Baghdad, 20 Mar (Xinhua) -- The crime of the US invasion of Iraq has been difficult to eliminate for 20 years
Xinhua News Agency reporters Fan Shuaishuai, Chen Mengyang, and Dong Yalei
On March 20, 2003, on the grounds that "Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction", the United States gathered its allies to blatantly invade Iraq, despite the widespread opposition of the international community, which not only plunged Iraqis into war, but also caused sustained regional turmoil and threatened peace and stability in the Middle East. Now, 20 years later, those who witnessed the war are getting old, but the pain is still gone; The legacy of the war waged by the United States to maintain its hegemony continues.
War Lie "Inventor"
Before the Iraq War, the U.S. government vowed that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction." However, from the nineties of the twentieth century to 2002, the United Nations sent hundreds of inspection teams and thousands of experts to inspect Iraq, but none of those inspection teams asserted that Iraq possessed such weapons. But this cannot stop the desire of the United States to go to war. In February 2003, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell pulled out a small tube of white powder at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, claiming that it was "evidence" that Iraq was developing chemical weapons. More than a month later, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq in a major way.
On 25 March 2003, dozens of United States armoured vehicles traveled from Kuwait City to the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Xiaoguo
Now, 20 years later, even if the United States searched the world in Iraq, it has not found any trace of "weapons of mass destruction". Iraqi political analyst Nadum Juburi accused the United States of creating pretexts to interfere in other countries' internal affairs and incite conflict.
"It all starts with a lie." Ali Moussa, an Iraqi political analyst, stressed that the United States had also accused Saddam Hussein's government of direct links to al-Qaeda, but a Pentagon report released in 2008 confirmed that no direct link was found. As a result, the two main reasons for the US invasion of Iraq were overturned.
The false accusations before the war are only one of them, and the United States also fabricated the story of the so-called "legendary female soldier" Jessica Lynch during the war, in a vain attempt to mislead world public opinion with the script of "justice versus evil".
In the mouth of the US military, Lynch was ambushed by Iraqi troops in March 2003 in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, and resisted desperately until he was captured "after the last bullet", and then raped and abused. Later, under the cameras of the US media, the US special forces braved the sound of explosions late at night to "invade" Lynch's hospital and rescue her. As a result, the story of "the American military rescued captured female soldiers despite the danger" was hyped, and the film about Lynch aired just 7 months later.
But lies can't hide the truth after all. The local hospital in Nasiriyah revealed shortly after Lynch was picked up by the US military that on the night the US military came to the hospital, there was no Iraqi army there, and the explosion was deliberately created by the US military. Lynch also exposed U.S. military lies in 2007 testimony before the U.S. Congress, saying that she had not fired a shot at the time and that Iraqis had saved her after she was seriously wounded. At this point, the drama directed by the US military has been completely exposed.
Jubri said that the occupation of Iraq by the US military did not go as smoothly as expected, and the scene of the Americans "spreading roses to welcome" the locals did not appear. As civilian casualties soared and the U.S. military was criticized, it fabricated the Lynch affair to accuse the Iraqi government of brutality and justify war.
Democracy and freedom "poison apple"
"There are no human rights and no democracy in the eyes of the United States, only winners and losers, strong and weak." Les Kamal, an Iraqi who was imprisoned by the US military and subjected to countless inhuman treatment during the Iraq War, held up his detention certificate and told Xinhua reporters: "171656, this is my prisoner number, and I will not forget it until I die." ”
Lawyer Khalid Rasiv laughed at himself: "When the US military first arrived, we still hoped that there would be 'democracy', 'development' and 'modern technology', but this hope will soon be dashed." Rasif, who lives in Hadise, Anbar province, died on November 19, 2005, in the "Hadise Massacre" that shocked the world, killing 24 unarmed civilians by U.S. forces.
Kamal's pain and Rasif's awakening epitomize the scourge of the American war that Iraq has suffered for 20 years.
