10th Anniversary of the Iraq War
In March of 2003, then President George W. Bush announced to the nation that the United States and coalition forces had launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. The U.S. joined by Britain, Australia and Poland set out to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. Baghdad had fallen to the invading forces by April 9th. One of the primary missions was to recover and destroy weapons of mass destruction – none were ever found.
- U.S. President George W. Bush addresses the nation March 19, 2003 in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. Bush announced that the U.S. military struck at “targets of opportunity” in Iraq March 19, 2003 in Washington, DC. Air defense sirens and anti-aircraft fire was reported briefly in Baghdad. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
- U.S. Army 3rd Division 3-7 infantry soldiers rest near their Bradley fighting vehicles March 19, 2003 during a hold at a forward battle position near the Iraqi border in Kuwait. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has rejected U.S. President George W. Bush’s call to leave Iraq peacefully setting the stage for an invasion of U.S. and British forces. (Scott Nelson/Getty Images)
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (L) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers at the Pentagon March 20, 2003 in Arlington, Virginia. Rumsfeld spoke about the onset of hostilities between U.S. led coalition forces and Iraq, saying that the “days of the Saddam Hussein regime are numbered.” (Stefan Zaklin/Getty Images)
- Smoke covers the presidential palace compound during a massive US-led air raid in Baghdad 21 March 2003. Four years after their invasion of Iraq, US commanders now believe that a new strategy backed up by tens of thousands of extra troops at last has a chance to put an end to the sectarian slaughter. AFP PHOTO/Ramzi HAIDAR (Ramzi Haidar/Getty Images)
- MARCH 21, 2003 — U.S. Marine and British vehicles line up near the Kuwait border with Iraq for fighting to cease up ahead before proceeding into the Iraqi border. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- A long US military convoy is seen moving inside an unspecified area of southern Iraq 21 March 2003. US and British invasion forces were poised to capture the key Iraqi city of Basra as they swept through southern Iraq on day two of the war to topple President Saddam Hussein, taking several hundred soldiers prisoner. (Romeo Gacad/Getty Images)
- Smokes rises from oil burning in trenches around Baghdad city March 22, 2003 in Iraq. Despite the fires and intermittent explosions, March 22 saw the heaviest traffic on the streets of Baghdad since the war broke out. Many shops were open in the commercial districts and thousands of residents were on the streets. (Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
- An Iraqi boy begs for food as an armored convoy from the Fifth Marines passes through the Iraq desert Saturday afternoon. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- U.S. Marines from Task Force Tarawa carry a wounded Marine during a gun battle March 23, 2003 in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. The Marines suffered a number of deaths and casualties during gun battles throughout the city. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
- An M1A1 Abrams tank, equipped with a mine plow, leads a U.S. Marine armored convoy as they push northwest towrds Baghdad on Sunday, March 23. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- U.S. Marines from the 1st Marine Division pass a sign pointing the way to Baghdad as they continue their march to the capital March 25, 2003 in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. After two days of running gun battles, the third day seems to be relatively quiet. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
- U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Marcco Ware, from Los Angeles, carries an injured Iraqi soldier who was shot three times during an attempted ambush of the 3rd Battalion , Fifth Regiment convoy Tuesday morning. One Marine was killed, one injured during the attack which resulted in about 40 dead Iraqi soldiers and thirty POW’s. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- MARCH 25, 2003 — U.S. Marines from the Third Battalion, Fifth Regiment , India company,search captured Iraqi soldiers after an attempted ambush of the Marine convoy Tuesday morning. One Marine was killed, one injured during the attack which resulted in about 40 dead Iraqi soldiers and thirty POW’s. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- MARCH 26, 2003 — PFC Keith Pelton, 19, of St. Clair, Missouri , stands in his foxhole with his machine gun Corporal Bryson Medlock, left, a day after their company was ambushed by Iraqi soldiers. Pelton, fresh out of boot camp, had his first confirmed kill, shooting an Iraqi Captain in the head during the Marines counter-attack. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- 3/26/03 — Safwan , Iraq– The Kuwait Red Crescent Society delivered some of the first food aid in southern Iraq to about 300 people in the city of Safwan. About 200 journalists, shuttled in on several buses by representatives of the Kuwaiti government, were also present to record the event. (ELizabeth Malby/Baltimore Sun)
