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20 Years Ago on March 19…
…US President George W. Bush ordered air strikes on Baghdad, launching the war for “regime change” and the ousting of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The war was premised on the belief that Hussein was manufacturing and staging weapons of mass destruction to be used against his enemies. Such a belief is now deemed to have been false, although the length of time between Colin Powell’s February 5 address to the United Nations, in which he laid out the case, and the subsequent Allied invasion – exactly six weeks later – left plenty of time for such efforts to be covered up, dismantled, or moved.
And so, with apparent evidence on both sides to support their respective cases, the conspiracy theorists, and the conspiracy realists, continue to joust over the truth, which is likely never to be fully known.
Regardless, or irregardless as the case may be, I remember the television coverage of those aerial attacks on that day exactly two decades ago. It was awe-inspiring, and thrilling. The subsequent initial phase of the land war – which lasted just over a month and was spearheaded by the United States with support from the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland, and the following “quagmire” years resulted in the deaths and wounding, both physically and mentally, of tens of thousands of Allied troops, and in consequences that we, and they, still live with today.
As cowards do, Saddam Hussein ran away and hid from reprisals, remaining undiscovered until December 2003, when American soldiers found him, filthy and deranged, hiding in a hole in the ground near ad-Dawr. He was subsequently interrogated, tried, and executed (by the interim Iraqi government) on December 30, 2006. Sic semper tyrannis.
Today, I remember not the meretricious crapweasels of the various governments on all sides who have been – ever since – revising the rather clear history of the war, those who started it, and even, sometimes, those who fought in it. I choose rather to remember the valiant soldiers from all services and all nations who fought, and those who were wounded and who died in the cause of freedom and to keep us safe.
From February 7, 2001–just a month into the first Persian Gulf War:
And from the UK:
Australia:
And Poland:
Thank you.
Published in General
It wasn’t a lie if the intel folks thought it was true.
I doubt that. Besides terrorists want to take out every president. Not that newsworthy. This is why AF1 has , uh, countermeasures.
Only two national anthems in the world reference another country. And of those they reference each other. Poland’s talks about Italy.
Italys talks about Poland. Weird huh.
I was for invading Iraq. I also thought that since we had a history, post World War II, of successfully occupying both Germany and Japan, we could successfully do so in Iraq.
Well, we won the war, but lost the occupation. And one big reason we lost the occupation is that George W. Bush was not honest, either with himself or the country, that it would take a couple of decades of occupation to turn Iraq into a western style democracy. Nor is it clear that if he had been honest about the time and resources required that the whole country would have accepted making that kind of commitment.
And using WMD as a justification was a mistake, and I thought so at the time. We didn’t need that justification, Saddam Hussein’s overall conduct was enough.
There were other reasons we lost the occupation. Maybe there’s a historian that can tell me I’m wrong, but the U.S. occupation of Iraq was the first time we put the State Department in charge. From the post-Civil War on, all our other occupations were run by the U.S. Army. The State Department simply doesn’t have the culture to run an occupation.
And I have a background where I raised on a U.S. military base in Germany. My dad was a civilian working for the Army, and wasn’t subject to transfers. So he was there for about 15 years, and when I was born there I was sent to the U.S. military schools set up for military dependents, and I was also going to Catholic Mass presided over by a priest who was also a military chaplain. It was an American enclave where the U.S. Postal service had American mailboxes set up there.
And though the number of U.S. military installations has been considerably reduced in Germany and Japan, that system is still in place
I’m not sure our occupying forces in the Middle East would have been allowed to get that comfortable. It would have meant that people sent over there would have shorter tours because serving there would not have been as desirable. And by the time we did get out of Iraq, casualties were way down, and the forces there were essentially doing garrison duty. That’s pretty boring duty if you can’t get out of the military bases.
I guess what I’m getting at is we definitely should have invaded, broke a few things while we were there, and then left. Because we no longer have the patience, or the confidence in ourselves morally, to have imposed our will on that population for decades. And that’s why George W. Bush’s attempt at Wilsonian Democracy failed, and why he decided to fool himself that 4-6 years of occupation duty was enough.
They would have been far more likely to move out or hide newer, more effective items and the equipment for producing them.
It doesn’t even take statistical analysis to notice… what was it, at least 4000 ballots in just one place with the identical time-stamp?
Now a building that gets climbed by foreign acrobats, or something like that.
If Saddam had viable WMDs you’d think he’d have used them when the country was invaded.
