See Also: Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–2006
Military Information
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Operation Iraqi Freedom
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"#ref_1">1
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<small>Black Hawk Helicopters from the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) move into Iraq during the opening stages of the 2003 Invasion<small>
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March 18 , 2003 – May 1 , 2003
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Iraq
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Although there were several attendant justifications given for the invasion, both George Bush and Tony Blair were explicit that the decision to invade Iraq rested on a "single question" (as George Bush put it on March 6th 2003)2 This was the allegation that Iraq possessed Weapons Of Mass Destruction , including Nuclear Weapons 3 of which it had to disarm Issues such as Saddam Hussein’s treatment of Iraqis, although used to justify the action as “liberation” after the invasion were officially insufficient to justify the invasion beforehand George Bush, speaking in October 2002, said that “The stated policy of the United States is regime change… However, if {Link without Title} were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions that I have described very clearly in terms that everybody can understand, that in itself will signal the regime has changed”4 Similarly, in September 2002, Tony Blair stated, in an answer to a parliamentary question, that “Regime change in Iraq would be a wonderful thing That is not the purpose of our action our purpose is to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction…”5 In November of that year, Tony Blair further stated that “So far as our objective, it is disarmament, not régime change - that is our objective Now I happen to believe the regime of Saddam is a very brutal and repressive regime, I think it does enormous damage to the Iraqi people so I have got no doubt Saddam is very bad for Iraq, but on the other hand I have got no doubt either that the purpose of our challenge from the United Nations is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, it is not regime change”6 At a press conference on January 31st 2003, George Bush again reiterated that the single trigger for the invasion would be Iraq’s failure to disarm: “Saddam Hussein must understand that if he does not disarm, for the sake of peace, we, along with others, will go disarm Saddam Hussein”7 As late as February 25th 2003, it was still the official line that the only cause of invasion would be a failure to disarm As Tony Blair made clear in a statement to the House of Commons: “I detest his regime But even now he can save it by complying with the UN's demand Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully”8
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"#ref_9">9 conflict=2003 Invasion of Iraq
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US War On Terrorism
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Saddam Hussein and Baath Party toppled Establishment of new Government Occupation Of Iraq Emergence of Insurgency , and development of brutal Sectarian Violence and a violent Iraqi Civil War 10
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George W Bush <br /> Tommy Franks <br /> Tony Blair <br /> Gordon Brown <br /> Mike Jackson others
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Saddam Hussein <br /> Qusay Hussein <br /> Ali Hassan Al-Majid <br /> Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri
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263,000
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375,000
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173 KIA (140 US, 33 UK)iCasualtiesorg (was lunavilleorg) Benicia, California Patricia Kneisler, ''et al'', "Iraq Coalition Casualties"
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"http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/information/entry/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda" class="copylinks">Al-Qaeda , claims that have since been widely discredited As a follow-up to Powell’s presentation, the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain proposed a UN Resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but US NATO allies Canada, France, and Germany, together with Russia, strongly urged continued diplomacy Facing a losing vote as well as a likely veto from France and Russia, the US eventually withdrew its resolution{{cite news title = US, Britain and Spain Abandon Resolution url = http://wwwglobalpolicyorg/security/issues/iraq/attack/armtwist/2003/0317usbritspainhtm
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Criticisms about the evidence used to justify the war notwithstanding, many opponents of military intervention objected on the grounds that a diplomatic solution would be preferable, and that war should be reserved as a truly last resort. This position was exemplified by French Foreign Minister
Dominique De Villepin , who responded to U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell's February 5, 2003 presentation to the U.N Security Council by saying that: "Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections."
“Nations take sides after Powell's speech” . CNN.com, February 6, 2003. Retrieved April 17, 2006.
On February 12, 2003 following the U.N. inspection report delivery, each one of the 15 representative of the U.N Security Council were given a 10 minutes speech to expose the position they chose for their country. The
Hans Blix -led
United Nations Monitoring, Verification And Inspection Commission report concluded on "no evidence of forbidden military nuclear activities", "no evidence of mass destruction weapon" (Iraq’s unconventional weapons program would had been successfully dismantled during the 1990s), but "Bagdad must better cooperate".
