2003 invasion of Iraq

The subject of this article is the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For events after May 1, 2003:

Main article: Iraq War

See also: Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–present

2003 Invasion of Iraq
Black Hawk Helicopters from the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) move into Iraq during the opening stages of the 2003 Invasion
Date March 18, 2003 – May 1, 2003 Location Iraq Result 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.
Belligerents
Coalition Forces: United States United Kingdom Australia Poland Denmark With Support From	Iraq
Commanders and leaders
George W. Bush Tommy Franks General Abizaid Tony Blair Gordon Brown Sir Richard Dannatt others	Saddam Hussein Qusay Hussein Ali Hassan al-Majid Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri
Strength
263,000	375,000
Casualties and losses
139 (U.S. fatalities as of May 1, 2003)	4,895 to 6,370 (reported and observed Iraqi combatant fatalities) Unknown civilian casualties

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by United States, Britain, Australia, Poland and Denmark (other countries were also involved in its aftermath) began on March 20, 2003. The invasion launched the Iraq War, which is still ongoing. U.S. President George W. Bush claimed that the objective of the invasion was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." In preparation, 100,000 U.S. troops were assembled in Kuwait by February 18. The United States supplied the vast majority of the invading forces, but also received support from Kurdish troops in northern Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was highly unpopular with some traditional U.S. allies, particularly France and Germany, for their respective representatives Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin and Gerhard Schröder contested the casus belli, i.e. the actual existence of weapons of mass destruction, arguing a war in Iraq was "not justified" in the given context (UNMOVIC's February 12 2003 report), furthermore with an ongoing War in Afghanistan. No referendum was proposed in both countries, though the policy also encountered some worldwide popular opposition. Between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq War. The majority of Americans supported the invasion at the outset. However, by October 2005, 55 percent of Americans believed the U.S. should not have invaded Iraq, with that number reaching 61 percent in March 2007.

Prelude to the invasion

After the conclusion of the Gulf War of 1991, the U.S., the UK, and the international community maintained a policy of “containment” towards Iraq. This policy involved numerous and crushing economic sanctions, U.S. and UK patrols of Iraqi no-fly zones declared to protect Kurds in northern Iraq and Shi'ites in the south, and ongoing inspections to prevent Iraqi development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Iraqi military helicopters and planes regularly contested the no-fly zones.

In October 1998, U.S. policy began to shift away from containment and towards “regime change,” as the U.S. Congress passed and President Clinton signed the "Iraq Liberation Act." Signed in response to Iraq's termination of its cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors the preceding August, the act provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." This legislation contrasted with the terms set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687,which focused on weapons and weapons programs and made no mention of regime change. One month after the passage of the “Iraq Liberation Act,” the U.S. and UK launched a bombardment campaign of Iraq called Operation Desert Fox. The campaign’s express rationale was to hamper the Hussein government’s ability to produce chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but U.S. national security personnel also hoped it would help weaken Hussein’s grip on power.

With the election of George W. Bush as U.S. President in 2000, the U.S. moved towards a more active policy of “regime change” in Iraq. The Republican Party's campaign platform in the 2000 election called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act and removal of Saddam Hussein, and key Bush advisors, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld’s Deputy Paul Wolfowitz, were longstanding advocates of invading Iraq.After leaving the administration, former Bush treasury secretary Paul O'Neill said that an attack on Iraq was planned since the inauguration and that the first National Security Council meeting involved discussion of an invasion. O'Neill later backtracked, saying that these discussions were part of a continuation of foreign policy first put into place by the Clinton Administration.

Despite the Bush Administration’s stated interest in invading Iraq, little formal movement towards an invasion occurred until the September 11, 2001 attacks. According to aides who were with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on September 11, Rumsfeld asked for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden." The notes also quote him as saying, "Go massive", and "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." The rationale for invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 has been widely questioned, as no link between Iraq and al-Qaeda was known prior to 9/11, and none has been discovered since.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, on September 20, Bush in his address to a joint session of Congress and American People announced the War on Terrorism, accompanied by the widely criticized doctrine of 'pre-emptive' military action, later termed the Bush doctrine. Some Bush advisors favored an immediate invasion of Iraq, while others advocated building an international coalition and obtaining United Nations authorization. Bush eventually decided to seek U.N. authorization, while still holding out the possibility of invading unilaterally.

Bush began formally making its case to the international community for an invasion of Iraq in his September 12, 2002 address to the U.N. Security Council. Key U.S. allies in the NATO allies, including France and Germany, were critical of plans to invade Iraq, arguing instead for continued diplomacy and weapons inspections. After considerable debate, the U.N. Security Council adopted a compromise resolution, 1441, which authorized the resumption of weapons inspections and promised "serious consequences" for noncompliance. Security Council members France and Russia made clear that they did not believe these consequences to include the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi government.. Both the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, and the UK ambassador Jeremy Greenstock publicly confirmed this reading of the resolution, assuring that Resolution 1441 provided no "automaticity" or "hidden triggers" for an invasion without further consultation of the Security Council.

Paralleling its efforts in the U.N., the Bush Administration also sought domestic authorization for an invasion, which it was granted on October 2002 when the U.S. Congress passed a "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq". While the resolution authorized the President to "use any means necessary" against Iraq, Americans polled in January 2003 widely favored further diplomacy over an invasion.

In February 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations General Assembly, continuing U.S. efforts to gain U.N. authorization for an invasion. Powell presented evidence alleging that Iraq was actively producing chemical and biological weapons and had ties to Iraq and 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 U.S. 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 U.S. eventually withdrew its resolution.

Bush meets with his top advisors on March 19, 2003 just before the invasion began.

With the failure of its resolution, the U.S. and UK abandoned the Security Council procedures and decided to pursue the invasion without U.N. authorization, a decision of questionable legality under international law. . This decision was widely unpopular worldwide, and opposition to the invasion coalesced on February 15 in a worldwide anti-war protest that attracted between six and ten million people in more than 800 cities, the largest such protest in human history according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

In March of 2003, the United States began preparing for the invasion of Iraq, with a host of public relations, and military moves. In his March 17, 2003 address to the nation, Bush demanded that Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay surrender and leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline.Iraq rejected this demand, maintaining that it had already disarmed as required. On March 20, 2003, the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies began, without UN support, unlike the first Gulf War or the invasion of Afghanistan.

