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Protests against the Iraq War
: This article is about protests concerning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For more information on this subject see Popular opposition to the 2003 Iraq War and Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The 2003 invasion and war in Iraq prompted much popular opposition. Between 2002 and 2005, protests against the Iraq war were held in many cities worldwide, often coordinated to occur simultaneously around the world. After the biggest series of demonstrations, on February 15, 2003, New York Times writer Patrick Tyler claimed that they showed that there were two superpowers on the planet, the United States and worldwide public opinion.
These anti-war demonstrations were mainly organised by anti-war groups, many of whom had been formed in opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan, though in some Arab countries demonstrations were organized by the State. Europe saw the biggest mobilization of protesters, including a rally of 3 million people in Rome, Italy which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever anti-war rally. [http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/gwr5/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=54365]
Prior to the invasion of Iraq
These protests are said to be the biggest global peace protests before a war actually started; the peace movement is compared with the movement caused by the Vietnam War.
Protests were held worldwide in opposition to a war with Iraq, including in Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the United States, where Americans attended a rally in Washington, DC. The U.S. Park Police, which oversees activities on the Mall, stopped providing estimates of crowd size after being threatened with lawsuits by the organizers of the Million Man March, but said that protest organizers only had a permit for 30,000 demonstrators. According to rally organizers, more than 200,000 Americans were in attendance.
Protests took place in various cities across the world. Over 100,000 people took part in a protest in Washington. 50,000 people took place in a demonstration in San Francisco.[http://www.casin.ch/web/pdf/The%20Anti-War%20Movement.pdf]
Around 150 protests took place in the UK across the country, including Critical Mass bike rides, occupations, and mass demonstrations in Brighton, Manchester, Glasgow and London. Protests also took place in the US.[http://www.stopwar.org.uk/doa.asp]
Demonstrations against the war at the end of the first European Social Forum in Florence, Italy. 1,000,000 people according to the organizers, 500,000 for local authorities.
2003
Anti-war demonstrations, focusing particularly but not exclusively on the expected war with Iraq, took place in villages, towns, and cities around the world, including Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, London, Dublin, Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, Cologne, Bonn, Gothenburg, Florence, Oslo, Rotterdam, Istanbul and Cairo,
NION and ANSWER jointly organized protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, California.
In San Francisco, between 150,000 and 200,000 people attended the demonstration. The San Francisco police had originally estimated the crowd size at 55,000, but admitted later that they had badly underestimated the number and changed their estimate to 150,000. The day started with a waterfront rally at 11 am, followed by a march down Market Street to the Civic Center.
In Washington, thousands of people (CNN estimate) demonstrated through the city, ending with a rally at The Mall. Among the speakers was Rev. Jesse Jackson who told the crowd that "We are here because we choose coexistence over coannihilation."
[http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/18/sproject.irq.us.protests/]
The protests were planned to coincide with the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. [http://www.casin.ch/web/pdf/The%20Anti-War%20Movement.pdf]
Millions of people protested, in approximately 800 cities around the world. Listed by the 2004 Guinness Book of Records as the largest protest in human history, protests occurred among others in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Syria, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and even McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The largest demonstation this day occured in London, where 2,000,000 protesters gathered in Hyde Park; speakers included the Reverend Jesse Jackson, London mayor Ken Livingstone, and Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy.
2003]
Spanish and Italian cities showed some of the largest turnouts against their governments' pro-war stance, with more than 400,000 protesters in Milan, more than 300,000 in Barcelona forming a mile-long human chain [http://es.news.yahoo.com/030315/159/2lx9c.html], and more than 120,000 in Madrid [http://www.abc.es/Guerra/noticia.asp?id=168208&dia=hoy]. Marches also took place in Seville, Aranjuez, Palencia, and in the Canary Islands [http://es.news.yahoo.com/030315/44/2lwms.html]. Many of the protests were smaller than those in the same cities a month ago; an exception was that in Montreal, which upped its turnout to 200,000 people. The turnout may have been related to solidarity against American anti-French sentiment, which was a common theme for many of the protesters.[http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030315.wprot0315_3/BNStory/Front] A further 15,000 protested in Quebec City. [http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/article/1,63,0,032003,229853.shtml] 55,000 protested in Paris, and 4,500 to 10,000 in Marseilles. [http://www.cyberpresse.ca/monde/article/1,151,0,032003,229861.shtml] 100,000 protested in Berlin, some 20,000 protested in Athens, close to 10,000 people marched in Tokyo, and tens of thousands in Washington DC. Organizers claimed between 30,000 and 45,000 people turned out, while The Oregonian and the Associated Press estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 people attended, closer to the number in Portland who participated in the 18 January protest. [http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1047819332322011.xml] Thousands more marched in cities worldwide including Bangkok, Seoul, Hong Kong, Amman, Calcutta, Melbourne, Christchurch, Dunedin, Paris, London, Portsmouth, Leeds, York, Exeter, Newcastle upon Tyne, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Nicosia, Monaco, Santiago de Chile, Havana, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa, and Toronto, as well as cities in Yemen, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.[http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/15/sprj.irq.main/index.html][http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/03/15/sprj.irq.protests/index.html][http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/15/protest030315][http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030315.wprot0315_3/BNStory/Front] [http://es.news.yahoo.com/030315/44/2lwzu.html] (Some articles include: [http://www.cyberpresse.ca/monde/article/1,151,0,032003,229861.shtml Worldwide figures (La Presse (Quebec), in French)], [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/international/16DEMO.html Worldwide figures(New York Times - requires free registration)], [http://cbc.ca/stories/2003/02/16/peaceactivists030216 CBC News (Canada) - report on Australian marches].)
More than 6,000 candlelight vigils for peace were held in more than a hundred countries [http://www.moveon.org/vigil/].
Across the United Kingdom tens of thousands of school students staged walkouts.
In Birmingham 4,000 (BBC estimate) striking school students held a demonstration which ended at Victoria Square. Though there were some reports of some students throwing coins, West Midlands police said that the protests were "buoyant rather than boisterous" and no arrests were made. The demonstration later moved on to Cannon Hill Park. The son of Lord Hunt a junior health Minister who quit his job over the march was amongst the students in attendance [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2863171.stm].
In West Yorkshire around 500 students (BBC estimate) walked out of Ilkley Grammar School, reportedly one-third of the student body. In Bradford up to 200 students (BBC estimate) gathered in Centenary Square.
Demonstrations also took place in the city centre in Leeds and Horsforth. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2864883.stm].
A large protest took place at Westminster where London school students gathered.
Invasion to the fall of Baghdad
The day after the invasion of Iraq had begun, protests were held in cities around the world. In some U.S. cities, protesters attempted to shut their respective cities down. In Germany, students staged a massive walkout. In London, a massive demonstration was held in front of the Houses of Parliament.
Demonstrations were organized for a second day in a row in various US cities including Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In the last two cities, demonstrators closed parts of the city to traffic. Following the demonstrations, San Francisco police claimed to have discovered a cache of Molotov cocktails which they claimed were going to be used by demonstrators.