Discours Villepin Powell à Onu (National Audiovisual Institute archives) , French news national edition, France 3 French public channel, 14 February 2003
First speaker was the
Syrian Arab Republic representative -sole Arab state in the council- who strongly supported the continuation of the inspections, arguing that Iraq was accused to not respect the UN resolutions while
Israel ignored more than 500 of them and owned mass destruction weapons as well. Next came the turn of de Villepin, he declared he "estimated the inspections gave results", that "they had to be continued", though he remembered that "France did not excluded the recourse to the force in the event of failure from the inspectors".
Discours Villepin Powell à Onu (National Audiovisual Institute archives) , French news national edition, France 3 French public channel, 14 February 2003
France took the lead of the diplomatic solution front together with Germany and Russia, in the likes of a classic
XIXth Century European Empires Alliance , as de Villepin advocated for an additional time for the inspectors:
(55) and French President
Jacques Chirac (69) in 2001]]
Colin Powell responded that Iraq cheated with the UN and the inspections could not continue indefinitely.
Discours Villepin Powell à Onu (National Audiovisual Institute archives) , French news national edition, France 3 French public channel, 14 February 2003
The direct opposition between diplomatic solution and military intervention involving France and the United States which was impersonated by Chirac versus Bush then later Powell versus de Villepin, became a milestone in the , a military intervention supporter and a George W. Bush partisan as argued by
Roy Greenslade in ''
The Guardian '' published on February 17.
82 20 heures le journal : émission du 20 février 2003 (National Audiovisual Institute archives) , French news national edition, France 2 French public channel, 20 February 2003]
Both supporters and opponents of the Iraq War widely viewed it within the context of a post-, the Pentagon's former top operations officer, wrote in a 2006 Time article, “I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda.”Newbold, Greg.
"Why Iraq Was a Mistake". ''Time Magazine'', April 9, 2006. Retrieved on April 16, 2007.
Critics within this vein have further argued that containment would have been an effective strategy for the Hussein government, and that the top U.S. priorities in the
Middle East should be encouraging a solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict , working for the moderation of
Iran , and solidifying gains made in
Afghanistan and central Asia. In an October 2002 speech, Retired Marine Gen.
Anthony Zinni , former head of
Central Command for U.S. forces in the Middle East and State Department's envoy to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, called Iraq “maybe six or seven,” in terms of U.S. Middle East priorities, adding that “the affordability line may be drawn around five.”Boehlert, Eric.
"I'm not sure which planet they live on" . ''Salon'', October 17, 20002. Retrieved April 17, 2007.
In addition to arguing that Iraq was not the top strategic priority in the war on terror or in the Middle East, critics of the war also suggested that it could potentially destabilize the surrounding region. Prominent among such critics was
Brent Scowcroft , who served as
National Security Adviser to
George H.W. Bush . In an August 15, 2002
Wall Street Journal editorial entitled "Don't attack
Saddam ," Scowcroft wrote that: “Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region” where there could be “an explosion of outrage against us” that “could well destabilize Arab regimes” and “could even swell the ranks of the terrorists.”Scowcroft, Brent.
"Don't attack Saddam" . ''The Wall Street Journal,'' August 15, 2002. Retrieved April 17, 2007.
See Also: Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq
This campaign featured a variety of new terminology, much of it initially coined by the U.S. government or military. The military official name for the invasion was Operation Iraqi Liberation (
White House Press Release ). However this was quickly changed to "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Also notable was the usage "
Death Squad s" to refer to
Fedayeen paramilitary forces. Members of the Saddam Hussein government were called by disparaging
Nickname s - e.g., "Chemical Ali" (
Ali Hassan Al-Majid ), "Baghdad Bob" or "Comical Ali" (
Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf ), and "Mrs. Anthrax" or "Chemical Sally" (
Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash ). Saddam Hussein was systematically referred to as "Saddam", which some Westerners mistakenly believed to be disparaging. (Although there is no consensus about how to refer to him in English, "Saddam" is acceptable usage, and is how people in Iraq and the Middle East generally refer to him.