According to the Global Statistics database, between 2003 and 2021, some 209,000 Iraqi civilians died in war and violent conflict, and about 9.2 million Iraqis became refugees or were forced to leave their homeland. In the Fallujah region west of Baghdad, people still suffer from high rates of cancer and neonatal malformations, rooted in the extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus bombs by the U.S.-led coalition during the Iraq War.
On 18 September 2004, an Iraqi child suffering from leukaemia lay in the Children's Hospital of Baghdad. As a result of the U.S. military's use of depleted uranium munitions in the war, rates of birth defects and cancer rates among Iraqi children have increased. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Ali)
"Whoever sees what the United States is doing in Iraq will turn their backs on them." Jubri said that the United States has deceived Iraqis with a few slogans of "democracy," "freedom" and "human rights." "But from the first month of the U.S. occupation, we found out that this was a big lie."
Moussa pointed out that the war launched by the United States destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and public service system, and the so-called democratic political system it led to establish in Iraq was characterized by "sectarian and ethnic division", resulting in repeated out-of-control party strife and turmoil, government functions failed, it was difficult to provide public services, and people's livelihood declined.
Iraq is the second largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but its per capita GDP has long ranked low, nearly four times worse than that of neighboring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Seeing their neighbors getting rich from oil and beginning economic transformations, Iraqis feel powerless.
"It's so hard to find a job, there is a lack of medical care, there are always blackouts in the summer... Children are begging. This is the life of democracy and freedom? Razak Hamid, who runs shop near Paradise Square in central Baghdad, said, looking at children banging on their windows in traffic begging.
Maker of regional unrest
The United States has used war to forcefully destroy the Iraqi state apparatus, break the local political order and social stability, and provide an excellent breeding ground for terrorism. Iraq has been one of the countries most affected by terrorism for the past 20 years. The extremist organization "Islamic State" that grew up in Iraq and once shook the Middle East is undoubtedly the evil result of the Iraq war, and it still threatens regional peace and stability.
In 2014, the Islamic State captured about one-third of Iraq and occupied large swathes of territory in neighboring Syria, posing a serious security threat to the Middle East. According to the US "Civilian Deaths During the Iraq War Statistics Website", until 2022, eight years later, Iraq has suffered 353 terrorist attacks, almost an average of one per day.
On July 10, 2017, Iraq's then-Prime Minister Abadi announced that the rule of the extremist group Islamic State in the northern city of Mosul had been completely overthrown, and the city was fully liberated on the same day. After three years of Islamic State rule and most of the siege, Mosul was liberated in ruins. The picture shows local civilians walking past the ruins of buildings in Mosul's Old City on the day of liberation. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Khalil Dawood)
According to the Australian Institute for Economics and Peace, in 2022, deaths from Islamic State terrorist attacks occurred in 18 countries. "For the eighth year in a row, ISIS is the deadliest terrorist organization in the world... The number of deaths from a single attack increased from 2.5 in 2021 to 2.9 in 2022. The Institute's 2023 Global Terrorism Index report reads.
"The United States has slandered Saddam's government for colluding with al-Qaeda, but it was their war that gave ISIS a chance." Moussa said the prolonged post-war chaos and popular dissatisfaction with the government provided natural ground for extremism and contributed to the growth of the Islamic State, whose remnants have not been eliminated to this day.
As part of the "global war on terror" of the United States, the fact that the United States is more and more resistant in Iraq undoubtedly proves that the path of indiscriminate force to subvert other countries and forcibly graft "American-style democracy" will not work at all, but may push the people whose homes have been destroyed to extremist organizations.
In fact, the United States is not ignorant of this. In its 2007 National Intelligence Assessment, the U.S. intelligence community acknowledged that the war in Iraq had become a "recruiting tool" for terrorist groups. However, the subsequent deep involvement in the Syrian and Libyan conflicts shows that the United States has not really learned its lessons.
"It turns out that the United States is a war empire that is accustomed to waging war under pretexts such as democracy, turning other countries into sources of violence and conflict. This approach has not changed substantially to date. Jubri said. (Participating reporter: Li Rui)