Media report about 150,000 protesters in Barcelona, Spain (other sources say 1,000,000); more than 100,000 (other sources: up to 500,000) protesters in London, United Kingdom; some 100,000 protesters in Paris, France; at least 150,000 protesters altogether in many German cities; between 35,000 and 90,000 in Lisbon, Portugal; 10,000 to 20,000 in Greece, Denmark, Switzerland and Finland. 250,000 protesters demonstrated in New York, USA according to the German [http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,241866,00.html Spiegel online] magazine. There were protests in Washington, D.C., Chicago and other cities, too. CNN reported a march of over a thousand protesters in Atlanta, Georgia passed by their headquarters, upset over that network's coverage of the war. Canada likewise experienced numerous anti-war protests over the weekend. Crowds of anti-war demonstrators took to the streets of Montreal and Toronto. Calgary held three days of protests (20 March-22nd), culminating in a march which surrounded the government building and American consulate. In the Italian city of Naples 10,000 anti-war protesters marched through the towards a NATO base in Bagnoli. Protests also took place in Wellington, New Zealand, the Australian cities of Brisbane and Hobart (which were brought to a halt), Jakarta, Indonesia, where protesters converged on the US embassy, across South Korea including the capital Seoul where Buddhist monks played drums to console the sprits of war casualties to the 2,000 protesters, Across India including 15,000 in Calcutta, Bangladesh which saw a general strike (closing down many businesses and mosques), Japan, including protests near US naval and air bases on the southern island of Okinawa.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/2875555.stm] Thousands of protesters, mainly Muslims, demonstrated across the African continent. Hundreds (BBC estimate) of young people marched in Mombassa in Kenya. The Somali capital Mogadishu saw protests by students, Koranic schoolchildren, women and intellectuals.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2873045.stm] There were reports about massive conflicts between protesters and police in the Gulf state of Bahrain for the second day. On the live broadcast of the 2003 Academy Awards, several presenters and recipients made various comments against the war ranging from Susan Sarandon giving a simple peace sign to Michael Moore publicly denouncing George W. Bush upon receiving his award. Critics accused the media of downplaying the demonstrations, e.g. when the Washington Post wrote about protests in Berlin: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12210-2003Mar22.html "Demonstrators also gathered in a half-dozen other German cities"], where half-dozen included Leipzig, Halle, Dresden, Jena, Rostock, Hamburg, Munich, Köln, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Karslruhe, Heidelberg, Würzburg, Bielefeld, Hannover, Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Wattenscheid, Oberhausen, Duisburg, Mülheim, Herne, Hattingen, Velbert, Hilden, Datteln, Münster, Osnabrück, Bonn, Aachen, Saarbrücken, Kassel, Bremen, Oldenburg, Kiel, Heide, and other cities.
Media reports state at least 20,000 school pupils protesting in Hamburg, Germany. After the protest march, conflicts between police and protesters broke out in front of a US building in Hamburg. Protesters who were pushed back by the police began to throw stones, who in turn reacted with water cannons. There have since been serious discussions about police abuses in Hamburg, and political ramifications may follow. In the afternoon, 50,000 people protested peacefully in Leipzig following traditional prayers for peace in the city's Nikolai Church. Prayers for peace and subsequent large demonstrations at that church every Monday ('Montagsdemos') helped bring down the GDR government in East Germany in 1989. The weekly demonstrations, supported by churches, trade unions and other civic organizations, began again in January 2003 in protest to the impending invasion of Iraq. Protest marches in the afternoon were also reported in the German cities of Berlin and Freiburg. In Rome, Milan, Turin and other Italian cities, thousands of pupils and schoolteachers stayed away from school to protest against the Iraq war. The teachers union reported that 60 percent of all schools were closed. The strike had been planned weeks ago as a signal against a school reform bill, but was converted to an anti-war protest. 400 anti-war protesters tried to enter the Australian parliament in Canberra to speak to the prime minister, but were stopped by police. In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, Maoist protesters attacked shops selling Coca-Cola and US soft drinks. Protests in front of US buildings and in fast food shops were also held in Indonesia. In Egypt, 12,000 students of two universities in Cairo protested as well as 3,000 people in the Thai capital Bangkok. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 150 people threw stones at the United States consulate. The stones were supposed to break the windows, but consulate windows are bullet-proof. The protesters attacked a McDonald's and threw stones and fired upon a Brazilian bank agency controlled by the Brazilian government and stoned a Spanish bank. Five were arrested.
Some 100,000 people demonstrated in Syria against the USA, United Kingdom and Israel. This protest was endorsed by the Syrian government. In the Islamic country of Bangladesh, 60,000 people demonstrated. Media also reports protests in front of the South Korean parliament building, linked to plans to bring South Korean forces into the war. In reaction to the protests, these plans were halted.
Hundreds of protesters participated in a civil disobedience in New York, USA. In a "die-in" organized by the M27 Coalition (an ad-hoc group comprised of various anti-war organizations and individuals), 215 people were arrested after blocking traffic on 5th Avenue near Rockefeller Centre, protesting the cooperation between U.S. media and the government. Protesters also blocked traffic at various sites around the city in a coordinated protest with the theme of "No Business As Usual." Protests also took place across the U.K. About 250 students (Police estimate) marched on the US embassy in central London. 200 people (South Wales Police estimate) brought Cardiff city centre traffic to a standstill leading to at least six arrests. There was a lunchtime anti-war demonstration on the Humber bridge in Hull which involved some friction between motorists and protesters. In Londonderry, up to a dozen anti-war protesters stormed the Raytheon defense technologies company building staging a sit-in until removed by police. Thousands joined a protest in Manchester.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2890643.stm]
Global protests did not stop in the second week of war. Some 10,000 protested in Teheran, Iran. Protesters on the march, supported by the government, chanted "Death to Saddam" as well as "Death to America"[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2895171.stm]. 50,000 to 80,000 people protested in Cairo, Egypt after the Friday prayers. In Bogotá, Colombia there were violent conflicts in front of the US consulate. Protest marches and demonstrations happened also in Algiers, Algeria and in Bahrain, the Palestinian territories, South Korea, Indonesia and Pakistan. In Australia the police prevented protest marches. In Germany, protests by schoolchildren continued. In New Delhi and elsewhere in India, over 20,000 protested against the war. The largest demonstration comprised mainly Muslims, there was also a separate demonstration mainly made up of communists. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2895171.stm]
In Boston, Massachusetts 50,000 people attended the largest rally in the city since the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of people blocked Boylston Street in a die-in along the Boston Common. A handful of arrests were made. In the U.K. hundreds of protesters marched from Cowley into the centre of Oxford [http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/features/2003/war/protest.shtml] and thousands took to the streets of Edinburgh (Police estimated 5,000, Organizers estimated more than 10,000). Edinburgh protesters marched along Princes Street to a mass rally in the city's Meadows area.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2897411.stm]
100,000 people marched through the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. According to the BBC's Jonathan Head this was the biggest anti-war demonstration to take place so far in the world's most populous Muslim nation. The first officially sanctioned demonstration took place in China. 200 foreigners were allowed to chant anti-war slogans as they marched past the US embassy in Beijing but around 100 Chinese students had their banners confiscated and were blocked from entering a park where locals had gained permission to demonstrate. In Latin America there were rallies in Santiago, Mexico City, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Caracas. In Germany at least 40,000 people formed a human chain between the northern cities of Munster and Osnabrueck 35 miles apart. Also about 23,000 took part in marches in Berlin, ending in a rally in Tiergarten park, protests took place in Stuttgart and Frankfurt, where 25 people were arrested as they tried to block the entrance to a US air base. Marches were also held in Paris, Moscow, Budapest, Warsaw and Dublin. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2899827.stm]
In Oakland, California, police fired rubber bullets and beanbags at protesters and dockworkers outside the port, injuring at least a dozen demonstrators and six longshoremen standing nearby. Most of the 500 demonstrators were dispersed peacefully, but a crowd of demonstrators was blocking traffic on private property near the port and fail to disperse after police warnings. Oakland Police Chief said demonstrators also threw objects and bolts at them, and said the use of weapons was necessary to disperse the crowd. He indicated that the rubber bullets were used to respond to direct illegal action and the he longshoremen were caught in the crossfire. A dockworker spokesman reported that police gave two minutes to disperse, then opened fire rather than making arrests. Demonstrators also claim that the police took direct aim at them, rather than firing in the air or at the ground. Thirty-one people were arrested. Demonstrators regrouped and marched to the Oakland Federal Building. In New York, USA, protesters targeted the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with deep connections to the war. About 20 protesters were arrested in a planned civil disobedience, but police then also surrounded and arrested close to 100 people who were simply watching the protest from across the street.
