The Truth Of the American War against Iraq

On 1 May, 2003, the president Bush, dressed in a flight suit, made the announcement abroad the aircraft carrier U.S.S Abraham Lincoln that the major combat operations in Iraq had ended and America and its allies had prevailed against Saddam Hussein after just six weeks of the invasion. He declared victory. Soon, the president and the Americans realised that it was only an illusion. Till this moment the American troops are facing daily severe attacks from the Iraqi resistance. The American military casualties have exceeded 25.000. It is a high cost, indeed.

To rally the international community behind his illegitimate war, the President Bush provided countless pretexts, which in fact were all unconvincing. He first alleged that Saddam sponsored Al-Qaeda. But no strong proof was given. Then, he declared that his troops would disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, though the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had stated that no weapons of mass destructions were found in Iraq. We still all remember how the former Secretary of State Colin Paul tried desperately at the UN to convince the international community that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction. Failed in getting a resolution from the UN to lead international coalition against Iraq, Bush decided to turn his back to the international legacy and act arrogantly. Despite the mass anti-war campaign in America and throughout the world, Bush attacked Iraq in the name of democracy.

Clearly, the pretexts under which Bush launched his barbaric war against Iraq were all blatant lies. The Neo-conservative hawks in the administration of the US President George W Bush were not interested in democratising Iraq but it is its abundant oil reservations which they cared most about. If Bush wants to foster democracy in the Middle-East, he would not put sanctions on the democratically elected Islamic group Hamas in 2006.

Intimidated by the American government policy of “either with us or with the terrorists” some countries felt under pressure to support the war in one way or another. Unfortunately, some Arab countries played a big role in this unfair war. The American soldiers entered Iraq from some neighbouring Arab states like Jordan and Kuwait. The purported mission of the American troops in Iraq is to stabilise the country and introduce it as a prototype of a new democracy in the Middle East. After the U.S invasion, a complete turmoil engulfed the entire country. Yes, the Former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld meant it when he declared that the U.S would bomb Iraq into the Stone Age.

After four years of occupying Iraq, America did not keep its promises. What one can see is that the American invasion has completely demolished the country’s infrastructure. Further, in stead of security and democracy, what the Iraqi people can witness is violence and bloodshed. The Iraqi Freedom Operation, as some American media liked to call it, only opened the gates of the hell to the Iraqis. In addition to the death of more than 974,000 Iraqis, U.S. invasion has resulted in more than 2 million Iraqi refugees in the bordering countries, 1,700 million internal refugees living in suburbs fleeing the militias, 8 million widows many of whom resorted to prostitution to feed their children. Maybe this is the new the Middle East which Miss Condoleezza Rise was referring to at a press conference in the awake of the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah last year.

All the American government has achieved in Iraq now has been a paralyzed country devastated by sectarian conflicts. We had never heard of Sunni and Shiite conflict in Iraq till the American soldiers took control of Baghdad. Instead of bridging the gap between the two, America keeps armoring both parties, which only contributed to the blood pool of the country. So, where is the democracy the Bush administration calls for? We are not idiot. Every one, I strongly believe, is now convinced more than ever that the illegitimate invasion of Iraq was for exploiting Iraqi oil and not fostering freedom in the region. Democracy is not a sort of commodity that can be exported. If we try to impose some values on other people, we may only end up having the extreme opposites. It is the Iraqi people who should state what is good for their country.