- U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Dominguez, of Mathis, Texas, stands guard next to a burning oil well at the Rumayla oil fields March 27, 2003 in Rumayla, Iraq. Several oil wells were set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops in the Ramayla area, the second largest offshore oilfield in the country, near the Kuwaiti border. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
- U.S. President George W. Bush (R) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair speak during a news conference at Camp David following their talks on the progress of the war in Iraq March 27, 2003 in Thurmont, Maryland. (Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)
- MARCH 27, 2003 — Roughly 100 miles south of Baghdad, drops a bomb on an arms cache used by militia fighter. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Civilians on foot pass tanks on a bridge near the entrance to the besieged city of Basra March 29, 2003 in Iraq. Baath Party loyalists have taken up positions in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, making it a target of the U.S.-led war on Iraq. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
- Ad Diwaniyah, IRAQ — MARCH 29, 2003 — U.S. Marine Corps chaplain Mark Tanis leads soldiers with the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marines in prayer during a memorial service in honor of Major Kevin Nave and Corpsman Michael Johnson . Johnson was killed when an Iraqi fired rocket propelled grenade impacted his vehicle during the ambush on Tuesday and Nave died when a Marine Amphibious Assault Vehicle drove over him in his foxhole early Wednesday. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Soldiers with the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marines observe a moment of silence during a memorial service in honor of Major Kevin Nave and Corpsman Michael Johnson . Johnson was killed when an Iraqi fired rocket propelled grenade impacted his vehicle during the ambush on Tuesday and Nave died when a Marine Amphibious Assault Vehicle drove over him in his foxhole early Wednesday. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman HM1 Richard Barnett, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, holds an Iraqi child in central Iraq in this March 29, 2003 file photo. Confused front line crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family after local soldiers appeared to force civilians towards positions held by U.S. Marines. March 20 marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. led war against Iraq. The war started on March 20 Baghdad local time, March 19 Washington D.C. local time. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters photo)
- Ad Diwaniyah, IRAQ — MARCH 30, 2003 — An AAV with the the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Regiment travels under a highway sign as they move to new positions on their way north. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- A U.S. Marine from Task Force Tarawa patrols a wheat field in search of enemy combatants or stockpiles of weapons March 31, 2003 in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. In an announcement on October 21, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama said in a White House briefing that all U.S. troops would be brought home by the end of the year. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
- Al Aziziyah, Iraq — April 2, 2003 — The Marines of India company 3/5 take positions to cover a field of fire as other units swept through the field. The battle that day became a costly one for India company when one marine died and at least two others were wounded. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Al Aziziyah, Iraq — April 3, 2003 — While others brush their teeth, or have a bit of coffee, a Marine reloads his M-16 magazine. The weapons and their readiness come first. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- April 3, 2003 — Sleep is the one thing always in short supply for Marines. Whenever possible, in whatever position, Marines will grab a few winks to hold them over through the next overnight watch. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Al Aziziyah, Iraq — April 3, 2003 — Elements of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine regiment search the town of Al Azaziyah. An unspecified number of soldiers with the Republican Guard were captured and a cache of muntions dicovered in a school was destroyed. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Al Aziziyah, Iraq — April 3, 2003 — Captured Iraqi Republican Guard soldiers are marched to a central location by elements of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine regiment, which took the town of Al Azaziyah. An unspecified number of soldiers with the Republican Guard were captured and a cache of muntions discovered in a school was destroyed. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- April 4, 2003 — Less than twenty miles south of Baghdad, U.S. Marine PFC Justin Fortney, of Pasadena , MD., with India Company, 3rd Battalion, Fifth Regiment guards EPOW’s following a firefight in which one Marine died and at least two others were wounded. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- USMC Lance Corporal Mike Meyer is evacuated by stretcher after he was shot eight times during an intense firefight twenty miles south of Baghdad as part of India company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Al Muhaydi As Salih, IRAQ — April 4, 2003 — USMC Lance Corporal Mike Meyer is evacuated by stretcher after he was shot eight times during an intense firefight twenty miles south of Baghdad as part of India company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Iraq — April 6, 2003 — Less than fifteen miles southeast of Baghdad, U.S. Marines with India Company, 3rd Battalion, Fifth Regiment raid a regional Bath Party headquarters building during a patrol. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- A picture of Saddam Hussein is burned by U.S. Marines April 7, 2003 in Qal’at Sukkar, Iraq. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit entered the town looking for weapons and destroying pictures of Saddam Hussein. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- U.S marines climb up to topple a statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003 at al-Fardous square in Baghdad, Iraq.. The third year anniversary since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will be marked on April 9, 2006 amidst continued unrest in Iraq, where over 30, 000 civilians have been reported to be killed since the start of the war. (Wathiq Khuzaie /Getty Images)
- A U.S. soldier watches as a statue of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad in this April 9, 2003 file photo. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters photo)
- Iraqis destroy a statue of President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad 09 April 2003 after it was pulled down by a US armored vehicle. US troops moved into the heart of the Iraqi capital meeting little resistance. (Karim Sahib/AFP)
- A member of an honor guard holds an American flag as he waits for the funeral of U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Wilbert Davis at Arlington National Cemetery April 18, 2003 in Arlington, Virginia. Davis was killed in a vehicle accident along with journalist Michael Kelly April 3, 2003 in Iraq. (Mike Theiler/Getty Images)
- Iraq — April 7, 2003 — About ten miles east of Baghdad, new Marine PFC Adam Higgins, 18, of Fallbrook, Ca. arrives at India Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment after an eight day journey from Kuwait to reach the front lines. ((John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Baghdad, Iraq — April 9, 2003 — About ten miles east of downtown Baghdad, U.S. Marines of India Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment search a field for weapons near several 155 howitzer artillary pieces abandoned by Republican Guard forces. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- Baghdad, Iraq — April 08, 2003 — Although frowned upon by officers, India company Third Platoon posted a sign expressing their thoughts on the front of their AAV. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun
- Iraqis loot the oil ministry storage facility in Baghdad 09 April 2003. US troops have entered without resistance overnight into the teeming northeast Shiite suburb where massive acts of looting were reported in the morning, witnesses reported. Fighting was reported in other parts of the city. (Ramzi Haidar/Getty Images)
- 4/11/03 –BAGHDAD — IRAQ — Oil fires mar the Bagdad landscape and contribute to the smoke-laden smell of continuing warfare. (Elizabeth Malby/Baltimore Sun)
- 4/12/03 — The smoke-filled sky overthe Tigris river in Baghdad reflects the light of the setting sun. Artillary and oil fires have created a contant haze throughout the city which stings the eyes and dries the throat. (Elizabeth Malby/Baltimore Sun)
- 4/13/03 — This home was completely destoyed in a blast from a U.S. bomb April 4th that also killed one man inside and at least two in a passing car in the Alef Dar section of Baghdad. (Elizabeth Malby/Baltimore Sun)
- American soldiers remove a Styrofoam cover that plugged up the “spider hole” where Saddam Hussein hiding when he was captured December 15, 2003 in Ad Dawr, Iraq. Iraq’s notorious dictator was captured in a raid at the compound on December 13. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- At the only working hospital in the Baghdad area, Mustafa Alkaiysi, 14, cries in his hospital bed as his father Kadhum Alkaiysi looks on. Mustafa’s hands were badly injured when he picked up a denotator left behind by Fedayeen fighters at a school. (John Makely/Baltimore Sun)