After the fall of Baghdad
Protests sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. were held in Washington, D.C. [http://www.schuminweb.com/schumin-web/photography/2003/protest.asp], San Francisco, and Los Angeles to demonstrate against the Iraq War three days after the fall of Baghdad. In Washington, the march route took the group of 30,000 past offices of several mass media organizations, and companies such as Bechtel and Halliburton. [http://answer.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_about_us]
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, California, Reno, Nevada and other cities around the world, in opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Protesters also advocated for the return of American troops to the United States, and for the protection of civil liberties.
The Washington DC rally attracted 20,000 (BBC estimate) protesters. The protest ended with a rally at the Washington Monument, within sight of the White House. As well as opposing the invasion of Iraq protesters also called for the repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act.
The Washington and San Francisco protests were jointly organized by ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and United for Peace and Justice.
A pro-war demonstration in Washington organized by Free Republic attracted only dozens (BBC estimate) of people. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3214081.stm]
More than 100,000 people demonstrated in Rome and other Italian cities during Bush's visit to Pope John Paul II, who had expressed his opposition to the war in numerous occasions. Ten thousand police patrolled the conference site. The right-wing Italian government under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had supported the war; Italy's largest electric company, Enel, which is 60 percent owned by the government, forced Radio Città Aperta and Radio Onda Rossa off the air as they were preparing to broadcast extensive coverage of street protests against Bush's visit.
More than 12,000 people, many U.S. citizens, demonstrated against Bush and the Iraq war during his visit to Paris, France. In addition, ANSWER Coalition sponsored a smaller demonstration in Washington, D.C., marching from the White House through working-class neighborhoods to the house of Donald Rumsfeld on Kalorama Road NW near Embassy Row. [http://www.schuminweb.com/schumin-web/journal/2004-06.asp]
About 40,000 demonstrated against the visit of George W. Bush to the NATO summit in Istanbul, about 6,000 in Ankara, Turkey.
A large group of people assembled at the Women's Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery for the National Memorial Procession, described as "A Trail of Mourning and Truth from Iraq to the White House". The theme of the event was "Mourn the dead. Heal the wounded. End the war." Participants were encouraged to dress in black to symbolize mourning. Cindy Sheehan was among the participants at this demonstration. Speeches were made by veterans, members of military families, family members of fallen soldiers, and others. Following the speeches, participants marched from Arlington National Cemetery to the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., carrying cardboard coffins to symbolize the war dead. Following the march, another rally was held, where the coffins carried on the march were placed with more coffins placed at the Ellipse earlier. Following the second rally, 28 people, including Michael Berg, father of fallen soldier Nicholas Berg, were arrested while attempting to deliver the names of fallen heroes to the White House.[http://www.laken.com/mt-archives/cat_war_in_iraq.html] [http://www.schuminweb.com/schumin-web/photography/2004/activism.asp] [http://www.angelfire.com/sk3/spkhntrca/mfsodc.html]
Approximately 10,000 people attending the Million Worker March in Washington, D.C. conducted a large pro-labor demonstration, with a very heavy additional focus against the war in Iraq as well.
Two protests were held in Ottawa against George W. Bush's first official visit to Canada. A rally and march in the early afternoon was upwards of fifteen thousand (or 5,000 according to police). An evening rally on Parliament Hill drew another 15,000 and featured a speech by Brandon Hughey, an American soldier seeking refuge in Canada after refusing to fight in Iraq. Bush's stop on 1 December in Halifax, Nova Scotia drew between 4,000 and 5,000 protesters. Ottawa organizers of the protest were only given two weeks notice of Bush's visit; Halifax organizers were given under a week's notice.
Thousands of people attended multiple protest rallies and marches held throughout Washington, D.C. on the day of George W. Bush's second inaugural to protest the war in Iraq and other policies of the Bush Administration.
2005Protests to mark the second anniversary of start of the Iraq war were held across the world, in the U.S., UK, Canada, Central America, South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. (Some protests were also held on March 20). In Glasgow, Scotland about 1,000 people (BBC estimate) attended a rally were some of the names of people who had so-far died in the conflict were read out, along with a "name and shame" list of Scottish MPs who backed the war. Speakers included Maxine Gentle, whose soldier brother Gordon was killed in Iraq.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4363187.stm] According to a survey (mainly of the reports of organizers), it has been claimed that, across the world, over one million people marched [http://www3.sympatico.ca/djnesbitt/]. The protests had been called by the Anti-War Assembly of the 2005 World Social Forum an annual conference of the alternative globalization movement which took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil on 26 January–31, and were supported by coalitions from all over the world [http://www.stopwar.org.uk/march20/].
Cindy Sheehan, mother of slain U.S. soldier Casey Sheehan, sets up a protest camp outside the ranch of vacationing president George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan, who previously met with Bush in a short encounter before the media that she described as dismissive and disrespectful, demanded that Bush meet with her and stop using the deaths of soldiers including her son as a justification for remaining in Iraq. Other relatives of soldiers, living and dead, and hundreds of supporters joined her throughout the month.
Protests were held in the USA and Europe. Police estimated that about 150,000 people took part in Washington, D.C., 15,000 in Los Angeles, 10,000 in London, 20,000 in San Francisco [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/24/BAprotest24.DTL], and more than 2,000 in San Diego. Additionally, in London, organizers claim 100,000 attended similar protests, but police place the figure at 10,000. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4275542.stm]
Massive popular demonstrations against the U.S.-led war in Iraq, in addition to U.S.-backed economic policies in Latin America, are planned in Argentina surrounding the November 4-5 Fourth Summit of the Americas.
See also
- 2003 Invasion of Iraq
- American popular opinion on invasion of Iraq
- American government position on invasion of Iraq
- Catholic Church against war on Iraq
- Popular opposition to the 2003 Iraq war
- The UN Security Council and the Iraq war
- Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq
- List of protest marches on Washington, DC
General anti-war
- Anti-war
- Nonviolence
- Pacifism
- Post-September 11 anti-war movement
External links
- [http://www.answercoalition.org/ ANSWER Coalition]
- [http://amor.cms.hu-berlin.de/~h0444e1w/massmail.htm Casting a wider net for world news]
- [http://chrisvalentines.com/projects/USpageintro.html Chris Valentine's anti-war music videos]
- [http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/fightthepower.php Fight the Power Video]
- [http://www.humanshields.org Human shield action to Iraq]
- [http://www.indymedia.org/ Indymedia] Independent Media Center
- [http://www.nonviolence.org/iraq/ Iraq Antiwar Homepage] Nonviolence.org
- [http://www.irishantiwar.org Irish Anti War Movement]
- [http://www.moveon.org MoveOn]
- [http://www.nion.us Not In Our Name]
- [http://www.notinourname.net/ Not In Our Name Project]
- [http://derstandard.at/standard.asp?id=1249970 Pictures of the world wide protest against the war in Iraq] and [http://derstandard.at/standard.asp?id=1248632 More photos] (Login required)
- [http://www.stopwar.org.uk Stop The War Coalition]
- [http://www.activistmagazine.com The ACTivist magazine]
- [http://www.transnational.org/ TFF] The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
- [http://www.unitedforpeace.org/ United for Peace and Justice]
Specific demonstrations
- [http://www.livejournal.com/users/noctilucent/28837.html October 26, 2002 People]
- [http://www.livejournal.com/users/noctilucent/29484.html October 26, 2002 Signs]
- [http://www.livejournal.com/users/noctilucent/29231.html October 26, 2002 Signs]
- [http://www.livejournal.com/users/noctilucent/29177.html October 26, 2002 Signs]
- [http://www.livejournal.com/users/noctilucent/28614.html October 26, 2002 Police]
- [http://www.livejournal.com/users/noctilucent/28309.html October 26, 2002 DC Buildings]
- [http://www.schuminweb.com/schumin-web/photography/2003/protest.asp The Schumin Web: A Protest Against the War] (April 12, 2003)
Further Information
- Stop the War: the story of Britain's biggest mass movement, Andrew Murray and Lindsey German, ISBN 1905192002
Category:2003 Iraq conflict
Category:Stances and opinions regarding the 2003 Iraq conflict
Category:Protests
2003 Invasion of Iraq:This article covers invasion specifics. For general information see: Iraq War, Post-invasion Iraq.
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq began on March 20 comprising United States and United Kingdom forces (98%), and several other nations. The 2003 Iraq invasion marked the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the Iraq War; however the United States never actually declared war on Iraq, which can only be done by Congress. Baghdad fell on April 9th, 2003. On May 1, 2003 U.S. president George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations terminating the Ba'ath Party's rule and removing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from office. Coalition forces ultimately captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003. A transitional period began thereafter .