Failed Peace Initiatives

Main article: Failed Iraqi peace initiatives

In December 2002, a representative of the head of Iraqi Intelligence, Gen. Tahir Jalil Habbush al Takriti, contacted former CIA counterterrorism head Vincent Cannistraro, stating that Saddam "knew there was a campaign to link him to September 11 and prove he had weapons of mass destruction." Cannistrano further added that "the Iraqis were prepared to satisfy these concerns. I reported the conversation to senior levels of the state department and I was told to stand aside and they would handle it." Cannistrano stated that the offers made were all "killed" by the Bush administration because they allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power - an outcome viewed as unacceptable.

Shortly after, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's national security advisor, Osama al Baz, sent a message to the U.S. State Department that the Iraqis wanted to discuss the accusations that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties with al-Qaeda. Iraq also attempted to reach the US through the Syrian, French, German, and Russian intelligence services. Nothing came of the attempts.

In January 2003, Lebanese-American Imad Hage met with Michael Maloof of the DoD's Office of Special Plans. Hage, a resident of Beirut, had been recruited by the department to assist in the War on Terrorism. He reported that Mohammed Nassif, a close aide to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, had expressed frustrations about the difficulties of Syria contacting the United States, and had attempted to use him as an intermediary. Maloof arranged for Hage to meet with Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board.

In February 2003, Hage met with the chief of Iraqi intelligence's foreign operations, Hassan al-Obeidi. Obeidi told Hage that Baghdad didn't understand why they were being targeted, and that they had no WMDs; he then made the offer for Washington to send in 2000 FBI agents to ascertain this. He additionally offered oil concessions, but stopped short of having Hussein give up power, instead suggesting that elections could be held in two years. Later, Obeidi suggested that Hage travel to Baghdad for talks; he accepted.

Later that month, Hage met with Gen. Habbush in addition to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. He was offered top priority to US firms in oil and mining rights, UN-supervised elections, US inspections (with up to 5,000 inspectors), to have al-Qaeda agent Abdul Rahman Yasin (in Iraqi custody since 1994) handed over as a sign of good faith, and to give "full support for any US plan" in the Arab-Israeli peace process. They also wished to meet with high-ranking US officials. On February 19th, Hage faxed Maloof his report of the trip. Maloof reports having brought the proposal to Jamie Duran. The Pentagon denies that either Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld, Duran's bosses, were aware of the plan.

On February 21st, Maloof informed Duran in an email that Perle wished to meet with Hage and the Iraqis if the Pentagon would clear it. Duran responded "Mike, working this. Keep this close hold.". On March 7th, Perle met with Hage in Knightsbridge, and stated that he wanted to pursue the matter further with people in Washington (both have acknowledged the meeting). A few days later, he informed Hage that Washington refused to let him meet with Habbush to discuss the offer (Hage stated that Perle's response was "that the consensus in Washington was it was a no-go"). Perle told the Times, "The message was 'Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad."

Rationale

Main articles: The UN Security Council and the Iraq war, Rationale for the Iraq War, and Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq

Throughout 2002, the Bush administration made clear that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a major goal. The principal stated justifications for this policy of "regime change" were that Iraq's alleged production of weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to terrorist organizations, amounted to a threat to the U.S. and the world community.

Colin Powell holding a model vial of anthrax while giving presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003 (still photograph captured from video clip, The White House/CNN)

The Bush administration's overall rationale for the invasion of Iraq was presented in detail by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003; in summary, he stated:

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression...given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond? The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.

Since the invasion, U.S. and British claims concerning Iraqi weapons programs and links to terrorist organizations have been called into serious question. While the debate of whether Iraq intended to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons remains open, no stockpiles of WMDs have been found in Iraq since the invasion despite comprehensive inspections lasting more than 18 months. Similarly, assertions of significant operational links between Iraq and al Qaeda have largely been discredited by the intelligence community and were eventually retracted by Secretary Powell himself.

In September 2002, the Bush administration said attempts by Iraq to acquire thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes pointed to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. Indeed, Colin Powell, in his address to the U.N. Security Council just prior to the war, made reference to the aluminum tubes. But a report released by the Institute for Science and International Security in 2002 reported that it was highly unlikely that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium. Powell later admitted he had presented an inaccurate case to the United Nations on Iraqi weapons, and was in some cases "deliberately misleading."

Critics of the invasion have also alleged that the U.S. and British governments deliberately fabricated evidence concerning Iraqi weapons programs and links to terrorists. Most notably, opponents of the invasion have accused the Bush Administration of relying on knowingly fraudulent evidence in asserting that the Hussein government had sought to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. On March 7, 2003, intelligence documents submitted as evidence to the IAEA were dismissed by the agency as forgeries, with the concurrence of outside experts. At the time, a U.S. official claimed that the evidence was submitted to the IAEA without knowledge of its provenance, and characterized any mistakes as "more likely due to incompetence not malice"; this explanation was deemed unsatisfactory by former CIA official and Iraq War critic Ray Close. Those who oppose these critics of the invasion maintain the fraudulent documents were never central--or even relevant--in intelligence assessments regarding Iraq seeking uranium.

Accusations that the invasion was fought on false pretenses were thought by some to be strengthened by the 2005 release of the so-called Downing Street Memo, a secret British document summarizing a 2002 meeting among British political, intelligence, and defense leaders. According to the memo, Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove claimed that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Some supporters of the war, however, claim the Memo simply reveals someone giving voice to an opinion, not proof of any facts.

Between September, 2002 and June, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz created a Pentagon unit known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), headed by Douglas Feith. It was created to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq, unvetted by intelligence analysts, and circumventing traditional intelligence gathering operations by the CIA. One former CIA officer described the OSP as dangerous for U.S. national security and a threat to world peace, and that it lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam Hussein. He described it as a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality, taking bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignoring anything contrary.

In October, 2002, a few days before the U.S. Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack U.S. eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the U.S. In fact, Iraq had no fleet of UAVs nor any capability of putting UAVs on ships. Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of less than a handful of outdated Czech training drones. At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether CIA had conclusions about Iraqi UAVs were accurate. The U.S. Air Force agency most familiar with UAVs denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.

As evidence supporting U.S. and British claims about Iraqi WMDs and links to terrorism weakened, some claim supporters of the invasion have increasingly shifted their justification to the human rights violations of the Hussein government. Leading human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have argued, however, that they believe human rights concerns were never a central justification for the invasion, nor do they believe that military intervention was justifiable on humanitarian grounds, most significantly because "the killing in Iraq at the time was not of the exceptional nature that would justify such intervention." Many supporters of the war, however, claim from the start human rights concerns were among the reasons given for the invasion, and that the threat of weapons of mass destruction was emphasized at the United Nations, since this dealt with Iraq flouting UN resolutions. They further claim human rights groups that oppose the war have no objective standard regarding when to invade a country.

