In Biblical times, known as Erech. The name Iraq is a modernized spelling of "Uruk", an ancient city state in ancient Summeria.
After the collapse of the Ottoman (Turkish)empire, Europe carved up international boundaries and in the course of restructuring had created the modern country of "Iraq". Doomed to
failure from the start, this artificially-created country was
home to many disparate ethnicities and religions. Internal conflict was inevitable.
The rise of the Baath party (and its inevitable fall at the hands of the
American-led coalition) was a response to this conflict.
There is no
single language spoken in Iraq. Standard Arabic is most commonly used with Kurdish, Turkmen, Assyrian and Farsi spoken by a minority of the population.
"Iraq is considered the birthplace of civilization:
Home to first city "Ur" and the birthplace of
writing (in the form of clay tablets written in cuneiform.)
Iraq is also the birthplace of many of the ancient middle-eastern civilizations: Sumerian, Babylonian,
Assyrian etc.