83)
Terminology introduced or popularized during the war include:
- " Axis Of Evil ", originally used by Bush during a State Of The Union address on January 29 , 2002 to describe the countries of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.84
- " Coalition Of The Willing ", a term that originated in the Clinton era (e.g., interview, Clinton, ABC , June 8 , 1994 ), and used by the Bush Administration to describe the countries contributing troops in the invasion, of which the U.S. and UK were the primary members.
- " Dead Checking ", a U.S. military colloquial term for killing all wounded men in any suspected insurgent house they enter.
- " Decapitating the regime", a euphemism for either overthrowing the government or killing Saddam Hussein.
- " Embedding ", United States practice of assigning civilian Journalist s to U.S. military units.
- " Old Europe ", Rumsfeld's term used to describe European governments not supporting the war: "You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe."
- " Regime Change ", a euphemism for overthrowing a government.
- " Shock And Awe ", the strategy of reducing an enemy's will to fight through displays of overwhelming force.
Many slogans and terms coined came to be used by Bush's political opponents, or those opposed to the war. For example, in April 2003 , a popular folk protest singer.
- Spring 2007 , Mitchell Cohen, Seyla Benhabib and others. Read
- Google Print ---''Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces'' by Linda Robinson
- '' Heavy Metal A Tank Company's Battle To Baghdad '' by Captain Jason Conroy and Ron Martz
- '''' by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor
- Hans Köchler , ''The Iraq Crisis and the United Nations. Power Politics vs. the International Rule of Law''. Studies in International Relations, XXVIII. Vienna: I.P.O., 2004, ISBN 3-900704-22-8, Google Print
- Over half a million Iraqi's dead, 4 years later, May 2007 after "us surge" monthly death rates not decreasing
- "Fact Sheets: The Lancet Survey: Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq". (Authors: Professors Bloomberg School Of Public Health , in Baltimore, Maryland , and Al Mustansiriya University , in Baghdad, Iraq .) ''Electronic Iraq/electronicIraq.net''. Accessed May 24 , 2007 . ("Electronic Iraq/electronicIraq.net [is] a joint project from Voices In The Wilderness and The Electronic Intifada .")
- War Report. More than 5,000 articles, documents and analyses of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, updated four times a week -- Project on Defense Alternatives.
- CIA’s final report: Never any WMD found in Iraq!
- Occupation of Iraq Timeline at the History Commons
- Morgues so full, bodies turned away
- The War In Context News aggregator
- ProCon's examination of Iraq Invasion
- by Professor Dr. Sedat Laciner, "Ten Impasses of the Resistance in Iraq"
- Amnesty International Report on Iraq
- Borgen Project: Cost of the Iraq War
- Iraq: Amnesty International seeks clarification on house demolitions by US troops in Iraq
- Iraq: full texts of speeches and key documents archived by '' The Guardian ''. Retrieved 31 May 2005 .
- Iraq: Forcible return of refugees and asylum-seekers is contrary to international law
- Iraq: Tribunal established without consultation
- Memorandum on concerns related to legislation introduced by the Coalition Provisional Authority
- National Priorities Project Cost of the Iraqi War Estimate
- Reconstruction must ensure the human rights of Iraqis
- Video Seminar on Iraq Coalition Politics : 20 April 2005 , sponsored by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security at the University of Illinois.
- War in Iraq: Day by Day Guide
- Iraq War NEWS DIGEST-Iraq and the U.S.A.
- Iraq Special Weapons News
- Attacks on journalists in Iraq - IFEX
- Archaeologists Review Loss of Valuables in Museum Looting
- by Emre Ozkan and Murat Sogangoz, "Do Talabani and Barzani prefer Civil-War in Iraq?"
- Iraqi Perspectives Report , Joint Center For Operational Analysis at United States Department Of Defense , March 2006
- "Frontline: The Dark Side" PBS documentary on Vice President Dick Cheney's remaking of the Executive and infighting leading up to the war in Iraq
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- 1999 Desert Crossing War Game to Plan Invasion of Iraq and to Unseat Saddam Hussein
