This week marks 20 years since the start of the US-led ground invasion of Iraq.
When he made the televised speech announcing the military operation, then-US president George W. Bush promised to end the rule of Saddam Hussein’s regime and destroy alleged weapons of mass destruction in the oil-rich country. The campaign was also the next phase of his wider, so-called “War on Terror”, which began with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan to flush out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
However, US forces, backed heavily by western allies – especially UK troops – never found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But Saddam was captured at the end of 2003, and eventually tried before he was executed by hanging in December 2006.
It also wasn’t until September 2006 that the then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan declared explicitly, for the first time, that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal. He also said it was not sanctioned by the UN Security Council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter.
Despite all this, it's the Iraqi people themselves who have, above all, felt the pain and anguish of the Iraq War. More than 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of George W. Bush and Tony Blair’s decision to invade the country 20 years ago.
Iraq was and continues to be gravely scarred by the conflict and insurgency that followed the US-led invasion – such as ISIS’s reign of terror in northern Iraq from 2013 to 2017. Iraq also continues to be marred by economic instability, political upheaval and corruption, and sectarianism.
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🎥: Alexander Durie
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