BAGHDAD -
Today, March 20, the Iraqis recalled the anniversary of the US invasion of their country in 2003 that toppled the regime of late President Saddam Hussein, and recalled the first moments of the start of the war, and the events they lived through.
At the dawn of this day in 2003, explosions continued in Baghdad, and air raids targeted the headquarters of Iraqi leaders.
At that time, US President George W. Bush announced the beginning of the "Freedom for Iraq" war, and the US-British ground forces - from Kuwait - crossed the fence of Umm Qasr port and besieged the port from its west and north, and cut off its path leading to Basra and the Faw peninsula.
A British force settled off the town of Abu al-Khasib and cut off all roads leading to it.
The journalist Miqdad Al-Humaidan published a picture on his Twitter account of a dusty atmosphere in Baghdad, and commented on it by saying, "19 years ago, the atmosphere was like this, it was a painful, bleak day, and everyone waited, and we waited, and calamities followed us."
19 years ago,
the atmosphere was like this,
it was a painful.. gloomy day,
and everyone is waiting.!!
And watch us!!
The calamities rolled on us.
What is your memory of this day?
pic.twitter.com/zxVMsCiw0t
— Miqdad Al-Humaidan (@mukdadhumaidan2) March 20, 2022
The journalist Omar Hamid wrote, on his Twitter account, "19 years ago, the invasion of Iraq began with false pretenses, Washington struck the law, the Security Council and the world in disregard and invaded Iraq," adding, "Bush Jr. was preaching freedom, democracy and building the country, but their real experience was destruction."
In hours like these 19 years ago, the process of invading Iraq began with false pretexts! Washington disregarded the law, the Security Council and the world and invaded Iraq! Bush the Jr. was preaching freedom, democracy, and building the country!
# Occupation_of_Iraq # Anniversary_19_ of the invasion of Iraq pic.twitter.com/Kczk7hj0pP
— Dr.Omar Hamed Shukur (@omarhamedshukur) March 20, 2022
Political activist Haider Al-Zubaidi said, via his Twitter account, "I remember when I was 6 years old, I do not know what happens other than hearing the sounds of shelling, as I leave our house with my family to meet all of us at my grandfather's house, where we thought that if we gathered in one place, we would feel safe."
He added, "Iraq lost many Iraqis as a result of the war and bombing, and in the end we reached this state we live in today, and all the sacrifices were in vain."
I remember Jan, I am 6 years old, I do not know what will happen other than the sounds of the bombing and I and my family are leaving our house until we go to meet all of us at my grandfather’s house because we believe that if we gather in one place we will feel even safer… Iraq lost the air of Iraqis as a result of the war and the bombing, and in the end, this is our situation today and all The sacrifices are not easy!
pic.twitter.com/c2vGSL7rzy
— Haider alzubaidi (@73ider97) March 19, 2022
This invasion constituted a pivotal event in the Middle East, whose pretext was Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, which led to the overthrow of Saddam's regime and human losses estimated at one million dead and injured and millions of displaced, and material losses for both parties estimated at trillions of dollars, and the country's slide into sectarian violence that reached its climax during 2006-2007 .
Bush Jr. (centre) announcing the start of the war on Iraq (Reuters)
Objectives and preparations
On September 4, 2002, the US CBS television network said it had obtained documents showing that the decision to invade Iraq was taken by then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an hour after the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.
The network added that the documents indicate that Rumsfeld addressed his military aides, saying, "Consider whether it is appropriate to strike Saddam Hussein at the same time, not just Osama bin Laden," although all US reports have blamed the attacks on Al-Qaeda, led by bin Laden.
The network's leaks came at a time when the US administration, led by Bush Jr., shifted its focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, and intensified its efforts to convince congressional leaders and American and international public opinion of its plans to invade it, following Bush's statements in which he accused Iraq of being an "ally of al-Qaeda," saying, "It is not an option for us not to do so." Something about the serious threat posed by the Iraqi program to produce strategic weapons."
In the fall of 2002, the British government headed by Tony Blair published a report warning of "the dangers posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction" in an attempt to win the support of its people and world public opinion in favor of the invasion of Iraq.
Despite the declared pretext of weapons of mass destruction, various other reasons (political, economic, and even civilized) remained covered in the global media and the corridors of international politics, and some of them became more convincing to observers based on the course of events and the outcome of the war and revealing the secrets of its preparations.
At the forefront of these reasons is the enthusiasm of the American and British governments to seize control of Iraq’s vast oil wealth. There have been many reports of incitement to the invasion by officials of large American oil companies, among them, for example, the Halliburton Oil Group, which was then US Vice President Dick Cheney managed until the year 2000.
Secret British government documents also confirmed the existence of a strong relationship between oil companies and institutions and the invasion of Iraq, and said that plans to exploit the Iraqi oil reserves were discussed between government officials and the major international oil companies, especially British ones (including "Shell", "BP" and "BP" companies). "BG") a year before the date of the invasion of Baghdad.
