I'm pretty ignorant on the subject of the Iraqi army, and I'd love to know more about how it was under Saddam's rule. How effective was it compared to other armies of the Middle East, and how did it compare in size and/or strength?
I'll ask this part separately, since it might break the 20 year rule (feel free to ignore this if it does), but how does the Gulf War-era Iraqi army compare to the new Iraqi army prior to ISIS?
In 1990 Iraq had the worlds 4th largest army in terms of men. And had just gotten through the 8 year Iran Iraq war in 1988.
It had about 1million men under arms, and was armed with mostly Soviet equipment, 1 generation old and relatively worn out, but their large numbers of tanks, such as the T-72's or T62's fared well against the even older at times Iranian armor.
But against current generation, early networked Western tanks, such as the M1A1, like at the Battle of 73 Easting.
The Iraq units had actually taken care and prepared smart defensive positions for their tanks, such as dug in positions on the reverse slope of hills. But were caught in the earl morning hours in a sand storm. Just 1 US regiment, the 2nd Armored Cavalry, severely mauled an Iraqi Republican Guard Division.
The victory was in part to the far superior communications infrastructure, artillery support, and air support that the Coalition enjoyed over the Iraqis. In particular the Iraqi Air force, while able to best the Iranians mostly were completely obliterated by the Coalition air campaign.