Notwithstanding the stated justifications for the invasion, critics of the Bush Administration have also argued that the true motives included ensuring U.S. access to Iraqi oil and long term U.S. dominance in the Middle East. Bush Administration officials have vehemently denied these claims. Jean-François Susbielle, a French author wrote a book in 2006 called book titled Chine-USA, la guerre programmée in which he claimed that the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 so as to have power over as many major oil fields as possible so as to control China’s access to oil. He believes that various neoconservatives view China as a strategic challenge that must be contained. Many supporters of the war counter that other nations made special deals with Iraq to buy its oil, and if the US were interested primarily in oil, it could have made a deal as well, a much easier route to what it desires than fighting a war; furthermore, they claim, oil was more instrumental in creating opposition to the war than support for it, since many nations, especially in Europe, wanted to maintain the oil supply they were receiving from Iraq.

Legality of invasion

The legality of the invasion of Iraq has been challenged since its inception on a number of fronts, and several prominent supporters of the invasion in both the U.S. and Britain have publicly and privately cast doubt on its legality. Richard Perle, a senior member of the administration's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, conceded in November 2003 that the invasion was illegal but still justified. Similarly, Tony Blair's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, while concluding that a reasonable case could be made that U.N. Resolution 1441 authorized military action, acknowledged that the invasion could be challenged on legal grounds.

From the vantage point of international law, the U.S. and Britain have put forth two major arguments for the invasion's legality. The first argument holds that military action was authorized by U.N. resolutions related to the first Gulf War (660, 678) and the subsequent, ongoing inspections of Iraqi weapons programs (1441). The latter resolution was most prominent during the run up to the war and formed the main backdrop for Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the Security Council one month before the invasion. At the same time, Bush Administration officials advanced a parallel legal argument using the earlier resolutions, which authorized force in response to Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait. Under this reasoning, by failing to disarm and submit to weapons inspections, Iraq was in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 660 and 678, and the U.S. could legally compel Iraq's compliance through military means.

Critics of the legal rationale based on the U.N. resolutions argue that the legal right to determine how to enforce its resolutions lies with the Security Council alone, not with individual nations. These critics have also pointed out that the statements of U.S. officials leading up to the war indicated their belief that a new Security Council Resolution was required to make an invasion legal. For example, to secure Syria's vote in favor of U.N. Resolution 1441, Secretary of State Powell reportedly advised Syrian officials that "there is nothing in the resolution to allow it to be used as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq."

The U.S. and Britain's second major legal argument justifying the invasion was that Iraq's behavior presented an growing threat to the U.S. that warranted "preemptive" or "preventive" self-defense. Many opponents of the Bush policy criticized this justification, arguing that preemptive wars are of questionable legality under international law and violate the U.N. Charter. These opponents further argued that even if a preemptive war were legal, Iraq did not pose a sufficiently immediate threat to the U.S. and thus the invasion was a preventive war, which clearly violates international law. Several prominent groups of international lawyers endorsed a statement that the U.S. invasion was "a fundamental breach of international law (that) would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War." This opinion was echoed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said in September 2004, "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it (the war) was illegal."

In February 2006, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, reported that he had received 240 separate communications regarding the legality of the war, many of which concerned British participation in the invasion. In a letter addressed to the complainants, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo explained that he could only consider issues related to conduct during the war and not to its underlying legality as a possible crime of aggression because no provision had yet been adopted which "defines the crime and sets out the conditions under which the Court may exercise jurisdiction with respect to it." In a March 2007 interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Moreno-Ocampo encouraged Iraq to sign up with the court so that it could bring cases related to alleged war crimes.

See also: Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Failed Iraqi peace initiatives, Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Opposition to the 2003 Iraq War

Military aspects

United States military operations were conducted under the codename Operation Iraqi Liberation. Later changed to "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The United Kingdom military operation was named Operation Telic.

Invasion force

Approximately 120,000 Soldiers and Marines from the United States, and 45,000 from the United Kingdom, as well as smaller forces from three other nations (including Australia), collectively called the "Coalition of the Willing", were deployed prior to the invasion primarily to several staging areas in Kuwait. When naval, logistics, intelligence, and air force personnel are included, the invasion force was approximately 248,000 American, 45,000 British, 2,000 Australians, 300 Danish, and 200 Polish (commando squad GROM) personnel. Of those troops, all but the American, British and the Polish commando squad were kept close to bases and required to avoid hostile engagements. The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 50,000.

Plans for opening a second front in the north were severely hampered when Turkey refused the use of its territory for such purposes. In response to Turkey's decision, the United States dropped several thousand paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade into northern Iraq, a number significantly less than the 60,000 strong 4th Mechanized Infantry Division that the U.S. originally planned to use for opening the northern front.

Defending force

The number of personnel in the Iraqi military prior to the war was uncertain, but it was believed to have been poorly-equipped. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the Iraqi armed forces to number 389,000 (army 350,000, navy 2,000, air force 20,000 and air defense 17,000), the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam 44,000, and reserves 650,000. Another estimate numbers the army and Republican Guard at between 280,000 to 350,000 and 50,000 to 80,000, respectively, and the paramilitary between 20,000 and 40,000. There were an estimated thirteen infantry divisions, ten mechanized and armored divisions, as well as some special forces units. The Iraqi Air Force and Iraqi Navy played a negligible role in the conflict. In 2005, the CIA released a report saying that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.[6]

Invasion

Main articles: 2003 - 2004 occupation of Iraq timeline and 2003 Iraq war timeline

Routes and major battles fought by invasion force and afterwards.

Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the U.S. and UK had been engaged in a low-level conflict with Iraq, enforcing Iraqi no-fly zones with ongoing air raids that Iraqi air-defense installations regularly contested. In mid-2002, the U.S. began more carefully selecting targets in the southern part of the country to disrupt the military command structure in Iraq. A change in enforcement tactics was acknowledged at the time, but it was not made public that this was part of a plan known as Operation Southern Focus.

The tonnage of U.S. bombs dropped increased from 0 in March 2002 and 0.3 in April 2002 to between 7 and 14 tons per month in May-August, reaching a pre-war peak of 54.6 tons in September - prior to Congress' 11 October authorization of the invasion. The September attacks included a 5 September 100-aircraft attack on the main air defense site in western Iraq. According to an editorial in New Statesman this was "Located at the furthest extreme of the southern no-fly zone, far away from the areas that needed to be patrolled to prevent attacks on the Shias, it was destroyed not because it was a threat to the patrols, but to allow allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected."