Political and diplomatic aspects
On October 11, 2002, the United States Senate passed a resolution 77-23 in favor of giving U.S. President George W. Bush the authority to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). The United States House of Representatives took only hours before approving an identical resolution, 296-133[http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/].
In his March 17, 2003 address to the nation, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/iraq/20030317-7.html]. This demand was reportedly rejected [http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0318iraqreject.htm].
Since the invasion began without the explicit approval of the United Nations Security Council, some legal authorities regard it as a violation of the U.N. Charter. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004, "From our point of view and the U.N. charter point of view, it was illegal." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25685-2004Sep16.html] However, critics of the UN point out that between the years of 1991 and 1998, the United Nations passed 11 resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein comply with IAEA and UN inspectors, suggesting that the UN was not properly equipped to handle the Iraq crisis. Moreover, in light of the Oil-for-Food scandal that involved Kofi Annan's son and perhaps Annan himself, critics say that the Secretary-General may have had personal interest in preserving the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Military aspects
United States military operations were conducted under the codename Operation Iraqi Freedom [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030403-3.html], as quoted by George W. Bush on April 3, 2003. The United Kingdom military operation was named Operation Telic, and Australia's as Operation Falconer. Approximately 100,000 United States troops and 26,000 British troops, and smaller forces from other nations, collectively called the "Coalition of the Willing," entered Iraq primarily through a staging area in Kuwait. In terms of all military personnel involved in the Gulf region (ie. including naval, logistics, inteligence and air force personel) the numbers were 214,000 Americans, 45,000 British and 2,000 Australians. Plans for opening a second front in the north were abandoned when Turkey officially refused the use of its territory for such purposes. Forces also supported Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 50,000. Despite the refusal of Turkey, the United States conducted parachute operations in the north and dropped the 173rd Airborne Brigade, thereby removing the necessity of any approval from Turkey.
The number of Iraqi military personnel prior to the war was uncertain, but was believed to have been poorly-equipped[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/26/iraq/main546241.shtml][http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030326-lastchance01.htm][http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=607]. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the armed forces to number 389,000 (army 350,000, navy 2,000, air force 20,000 and air defence 17,000), the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam 44,000, and reserves 650,000 [http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3325]. Other estimates number the army and Republican Guard between 280,000 to 350,000 and 50,000 to 80,000, respectively [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/ground-org.htm], and the paramilitary between 20,000 and 40,000 [http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030327-fedayeen02.htm]. There were an estimated thirteen infantry divisions, ten mechanized and armored divisions, as well as some special forces units. The Iraqi Air Force and Navy played a negligible role in the conflict.
Prelude
Since the end of the Gulf War of 1991, Iraq's relations with the UN, the US, and the UK remained poor. In the absence of a Security Council consensus that Iraq had fully complied with the terms of the Persian Gulf War ceasefire, both the UN and the US enforced numerous economic sanctions against Iraq throughout the Clinton administration, and patrolled Iraqi airspace to enforce Iraqi no-fly zones. The United States Congress also passed the "Iraq Liberation Act" in October 1998, which provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" in order to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.4655.ENR:] This contrasted with the terms set out in U.N. Resolution 687 [http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm], all of which related to weapons and weapons programs, not to what regime was in place. Weapons inspectors had also been used to gather information on Iraq's WMD program. That, of course, was their whole purpose in being there - that was their job. The information was then, quite logically, used in targeting decisions during Operation Desert Fox [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/march99/unscom2.htm], [http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/scomspy.htm]. At the same time Tony Blair's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, could not guarantee that an invasion in the circumstances would not be challenged on legal grounds [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4478023.stm].
The United States Republican Party's campaign platform in the U.S. presidential election, 2000 called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act and removal of Saddam Hussein with a focus on rebuilding a coalition, tougher sanctions, reinstating inspections, and support for the pro-democracy, opposition exile group, Iraqi National Congress then headed by Ahmed Chalabi. [http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/conventions/republican/features/platform.00/]
In September 2000, in the Rebuilding America's Defenses (pg. 17) report, Project for the New American Century, a think tank, suggested that the United States shift to more ground-based air forces to help contain the forces of Saddam Hussein so that "the demand for carrier presence in the region can be relaxed." Upon the election of George W. Bush as president, many advocates of such a policy (including some of those who wrote the 2000 report) were included in the new administration's foreign policy circle. According to former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, as widely reported by the mainstream press, an attack was planned since the inauguration, and the first security council meeting discussed plans on invasion of the country. O'Neill later clarified that these discussions were part of a continuation of foreign policy first put into place by the Clinton Administration. [http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/]
Notes from aides who were with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center one year later, on the day of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, reflect that he wanted, "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only [Osama bin Laden]." The notes also quote him as saying, "Go massive," and "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml] Shortly thereafter, the George W. Bush administration announced a War on Terrorism, accompanied by the doctrine of 'pre-emptive' military action dubbed the Bush doctrine. A preemptive war requires that the declared purpose be to respond to an imminent threat of war by the other power, whereas wars instituted against a hypothetical future threat are more properly called preventive war and is generally considered a war of aggression. But, since America was attacked first, on 11 September, the war became pre-emptive only in the sense of hitting the enemy before he could strike AGAIN. The future threat was no longer hypothetical. Over 3,000 dead Americans in one day would certainly be an argument for conducting operations to prevent further such occurances. From the 90s, US officials have constantly voiced concerns about ties between the government of Saddam Hussein and some particular terrorist activities, notably in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which have been confirmed by subsequent reports; on the other hand, the September 11 commission in June, 2004 released a staff report that said it found 'no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.'" Nonetheless, there has been hard evidence to show that the Iraqi leader has not only aided and abetted terrorists, but financed them as well.[http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/18/saddam.terror/]
In 2002 the Iraq disarmament crisis arose primarily as a diplomatic situation. In October 2002, with the "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq" (Adopted 296-133 by the House of Representatives and 77-23 by the Senate), the United States Congress granted President Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq. The Joint Resolution was worded so as to encourage, but not require, UN Security Council approval for military action, although as a matter of international law the US required explicit Security Council approval for an invasion unless an attack by Iraq had been imminent — the US administration argued that there was an "urgent," "growing," and "immediate" threat. [http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24970] The joint resolution allowed the President of the United States to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."
In November 2002, United Nations actions regarding Iraq culminated in the unanimous passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and the resumption of weapons inspections. However, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan later stated that the subsequent invasion was a violation of the UN Charter. Force was not authorized by resolution 1441 itself, as the language of the resolution mentioned "serious consequences," which is generally not understood by Security Council members to include the use of force to overthrow the government; however the threat of force, as cultivated by the Bush administration, was prominent at the time of the vote. Both the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, and the UK ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, in promoting Resolution 1441 on 8 November, 2002, had given assurances that it provided no "automaticity," no "hidden triggers," no step to invasion without consultation of the Security Council [http://manila.usembassy.gov/wwwhira3.html]. Such consultation was forestalled by the US and UK's abandonment of the Security Council procedure and their invasion of Iraq. Richard Perle, a senior member of the administration's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, argued in November 2003, that the invasion was against international law, but still justified [http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/20/1069027255087.html], [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html]. There is still much disagreement among international lawyers on whether prior resolutions, relating to the 1991 war and later inspections, permitted the invasion.
