||In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, reclaiming the disputed waters of Shatt al Arab, Iraq’s only outlet to the Persian Gulf. Iraq’s attack soon bogged down, and Iran closed in on vital oil fields near Kirkuk and besieged Basra. When Iran rejected peace feelers, Iraq countered with chemical gas attacks all along the border, earning world-wide condemnation. Western observers estimate that some 262,000 Iranians and 105,000 Iraqis died in the fighting. In addition, the two sides combined may have had as many as 700,000 more injured, placing the war’s total casualties at over a million people.