Dora Farms strike

The night of March 19, 2003, U.S. forces abandoned the plan for initial, non-nuclear decapitation strikes against fifty-five top Iraqi officials, in light of reports that Saddam Hussein was visiting his daughters and sons, Uday and Qusay at Dora Farms, within the al-Dora farming community on the outskirts of Baghdad. At approximately 05:30 UTC four enhanced, satellite-guided 2,000-pound Bunker Busters GBU-27 and 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles were dropped on the compound. One missed the compound entirely and the other three missed their target landing on the other side of the wall of the palace compound. [7] [8] [9] Saddam Hussein was not present nor were any members of the Iraqi leadership or Hussein family. The attack resulted in the deaths of fifteen civilians, including nine women and one child.

Opening attack

File:ApacheDown.jpg

A U.S Apache helicopter shot down by the Iraqi Republican Guard. The two pilots, David Williams and Ron Young, were taken prisoners.

On March 20, 2003 at approximately 02:30 UTC or about 90 minutes after the lapse of the 48-hour deadline, at 05:33 local time, explosions were heard in Baghdad. There is now evidence that various Special Forces and Special Operations troops (including British SAS, the Australian SAS, the U.S. Army's Delta Force, U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S Army's Green Berets and U.S. Air Force Combat Controllers) crossed the border into Iraq well before the air war commenced to guide strike aircraft in air attacks. At 03:15 UTC, or 10:15 p.m. EST, George W. Bush announced that he had ordered an "attack of opportunity" against targets in Iraq. As soon as this word was given the troops on standby crossed the border into Iraq. These troops were led by the 4th bomb disposal unit which at the time had three RAF Regiment airmen from 15 squadron on a tour.

Before the invasion, many observers had expected a lengthy campaign of aerial bombing in advance of any ground action, taking as examples the 1991 Persian Gulf War or the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. In practice, U.S. plans envisioned simultaneous air and ground assaults to decapitate the Iraqi forces as fast as possible (see Shock and Awe), attempting to bypass Iraqi military units and cities in most cases. The assumption was that superior mobility and co-ordination of U.S. and UK forces would allow them to attack the heart of the Iraqi command structure and destroy it in a short time, and that this would minimize civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure. It was expected that the elimination of the leadership would lead to the collapse of the Iraqi Forces and the government, and that much of the population would support the invaders once the government had been weakened. Occupation of cities and attacks on peripheral military units were viewed as undesirable distractions.

Following Turkey's decision to deny any official use of its territory, the U.S. was forced to abandon a planned simultaneous attack from north and south, so the primary bases for the invasion were in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf nations. One result of this was that one of the divisions intended for the invasion was forced to relocate and was unable to take part in the invasion until well into the war. Many observers felt that the U.S. devoted insufficient numbers of troops to the invasion, and that this (combined with the failure to occupy cities) put them at a major disadvantage in achieving security and order throughout the country when local support failed to meet expectations.

NASA Landsat 7 image of Baghdad, April 2, 2003. The dark streaks are smoke from oil well fires set in an attempt to hinder attacking air forces.

The invasion was swift, with the collapse of the Iraq government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. The oil infrastructure of Iraq was rapidly secured with limited damage in that time. Securing the oil infrastructure was considered of great importance to funding the rebuilding of Iraq after the invasion ended. In the Persian Gulf War, while retreating from Kuwait, the Iraqi army had set many oil wells on fire, in an attempt to disguise troop movements and to distract Coalition forces. Prior to the 2003 invasion, Iraqi forces had mined some 400 oil wells around Basra and the Al-Faw peninsula with explosives. The British 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines launched an air and amphibious assault on the Al-Faw peninsula, supported by units of the Special Boat Service (SBS) Royal Marines and US Navy SEALs during the closing hours of 20 March to secure the oil fields there; the amphibious assault was supported by frigates of the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. The United States Marine Corps' 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, attached to 3 Commando Brigade and the Polish Special Forces unit GROM attacked the port of Umm Qasr. The British Army's 16 Air Assault Brigade also secured the oilfields in southern Iraq in places like Rumaila while the Polish commandos captured offshore oil platforms near the port, preventing their destruction. Despite the rapid advance of the invasion forces, some 44 oil wells were destroyed and set blaze by Iraqi explosives or by incidental fire. However, the wells were quickly capped and the fires put out, preventing the ecological damage and loss of oil that had occurred at the end of the Persian Gulf War.

In keeping with the rapid advance plan, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division moved westward and then northward through the western desert toward Baghdad, while the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved along Highway 1 through the center of the country, and 1 (UK) Armoured Division moved northward through the eastern marshland.

Initially, the U.S. 1st Marine Division fought through the Rumaila oil fields, and moved north to Nasariyah--a moderate-sized, Shi'ite dominated city with important strategic significance as a major road junction and its proximity to nearby Talil Airfield. The U.S Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and bypassed the city to the west. On 23 March, U.S Marines and Special Forces units pressed the attack in and around Nasiriyah. During the battle an Air Force A-10 was involved in a case of fratricide that resulted in the death of six Marines. Because of Nasiriyah's strategic position as a road junction, significant gridlock occurred as U.S forces moving north converged on the city's surrounding highways. With Nasiriyah and Tallil Airfield secured, U.S. forces gained an important logistical center in southern Iraq, establishing FOB/EAF Jalibah, some 10 miles outside of Nasiriyah through which additional troops and supplies were brought. The 101st Airborne Division continued their attack north behind the 3rd Infantry Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division began to consolidate in and around Tallil airfield for further operations. By 27-28 March, a severe sand storm slowed the U.S advance as the 3rd Infantry Division fought on the outskirts of Najaf and Kufa, with particularly heavy fighting in and around the bridge adjacent to the town of Kifl before moving north toward Karbala.

Further south, the British 7 Armoured Brigade ('The Desert Rats') fought their way into Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, on 6 April, coming under constant attack by regulars and Fedayeen, while the Parachute Regiment cleared the 'old quarter' of the city that was inaccessible to vehicles. Entering Basra had only been achieved after two weeks of conflict, which included the biggest tank battle by British forces since World War II when the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks on 27 March. Elements of 1 (UK) Armoured Division began to advance north towards U.S. positions around Al Amarah on 9 April. Pre-existing electrical and water shortages continued throughout the conflict and looting began as Iraqi forces collapsed. While British forces began working with local Iraqi Police to enforce order, REME (Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers) and Royal Engineers of the British Army rapidly set up and repaired dockyard facilities to allow humanitarian aid began to arrive from ships arriving in the port city of Umm Qasr.