The United States also began preparations for an invasion of Iraq, with a host of diplomatic, public relations, and military preparations.
Rationale
Prior to George W. Bush being elected president, several members of the Bush team, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz wrote urging an invasion of Iraq as part of a larger Middle East policy. One document, entitled "[http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century], was written in September 2000, stating 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'
In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the relative success of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration felt that it had sufficient military justification and public support in the United States for further operations against perceived threats in the Middle East. The relations between some coalition members and Iraq had never improved since 1991, and the nations remained in a state of low-level conflict marked by American and British air-strikes, sanctions, and threats against Iraq. Iraqi radar had also locked onto and anti-aircraft guns and missiles were fired upon coalition airplanes enforcing the northern and southern no-fly zones, which had been implemented after the Gulf War in 1991.
Throughout 2002, the U.S. administration made it clear that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a major goal, although it offered to accept major changes in Iraqi military and foreign policy in lieu of this. Specifically, the stated justification for the invasion included Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction, links with terrorist organizations and human rights violations in Iraq under the Saddam Hussein government, issues that are detailed below.
To that end, the stated goals of the invasion, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were:
- Self-defense
- find and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, weapons programs, and terrorists
- collect intelligence on networks of weapons of mass destruction and terrorists
- Humanitarian
- end sanctions and to deliver humanitarian support (According to Madeline Albright, half a million Iraqi children had died because of sanctions.)
- United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution
- Resolution 1205, made in 1999.
- Regime Change
- end the Saddam Hussein government
- help Iraq's transition to democratic self-rule
- Other
- secure Iraq's oil fields and other resources
Many staff and supporters within the Bush administration had other, more ambitious goals for the war as well. Many claimed that the war could act as a catalyst for democracy and peace in the Middle East, and that once Iraq became democratic and prosperous other nations would quickly follow suit due to this demonstration effect, and thus the social environment that allowed terrorism to flourish would be eliminated. However, for diplomatic, bureaucratic reasons these goals were played down in favor of justifications that Iraq represented a specific threat to the United States and to international law. Little evidence was presented actually linking the government of Iraq to al-Qaeda (see below).
Opponents of the Iraq war disagreed with many of the arguments presented by the administration, attacking them variously as being untrue, inadequate to justify a preemptive war, or likely to have results different from the administration's intentions. Further, they asserted various alternate reasons for the invasion. Different groups asserted that the war was fought primarily for:
- Energy economics
- to gain control over Iraq's hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market (since 2000, Iraq had used the Euro as its oil export currency)
- to ensure the US had military control over the region's hydrocarbon reserves as a lever to control other countries that depend on it
- to assure that the revenue from Iraqi oil would go primarily to American interests
- to lower the price of oil for American consumers
- Defense and construction special interests
- to channel money to defense and construction interests
- Public perception
- to maintain the wartime popularity that the President enjoyed due to his response to the 11 September attacks, and thus distract attention from other domestic political issues on which he was politically vulnerable (in contrast to his father whose wartime popularity quickly faded when the electorate began to focus on the economy)
- Ideological, emotional reasons
- in pursuance of the PNAC's stated strategic goal of "unquestionable [American] geopolitical preeminence"
- a chance for George W. Bush to get revenge against Saddam Hussein for attempting to have his father, President George H. W. Bush, assassinated during a visit to Kuwait in 1993.
- to satisfy and create closure for President George H.W. Bush, Cheney, and other members of the first Bush administration who had been humiliated by the end of the first Gulf War and wanted an opportunity to finally "get" Saddam, after previously failing to do so, even though "getting Saddam" was never a stated objective of the first war.
Weapons of mass destruction
George H. W. Bush. Absence of more substantial proof undermined the credibility of the speech on the international scene. Russian experts questioned the likelihood of such mobile facilities, which are extremely dangerous and difficult to manage.]]
Ultimately, the Iraq war was presented as largely being a case of removing banned weapons from Iraq. Administration officials, especially with the United States Department of State led by Colin Powell were eager to make the case for war as universally acceptable to as many nations as possible. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense stated in an interview on 28 May 2003 in Vanity Fair that 'For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction'. [http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s867453.htm]
Before the attack, the head UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, clearly stated that his teams had been unable to find any evidence of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons in Iraq. However, the discovery of illegal missiles discovered by United Nations weapons inspectors which were ultimately deemed in violation of United Nations Resolution 687 (1991), called the Al-Samoud IIs, raised serious questions: these rockets could possibly narrowly pass the allowed range of 150 km (93 miles), though without carrying any load. Ultimately though, they were determined to be in violation of the terms to which Saddam Hussein agreed in order to cease the hostilities of the Persian Gulf War and thus, deemed prohibited and ordered destroyed by the United Nations Security Council. Retrospectively, some time after the attack, Hans Blix expressed doubts that the nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons had existed [http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0375423028&view=excerpt], [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,895882,00.html], but never speculated whether the discovery of the illegal Al-Samoud IIs could be a trigger for justifying war or not. Former top American weapons inspector to Iraq, Scott Ritter, a longtime advocate of more thorough weapons inspections previously and considered an anti-Iraq hardliner, said that he was now absolutely convinced Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction [http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/03/4.3.03/Ritter_cover.html] which contradicts earlier 1998 statements by Scott Ritter regarding this issue.
On August 26 1998, approximately two months prior to United Nations inspectors' ejection from Iraq, Scott Ritter resigned from his position rather than participate in what he called the "illusion of arms control." In his resignation letter to Ambassador Butler, [http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/08/980826-ritter.htm] Ritter wrote: "The Special Commission was created for the purpose of disarming Iraq. As part of the Special Commission team, I have worked to achieve a simple end: the removal, destruction or rendering harmless of Iraq's proscribed weapons. The sad truth is that Iraq today is not disarmed ... UNSCOM has good reason to believe that there are significant numbers of proscribed weapons and related components and the means to manufacture such weapons unaccounted for in Iraq today ... Iraq has lied to the Special Commission and the world since day one concerning the true scope and nature of its proscribed programs and weapons systems. This lie has been perpetuated over the years through systematic acts of concealment. It was for the purpose of uncovering Iraq's mechanism of concealment, and in doing so gaining access to hidden weapons components and weapons programs, that you created a dedicated capability to investigate Iraq's concealment activities, which I have had the privilege to head."
Furthermore, on September 7 1998, approximately one month prior to United Nations weapons inspectors' ejection from Iraq, in testimony to the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee, [http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/ritter.htm] Scott Ritter was asked by John McCain (R, AZ) whether UNSCOM had intelligence suggesting that Iraq had assembled the components for three nuclear weapons and all that it lacked was the fissile material. Ritter replied: "The Special Commission has intelligence information, which suggests that components necessary for three nuclear weapons exists, lacking the fissile material. Yes, sir." As Paul Leventhal, head of the Nuclear Control Institute remarked in response to Ritter's statement,[http://www.nci.org/pr/pr9398.htm] "Iraq could be only days or weeks away from having nuclear weapons if it acquires the needed plutonium or bomb-grade uranium on the black market or by other means." Ritter also said that, absent UNSCOM, Iraq could reconstruct its chemical and biological weapons programs in six months, as well as its missile program. He said that Iraq had a plan for achieving a missile breakout within six months of receiving the signal from Saddam Hussein.
It is unclear what Scott Ritter believes happened to that capability he said Saddam Hussein had in 1998 as compared to that capability he believes Saddam Hussein had after the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, considering United Nations weapons inspectors were absent from Iraq from 1998 to 2002.
