The Iraq War: A Timeline

Introduction 

Iraq has in recent months received tremendous international focus as the media features the ongoing war against the Islamic states in Syria and Iraq. For many reasons, the political turmoil and deteriorated state of security in that country can be traced back to the military and political activities of the United States during the Iraq war. To date, despite considerable debate about the merits of that war, opinion remains divided. Much attention in that discourse has centered on whether the war itself was legitimate based on international law norms, the legitimacy of the grievance advanced by the United States and the United Kingdom and whether the results of that war could help justify it. One and a half decades after the war, the question must be asked whether the war was indeed necessary or whether it was an unnecessary waste of American lives and even resources. In making this assessment, the official and unofficial accounts of the war will be scrutinized as well as an examination of its results. 

The immediate consideration behind the Iraq war was the events that of 9/11 that brought, perhaps for the first time, to the United States and the western world the horrors of global terrorism. Of course, there had been other attacks on the United States before especially abroad, but as analysts have rightly noted, 9/11 was without precedent. The attack also brought to the attention of military analyst the capacities of non-state actors in a new age of transnational asymmetrical warfare. Attention was also cast in states thought to be providing various forms of assistance to terrorist organizations: President Bush in his 2002 state of the union administration proclaimed that the United States would no longer discriminate between terrorist organizations and nations harboring or providing assistance to them 1 . This new policy orientation was the background behind the invasion of Afghanistan deemed to be providing a haven and a training ground for the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. 

Iraq was not said to harbor Al-Qaeda but was accused of offering support including training camps to terrorist organizations, a charge that Baghdad strongly rejected 2 . This concern became more poignant with the charge that the Saddam Hussein regime had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that such weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist groups and used to launch attacks on American soil. The official reason however for the American invasion was contained in the February 5 th, 2003 statement delivered to the United Nations by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell 3 . 

Both the official and unofficial versions are crucially important and help address the legitimacy question of the war, specifically the American claims that it was fighting evil in the Iraq war. Some analysts have contended that the main unofficial reason for the war was that the removal of Saddam Hussein would have sent a clear message internationally on the military might and preparedness of the United States especially to American enemies. It would, it was contended, dispel any perception of American weakness and thus deter American enemies. This was seen as the realist approach to the events in the aftermath of 9/11; the need for the United States to reassert its global hegemony, the unipolar status of the international system and avoid watering down the events of 9/11 through demonstration and use of force 4 . 

Others have pointed to the fact that the United States was the world’s second-largest producer of oil. This had made it one of the greatest nations in the Middle East having considerable influence over the affairs of the region. The Bush administration, it has been argued, hoped the removal of Saddam Hussein would have a domino effect whereby all other regimes in the region would capitulate to American demands or be toppled by their own people following the example set in Iraq 5 . Iraq under Saddam was considered a perfect country for this project: after the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam had lost much of his original appeal to western nations and had been perceived regionally as a threat. Some, however, believe that the Americans overplayed the threat posed by Saddam especially to other western countries and overestimated the levels of animosity with its neighbors 6 . Nonetheless, Americans had adequate reason to want to see Saddam gone insofar as protection of their regional interests were concerned. 

It is, however, important to give some attention to the official reasons advanced by the United States which undoubtedly have their own force in shaping the debate. The First charge was that Iraq was a sponsor of global terrorism. Besides the New York attacks, there had also been acts of terror in Pennsylvania and Washington. To combat this threat, the United States embarked on what president George Bush had termed as the war on terror and largely reassigning that role from law enforcement agencies, despite the creation of Department of Homeland Security, to the Department of Defense. President George Bush, on numerous occasions, linked terrorist organizations to state actors, a narrative widely repeated by various officials within his administration 7 . The 9/11 commission was also clear in its focus on the role of state actors in sponsoring terrorism and in its various testimonies singled out Iraq. In one such testimony, it was heard that Saddam used terrorists as a foreign policy tool and that he encouraged terror attacks on groups he wanted to pile pressure on. It thus followed that Saddam was cast and seen as not only a danger to American security but evil in the world who needed to be expunged. 

There was, however, a multitude of reports that questioned such linkages. Nonetheless, these reports did not receive much public attention, and those that did were opposed by well-established state machinery especially from the Bush administration to give legitimacy to the invasion. It has been reported that the then vice president Dick Cheney, in what was clearly a last ditch effort, appealed upon secretary Colin Powel before he made his address to the United Nations to link Al-Qaeda and Saddam. There was, however, no evidence of this and linkages that were already in existence suggested that Saddam had supported Iranian dissidents, separatists’ Kurdish groups, anti-Israeli Palestinian groups and the Islamist Hamas movement. The al-Qaeda link was however not established. 

The campaign to smear Saddam was perhaps most manifest in the claims that Iraq had developed technology and was involved in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. President Bush himself argued that the Iraqi regime had for over a decade been involved in the manufacture of nerve gas, anthrax, and even nuclear weapons and that it had already been involved in the poisoning of its citizens including mothers and children. By disallowing the entry of international inspectors, the regime had exceeded boundaries of civility. The claims were however not supported with concrete evidence, but the Saddam regime found it difficult to wade of such claims especially given a history of similar allegations against it. In 1981, the Israelis had launched a surprise attack on Osirak nuclear reactor located near Baghdad that it claimed were being used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons to be used against Israel. Iraq denied these claims saying the reactor was for peaceful purposes. Saddam had also used nerve agent Tabun and mustard gas, all chemical weapons, in the Iraq-Iran war that lasted between 1980 and 1988. 