After a rapid initial advance, the first major pause occurred in the vicinity of Karbala. There, U.S. Army elements met resistance from Iraqi troops defending cities and key bridges along the Euphrates River. These forces threatened to interdict supply routes as U.S. forces moved north. By the end of March, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division augmented with a mechanized infantry battalion task force of the U.S. 1st Armored Division began diversionary assaults in and around the city of Samawah to divert Iraqi forces that may have otherwise threatened the extended rear of the U.S. and UK's lead elements. Meanwhile, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division supported by an armored battalion task force of the 1st Armored division and infantry elements of the U.S. 1st Marine Division with U.S. Marine and Army air support, attacked and secured the cities of Najaf and Karbala to prevent any Iraqi counterattacks from the east. These attacks effectively protected the eastern flank and rear of the 3rd Infantry Division, which allowed the western flank of the invasion to resupply and continue its advance north through the Karbala Gap and on toward Baghdad, where U.S Marine and British forces had already begun a preliminary assault on the outskirts of the city.

Special Operations

The northern front during March and April 2003

The 2nd Battalion of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group, United States Army Special Forces (Green Berets) conducted reconnaissance in the cities of Basra, Karbala and various other locations.

In the North, the 10th Special Forces Group (10th SFG) had the mission of aiding the Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, de facto rulers of Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, and employing them against the 13 Iraqi Divisions located in the vicinity of Kirkuk and Mosul. Turkey had officially forbidden any U.S. troops from using their bases or airspace, so lead elements of the 10th SFG had to make a detour infiltration; their flight was supposed to take four hours but instead took ten. Hours after the first of such flights, Turkey did allow the use of its air space and the rest of the 10th SFG infiltrated in. The preliminary mission was to destroy the base of the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, believed to be linked to Al Qaeda. Concurrent and follow-on missions involved attacking and fixing Iraqi forces in the north, thus preventing their deployment to the southern front and the main effort of the invasion.

On March 26, 2003, the 173rd Airborne Brigade augmented the invasion's northern front by parachuting into northern Iraq onto Bashur Airfield, controlled at the time by elements of 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga. The fall of Kirkuk on 10 April 2003 to the 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga precipitated the 173rd's planned assault, preventing the unit's involvement in combat against Iraqi forces during the invasion. The successful invasion of Kirkuk came as a result of approximately two weeks of fighting that included the Battle of the Green Line (the unofficial border of the Kurdish autonomous zone) and the subsequent Battle of Kani Domlan Ridge (the ridgeline running northwest to southeast of Kirkuk), the latter fought exclusively by 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga against the Iraqi I Corps. The 173rd would eventually take responsibility for Kirkuk days later, becoming involved in the counterinsurgency fight and remain there until redeploying a year later.

After Sargat was taken, Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG along with their Kurdish allies pushed south towards Tikrit and the surrounding towns of Northern Iraq. Previously, during the Battle of the Green Line, Bravo Company, 3/10 with their Kurdish allies pushed back, destroyed, or routed the 13th Iraqi Infantry Division. The same company took Tikrit. Iraq was the largest deployment of Special Forces since Vietnam.

Fall of Baghdad (April 2003)

File:LastLyon-2.jpg

Iraqi T-72 tanks heading for the front during the battle of Baghdad.

Three weeks into the invasion, U.S. forces moved into Baghdad. Initial plans were for armored units to surround the city and gradually move in, forcing Iraqi armor and ground units to cluster into a central pocket in the city, and then attack with air and artillery forces. This plan soon became unnecessary, as an initial engagement of armor units south of the city saw most of the Republican Guard's armor assets destroyed and much of the southern outskirts of the city occupied. On 5 April TF 1-64 Armor of the U.S. Army executed a raid, later called the "Thunder Run", to test remaining Iraqi defenses, with 29 tanks and 14 Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles rushing from a staging base to the Baghdad airport. They met heavy resistance, including many suicidal attacks, but were successful in reaching the airport. Two days later another thunder run was launched by the U.S. Army into the Palaces of Saddam Hussein, where they seized the palaces and government offices of central Baghdad. Within hours of the palace seizure, and television coverage of this spreading through Iraq, U.S. forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on April 9 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by U.S. forces and the power of Saddam Hussein was declared ended. Much of Baghdad remained unsecured however, and fighting continued within the city and its outskirts well into the period of occupation. Saddam had vanished, and his whereabouts were unknown. Many Iraqis celebrated the downfall of Saddam by vandalizing the many portraits and statues of him together with other pieces of his personality cult. One widely publicized event was the dramatic toppling of a large statue of Saddam in central Baghdad by a U.S. M88 tank retriever, while a crowd of Iraqis cheered the Marines on. During this incident, the Marines briefly draped an American flag over the statue's face. The flag was replaced with an Iraqi flag and the demolition continued.

The fall of Baghdad saw the outbreak of regional violence throughout the country, as Iraqi tribes and cities began to fight each other over old grudges. The Iraqi cities of Al-Kut and Nasiriyah declared war upon each other immediately following the fall of Baghdad to establish dominance in the new country, and the U.S. and its allies quickly found themselves embroiled in a potential civil-war. U.S. forces ordered the cities to cease hostilities immediately, and explained that Baghdad would remain the capital of the new Iraqi government. Nasiriyah responded favorably and quickly backed down, however Al-Kut placed snipers on the main roadways into town, with orders that invading forces were not to enter the city. After several minor skirmishes, the snipers were removed, but tensions and violence between regional, city, tribal, and familial groups continued into the occupation period.

General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defense of Baghdad, rumors were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck (a "safqua") wherein the U.S. had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite and/or the Ba'ath party itself to stand down. In May 2003, General Franks retired, and confirmed in an interview with Defense Week that the U.S. had paid Iraqi military leaders to defect. The extent of the defections and their effect on the war are unclear.

U.S. troops promptly began searching for the key members of Saddam Hussein's government. These individuals were identified by a variety of means, most famously through sets of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.

On 22 July 2003 during a raid by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and men from Task Force 20, Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, and one of his grandsons were killed.

Saddam Hussein was captured on December 13 2003 by the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121 during Operation Red Dawn.

Other areas

In the north, Kurdish forces opposed to Saddam Hussein had already occupied for years an autonomous area in northern Iraq. With the assistance of U.S. Special Forces and air strikes, they were able to rout the Iraqi units near them and to occupy oil-rich Kirkuk on 10 April.

U.S. special forces had also been involved in the extreme south of Iraq, attempting to occupy key roads to Syria and airbases. In one case two armored platoons were used to convince Iraqi leadership that an entire armored battalion was entrenched in the west of Iraq.