No weapons of mass destruction were found by the Iraq Survey Group, headed by inspector David Kay. Kay, who resigned as the Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, said U.S. intelligence services owed President Bush an explanation for having concluded that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. [http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/] However, the team claims to have found evidence of low-level WMD programs — a claim hotly disputed by many, with the Biosecurity Journal referring to the Biological Warfare (BW) claims as a "worst case analysis" [http://www.biosecurityjournal.com/PDFs/v1n403/p239_s.pdf].
The Iraq Survey Group under Bush-appointed inspector David Kay reported in the 'Interim Progress Report' on 2003 October 3 the following key points: "We have not yet found stocks of weapons," difficulty in explaining why, clandestine laboratories suitable for "preserving BW expertise" which contained equipment subject to UN monitoring, a prison laboratory complex which Kay describes as "possibly used in human testing of BW agents," strains of bacteria kept in one scientist's home (including a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B), twelve-year-old documents and small parts concerning uranium enrichment found in a scientist's home [http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21314/newsDate/27-Jun-2003/story.htm], partially declared UAVs, capability to produce a type of fuel useful for Scud missiles, a scientist who had drawn plans for how to make longer-range missiles [http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/7648377.htm], and attempts to acquire missile technology from North Korea, and destroyed documents of unknown significance. [http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html]. The report categorized most biological agents as "BW-applicable" or "BW-capable"; the report mentions nothing that was being used in such a context. Chemical weapons are referred to in a similar fashion. The nuclear program, according to the report, had not done any work since 1991, but had attempted to retain scientists and documentation from it in case sanctions were ever dropped.
Kay told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his oral report the following: "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion — although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war." [http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KAY401A.html]
Dr. Kay's team concluded that Iraq had the production capacity and know-how to produce a great deal more chemical and biological weaponry when international economic sanctions were lifted, a policy change which was actively being sought by France, Germany and Russia. Kay also believes that a large but undetermined amount of the former Iraqi government's WMD program had been moved to Syria shortly before the 2003 invasion. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixnewstop.html] However, in April 2005, the Iraq Survey Group's final report "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD," and ruled out any government-sanctioned movement of banned weapons to Syria. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042501554_pf.html]
The current consensus view of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction seems similar to that portrayed by Hussein Kamel in 1995 and that of Imad Khadduri [http://www.iraqsnuclearmirage.com/]: that Iraq had almost completely destroyed its programs, but sought to retain as much knowledge and information as it could so that, should sanctions ever end, the programs could start over quickly.
As of May 2005, small quantities of chemically degraded mustard gas had been found in old munitions. However, these are generally regarded as left-overs from the pre-sanction era before the 1991 Gulf War. The general consensus is that the intelligence community, including the CIA and other foreign services, failed to provide an accurate picture of the WMD program in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The U.S. government and the Bush administration have not yet taken official stances on the intelligence failures, but Congressional investigations, primarily under Democratic leadership, were either underway or forming in the spring of 2005.
The United Nations announced a report on March 2, 2004 from the weapons inspection teams stating that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction of any significance after 1994. [http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+U.N.%3A+Iraq+had+no+WMD+after+1994&expire=&urlID=9464809&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Firaq%2F2004-03-02-un-wmd_x.htm&partnerID=1660]
In a June 2004 interview with Time Magazine, former president Bill Clinton said, "I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over." He added that he supported the invasion because "there was a lot of stuff unaccounted for." [http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/index.html]
On August 2, 2004 President Bush stated "Knowing what I know today we still would have gone on into Iraq. He had the capability of making weapons of mass destruction. He had terrorists ties … the decision I made is the right decision. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5578293/]
On October 6, 2004 Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, appearing before the United States Senate Armed Services Committee announced that the group found no evidence that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had produced any weapons of mass destruction since 1991, when UN sanctions were imposed and furthermore, Iraq had been incapable of doing so. The report noted that Saddam had made it his primary goal to have sanctions lifted by whatever means necessary and that whether or not Saddam Hussein was, indeed, "contained" was questionable considering dozens of instances in which prohibited material had entered Iraq through several nefarious means such as front companies and other questionable means. From the report: "[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted."[http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/]
The report concluded in its Key Findings that: "The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them." [http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/Comp_Report_Key_Findings.pdf] (PDF)
It also noted that "Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of [Iraq's WMD revival] policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary."
In March of 2005 there was an addition to Duelfer's Report titled Addendums to the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/duelfer/] In it Charles Duelfer made the statement that "Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined. There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to warrant further investigation. ... ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war. It should be noted that no information from debriefing of Iraqis in custody supports this possibility. ... Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place. However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials." [http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/DuelferRpt/Addendums.pdf]
On January 12, 2005, US military forces, having located no weapons of mass destruction, formally abandoned the search. But just because we don't see things as we expect them does not mean they are not there. We didn't find any big bombs waiting to be used against America. But, the military has uncovered many large caches of chemical and biological warfare equipment and items to be used by Iraqi soldiers. It was plainly obvious by what was found that the Iraqis were prepared not for US use of chemical weapons, since the US has renounced use of chemicals and has been destroying its own chemical weapons. They were prepared for use of chemical and biological weapons by their own (Iraqi) forces. The Coalition military forces could go where inspectors could not, and have found things that were impossible foe inspectors to find.
On June 8, 2005, retired 4-star general and former Secretary of State in the Bush administration Colin Powell, appeared on The Daily Show and stated regarding Weapons of Mass Destructions in Iraq: "Now where we got the intelligence wrong, dead wrong, is that we thought he also had existing stockpiles, and now we know that those are not there." [http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=15572&poppedFrom=_shows_the_daily_show_videos_celebrity_interviews_index.jhtml&] [http://www.lies.com/wp/2005/06/11/colin-powell-on-the-daily-show/]
On August 21, 2005, CNN aired a special presentation titled, 'Dead Wrong:' Inside an Intelligence Meltdown[http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/index.dead.wrong.html]. The presentation featured clips of pre-war speeches, interviews with important people involved in this matter and received high ratings[http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/for_david_ensor_dead_wrong_seemed_like_a_worthwhile_project_24874.asp][http://www.turnerinfo.com/newsitem.aspx?P=CNN&CID01=60d2ed9b-df5d-4983-97de-0616b2333afc][http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/viewers_tune_in_and_respond_to_cnns_dead_wrong_documentary_24953.asp]. Former head of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay was also interviewed and stated: "We can't afford to be wrong a second time. How many people in the world are going to believe us when we say it's a "slam dunk," to use George Tenet's terms? Iran has nuclear weapons. The answer is going to be, you said that before."[http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/21/cp.01.html]
Sanctions
However effective, UN sanctions fostered a growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq. International popular opinion seemed to shift in favour of lifting the sanctions and finding diplomatic alternatives such as targeted sanctions that might be as effective, but which would not inadvertently affect the Iraqi populace. Temporary solutions, such as the Oil for Food program, an easing of the sanctions on a controlled basis, had limited success in the face of corruption in the Iraqi government and UN officials involved in the program [http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/InterimReportFeb2005.pdf]. Essentially, harsh sanctions originally intended to be temporary could not be kept in place indefinitely. In addition, Saddam's persistent efforts to sway certain UN Security Council members with money diverted from the Oil for Food program meant that sanctions may have reached the limit of their usefulness.[http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2002/paper.htm][http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/06/woil06.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/10/06/ixportaltop.html]
Human Rights
Another key rationale for the war was ending Saddam Hussein's nearly 40-year track record of murder, torture, and other major human rights abuses (see Human rights in Saddam's Iraq). Some critics called this justification self-serving, since the US government did not do much to prevent or to punish those crimes while they were happening. Not that they would have been able to anyway. Although the use of chemical weapons against Kurds in 1983 was known by US intelligence, Donald Rumsfeld, at the time presidential envoy of Ronald Reagan, nevertheless spoke of his "close relationship" with Saddam Hussein and even visited him. After the Persian Gulf War the US government encouraged rebellions by the Shiites but did not intervene when Saddam crushed the rebels. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,866942,00.html]
[http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3294143/]
Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch has argued that the justification of "human rights" for the war in Iraq does not meet appropriate standards for the level of suffering that it causes.[http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm#_Toc58744952]
Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson discussed the US human rights situation in post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan, stating in an [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11111.htm interview] with Amy Goodman on Nov 22 2005 that:
:"the difficulties [our troops face] come from the two decisions that I had the most insight into that were made in this more or less alternative decision-making process. And those two decisions were the inept and incompetent planning for post-invasion Iraq, and [...] the decision... from that alternative decision-making process to depart from the Geneva Conventions and from international law, in general"
:"[The President's memorandum said] the spirit of Geneva would be adhered to... consistent with military necessity. [...] It did not say 'consistent with national security demands.' It did not say 'consistent with the demands of the war on terror.' It said 'consistent with military needs.' Now, military needs are very simple and clear to a man like me who spent 31 years in the military. It means that if one of my buddy's life is threatened or my life is threatened, I can take drastic action. I can even shoot a detainee. And I can expect not to be punished under Geneva, or at least if I am court-martialed, I have a defense. It doesn't mean that I can take a detainee in a cold, dark cell in Bagram, Afghanistan, for example, in December 2002, shackled to the wall, and pour cold water on him at intervals when the outside temperature is 50 degrees anyway, and eventually kill him, which is what happened."