- A U.S. Marine pulls down a picture of Saddam Hussein at a school April 16, 2003 in Al-Kut, Iraq. A combination team of Marines, Army and Special Forces went to schools and other facilities in Al-Kut looking for weapons caches and unexploded bombs in preparation for removing and neutralizing them. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- 4/28/03 –TIKRIT, IRAQ — Saddam Hussein’s birthplace,Tikrit has been the location of a huge mandatory Birthday celebration every March 28 since the early eighties. Monday, a heavy American millitary presence combined with diminished interest to discourage the regular events. An American Army Captain stands next to a head pulled from a statue of Hussein at the palacial parade ground that was the main celebration site. (Elizabeth Malby/Baltimore Sun)
- U.S. President George W. Bush declares an end to major combat in Iraq during a speech to crew aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as the carrier steamed toward San Diego, California, in this May 1, 2003 file photo. (Larry Downing/Reuters photo)
- A photo of Saddam Hussein after his capture December 14, 2003. U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein near his home town of Tikrit. DNA tests have confirmed that the man captured by US forces in Tikrit was ousted president Saddam Hussein. (U.S. Army via Getty Images)
- American soldiers remove a Styrofoam cover that plugged up the “spider hole” where Saddam Hussein hiding when he was captured December 15, 2003 in Ad Dawr, Iraq. Iraq’s notorious dictator was captured in a raid at the compound on December 13. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- Iraqis watch the fire that broke out on Iraq’s oil export pipeline from the southern city of Basra, 500 kilometres (300 miles) from Baghdad, to the Faw peninsula on the Gulf, 24 March 2004, in the Maamer zone 100 kilometers (62 miles) further south of Basra. A spokesman for the governorate of Basra said a technical problem caused the blaze. Basra is headquarters to some 8,800 British troops who have occupied the south of Iraq since last year’s invasion which toppled president Saddam Hussein. (Joseph Barrak/Getty Images)
- Three men inspect a ditch at an overflowing cemetery built in a soccer arena, on May 3, 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq. An estimated 1,300 Iraqis have been killed during the month-long siege of Fallujah and the death toll continues to rise as residents return home to find more bodies. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
- US soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division pay their respect in front of the helmet and rifle of their dead comrade, Specialist Edgar Daclan of the 1-77 Armored, who was killed on 10 September 2004, during a memorial service at a US military base in Balad, north of Baghdad, 13 September 2004. More than 1000 US soldiers have been killed since the invasion on Iraq in March 2003. (Jewel Samad/Getty Images)
- Support Team Marines watch for the approach of a CH-53E Super Stallion from Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166 (reinforced), Marine Aircraft Group 16, while sitting on an old Iraqi armored personnel carrier. (Getty Images)
- Samar Hassan screams after her parents were killed by U.S. Soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division in a shooting January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town. Parents Hussein and Camila Hassan were killed instantly, and a son Racan, 11, was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Racan, who lost the use of his legs, was treated later in the U.S. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- Samar Hassan, 16, talks during an interview with Reuters in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, March 6, 2013. Samar, a Turkman from the city of Tel Afar, is one of thousands of Iraqis who have relatives that were killed by U.S. forces, since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Samar said she was sitting in the back seat of the car with her brother and three sisters on their way back from hospital on January 18, 2005 when a group of U.S. soldiers shot at them, killing her parents on the scene and seriously wounding her brother, Rakan. (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters photo)
- Iraqi man in Najaf displays his finger to the camera on January 30, 2005 in Najaf, Iraq. The purple dye indicates that he has just voted in Iraq’s first elections. The Shiite holy city of Najaf enjoyed a calm election day with no violence and a good voter turnout reported at many voting stations. Najaf is an important holy city in the Shiite religion and the city has been secured against election violence. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
- Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi Ground Forces Command Patrol during a sandstorm August 8, 2005 in Fallujah, Iraq. The soldiers, with the help of U.S. Marine advisors, searched about 150 homes and took a census of the residents during the early-morning patrol in the northwest sector of the town. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
- A US marine with 3/6 marines Lima company secures a position in the Iraqi-Syrian border town of Kusaiybah 27 October 2005 in western Iraq. US forces in Iraq have swelled to 161,000, their highest level since the US invasion in March 2003, a Pentagon spokesman said. The increase was due to overlapping troop rotations, said Lawrence DiRita, the chief Pentagon spokesman. (Patrick Baz/Getty Images)
- Marines stand over a pile of unused ordinance in the restive city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Marines found the rounds after seraching throughout a deserted Iraqi dump site. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan flew in to Baghdad on a surprise visit 12 November 2005. It is Annan’s first visit to Iraq since US-led invasion forces ousted former dictator Saddam Hussein in April 2003. (USMC/Lance CPL. Joel Abshier/via Getty Images)
- US marines from 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines Regiment respect to two fallen colleagues that were killed recently during a memorial ceremony held at their headquarters, in the outskirts of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, 10 December 2005. In one of the US military deadliest attacks in Iraq in recent months, ten marines were killed and 11 wounded 01 December in a roadside bomb outside Fallujah. According to the last update on the Pentagon website, 2,138 US military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. (Mauricio Lima/Getty Images)
- General David Petraeus gives his first press conference since taking over command of US forces in Iraq March 8, 2007 in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. Petraeus, said 21,500 additional soldiers and Marines will be deployed to Iraq by early June. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- A US soldier takes cover as a roadside bomb targets a US convoy in Baghdad’s Bayaa district 20 March 2007. Four car bombings in Baghdad killed at least nine people and wounded dozens on today, medics and security officials said, as Iraq marked the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion. (Wissam Sami/Getty Images)
- An Iraqi boy (R) looks over a U.S. soldier during a pause in a foot patrol in the Baladiyat neighborhood May 15, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq. Tenth Mountain Division soldiers in the area take daily joint patrols with the Iraqi National Police, in the ongoing effort to build up stable national Iraqi security institutions aligned with the national government. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- IRAQ, — 9/8/07 – Poor visibility and difficulty in identifying friend and foe are among several problems sand storms cause for members of the National Guard 175th’s Bravo Company as they provide escort and security to a convoy of provisions and supplies en route to Forward Operating Base Sykes outside of Tall Afar. Soldiers of Bravo met before 3:15 a.m. to prepare for the roughly 60-mile trip that took them more than 12 hours. (Elizabeth Malby/Baltimore Sun)
- Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan cries as she remembers her son Casey, who was killed in Iraq, as she makes a formal announcement that she is running for U.S. Congress August 9, 2007 in San Francisco, California. Sheehan, an anti-war activist and mother of killed soldier Casey Sheehan, announced today that she is running against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her seat in California’s 8th district. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
- A photograph of Matthew Emerson hangs on one of nearly 4,000 wooden crosses that represent U.S. troops that have been killed in Iraq, at a roadside memorial November 6, 2007 in Lafayette, California. With U.S. military deaths in Iraq surpassing 850 this year, 2007 will be the deadliest year since the U.S. led war in Iraq began in 2003. (JU.S. tin Sullivan/Getty Images)
- Five-year-old Alex Ward, of Norfolk, Britain, proudly wears his fathers medals as he searches for his father’s name on the wall of the Armed Forces Memorial on 12 October, 2007, Lichfield, England. Warrant Officer Colin Ward of the Royal Military Police was killed in Iraq in 2003. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