In early January 2003, Bush announced - in a speech at Fort Hood, Texas, the most important US military base - that his country was ready and ready to move militarily "if Iraq refused to disarm its weapons of mass destruction" and added that his country "does not want an invasion." Iraq, but the liberation of the Iraqi people," he said, expressing his confidence in "a decisive victory because America has the best army in the world."
Bush accused Saddam of posing a real threat to America and its allies because he "used" weapons of mass destruction in the past, as well as against his own people, and accused him of "defying the demands of the United Nations not to provide a credible declaration of his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs to the UN inspectors" who resumed their work to inspect Iraq late November 2002.
On March 7, 2003, the British government informed the Attorney-General, Lord Peter Henry Goldsmith, of the need to prepare a decision on the legality of waging war on Iraq without the need for a new UN resolution to legitimize the invasion, which the Lord agreed to after he had refused it throughout the previous months, according to It was revealed by secret British documents released by David Cameron's government on April 30, 2010, in an exceptional and perhaps unprecedented way.
US forces deployed on a highway in southern Iraq (Reuters)
total outcome
The invasion operations - which Washington and London called "Operation Freedom for Iraq" - lasted 19 days from its inception until the control of Baghdad, in which the invading forces faced resistance from the Iraqi army, which was fighting without air cover.
As for the period between the moment of the fall of the capital on April 9, 2003, until the end of December 2007, the number of American military operations reached about 569 military operations, in Iraqi provinces and regions of varying intensity, as Baghdad comes first, then Anbar, and then the rest of the provinces 35% of them were implemented in 2007 alone.
Estimates of the total number of Iraqis killed in the invasion vary according to their issuer. A study by the British Survey Institute in the summer of 2007 reported that the number of these victims had reached about one million people, out of 26 million residents of Iraq.
A report in the British scientific journal "The Lancet" issued in October 2006 estimated the number of dead at no less than 655,000.
As for the World Health Organization, it believes that the Iraqi death toll ranges between 104 thousand and 230 thousand, which is close to the estimates of the WikiLeaks documents leaked in 2010, which indicated that 109,000 Iraqis were killed since the beginning of the invasion.
While the US military admitted the killing of about 77,000 Iraqis between January 2004 and August 2008, including about 63,000 civilians, and the rest were military personnel.
In a poll conducted by the ORB Center, which was based on field interviews, it was found that the death toll of Iraqis has reached 1.33 million since the invasion in 2003, while some estimates speak of the deaths of 654,000 Iraqis, 600,000 of whom are caused by violence, according to the report. A study conducted by Johns Hopkins University, USA.
According to the "Iraqi Victims Statistics Authority", the number of Iraqis killed by American bullets exceeded 106,348, while the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq "UNAMI" stated that the death toll of these casualties since the beginning of the American invasion amounted to 359,549 dead until 2016.
And the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, reported on March 16, 2013 - in a study of the costs of the invasion that published its outcome on the occasion of its tenth anniversary - that it cost the United States alone more than $801 billion, and said that if the study added the high benefits of American debt due to the war, the bill The invasion may exceed $3 trillion.
On December 18, 2011, the United States announced that its army had completed its withdrawal from Iraq that day, in implementation of the security agreement signed with the Baghdad government in 2008, and after the latter refused to grant thousands of American soldiers legal immunity.
Britain began withdrawing its forces from southern Iraq in early April 2009 and completed it permanently on May 22, 2011.
The coalition forces suffered heavy losses during the invasion of Iraq (Getty Images)
Not a picnic
On the other side, the invasion was not a picnic for Washington, after the US forces led the invasion at the head of an alliance in which the strength of its forces reached 150,000 military personnel, and incurred heavy losses, announced by the US Department of Defense "Pentagon" after the withdrawal of its country's forces from Iraq in 2011.
The United States has lost - according to Pentagon figures - 4,487 personnel in Iraq since the invasion until the withdrawal, while the number of those wounded during military operations exceeded 32,000.
As for Britain, Washington's main partner in the invasion, it lost 179 of its soldiers, and the death toll from the rest of the coalition countries combined reached 139, other than the material losses that Washington incurred.
The material losses incurred by the United States in the invasion process amount to 1.1 trillion dollars, according to a study prepared by Brown University, which believes that the number will reach 2.2 trillion after 2050, due to the care of veterans and injured and other consequences, which far exceeds the US government estimates, which ranged between 50 and 60 billion dollars.
From 2003 to 2011, the United States lost a total of 129 helicopters between combat aircraft or carriers, with more than 277 killed alone. On the ground, it suffered the loss of more than 860 vehicles, distributed between tanks, wheels and troop carriers.
Despite all this, some believe that these losses of the United States do not represent anything to it compared to the gains it achieved during the invasion or after the invasion.