Libyan disarmament
Also included in the list of postwar justifications is Libya's agreement to abandon its WMD programs in December of 2003. Those who argue that this action was directly inspired by the invasion of Iraq point to a phone call Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says he had with Libya's leader, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi in April of 2003, in which he quotes Qadaffi as saying "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/04/wun04.xml] Negotiations between Libya and the United States and Britain on disarmament began almost immediately thereafter. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A15868-2003Dec19¬Found=true] On the other hand, Flynt Leverett (former senior director for Middle Eastern Affairs at the NSC) and Martin S. Indyk (former Clinton administration official) argue that the agreement was instead a result of good-faith negotiations. Libya had in principle agreed to surrender its programs in 1999.
Purported links between the government of Iraq and terrorist organizations
Al-Qaeda
Saddam Hussein's regime had some contacts with terrorist organizations in the past. The Bush Administration mentioned these contacts frequently in the run-up to the war, even suggesting direct ties to al-Qaeda. Some even alleged that Saddam supported the attacks of 9/11, but this view that has not been confirmed by the evidence. And, according to the U.S. Intelligence Community's Kerr Group report of July 29, 2004, despite "a 'purposely aggressive approach' in conducting exhaustive and repetitive searches for such links... [the U.S.] Intelligence Community remained firm in its assessment that no operational or collaborative relationship existed."[http://irrationallyinformed.com//pdfcollection/20040729_Kerr_Report.pdf]
Some newspapers in 1998 reported an "alliance" or "pact" between Saddam and al-Qaeda [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/850ikvwv.asp?pg=2]. In January 1999, Newsweek magazine also reported statements by a Saudi intelligence officer that Saddam and al-Qaeda had formed an alliance. Network news organizations also picked up the story.[http://www.mediaresearch.org/rm/cyber/2004/binladen061704/segment1.ram] But by 2003 most news organizations were extremely skeptical of such claims; certainly no evidence of any "alliance" or "pact" ever emerged in the mainstream press. One January 2003 article in the San Jose Mercury News said the claim "stretches the analysis of U.S. intelligence agencies to, and perhaps beyond, the limit." [http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/5055588.htm]
After the invasion, in January of 2004, Secretary Powell stated "I have not seen [a] smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did." But by September 2005 Secretary Powell, when asked if there was any connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of 9/11, said "I have never seen a connection. I can't think otherwise, because I've never seen any evidence to suggest there was one."[20/20 Interview (9 September 2005)]. Various independent investigations into the question of an al-Qaeda connection by U.S. intelligence agencies including the CIA, FBI, and NSA concluded that there was no evidence of cooperation between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
Some unspecified information once perceived as "evidence" for a connection between the two turns out to have been disinformation coming from several sources, most notably an associate of Ahmed Chalabi who was given the code name "Curveball", and from captured al Qaeda leader Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. The Chalabi source has been thoroughly discredited, and the al Qaeda source has since recanted his story. Other al Qaeda leaders have claimed that there was no operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and indeed that Osama bin Laden had forbidden such a relationship with the Iraqi leader, whom he considered an infidel.
Some support for claims of collaboration between al Qaeda and the now deposed Iraqi government have come from weapons smuggler Mohamed Mansour Shahab, who said in an interview in the New Yorker magazine that he had been directed by the Iraqi intelligence community to organize, plan, and carry out up to nine terrorist attacks against American targets in the Middle East, including an attack similar to the one carried out on the USS Cole. [http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0403/p01s01-wome.html]. Reporter Guy Dinmore questions his credibility however, writing in the London Financial Times: "it is apparent that the man is deranged. He claims to have killed 422 people, including two of his wives, and says he would drink the blood of his victims. He also has no explanation for why, although he was arrested two years ago, he only revealed his alleged links to al-Qaeda and Baghdad after the September 11 attacks." (22 May 2002 p. 13) Al Qaeda expert Jason Burke wrote after interviewing Shahab, "Shahab is a liar. He may well be a smuggler, and probably a murderer too, but substantial chunks of his story simply are not true."[http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,892161,00.html].
The only member of the original plot to destroy the World Trade Center to escape US law enforcement officials, the Iraqi Abdul Rahman Yasin, fled to Baghdad shortly after the attacks in 1993. Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only alleged member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large after the investigation into the bombing where he fled to Iraq. After major fighting ceased U.S. forces discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, that allegedly show that the Iraqi government gave Yasin a house and monthly salary. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-17-iraq-wtc_x.htm]
FBI and CIA investigations in 1995 and 1996 concluded "that the Iraqi government was in no way involved in the attack"; then-U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has since testified, "the fact that one of the 12 people involved in the attack was Iraqi hardly seems to me as evidence that the Iraqi government was involved in the attack. The attack was Al Qaeda; not Iraq.... [T]he allegation that has been made that the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center was done by the Iraqi government I think is absolutely without foundation." (911 Commission Hearing, 24 March 2004)[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20349-2004Mar24.html]
Abbas al-Janabi, who served for fifteen years as personal assistant to Uday Hussein before defecting to United Kingdom, has often claimed that he knew of collaboration between the former Iraqi government and al Qaeda. Al-Janabi said that he had learned that Iraqi officials had visited Afghanistan and Sudan to strengthen ties with Al-Qaeda and he also claimed he knew of a facility near Baghdad where foreign fighters were trained and instructed by members of the Republican Guard and Mukhabarat. [http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-7-2002_pg4_1]. Salman Pak, a facility matching al-Janabi’s description, was captured by US Marines in Mid April of 2003 [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,84291,00.html], but no evidence of al Qaeda presence at the camp has been found. Some claim that the camp was actually a counterterrorism facility built by the British in the mid 1980's but UN weapons inspectors, including Charles Duelfer believed it had been converted from its original purpose and was being used to train militants. [http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp] Inconsistencies in the stories of the Iraqi defectors have led U.S. officials, journalists, and investigators to conclude that the Salman Pak story was inaccurate. Al-Janabi and other Iraqi defectors who tell this story are associated with the Iraqi National Congress, an organization that has been accused of deliberately supplying false information to the US government in order to build support for regime change ([http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0316-02.htm]). "The INC’s agenda was to get us into a war," said Helen Kennedy of the New York Daily News. "The really damaging stories all came from those guys, not the CIA. They did a really sophisticated job of getting it out there."[http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp] One senior U.S. official said that they had found "nothing to substantiate" the claim that al-Qaeda trained at Salman Pak.[http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/intelligence/11893057.htm]
In April of 2001, the Czech Security Information Service reported a meeting between Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, an Iraqi Intelligence Service officer operating out of the Iraqi embassy in Prague, and a man they believed to be Mohamed Atta. The Czech report was based on a single eyewitness from Prague who is now generally considered unreliable. Nevertheless, this Prague connection was seen as a crucial link between Iraq and al Qaeda by proponents of collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission examined this evidence, saying that circumstantial evidence appeared to place Atta in Florida at the time, and that "The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting." The report concluded, "Based on the evidence available including investigation by Czech and U.S. authorities plus detainee reporting we do not believe that such a meeting occurred." It also says that Czech intelligence indicates that al-Ani "was about 70 miles away from Prague" at the time that the meeting supposedly took place. [http://www.factcheck.org/article203.html], [http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch7.htm]
The Senate Report concludes that, while representatives of Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda had indeed met, an operational relationship was never realized and there was a deep sense of mistrust and dislike of one another. Osama Bin Laden was shown to view Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party as running contrary to his religion, calling it an "apostate regime." A British intelligence report [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2727471.stm] went so far as to say of Bin Laden "His aims are in ideological conflict with present day Iraq."