- Arrested Iraqi men who’ve been chosen to appear before an Iraqi judge to be arraigned are led in blindfolded to the court building November 6, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. Around 300 Iraqi men who have been swept up in raids by Iraqi and US forces–often on charges of insurgent activity or organized crime such as kidnapping rings–are detained at a sparse rudimentary jail on a combined US-Iraqi military base, and about five to ten a day are outfitted in orange jumpsuits and brought before a panel of judges at a nearby makeshift courtroom. Judges look over each men’s file of evidence, hear the accused’s statement, and route the case accordingly. Defendants are represented by an Iraqi woman lawyer, the Iraqi equivalent of a public defender. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
- U.S. Marine Capt. Jill A. Leyden of Easton, Maryland, kneels at the grave of her friend Major Megan M. McClung at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Veterans Day, November 11, 2010. McClung was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom on December 6, 2006. Leyden and McClung served together in Iraq. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters photo)
- Ann Adams lies atop the grave of her son Army Sgt. Andrew Baddick at the National Cemetery on Memorial Day on May 28, 2012 in Arlington, VA. Baddick died while saving a comrade from drowning after a military vehicle rolled into a culvert in Iraq in 2003. (John Moore/Getty Images)
- U.S. Army soldiers from 1-12, 1st Cavalry Division, carry their bags as they prepare for the flight back to Fort Hood from Kuwait after exiting from Iraq on December 13, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. America’s military continues its pullout of Iraq by the end of this year, after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
- U.S. Army soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division walk to a waiting bus as they leave customs for a ride to the airport to fly back to Fort Hood from Kuwait after exiting from Iraq on December 14, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. America’s military continues its pullout of Iraq by the end of this year, after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
- The US flag, Iraq flag, and the US Forces Iraq colors are carried during the flag casing ceremony on December 15, 2011 in Baghdad, Iraq. The ceremony officially marks the end of US military operations in Iraq, all U.S. troops are scheduled to be removed from Iraq by December 31. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais – Pool / Getty Images)
- Residents gather at the site of a car bomb attack in the AL-Mashtal district in Baghdad March 19, 2013. A series of coordinated car bombs and blasts hit Shi’ite districts across Baghdad and south of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, killing at least 25 people on the tenth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.(Mohammed Ameen/Reuters photo)
Mideast in turmoil 10 years after Iraq invasion that was supposed to bring freedom
Nancy A. Youssef
MCT | 11:24 a.m. EDT, March 19, 2013
CAIRO – President George W. Bush kept it simple in his short television address the evening of March 19, 2003: U.S. forces had begun their campaign to unseat Saddam Hussein, he said. The goals, he outlined in his first sentence, were straightforward: “to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.” Some 522 words later he promised the result: “We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.”
As he spoke, members of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were already crossing from Kuwait, where they’d been preparing for weeks, into southern Iraq. In those sands, it was Thursday, March 20, the dawn of a new day.
Ten years later, the era that dawn ushered in looks anything but simple. After tens of thousands of deaths, not just of Americans, but also of Iraqis – many, if not most, at the hands of other Iraqis – that country is still in turmoil. American troops are gone and a democratically elected government rules. But bombings and massacres continue, and the country remains mired in sectarian feuding between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Elsewhere, conflict rules – in some cases, coincidentally, with anniversaries that fall around this weekend:
-In Libya, French planes under NATO command opened the campaign to topple Moammar Gadhafi on March 19 two years ago. Today, a democratic government is in place, though it controls little in the face of Islamist militias whose unchecked presence frequently forces the national assembly to cancel sessions. Libyan weapons, taken from Gadhafi’s unguarded stores, were crucial to the advance of Islamist fighters in Mali.
-In Syria, the civil war marks its second year on Friday, with most observers calling the conflict a stalemate and the death toll likely to have passed 70,000 – and rising every day. The Obama administration has called for the defeat of President Bashar Assad even as it denounces as a terrorist group the most effective anti-Assad rebel military faction: the Nusra Front, which is a branch of al-Qaida in Iraq – the same radical Islamist group that the U.S. fought in that country and that the current Iraqi government also is battling.