On 15 April, U.S. forces took control of Tikrit, the last major outpost in central Iraq, with an attack led by the Marines' Task Force Tripoli. About a week later the Marines were relieved in place by the Army's 4th Infantry Division.

Summary of the invasion

Aircraft of the USAF 379th Air Expeditionary Wing and U.K. and Australian counterparts stationed together at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in southwest Asia, fly over the desert. April 14, 2003. Aircraft include KC-135 Stratotanker, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-117 Nighthawk, F-16CJ Falcon, British GR-4 Tornado, and Australian F/A-18 Hornet.

The U.S. and UK forces managed to topple the government and capture the key cities of a large nation in only 21 days, taking minimal losses while also trying to avoid large civilian deaths and even high numbers of dead Iraqi military forces. The invasion did not require the huge army build-up like the 1991 Gulf War, which numbered half a million troops. This did prove short-sighted, however, due to the requirement for a much larger force to combat the irregular Iraqi forces in the aftermath of the war. General Eric Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff, recommended "several hundred thousand" troops be used to maintain post-war order, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—and especially his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz—strongly disagreed. General Abizaid later said Shinseki was right.

The Iraqi army, armed mainly with Soviet-built equipment, was overall ill-equipped in comparison to the U.S. and UK forces. Missiles launched from Iraq were either interdicted by U.S. anti-air batteries, or made little to no strategic impact on their targets. Attacks on U.S. supply routes by Fedayeen militiamen were repulsed. The Iraqis' artillery proved largely ineffective, and they were unable to mobilize their air force to attempt a defense. The Iraqi T-72 tanks, the heaviest armored vehicles in the Iraqi Army, were both outdated and ill-maintained, and when they were mobilized they were rapidly destroyed, thanks in part to U.S. and UK. air supremacy. The U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Naval Aviation, and British Royal Air Force operated with impunity throughout the country, pinpointing heavily defended enemy targets and destroying them before ground troops arrived.

The main battle tanks (MBT) of the U.S. and UK forces, the U.S. M1 Abrams and British Challenger 2, proved their worth in the rapid advance across the country. Even with the large number of RPG attacks by irregular Iraqi forces, few U.S. and UK tanks were lost and no tank crewmen were killed by hostile fire. The only tank loss sustained by the British Army was a Challenger 2 of the Queen's Royal Lancers that was hit by another Challenger 2, killing two crewmen. All three British tank crew fatalities were a result of friendly fire.

The Iraqi Army suffered from poor morale, even amongst the elite Republican Guard. Entire units disbanded into the crowds upon the approach of invading troops, or actually sought out U.S. and UK forces out to surrender. In one case, a force of roughly 20-30 Iraqis attempted to surrender to a two-man vehicle repair and recovery team, invoking similar instances of Iraqis surrendering to news crews during the Persian Gulf War. Other Iraqi Army officers were bribed by the CIA or coerced into surrendering. Worse, the Iraqi Army had incompetent leadership - reports state that Qusay Hussein, charged with the defense of Baghdad, dramatically shifted the positions of the two main divisions protecting Baghdad several times in the days before the arrival of U.S. forces, and as a result the units within were both confused and further demoralized when U.S. Marine and British forces attacked. By no means did the invasion force see the entire Iraqi military thrown against it; U.S. and UK units had orders to move to and seize objective target-points rather than seek engagements with Iraqi units. This resulted in most regular Iraqi military units emerging from the war fully intact and without ever having been engaged by U.S. forces, especially in southern Iraq. It is assumed that most units disintegrated to either join the growing Iraqi insurgency or returned to their homes.

According to the declassified Pentagon report, "The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq's military forces was the continued interference by Saddam." The report, designed to help U.S. officials understand in hindsight how Saddam and his military commanders prepared for and fought the war, paints a picture of an Iraqi government blind to the threat it faced, hampered by Saddam's inept military leadership and deceived by its own propaganda. According to BBC, the report portrays Saddam Hussein as "chronically out of touch with reality - preoccupied with the prevention of domestic unrest and with the threat posed by Iran."

Security, looting and war damage

Looting took place in the days following the 2003 invasion. Similar looting occurred for two weeks following the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. So the U.S. military should have known--and did know, from that Panama experience, to take steps to maintain order in post-invasion Iraq, based on its post-invasion experience in Panama. But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld intended to prove that Iraq could be taken with 'force lite', perhaps to challenge the 'Powell Doctrine'. {Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Colin Powell's doctrine, based on Vietnam, argued that the US should use overwhelming force.) Rumsfeld thus disregarded military recommendations for more troops, at times resulting in few or no invasion reserves, and indeed Rumsfeld did not fire Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shensiki, but Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, publicly questioned the general's advice for 'several hundred thousand' troops. Looting in Iraq was further left uncontrolled by the decision of (American viceroy) Paul Bremer to de-Baathify Iraq's own military rather than to use that military to maintain order. (But Bremer writes in his book that there was no military to disband; Peter Galbraith wrote in 'AThe Mess,' NY Review of Books, March 9, 2006, that he also found no active Iraqi military, but wrote also that Bremer 'had never been there, did not speak Arabic, had no experience dealing with a country emerging from war, and had never been involved with nation-building,'") It was reported that the National Museum of Iraq was among the looted sites. The assertion that U.S. forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Interior is apparently true. According to U.S. officials the "reality of the situation on the ground" was that hospitals, water plants, and ministries with vital intelligence needed security more than other sites. There were only enough U.S. troops on the ground to guard a certain number of the many sites that ideally needed protection, and so, apparently, some "hard choices" were made. Also, it was reported that many trucks of purported Iraqi gold and $1.6 billion of bricks of U.S. cash were seized by U.S. forces.

The FBI was soon called into Iraq to track down the stolen items. It was found that the initial claims of looting of substantial portions of the collection were heavily exaggerated. Initial reports claimed a near-total looting of the museum, estimated at upwards of 170,000 pieces. The most recent estimate places the number of looted pieces at around 15,000. Over 5,000 looted items have since been recovered.

There has been speculation that some objects still missing were not taken by looters after the war, but were taken by Saddam Hussein or his entourage before or during the fighting. There have also been reports that early looters had keys to vaults that held rarer pieces, and some have speculated as to the pre-meditated systematic removal of key artifacts.

The National Museum of Iraq was only one of many museums and sites of cultural significance that were affected by the war. Many in the arts and antiquities communities briefed policy makers in advance of the need to secure Iraqi museums. Despite the looting being lighter than initially feared, the cultural loss of items from ancient Sumer is significant.