The state-run Iraqi local paper Al-Nasiriya published an opinion piece praising Osama bin Laden that Senator Ernest Hollings interpreted as foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Senator Hollings read the opinion piece into the Congressional Record. [http://www.uscg.mil/Legal/Homeland_legislation/Text/091202%20Homeland%20Security.txt] Nobody has offered any evidence that such "foreknowledge," if it existed at all on the part of the article's author, extended to Saddam's regime. Neither the 9/11 Commission Report nor the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq found this article worth mention.
In 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, concluded that there was no evidence of a "collaborative operational relationship" between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5223932/] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54702-2004Jun19.html] This conclusion was consistent with the conclusions of all agencies of the U.S. intelligence community, according to documents released in 2005. Senator Carl Levin wrote that the documents "are additional compelling evidence that the Intelligence Community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary."[http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=236440]
Other terrorist organizations
Aside from the contentious allegations of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda, the former government did have relationships with other militant organizations in the Middle East including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It is known that some $10–15M total was paid to the families of suicide bombers, presented as compensation for the demolition of their homes in Israeli collective punishment operations. Abu Abbas (associate with the PLO and the Achille Lauro hijacking) was found in Iraq, and had been wanted for quite some time. In August 2002, Abu Nidal (attacks in Italy and elsewhere) died in Baghdad from gunshot wounds while facing treason charges under Saddam's government.
In 1998, Iraq plotted to blow up Radio Free Europe in Prague, for broadcasting opposition communications into Iraq. According to Jabir Salim, the consul and second secretary at the Iraq embassy in Prague, Saddam Hussein had allocated $150,000 to recruit and train individuals who would not be traceable back to Iraq. This plot was aborted in December 1998 when Salim defected in Prague, revealing details of the plot to the CIA, British MI-6 and Czech intelligence.
The now deposed Iraqi regime has also been accused of an assassination plot on former President George Bush. On April 14, 1993, it is charged that Iraq plotted to assassinate former President George Bush while he was visiting Kuwait. The assassins were Ra'ad al-Asadi and Wali al-Ghazali, two Iraqi nationals, who had been supplied with a car bomb. The plot was foiled when the two were captured in Kuwait City. The FBI learned that the two had been recruited by the Iraqi intelligence Service in Basra, Iraq, who also gave them the explosive devices shortly before Bush arrived in Kuwait.
Some documents indicate that the leadership was attempting to dis
Views on the 2003 invasion of IraqThe events surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq have led to numerous expressions of opinion with respect to the war. This page contains links to several topics relating to views on the invasion, and the subsequent occupation of Iraq.
American views
- American government position on invasion of Iraq : Summary of the United States government's case.
- American popular opinion on invasion of Iraq : Opinion poll views and history.
World views
- Governments' positions pre-2003 invasion of Iraq : Summary of various governments' pre-war positions.
- The UN Security Council and the Iraq war : Examines positions of UN Security Council memebers over the period 2002-2003
Opposition views
- Popular opposition to the 2003 Iraq War : Various opinions of people against the Iraq war.
- Protests against the Iraq war : Protests against Iraq war across the world.
Other views
- Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq : Various communication campaigns identified that inform (or influence) the public.
Category:Stances and opinions regarding the 2003 Iraq conflict
2003 Invasion of Iraq:This article covers invasion specifics. For general information see: Iraq War, Post-invasion Iraq.
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq began on March 20 comprising United States and United Kingdom forces (98%), and several other nations. The 2003 Iraq invasion marked the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the Iraq War; however the United States never actually declared war on Iraq, which can only be done by Congress. Baghdad fell on April 9th, 2003. On May 1, 2003 U.S. president George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations terminating the Ba'ath Party's rule and removing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from office. Coalition forces ultimately captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003. A transitional period began thereafter .
Political and diplomatic aspects
On October 11, 2002, the United States Senate passed a resolution 77-23 in favor of giving U.S. President George W. Bush the authority to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). The United States House of Representatives took only hours before approving an identical resolution, 296-133[http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/].
In his March 17, 2003 address to the nation, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/iraq/20030317-7.html]. This demand was reportedly rejected [http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0318iraqreject.htm].
Since the invasion began without the explicit approval of the United Nations Security Council, some legal authorities regard it as a violation of the U.N. Charter. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004, "From our point of view and the U.N. charter point of view, it was illegal." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25685-2004Sep16.html] However, critics of the UN point out that between the years of 1991 and 1998, the United Nations passed 11 resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein comply with IAEA and UN inspectors, suggesting that the UN was not properly equipped to handle the Iraq crisis. Moreover, in light of the Oil-for-Food scandal that involved Kofi Annan's son and perhaps Annan himself, critics say that the Secretary-General may have had personal interest in preserving the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Military aspects
United States military operations were conducted under the codename Operation Iraqi Freedom [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030403-3.html], as quoted by George W. Bush on April 3, 2003. The United Kingdom military operation was named Operation Telic, and Australia's as Operation Falconer. Approximately 100,000 United States troops and 26,000 British troops, and smaller forces from other nations, collectively called the "Coalition of the Willing," entered Iraq primarily through a staging area in Kuwait. In terms of all military personnel involved in the Gulf region (ie. including naval, logistics, inteligence and air force personel) the numbers were 214,000 Americans, 45,000 British and 2,000 Australians. Plans for opening a second front in the north were abandoned when Turkey officially refused the use of its territory for such purposes. Forces also supported Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 50,000. Despite the refusal of Turkey, the United States conducted parachute operations in the north and dropped the 173rd Airborne Brigade, thereby removing the necessity of any approval from Turkey.
The number of Iraqi military personnel prior to the war was uncertain, but was believed to have been poorly-equipped[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/26/iraq/main546241.shtml][http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030326-lastchance01.htm][http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=607]. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the armed forces to number 389,000 (army 350,000, navy 2,000, air force 20,000 and air defence 17,000), the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam 44,000, and reserves 650,000 [http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3325]. Other estimates number the army and Republican Guard between 280,000 to 350,000 and 50,000 to 80,000, respectively [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/ground-org.htm], and the paramilitary between 20,000 and 40,000 [http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030327-fedayeen02.htm]. There were an estimated thirteen infantry divisions, ten mechanized and armored divisions, as well as some special forces units. The Iraqi Air Force and Navy played a negligible role in the conflict.
Prelude
Since the end of the Gulf War of 1991, Iraq's relations with the UN, the US, and the UK remained poor. In the absence of a Security Council consensus that Iraq had fully complied wit | | |