Unless you think it’s likely that he sold them off or otherwise shipped them out of the country for money and/or to have access to them later.
Judging on how they were secreted away, I doubt if his military could have found them before it was too late.
I nominate “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
The D. E. I. training will have have its impact.
WMD evidence came from the Gernan source Curveball. Someone not a single member of the CIA interviewed before the invasion.
The pictures of the mobile labs that Colin Powell presented to the UN, were based on drawings that the CIA manufactured based on reports from that single source.
Agents that presented counter evidence were fired by the Bush White house.
They wanted to go to war. Things like truth and facts were secondary to that.
I had a barber who was from Iraq. In 2017 he said to me. “They killed Saddam 13 years ago. Yet still I cant get electricity in my home town.”
Priorities I suppose.
Oh I think they have plenty of luck and likely sitting on a few nukes by now. They like Isreal choose not to detonate them.
Meanwhile…Iran and Saudi Arabia continue to bury the hatchet as Saudi moves further into the Russia/Chinese orbit.
https://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2023/03/20/iranian-president-receives-invitation-from-saudi-king-to-visit-riyadh-official/
I was against the war at the time. My conscience is clear.
It was a dumb idea, made by dumb people for dumb reasons. And hundreds of thousands of people died.
To the point of 2.
In the book Cobra 2, they interviewed a few of Saddams former Generals. Apparently a month before the invasion he sat down a bunch of them, and told them. That the weapons were a bluff, he had them all destroyed. And that they needed to convince the US they didnt exist to forestall the invasion. The generals all nodded and agreed. None of the generals interviewed believed Saddam since he was such a liar.
Frankly even if they didnt have WMDs, the Bush Administration would have found a different excuse to Invade Iraq. Does anyone dispute that? Was there anyway for this not to happen? Or as soon as the Towers fell the invasion became inevitable?
Yes, there are some terrific comments here. Thanks, all.
Something that’s been nibbled around the edges in a couple of comments but not put quite as directly as I’m about to was, I think, one of the most catastrophic failures of the war and of intelligence in all its manifestations, all round.
Somehow, in a stunning display of naivete, those pulling the strings in the United States seem to have convinced themselves and their allies–apparently without trying very hard–that, to bowdlerize the words of the Pogue Colonel in Full Metal Jacket, “Inside every [third worlder] there is an American trying to get out.”
The “shock and awe” tactics on display in March of 2003 were intended to remove, quickly and once-and-for-all, Saddam Hussein and the Baathists in Iraq, with the idea that they would be replaced at all levels of governance and the population, and without much effort on our part, with an immediate and spontaneous outbreak of flowering democracy and agreeable Western values, country-wide.
If such a strategy is ever to succeed at all, it must be predicated–before anything else–on an absolutely bulletproof (literally) understanding of a nation’s people, its environment, and its culture. In the case of the 2003 Iraq war, this simply wasn’t the case. And the fallout, after the initial and brilliant deployment of technology and personnel, show that clearly in the price that the West, and the Middle East paid and continues to pay.
I’m not sure how, following the events–including many catastrophic mistakes–of the last half of the twentieth-century, the leading Western nations can have been so dumb, or so hubristic. Perhaps the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the rapid adoption of relatively democratic governance by many of the formerly Eastern Bloc nations blinded them to the fact that those folks were, in many cases, Europeans with an existing Judeo-Christian heritage at the time of their liberation. But that’s not the case with all countries, especially those of the Middle East and in Africa.
When I have one of my conversations from ‘the other side’ with my late father (it does happen), I hear him ranting about the “pointy-headed” State Department “bureaucrat” types with a degree from Harvard or Oxford hanging on the wall, who think they’ve swallowed the book and know it all because they’ve been sitting at a desk in the American Embassy, in-country, for six months. He’d not have had such people anywhere near the councils of war, let alone giving them the slightest input into what should be done. And neither should we have.
Aye. Obama and Biden have crafted a much different military. Mattis was my biggest disappointment for the Trump administration. Didn’t roll back much, if any, of Obama’s nonsense. At least Trump issued an order for CRT to stop being trained.
I’d add: I believe that GWB himself genuinely believed that Saddam had WMDs and was surprised when so few were found.
I think Saddam was happy to let the world believe he had all kinds of nasty stuff: The political economy of the region encouraged mendacious boasting and saber rattling. The thug Saddam could have exaggerated the size and lethality of his military not just to deter a US invasion (though it was hard to miss that Iran, which did have nukes, was immune) but also because it enhanced his credibility with the other thugs in the neighborhood and for all I know soothed his ego and impressed his mistress.