More serious for the post-war state of Iraq was the looting of cached weaponry and ordnance which fueled the subsequent insurgency. As many as 250,000 tons of explosives were unaccounted for by October 2004. Disputes within the US Defense Department led to delays in the post-invasion assessment and protection of Iraqi nuclear facilities. Tuwaitha, the Iraqi site most scrutinized by UN inspectors since 1991, was left unguarded and may have been looted.

Zainab Bahrani, professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, reported that a helicopter landing pad was constructed in the heart of the ancient city of Babylon, and "removed layers of archeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops."

Bahrani also reported that in the summer of 2004, "the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters." Electrical power is scarce in post-war Iraq, Bahrani reported, and some fragile artifacts, including the Ottoman Archive, would not survive the loss of refrigeration.

Bush declares "End of major combat operations" (May 2003)

The USS Abraham Lincoln returning to port carrying its Mission Accomplished banner

On 1 May 2003, Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Bush's landing was criticized by opponents as an overly theatrical and expensive stunt. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished." The banner, made by White House staff and supplied by request of the U.S. Navy, was criticized as premature - especially as sectarian violence and American casualties have continued to increase since the official end of hostilities. The White House subsequently released a statement that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq and disputing the claim of theatrics. The speech itself noted: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."

Iraq was subsequently marked by violent conflict between U.S.-led soldiers and forces described by the occupiers as insurgents. The ongoing resistance in Iraq was concentrated in, but not limited to, an area referred to by Western media and the occupying forces as the Sunni triangle and Baghdad.

George W. Bush on the Abraham Lincoln wearing a flight suit after landing on the aircraft carrier in a military jet.

This resistance may be described as guerrilla warfare. The tactics in use were to include mortars, suicide bombers, roadside bombs, small arms fire, improvised explosive devices (IED's), and handheld antitank grenade-launchers (RPG's), as well as sabotage against the oil infrastructure. There are also accusations, questioned by some, about attacks toward the power and water infrastructure.

There is evidence that some of the resistance was organized, perhaps by the fedayeen and other Saddam Hussein or Ba'ath loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis angered by the occupation, and foreign fighters.

Many experts now consider Iraq to have degenerated into civil war, although the Bush administration disputes the accuracy of the term. According to a survey 2006 study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, more than 601,000 Iraqis have died in the violence following the 2003 invasion.

Casualties

Main articles: Casualties in the conflict in Iraq and Refugees of Iraq

While estimates on the number of casualties during the invasion in Iraq vary widely, the majority of deaths and injuries have occurred after U.S. President Bush declared the end of "major combat operations" on May 1, 2003. According to CNN, the U.S. government reported that 139 American military personnel were killed before May 1, 2003, while more than 3,000 have been killed since 2003. Estimates on civilian casualties are more variable than those for military personnel. According to Iraq Body Count, a group that relies on Western press reports to measure civilian casualties, approximately 7,500 civilians were killed during the invasion phase, while more than 60,000 civilians have been killed as of April 2007. The Lancet surveys of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, estimates much higher civilian casualties, but does not differentiate between the invasion phase (March-May 2003) and the occupation phase (post May 2003). The Lancet survey estimates that over 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the conflict, with the vast majority of these deaths occurring after May 2003.

In November 2006 Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said that since the March 2003 invasion between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraqis have been killed. Al-Shemari based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals – such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

As of November 4, 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month. Roughly 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the U.N. said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

UNHCR reports that Iraqi Christians comprise 44% of Iraqi refugees, although only 4% of the overall population is Christian. Iraq's Christian community numbered 1.4 million in 1980 at the start of Iran-Iraq War. But as the war has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians' total numbers slumped to about 500,000, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad. Iraqi Christians are bearing the brunt of animosity toward a perceived "crusade" by the United States in Iraq. A May 25, 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in the United States.

Media coverage

Main article: 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage

U.S. media coverage

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was the most widely and closely reported war in military history. Television network coverage was largely pro-war and viewers were six times more likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war.. The New York Times ran a number of articles describing Saddam Hussein's attempts to build weapons of mass destruction. The September 8th, 2002 article titled "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts" would be discredited, leading the New York Times to issue a public statement admitting it was not as rigorous as it should have been.

At the start of the war in March of 2003, as many as 775 reporters and photographers were traveling as embedded journalists. These reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on. When asked why the military decided to embed journalists with the troops, Lt. Col. Rick Long of the U.S. Marine Corps replied, “Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment.”

A September 2003 poll revealed that seventy percent of Americans believed there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of 9/11. 80% of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception about the invasion, compared to 23% of PBS viewers. Ted Turner, founder of CNN, said that Rupert Murdoch was using Fox News to advocate an invasion. Critics have argued that this statistic is indicative of misleading coverage by the U.S. media since viewers in other countries were less likely to have these misconceptions.

Independent media coverage

Independent media also played a prominent role in covering the invasion. The Media Workers Against the War [10] and the Indymedia [11] network, among many other independent networks including many journalists from the invading countries, provided reports in a way difficult to control by any government, corporation or political party. In the United States Democracy Now, hosted by Amy Goodman has been critical of the reasons for the 2003 invasion and the alleged crimes committed by the U.S. authorities in Iraq. Australian war artist George Gittoes collected independent interviews with soldiers while producing his documentary Soundtrack To War. The war in Iraq provided the first time in history that military on the front lines were able to provide direct, uncensored reportage themselves, thanks to blogging software and the reach of the internet. Dozens of such reporting sites, known as soldier blogs or milblogs, were started during the war. [12]

International media coverage

International coverage of the war differed from coverage in the U.S. in a number of ways. The Arab-language news channel Al Jazeera and the German Satellite channel Deutsche Welle featured almost twice as much information on the political background of the war. Al Jazeera also showed scenes of civilian casualties which were rarely seen in the U.S.

Criticisms

Opponents of military intervention in Iraq have attacked the decision to invade Iraq along a number of lines, including calling into question the evidence used to justify the war, arguing for continued diplomacy, challenging the war’s legality, suggesting that the U.S. had other more pressing security priorities, (i.e. Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea) and predicting that the war would destabilize the Middle East region. The breadth and depth of the criticism was particularly notable in comparison with the first Gulf War, which met with considerably less domestic and international opposition, although the geopolitical situation had evolved since the last decade.

