The United States (U.S.) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in covert actions and contingency planning in Iraq ever since the 1958 overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy, although the historiography of Iraq–United States relations prior to the 1980s is considered relatively underdeveloped, with the first in-depth academic studies being published in the 2010s. While the CIA was not directly involved in the 1963 Ba'athist coup that ousted Abd al-Karim Qasim, it had been plotting to remove Qasim from mid-1962 until his overthrow, developing contacts with Iraqi opposition groups including the Ba'ath Party and planning to "incapacitate" a high-ranking member of Qasim's government with a poisoned handkerchief. After the 1968 Ba'athist coup appeared to draw Iraq into the Soviet sphere o