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TWENTY years on, Iraq’s invasion still continues to haunt US and Britain.
From an empowered Iran and eroded US influence in the Middle East, to ongoing combat with Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, experts say the cost of US involvement in Iraq since 2003 is vast and, in the end, enabled ethnic strife and complicated US policy in the region.
According to western reports, those who planned and carried out the invasion were also not subjected to any accountability, rather they were drowned in money and positions.
Although two decades have passed since the war, the violations and intelligence failure continue to haunt Britain to this day. It was a war that began in extreme controversy and during which the moral reputation of British intelligence and the nation’s armed forces was tarnished for a generation, long after the last of the fighting stopped.
Before a shot was fired in Iraq by the US-led coalition, British intelligence, led by MI6, produced flawed evidence about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, which in turn was simplified and amplified by then prime minister Tony Blair, including in his foreword to the notorious Iraq dossier of September 2002. But it was not true and proven not to be so after the initial invasion was over.
Sir John Chilcot, in his 2016 inquiry, concluded that not only had Blair gone too far but the intelligence community did little to hold Downing Street back. Intelligence had become politicised, reflecting an ingrained belief that the Iraqi dictator must have been hiding something.
Dan Jarvis, who served with the British army in Iraq and is now a Labour MP, said the damage to public confidence caused by the war was becoming more visible with time, reports said.
American website The Intercept stated in a lengthy report that 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, which they called “the liberation of Iraq,” the men and women who waged the disastrous war did not pay a price for the crime. “On the contrary, they were showered with promotions and money.”
The report included a list of the names of American officials and leaders who stood behind the invasion, led by George Bush, who was described as the biggest war criminal.
The immediate cause was the suspicion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to global security. The Bush administration in the US, along with Tony Blair’s government in the UK, made the case for war based on this assumption.
The Iraq war also had a significant impact on global affairs. It destabilised the Middle East, created a power vacuum and further eroded public trust in Western governments and their foreign policies, the report said.
Another AFP report said that Iran and the Shi’ite political class were the most prominent of those who achieved gains after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. “They were able to control the political scene in the country amid a fragile and volatile political balance, after the American occupation established the sectarian quota system after the invasion and occupation,” the report added.
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