Rationale based on faulty evidence

The central U.S. justification for launching the Iraq War was that Saddam Hussein's alleged development of nuclear and biological weapons and purported ties to al-Qaeda made his regime an "grave and growing" threat to the United States and the world community. During the lead-up to the war and the aftermath of the invasion, critics cast doubt on the evidence supporting this rationale. Concerning Iraq’s weapons programs, prominent critics included Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector who argued in 2002 that inspections had eliminated the nuclear and chemical weapons programs, and that evidence of their reconstitution would “have been eminently detectable by intelligence services …,” and Joseph C. Wilson, an American diplomat who investigated and debunked claims that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons in Niger.

Similarly, alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda were called into question during the lead up to the war, and were largely discredited by an October 21, 2004 report from U.S. Senator Carl Levin, which was later corroborated by an April 2006 report from the Defense Department’s inspector general. These reports further alleged that Bush Administration officials, particularly former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, manipulated evidence to support links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.

Lack of a U.N. mandate

One of the main questions in the lead-up to the war was whether the United Nations Security Council would authorize military intervention in Iraq. When it became increasingly clear that U.N. authorization would require significant further weapons inspections, and that the U.S. and Britain planned to invade Iraq regardless, many criticized their effort is unwise, immoral, and illegal. Robin Cook, then the leader of the British House of Commons and a former foreign secretary, resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet in protest over Britain’s decision to invade without the authorization of a U.N. resolution. Cook said at the time that: "In principle I believe it is wrong to embark on military action without broad international support. In practice I believe it is against Britain's interests to create a precedent for unilateral military action.” United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, put a sharper point on Cook’s objection, stating in September 2004 that, "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it (the war) was illegal." Under the UN Charter (Article 39); only the Security Council may determine if the UN Charter was violated, and it did not act.

Military intervention vs diplomatic solution

Further information: Dominique de Villepin's speech at the U.N. Security Council (February 14, 2003)

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."

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".

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".

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:

In this context, the use of the force is not justified today. There is an alternative to the war: to disarm Iraq by the inspections. Moreover, one premature recourse to the military option would be full of consequences.

[...] In this temple of the United Nations, we are the guards of an ideal, we are the guards of a conscience. The heavy responsibility and the immense honor which are ours must lead us to give the priority to disarmament in peace.

[...] And it is an old country, France, of an "old continent" like mine, Europe, which say it today to you, which knew the wars, the occupation, cruelty. A country which does not forget and which knows all that it owes to the Freedom Fighters came from America and from elsewhere.

U.S. President George W. Bush (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.

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 Franco-American relations. Anti-French propangada exploiting the classic francophobic clichés immediately ensued in United States and Great Britain. A call for a boycott on French wine was launched in the United States and the New York Post covered on the 1944 "Sacrifice" of the GIs France would had forgotten. It was followed a week later, in February 20, by the British newspaper The Sun publishing a special issue entitled "Chirac is a worm" and including ad hominem attacks such as "Jacques Chirac has become the shame of Europe". Actually both newspapers expressed the opinion of their owner, U.S. billionaire Rupert Murdoch, a military intervention supporter and a George W. Bush partisan as argued by Roy Greenslade in The Guardian published on February 17.

Distraction from the war on terrorism and other priorities

Both supporters and opponents of the Iraq War widely viewed it within the context of a post-September 11th world, where the U.S. has sought to make terrorism the defining international security paradigm. Bush often describes the Iraq War as a “central front in the war on terror.” . Some critics of the war, particularly within the U.S. military community, argued pointedly against the conflation of Iraq and the war on terror, and criticized Bush for losing focus on the more important objective of fighting al-Qaeda. As Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, 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.”

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.”

Potential to destabilize the region

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.”

Related phrases

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 squads" to refer to fedayeen paramilitary forces. Members of the Saddam Hussein government were called by disparaging nicknames - 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.)

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.
• "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 journalists 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 John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in the presidential election, said at a campaign rally: "What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States." Other war critics use the name "Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL)" to subtly point out the cause of the war, such as the song Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) by David Rovics, a popular folk protest singer.

See also

• American government position on invasion of Iraq
• American popular opinion of invasion of Iraq
• Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• British Mandate of Iraq
• Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003
• Command responsibility
• Energy crisis
• Foreign hostages in Iraq
• Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq
• Human rights in post-Saddam Iraq
• Iraq disarmament crisis
• Iraqi insurgency
• Jus ad bellum
• Lancet surveys of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• List of Coalition aircraft crashes in Iraq
• List of people associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• List of wars and disasters by death toll
• Movement to impeach George W. Bush
• Occupation of Iraq timeline
• Oil imperialism
• Oil reserves in Iraq
• Peak oil theory
• Petrodollar warfare
• Petroleum industry
• Polish involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• Popular opposition to the 2003 Iraq War
• Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–present
• Protests against the 2003 Iraq war
• Reconstruction of Iraq
• Refugees of Iraq
• Sectarian violence in Iraq
• The UN Security Council and the Iraq war
• United Nations Charter
• Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• War on Terrorism
• Weapons of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq
• Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq

Additional references

• Donnelly, Thomas. Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century. Report of the Project for the New American Century, September 2000. Available online.

• McCain, John. Finishing the Job in Iraq Air Force Magazine, July 2004.

• Joint Forces Command. Iraq war from Saddam's perspective 2006.

• CNN.com/Inside Politics (2002). Senate approves Iraq war resolution. Accessed on June 06 2005.

• Paul, U.S. Representative Ron, Office of (2002). Paul Calls for Congressional Declaration of War with Iraq. Accessed on June 06 2005.

• Washington Post (2002). Bush Aides Say Iraq War Needs No Hill Vote. Accessed on June 06 2005.

• Zucchino, David (2004). Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0871139111. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Further reading

• Spring 2007 Dissent, "Exporting Democracy: Lessons from Iraq," a symposium featuring Paul Berman, Mitchell Cohen, Seyla Benhabib and others. [13]
• 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
• Cobra II : The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq 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

Documentaries

• The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez

External links

• "Fact Sheets: The Lancet Survey: Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq". (Authors: Professors Gilbert Burnham, M.D., and Riyadh Lafta, M.D., and Shannon Doocy, Ph.D., Les Roberts, Ph.D. Participating institutions: The Johns Hopkins University 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: No 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
• Angle, Jim and Liss, Sharon Kehnemui (2006-06-22). "Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq". Fox News. Retrieved 2006-07-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• "Hundreds of chemical weapons found in Iraq: US intelligence". AFP. 2006-06-22. Retrieved 2006-07-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• 1999 Desert Crossing War Game to Plan Invasion of Iraq and to Unseat Saddam Hussein

Video

• Video archive of everyday U.S. soldier life in Iraq weeks after invasion.