The notion of the war as one of “necessity”—rather one of “choice,” as in Iraq—led to a surge of U.S. troops in Afghanistan beginning in 2009. In order to foster a civil and literate discussion that respects all participants, FRONTLINE has the following guidelines for commentary. The fall of Kabul in the fall of 2001, followed by the fall of Baghdad in the spring of 2003, provided ample proof that U. S. forces had developed a sure-fire formula that all but guaranteed decisive victory. One thing that's clear: the war will continue to influence the U.S., Iraq, and its neighbors in the Middle East for decades to come. Iraq War, also called Second Persian Gulf War, (2003–11), conflict in Iraq that consisted of two phases. After the war, the country moved from producing its own food and light manufacturing to importing everything. It has been empowered by the defeat of its regional nemesis and emboldened by widespread anger at the U.S. invasion and conduct during the war (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture, rendition, and “black sites”). The current draft of the Status of Forces Agreement is just that definitive, I'm told. In July 535 Iraqis were killed, making it the deadliest month in two years. Now What? I guess we, “the Iraqis,” were too busy trying to survive. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In July, there were five American fatalities in Iraq, the lowest since the war began in March 2003. The first of these was a brief, conventionally fought war in March–April 2003, in which a combined force of troops from the United States and Great Britain (with smaller contingents from several other countries) invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated Iraqi military and paramilitary forces. The Shiites of the two countries have had a special relationship for over a millennium. Gallup. Meanwhile, a war-weary U.S. public remains skeptical of any further military involvement in the Middle East. They never fround weapons of mass destruction, but Saddam wouldn't let UN inspectors into plants on several occasion he could have moved them or sold them for all we know. If Washington gets its way, U.S. troops will continue to kill and be killed in Iraq despite their redefined role, and will remain in the country for an indefinite length of time, required to prop up a weak and increasingly unpopular puppet government and protect U.S. business and geopolitical interests. Limited job opportunities are available for men — mostly in the army and the police. Ten years later, experts discuss the fallout from the war. There are more illiterate girls and women in the country than 25 years ago. Today, facing the challenges of an Arab world in crisis, the Obama administration finds its options restricted. “My family and I are living in the U.S. now, far away from Iraq, from home, living with memories we still hold about a country we once had, where we were born, lived and loved, and where we first felt the taste of happiness. Again? The real cost of the Iraq War is more than the $1.06 trillion added to the debt. Are the Iraqis better off? For the Iraqi people, for U.S. troops and our families, our lives will be absolutely no different than they were before we were shown the media stunt of armored vehicles “leaving” Iraq. Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Zainab Salbi, Iraqi-American women’s rights activist and founder of Women for Women International, Ahmed Fadaam, former translator and reporter for western media in Baghdad, James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, *FRONTLINE asked several experts who supported the invasion and still back the war to contribute. At the Baghdad airport though, where Iraqi families still clutch plastic bags with refugee documents waiting for flights into exile 10 years after Saddam was toppled, it’s no consolation. In a ceremony held in Baghdad on December 15, 2011, the war that began in 2003 with the American-led invasion of Iraq officially comes to an end. The change in Iraq means the goal of controlling Iraq’s natural resources, markets and financial sector are proceeding more smoothly for Wall Street. Is the Iraq War actually over? A few have offered recent reflections on the war elsewhere. The 2003 invasion of Iraq [a] was the first stage of the Iraq War. He was only 24. Guided more by ideology than reality, proponents of the Iraq war believed a show of decisive force there would make us stronger, securing America’s global hegemony. The State Department will more than double the number of private security personnel, who will guard five heavily fortified compounds throughout the country. He currently lives in North Carolina, where he teaches at the school of communications at Elon University. In an NPR story yesterday, Kelly McEvers interviewed Large swaths of the Iraqi resistance that could not be defeated were simply put on the U.S. payroll, bribed to stop resisting. That’s almost always a prelude to a lecture about how the United States wants to destroy the Arab world. It wanted a new compliant government that would do its bidding, and some offices, including the world’s largest embassy, to conduct its business. As the U.S. military formally ends operations in Iraq, four top expert voices in the debate on the war differ over whether it merited the cost in blood, treasure, and U.S. credibility. He said today: “The Iraq war is not over yet. Iraq. The Iraq War has now ended, its outcome far too ambiguous to be classified as a victory. But happiness doesn’t exist in Iraq anymore. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. He said all US troops would be withdrawn from the country by the end of 2011. Iraq is still in a fragile position with election disputes, power struggles, deep-seated and widespread opposition to U.S. domination, and armies of resistance fighters who took a break from fighting the occupiers to collect a paycheck. FY 2003 - $90.3 billion: On March 19, the United States invaded Iraq with \"Shock and Awe.