPISODES
23
PODCASTS
Search complete. 57 mentions across 26 episodes found for "Kirkuk".
Sep 12, 2026
Matthew HoGUEST
Not once, but twice.
Matthew HoGUEST
I think in 97, I think it was 97 again when Saddam went like into Kirkuk and up to Erbil.
Matthew HoGUEST
Wasn't that
Brandon WeichertHOST
Operation Desert Fox? Well, Desert
Julia CurleeGUEST
In the Oliver Holmes quotes, we shared the incommunicable experience of war.
Julia CurleeGUEST
It was just like a tide that pulled us all away and I found myself sooner than later in Iraq for the first of five tours, and then in Afghanistan and all the places that a person like me would serve, whether it's Baghdad or Kirkuk or Ramadi or Kabul or coast, I was there at one point or another over the next 15 years.
Julia CurleeGUEST
And it defined all of my adult life.
Julia CurleeGUEST
CIA became my family, my home, the place I transitioned genders, gave me my identity.
Scott HortonGUEST
a small part of Saudi Arabia, and they're the majority in Bahrain under the control of the Sunni king there, but especially they're in southeastern Iraq and in Iran.
Scott HortonGUEST
But all of the rest of those countries are super majority Sunni Arab populations, and Iran, just like in Iraq War II, the Shiites, once they took control of the country, they didn't, first of all, they had all the oil down in the south near Basra and up near Kirkuk, so they didn't really feel the need to lord their control over the Sunni regions, which is why it was so easy for the Islamic State to take it over a few years later.
Scott HortonGUEST
It was essentially stateless territory out there.
Scott HortonGUEST
where the Shiites got theirs.
Truman VailHOST
There's also a liquidity crisis building in Iraq that's adding real pressure to the currency reform question.
Truman VailHOST
A banknote shortage is creating daily disruption in markets, Kirkuk was specifically cited, and the shortage is tied to Iraq's reliance on large denomination notes in a cash-heavy economy.
Truman VailHOST
When your smallest commonly used note is worth about 19 cents and your economy runs on physical currency, you need a lot of paper in circulation just to make change.
Truman VailHOST
That creates logistical strain, printing costs, and genuine liquidity problems when cash can't move fast enough to where it's needed.
Jay PowersGUEST
But we had 180, so we were doing it for tactical purpose.
Jay PowersGUEST
And, uh, there was one team up in Kirkuk that was doing it especially well.
Jay PowersGUEST
And now if you know anything about Iraqi, the political and geographic landscape, Kirkuk is in northern Iraq, right near the border between the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and the rest of the government of Iraq.
Jay PowersGUEST
So there's a political divide there.
Jay PowersGUEST
There's also an ethnic divide because north of that border are primarily Kurds, and south of that border are primarily Arabs.
Jay PowersGUEST
Um, then northern Iraq is primarily Sunni Muslim, but there's a ton of oil wealth around Kirkuk, and that has also attracted Shia Muslims.
Jay PowersGUEST
So now you've got some religious faction challenges there between Shia and Sunni Muslims both wanting to control all this vast oil wealth.
Jay PowersGUEST
And then the vast oil wealth also brings in terrorist groups who wants access.
Trevor CulleyHOST
As the Seleucids settled in as the rulers of West Asia, Assyria at long last started receiving some long-forgotten imperial attention.
Trevor CulleyHOST
The crumbling and shrinking remains of some old Assyrian cities like Kirkuk along the Euphrates began to grow as important strategic and economic links between the Syrian Seleucus and Babylonia.
Trevor CulleyHOST
New canals were dug in southern Assyria, and there is some limited evidence of even Greek attempts to start rebuilding Nineveh.
Trevor CulleyHOST
A local Seleucid noble even constructed a new palace at the site now called Tel Bedar.
GregHOST
How did you meet him?
Morgan LeretteGUEST
So, so this was when I was in Kirkuk, but we drove to a little place called Lake Dokkan and it's like a little resort area and it's a lake.
Morgan LeretteGUEST
Um, it's, I don't know.
Morgan LeretteGUEST
I mean, it's like, it's like a third of a lake.
12 MINS LATER
Morgan LeretteGUEST
I say, well, kind of.
Morgan LeretteGUEST
So I got fired first when I was in Baghdad.
Morgan LeretteGUEST
They sent me to Kirkuk.
Morgan LeretteGUEST
That's what happens.
Denny GillemHOST
And on 4 September 2004, insurgents classed with American and Iraqi troops in northern Iraq.
Denny GillemHOST
A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside a police academy in Kirkuk and hundreds of trainees and civilians leaving for the day killed 17 and wounded 36.
Denny GillemHOST
Terrorists are terrorists, aren't they? They're going to be there.
Matt HayesHOST
It's a dark day.
Will HudsonGUEST
And, um, that's really what kind of when the Kevlar blankets and stuff started showing up, and we could kind of outfit the Humvees a little, because we, we really didn't have any protection outside of that and body armor, you know.
Jack MurphyHOST
And did you guys make your way down to Kirkuk? Was that sort of where you finished?
Will HudsonGUEST
We did.
Jack MurphyHOST
Yeah.
Will HudsonGUEST
Yeah, we made it down to that area, and I'm trying to remember, honestly, man, because it's been so many years now [laughs] and so many deployments have passed.
Will HudsonGUEST
But, uh, yeah, I think I would say in around the Kirkuk area is kind of where we, we finished out.
Will HudsonGUEST
And we, you know, it's, you know, first you find out, you, you think you're there for three months, then six months, and then, you know, it's going to be 15 months.
Will HudsonGUEST
Nobody really has any idea.
Adam KingGUEST
And J.D. Vance betrayed President Trump.
Adam KingGUEST
The plan was to arm the Kurds and the Kurds were going to be the first to invade their sovereign territory that Iran has taken when they took Kirkuk and other parts of Iraq after the after the referendum for independence in 2017 in Kurdistan.
Adam KingGUEST
But J.D. Vance leaked that plan to Erdogan, who foiled the entire situation.
Adam KingGUEST
That's when the conflict with Turkey really started.
16 more episodes mention Kirkuk.
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