-Even the relatively peaceful January revolutions that ushered in what came to be known as the Arab Spring two years ago are unsettled. In Egypt, the world’s most populous Arab country, a religiously affiliated political party fights to establish its pre-eminence against a group of revolutionaries who demand a share of political power but seem incapable of organizing for upcoming parliamentary elections. Anti-government demonstrations have become so frequent that they hardly deserve news coverage, and the economy is in free fall.
Never has the region seen so much change in the nine decades since the end of World War I, when Western powers carved up the territories of the defeated Ottomans by drawing lines across a map.
The role of U.S. intervention in that turmoil – direct, in the cases of Iraq and Libya, and through rhetoric, in Syria and Egypt – remains an open question.
In Iraq, the people think their security situation is better since American troops left the country at the end of 2011. A Gallup poll released earlier this month found that 42 percent think that, despite the occasional car bomb, the security situation has improved since U.S. troops withdrew. But they have doubts about their government. Only 11 percent said there was less corruption and only 9 percent said there was less unemployment.
No one knows how long the conflict in Syria will go on. President Barack Obama first called for Assad to step down 19 months ago. U.S. officials no longer say Assad’s days are numbered, and the United Nations published a report this past week that says neither side could claim the military upper hand, though rebel advances seem to outnumber those of the Syrian military.
Perhaps most surprising is how much the tone of the effort in Syria has changed. Though it once was presented as an attempt to bring democracy to the country, the Islamist militant groups that dominate the rebel fighting oppose the very idea. Unable to win on their own, democracy proponents have aligned with those groups, with the head of the U.S.-supported Syrian Opposition Coalition, Mouaz al-Khatib, openly denouncing the State Department’s designation of the Nusra Front as an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group.
Earlier this month, as anti-Assad fighters moved through Raqqa province – first capturing a strategic dam, then the provincial capital and then the government building itself – they distributed fliers calling democracy un-Islamic.
“Beware of democracy,” they read.
That’s a lesson that in a different way might resonate in Egypt and Libya, where free elections have yet to mean stability.
Indeed, security worsened in the months after Libyans went to the polls to pick a national assembly last July in voting that was widely proclaimed as free and fair. Americans became sharply aware of that in September, when, on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Islamist extremists overran U.S. diplomatic outposts in Benghazi, an eastern city that had been the capital of the anti-Gadhafi uprising. Four Americans were killed, including the U.S. ambassador, Christopher Stevens.
Egypt has been spared the kind of widespread insurgent violence that’s plagued its neighbor but it’s still beset by political and social upheaval, despite elections that everyone agrees were the first honest ones in its history.
The Obama administration had endorsed the removal of leader Hosni Mubarak when it became clear that he’d lost the support of his people and the military. Now analysts wonder whether Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, isn’t slowly doing the same.
Unemployment levels grow monthly, the official inflation rate is 9.3 percent and the value of the Egyptian pound is falling. Crime and general mayhem seem out of control. Soccer fans routinely defy police, shut down bridges and set fire to rival clubs’ headquarters, simply because they can. Police able to respond to more routine matters are difficult to find. Rape is common at public demonstrations. Dissatisfaction is palpable in the streets.
In a nation where $200 a month is a bounteous wage, fruit is a luxury for a huge swath of the population. So are tomatoes.
Morsi’s approval rating has plummeted, according to the polling firm Baseera. Immediately after his election last summer, it stood at 75 percent; last month it was 49 percent. Yet Morsi’s political opposition remains divided going into parliamentary elections scheduled for next month.
In May 2011, Obama spelled out lofty goals in a speech that’s considered his defining remarks on the Arab Spring.
“There’s no straight line to progress, and hardship always accompanies a season of hope,” he said. “But the United States of America was founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. And now we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable and more just.”
Those goals aren’t much different from what Bush articulated from the White House 10 years ago this Tuesday.