\" Massive bombing and a ground invasion toppled the Hussein regime the next month. All declined. The leadership in Baghdad remains at odds with the Kurdish north, and a restive Sunni Arab minority chafes under what they perceive to be the harsh and exclusionary rule of an Iranian-backed Shia majority.Our polls consistently show that many Arabs see Iran as the big winner of the Iraq war. Announcing the end of combat operations in a war still taking the lives of U.S. service members is the same type of doublespeak we have been getting since the lies started flowing in the buildup to the invasion. Back then, Iraq was under the UN’s embargo, and as he told the assembly, “Your embargo is not hurting us, the government. I tried to explain that Iraq was a painful subject in the U.S. right now. From the deck of a US aircraft carrier, President George W Bush declared major combat in Iraq over today and called the six-week war 'one victory' in the campaign against terror “But it threw out the baby with the bath water by destroying the country in the process.” When asked about the good things America and its allies brought with the invasion, Iraqis quickly respond with the same list: They got rid of Saddam, brought us the internet, cell phones, freedom of political expressions and satellite TV. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Iraq’s oil revenue modernized the country, dramatically improved living conditions and provided free quality health care and a world-renowned university system—also completely free. The Syrian war is not over, it’s just on a new trajectory: here’s what you need to know February 4, 2019 10.35pm EST Mehmet Ozalp , Charles Sturt University The Founders’ decision to use the word declare instead of makeleaves the president limited and clearly delineated power to “repel sudden attacks” against the United States. The current crisis in Iraq explained in under 5 minutes.There is war in Iraq? In the week since the much publicized withdrawal of "combat" troops from Iraq it … There were great hopes that he would change direction by restoring America’s image and values, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and addressing the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So much for “Iraqi freedom.”. It ranked Baghdad dead last—the least livable city on the planet. To declare War.” On this there is no question. The invasion of Panama in 1989, followed soon thereafter by Operation Desert Storm in 1991, restored popular confidence in the efficacy of American arms. It's about the change of mission. A week later, on Aug. 15, Army Specialist Jamal Rhett was on patrol in Baquba, Iraq, when resistance fighters attacked his vehicle with grenades. The Iraq War was only partly, however, about big profits for Anglo-American oil conglomerates - that would be a bonus (one which in the end has failed to … The war in Iraq has meant the death of more than 4,400 U.S. troops and come at a cost of more than $700 billion. Ahmed Fadaam is a former translator and reporter who worked with western media in Baghdad. Ten years already. But there was a tradeoff. The way I see it, none of this was true, especially the part about freedom and democracy. They will continue to be blown up by IED’s, shot and killed by rockets. “I don’t know how will we ever go back to normal life.”. Do we feel happier now? Another 32,223 were injured … Of course, all of this proved to be illusory. Afghanistan was eclipsed by Iraq, Iraq by Afghanistan, and then the entire effort by what we have taken to calling war weariness on the part of a spectating public. Published January 10, 2020 Updated January 10, 2020 . The world breathed a sigh of relief when Barack Obama took the oath of office in 2009. Unfortunately, I think there's still just too much intolerance and socio-economic issues going on over there for … Hundreds of workers at a Tampa lead smelter have been exposed to dangerous levels of the neurotoxin. Their helicopter fleet, piloted by mercenaries, will grow from 17 to 29. America is a whole new place and culture for us, but after years of daily violence in Iraq, I had to make a choice. In Iraq, which the US and Britain invaded in 2003, this uncompromising position turned potential allies into enemies, laying the foundations for today's ongoing global jihadist movement. RELATED: For G.O.P Saying Goodbye to Iraq Is Hard to Do More than 1.5 million U.S. soldiers have served in the country since combat began in March 2003, with around 4,500 of them losing their lives, out of more than 30,000 American casualties. Amid the rise of religious conservatism in the new Iraq, violence against women by their husbands is often considered a right. According to the UNHCR, the Iraq war made more than 4.7 million Iraqis refugees—the worst humanitarian crisis in the Middle East since the Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948. On the American side, we can count more than 4,400 lives lost, and tens of thousands of young men and women shattered by permanent injuries of war. This is far from ending combat operations for U.S. troops. Entries that are unsigned or are "signed" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. By invading Iraq, Bush has taken over the Iraqi oil fields, and persuaded the UN to lift production limits imposed after the Kuwait war. This is obvious by the spike in violence over the past couple of months. What happened in Iraq was beyond anyone’s imagination: the death; the killing; the destruction; sectarianism; the attempts to divide a once unified country; the loss of history and culture; the rise in illiteracy; the dwindling access to health care; the corruption eating the country; oh, and not to mention, the lack of freedom and the ugly interpretation of democracy. Bush’s secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, said in an interview with The Sunday Times over the weekend that the Bush administration made mistakes in its execution of the war, but that it was too soon to judge Iraq a success or a failure. The consequences have been profound. For us, the Iraq drawdown means this: that we are able to be deployed more frequently on repeated tours to the bloody battlefields of Afghanistan, with maybe some more relaxing deployments to Iraq in between, where it is currently less likely that we will die. A rose cannot be watered with blood, and happiness