I agree that the WMD piece was over-hyped. Saddam had failed to live up to the terms of the ceasefire; a casus belli was already in place. Having said that, the idea that we could invade both Iraq and Afghanistan, and that these would, in the aftermath of a war, speedily become Western-style democracies was, if I may say so, idiotic. It’s not that the Iraqi and Afghan people wouldn’t have been better off if we could’ve pulled it off: They would. And yes, indeed, the world would be a better place if Iraq was as tranquil and cooperative as, say, Missouri, and if the Afghans whose lives and identities had been centered on conflict for centuries would be content to live, instead, in a sort of rockbound, impoverished Vermont, with fierce and ancient tribalisms reduced to bumper stickers, voting and the occasional #BLM riot.
The comparison of Iraq to postwar Germany and Japan should’ve made the futility clear. American troops were (and are) still on the ground in both those countries; there was no indication that Americans, however riled by 9/11, were up for a self-sacrificing project that would continue for fifty or sixty years.
Very interesting topic to discuss; thanks so much for posting!!!
I was against the invasion in 2003 as I thought our efforts should be on Afghanistan and I thought the administration never really set out what the goals were in invading Iraq. We don’t do well without clear goals fully backed by the political will. I mean it took every fiber of Lincoln’s body to keep the Union fighting in the Ciivl War and if Sherman doesn’t take Atlanta Lincoln probably losses the election of 1864 and history is much different. George W Bush was no Abe Lincoln as far as political skill.
That said….when teaching this topic I have always presented it as we do not truly know what briefings were brought to George Bush. He had to make the decision based on what evidence was brought to him. Was he predisposed to war? Maybe he was…I don’t know. Saddam H had been violating the stipulations of the cease fire from Gulf War 1 for years (so much so that Clinton almost invaded Iraq in 1998) and that had increased after 9-11. So there were other reasons on the table besides WMD. I would tell my students…..if you are George Bush and you have Saddam breaking the stipulations of the treaty and then there are reports of WMD what do you do? He has to make that decision….did he listen to the correct advisors? Maybe not…but he had to make a decision and I would tell my students it was not an easy one. It is much more complex and nuanced….it is easy for some teacher in Lawrence, Kansas to have an opinion at the time or now for that matter…my decisions don’t impact anybody. Colin Powell turned out to be right (as an aside…imagine if Colin Powell had run as a Republican in 1996 our history would be so much different) but at the time George Bush had to pick between him and the more aggressive evidence….we have no idea what the discussions really were. Turns out he made the wrong decision or did a terrible job of seeing that decision through; but the decision was not an easy one to make.
As a counterfactual consider that Harry Truman listens to 3 of his advisers and decided to invade Japan instead of dropping the bomb….how would that be looked upon today? Like Bush in 2003 Truman had to make a decision based on the evidence he was given…not easy to do.
Bush ran on a platform of ending Clinton’s style of using the military, as Rush dubbed it, Meals on Wheels. The attacks on 9/11 happened and a response had to be given. It didn’t need to be a full switch from his election promises to Wilsonian Democracy.
Definitely a tough situation for Saddam. 60% of Iraq’s population is sympathetic with Iran, who he recently fought an existential war with. Saddam has no real military and his only deterrent is the threat of chemical weapons, which the US required him to destroy. The choice was war against the US or Iran. In the past, the US would guarantee national security for a country we’ve destroyed. But who wants to commit to that hornets nest.
So, cowards run away? Didn’t MacArthur run away?
For that matter, King David ran away, more than once, didn’t he? Was he a coward?
I like the post, Susan. I don’t like the gratuitous swipe at Saddam Hussein. Maybe he was a coward, maybe not.
Actually, the war was premised on:
“If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.” — Barack Obama
Absolutely true.
Most Army Civil Affairs units are in the reserves.
Paul Bremer and the idiots from the Kennedy School of Government have a lot to answer for.
Jerry, I think–as I often do–that you’re barking up the wrong tree on this one; in this case with what seems to be a misapprehension as to the name of the post author.
That you spoke up for Saddam Hussein has been noted. I stand by my remarks regarding his character.
Thank you for commenting.
All true and in the bill that passed Congress almost six months prior to the invasion. Nevertheless, I think the straw that broke the camel’s back, and from which a direct line could be drawn between it and the invasion, and much as he might regret it today, was Colin Powell’s February speech before the UN.