On March 20, 2003, the Bush administration overthrew strongman Saddam Hussein in three weeks, ignoring the opposition of most countries to invade Iraq, but it took 18 years for U.S. troops to withdraw. Iraqis, who had hoped to live in democracy and freedom, were greeted by bloody sectarian conflict and the rise of the terrorist group ISIS. In oil-rich Iraq, the majority of the population now lives in poverty, political turmoil and social stagnation.
On the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, both Washington and Baghdad were quiet, with no official commemoration or memorial services.
A February 2003 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Americans approved of the invasion of Iraq, while only 26 percent opposed it.
On March 20 of that year, the Bush administration launched a military attack codenamed "Deterrence" against Iraq with large-scale air strikes. In just 3 weeks, the US army invaded Baghdad, the marines pulled down the large statue of Saddam Hussein in the city center, and 5 weeks after the war, President Bush Jr. proudly announced in front of the camera that "mission accomplished", and Iraqis living under the high-pressure rule of strongmen are highly looking forward to the upcoming "new life of democracy and freedom".
Iraqi citizen Askala said, "We rejoiced when Saddam Hussein fell because we were on the path to destruction. This has improved the situation in Iraq, which has affected us ever since."
The Sunni camp to which the strongman Hussein belonged lost power, and Shiites in the same camp as Iran came to power. Endless sectarian strife, fractured societies, and broken state systems give radicals of fundamentalist Islam a chance to grow.
In 2014, one-third of Iraq's territory and Syria fell into the clutches of the terrorist organization ISIS, and the Obama administration redeployed troops to Iraq on the grounds of eliminating terrorist forces, and did not formally withdraw troops until the end of 2021.
According to U.S. statistics, Iraqis lost $1.3 trillion and lost 1 million dead. A very conservative estimate is 300,000, but it is also a very large number, with 1.2 million people internally displaced.
Anton, who left Iraq in 1991 for the United States and is now teaching at New York University, is a poet and novelist, and is respected in Arabic literature, signed a petition rejecting dictatorship but also war with 300 Iraqis in exile around the world before George W. Bush's war.
Anton said that at first the Bush administration said that it was to eliminate threats to the world and weapons of mass destruction, and then when they found nothing and couldn't make it up, they changed their words and said it was for democracy. But if you ask the Iraqis now, do we have democracy in Iraq? No, we have oligarchy, we have the most corrupt system in the world.
Iraq today encourages pluralism, elections and freedom of expression, but in reality political instability, social stagnation, and often anarchy, with 80 per cent of the country's population living in poverty.
Anton bluntly said that Iraq is now anarchic, really. I think people blurt out the words "democracy and freedom" too easily. Elections do not represent democracy, and do Iraqi citizens have the freedom to live in security and decide who will rule? No, they didn't. Theoretically, they may have, there are very many political parties, but most of them have no legitimacy.
On the eve of the 20th anniversary, a poll conducted by the US media showed that 61% of Americans did not believe that waving troops to Iraq was the right decision.