cannot be found amid such violence. However, over seven years of bombing, brutality and documented war crimes and human rights violations, the Iraqi government was able to recruit enough job-hungry Iraqis to serve in uniform—one of the few job opportunities in a country now wracked with unemployment—and replace thousands of U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Fighting was ended by a 1988 cease-fire, though the resumption of normal diplomatic If on the other hand, the best military in the world can’t guarantee victory, then Washington needs to rethink the emphasis it has placed on force over the past two decades. We will take steps to block users who repeatedly violate our commenting rules, terms of use, or privacy policies. This is jungle law. William Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan are indispensable guides to the era that lies ahead. Buried by the news from Libya, Barack Obama announced late on Friday that all US troops will leave Iraq by 31 December. Doug Saunders. Opponents of the Iraq war often highlight the importance of oil when explaining why the invasion took place. Iraqis have indeed felt the President’s absence. The reduced number of occupying troops would again be increased. She was 23 years old. Still, by the dawn of the new millennium, Americans had come to believe that military power had become a particular strong suit. Their swarm of armored cars will be multiplied. Those comments came as delegates met in southern Iraq to begin reshaping the country's political future. Iraq fatigue Here in the US, it is as if Iraq “fatigue” has set in. The author is an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of March Forward! This violence was consciously fostered by the U.S. when it violated international law and forced Iraq’s government to be divided along sectarian lines and when Gen. Petraeus promoted civil war by arming “local militias” to fight each other, as he is now doing in Afghanistan. The question everyone asks — whether things are better or worse in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s time — is an unfair one. Ten years after the start of the Iraq war, we are seeing the consequences of the fateful decisions made by the Bush administration to take us into two failed wars and to neglect the peace process, and the inability of the Obama administration to correct the damage done by these policies. U.S. declares an end to the War in Iraq. U.S. troops will continue to die there endlessly, when not being sent to die endlessly in Afghanistan, while our families wait at home for our coffins. Was it really about getting rid of Saddam Hussein? Perhaps there are better ways to demonstrate leadership. Maybe that’s why we lost track of time. During the Iraq War, 4,488 U.S. service personnel were directly killed. Yet when it came to winning, they proved unable to close the deal. “It has been 10 years now, and every time we leave our home, we still don’t know if we will come back or make it by the end of the day.”. It doesn't change who we are or what we do. Search US In this case on a recent day in a parliamentary political office, it wasn’t. The war I witnessed for more than five years in Iraq is over. But the Pentagon arranged a photo-op convoy of armored vehicles crossing the Iraqi border into Kuwait—a symbolic convoy of the “last combat brigade” exiting the country. Iranian-backed Shia militias have remobilized, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is conducting an intensive and escalating campaign of spectacular attacks against Shia targets, and some of the former Baathist insurgents are staging an effective campaign against the Iraqi Security Forces in the vicinity of Mosul. In fact, it has spiked in recent months. As a U.S. military study "discovered" in November 2007, "Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them.” (Washington Post, Dec. 19, 2007). The War in Iraq is Not Over Recently the media has been filled with announcements that the war in Iraq has finally ended. From 1920 to 1958, Iraq was a British colony. So the Pentagon surged tens of thousands more troops into the country, unleashed the full might of the most powerful military on the planet and indiscriminately rained depleted uranium, artillery and Hellfire missiles on all its cities. Simply put, U. S. forces were the best the world had ever seen. Over the course of 2002, protests in the U.S. and around the world drew larger and larger crowds, up to the peak of the Feb. 15, 2003 protests. … Every single day in Iraq continues to produce more killed, more wounded and more displaced. Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), prolonged military conflict between Iran and Iraq. Equipment designed to control poisons inside Gopher Resource kept breaking down, creating more dangers for workers. The Iraq War Is Over. Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil. The mercenaries on these bases will pilot drones, conduct patrols and operate as “quick-reaction forces” to chase down insurgents. Obama said it himself as he announced the end of the war: “The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq.”. Now that the war is over, what did we gain? Reader. At the peak in 2011, more than 100,000 U.S. military personnel were deployed to the We will continue to be deployed to both wars when so many of us have psychological traumas that should exempt us from deployments. Iraqi National Police cadets carry their national flag at a graduation ceremony in southern Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008. And the US and Iran are talking about working together? US President George Bush says the war is over and a new era in Iraq can begin. Saddam had sealed the border In March 2003, on the eve of war in Iraq, Pope John Paul II dispatched Cardinal Pio Laghi, a senior Vatican diplomat, to Washington to make a final plea to Bush not to invade. It was difficult to argue against that, there on the site where the U.S. established a government along sectarian lines. The Iraqi people, who we were told were desperate for liberation, overwhelmingly turned against the U.S. occupation. 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