After Iraq pulled out of Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council demanded that it destroys its presumed weapons of mass destruction and the technology to produce them 8 . Iraq complied with that UN resolution though there were consistent attempts to frustrate inspection efforts. In 1992, Iraq admitted to having biological weapons for defensive purposes, though the claims were not verified and it could have been a bluff by the Saddam regime to consolidate its influence in the region. Against this background, Iraq found it impossible to prove that it was involved in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Alongside Afghanistan, Iraq was labeled the axis of evil. 

The United Nations team of inspectors failed to find any stockpile of weapons of mass destruction before the war; a finding found to be consistent even after the American invasion. This view itself leads to a reexamination of the claim that Iraq was part of an evil axis and that this was merely an American fabrication. But the administration, perhaps to give legitimacy to the invasion in light of revelations that weapons of mass destruction were not found, claimed that there was the need to liberate the people of Iraq from the tyranny of dictatorship. Here, the claim was made that the lives of ordinary Iraqis matter. President Bush and his British Counterpart Tony Blair pointed to the need to liberate Iraq’s people from the weight of tyranny 9 . To this extent, Iraq was seen as a threat to freedom not only to its people but the world, and as such, a perpetrator of the evil of oppression. 

The Iraq war had huge consequences not only for the United States but Iraq itself. These impacts raise the very important question whether the war was really necessary. While Saddam Hussein may have been executed, concerns linger as to the prudence of that decision. First, there were numerous fatalities on both sides of the battlefield. About 4,488 American soldiers lost their lives in that battle. This has caused tremendous suffering, financial and psychological, on dependents. An additional 32, 226 suffered various injuries. 90% of wounded soldiers injured in that battle, however, survived thanks to advances in modern medicine. Higher survival rates, especially if compared to the Vietnam War, means that many veterans are living with complex problems. It is estimated that nearly 20% of veterans are treated for Traumatic Brain Injury and a similar number for PTSD 10 . Others have to endure limp amputation amongst other conditions. A 2016 study found that up to 20 veterans commit suicide every day. Numerous deaths were also reported on the Iraq side. 

The war also cost the taxpayer up to 3 Trillion dollars though these estimates vary 11 . The results of the war, especially in the long run, suggest that the cost was not commensurate with the benefits. Iraq, after the fall of Saddam, has arguably been more chaotic that it was under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi governing council that brought together the Sunnis, Kurds, Shiites, Christians, and Turkmens proved ineffective in establishing political order leave alone democracy. Iraq fell into civil war and by many standards became a failed state. Equally significant has been that al-Qaeda, in the aftermath of the war, took advantage of the political disorder to consolidate its presence in the country 12 . 

Studies have noted that the economic conditions of Iraq after the war have significantly declined. A good number of Iraqis had to depend on foreign aid and amenities such as electricity became increasingly difficult to find. Furthermore, failure by the United States to find weapons of mass destruction as it had purported did tremendous harm to her global standing. The then United Nation’s Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared that the war was illegal and there was an international opinion that the United States had become a danger to world peace. Icons such as Nelson Mandela took the lead in the condemnation of the United States 13 . Support for the war and the Bush administration also waned in the United States. 

Perhaps the most consequential result of that war was the emergence of the terrorist organization ISIL. It is not difficult to see the connections between the Iraq war and emergence of ISIL about ten years later: the power vacuum left in the aftermath of the war and ostracization of Sunnis in the government formed thereafter has allowed radical elements to take advantage of the disgruntlement with the promise of creating an Islamic state. The Islamic state group has quickly spread to Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon and has carried attacked in the United States, Paris, Brussels and many other spots across the world 14 . 

Conclusion 

The 9/11 attacks were the fundamental background to the Iraq war, but as it has been seen, there might have been other motivating factors that informed the war. In light of the tremendous cost of the Iraq war, both human and economical, the question must then be asked whether the outcome (benefits) are commensurate with the cost. The avowed American reason for an incursion into Iraq was the need to eradicate an evil regime that had threatened global peace through the development of weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were never found, and the overthrow and execution of Saddam Hussein did little to change the state of affairs in Iraq. If anything, the American presence in that country has created other problems most notably the emergence of the Islamic terror group ISIL. 

Bibliography 

Amadeo, Kimberly. "Cost of Iraq War: Timeline, Economic Impact." The Balance , 2017. 

Beehner, Lionel. "The Cost of the Iraq War." Council on Foreign Relations , 2006. 

Goodman, H.A. "4,486 American Soldiers Have Died in Iraq. President Obama Is Continuing a Pointless and Deadly Quagmire." HUFFPOST , 2014. 

Moon, Munir. "Intended Consequences of Iraq War." Huffington Post , 2014. 

Pan, Esther. "IRAQ: Justifying the War." Council on Foreign Relations , 2005. 

Stiglitz, Joseph E., and Linda J. Bilmes. "The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More." washingtonpost.com , 2008. 

1 (Pan 2005) 

2 (Beehner 2006) 

3 (Moon 2014) 

4 (Pan 2005) 

5 (Beehner 2006) 

6 (Pan 2005) 

7 (Amadeo 2017) 

8 (Goodman 2014) 

9 (Pan 2005) 

10 (Beehner 2006) 

11 (Beehner 2006) 

12 (Stiglitz and Bilmes 2008) 

13 (Goodman 2014) 

14 (Goodman 2014)