Sofia Rojas, 11th grade

In March 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq on the false notice that the country had weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Since then, more than 4,700 U.S. casualties and an estimated 100,000 Iraqi casualties have been calculated. Meanwhile, 20 years later it is important to question: What actually happened in Iraq?

On March 20, 2003, President W. Bush decided to invade the Republic of Iraq, His justification for said conflict was that Iraq had considerable amounts of weapons of mass destruction. The truth is they didn’t, and the U.S. knew that. During the eight years, the U.S. was present in Iraq many justifications were given as to why the conflict needed to happen. Firstly, they claimed that Iraq’s nuclear arsenal was thriving and intervention was of mass necessity. Then, they continued to claim that Al-Qaeda’s presence was destabilizing the region. The second truth: Al-Qaeda was motivated by the atrocities conducted by the U.S. in Iraq. In a speech a year before the invasion, Bush called: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the “axis of evil”. The idea that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was the hotspot of terrorism fueled an agenda of hate and war crimes by the U.S. military. Between 2003 and 2011, the U.S. was in charge of conducting secret arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture on black sites in the territory.

It is quite difficult to forget the many stages of the Iraqi conflict. One such moment was Colin Powell’s speech at the UN. The Secretary of State at the time of this intervention was Colin Luther Powell. He claimed in his 2003 presentation to the Security Council that the United States had “solid evidence” of Iraqi WMD. Powell’s speech was a key factor in destroying American credibility on the world stage, even though it did not trigger the action. Because the United Nations determined that said weapons of mass devastation did not exist in 2002. One major mystery, nevertheless, remains unsolved: Why did W. Bush start a war? The basic solution is American Hegemony. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush made it his goal to wage a global war on terrorism. This political objective prompted him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and build what is now known as the Guantánamo Penitentiary in Cuba. Today, with extremist groups growing twice as quickly as before, it is clear that the aforementioned war was a complete failure.

Since the United States took over Iraq, Al-Qaeda has rapidly expanded. According to research by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruikshank, the Iraq war caused the annual rate of terrorist attacks to increase by seven times. To put it in perspective there were 78 terrorist attacks in the first year after the invasion. In the second year, the numbers multiplied to an astonishing 302 attacks. By 2007, terrorists had taken the lives of more than 5,425 civilians and caused 9,878 injuries. In fact, Al-Qaeda strategist Mustafa Bin Al Qadir said that the war in Iraq revitalized the jihadist movement. Rather than eliminating terrorist groups, the invasion of Iraq contributed to the emergence of extremist groups throughout the Middle East and Africa. These groups are known today as Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Nusra Front, and ISIS. According to the Global Terrorism Index Iraq was the country most impacted by terrorism in the period of 2004–2017. Ironically, terrorism-caused deaths fell by 75% after U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq in 2018.

The war in Iraq pivoted a long-standing trail of human rights abuses and questionable choices by the United States. In 20 years since its occurrence, it is time to hold the United States accountable for the unnecessary bloodshed and destabilization of a region. So instead of asking ourselves: What happened in Iraq? We should be asking ourselves: Why did Iraq happen? 

REFERENCES:

Laub, Z. (2017, May 1). The Iraq War. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war

Nadeem, R. (2023, March 14). 20 years after Iraq war began, a look back at U.S. public opinion | Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/

Borger, J. (2021, October 18). Colin Powell’s UN speech: a decisive moment in undermining US credibility. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/18/colin-powell-un-security-council-iraq

Just how bad were Colin Powell’s lies to the U.N. about Iraq? – Los Angeles Times. (2021, October 19). Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-10-19/just-how-outrageous-were-colin-powells-iraq-lies