By: Dr Lionel Bopage and Michael Cooke
The United States of America (US) must be one of the most incompetent, brutal and arrogant imperial powers in history. For Its hubris and gradual decline, the only counterpart is the Spanish rape and pillage of the Americas, 500 years or so earlier. Spain like the US hid its slow economic decline for a century or more by its military might. Its intervention in the wars of statehood resulted in a wave of bloodshed across Northern Europe; resulting in many thousands of needless deaths of its own people but also of those it attempted to subdue. As a result, Spain became an economically backward nation for centuries, banished eventually to the margins of history.
Shades of this hubris are more than evident in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq twenty years ago; in terms of its spurious justification of the war and its incompetent governing of the country via its handpicked local proxies. The grim figures of the casualties speak for themselves. A conservative estimate of around 280,771 to 351,190 civilians lost their lives, the actual figure is much higher as there has been no desire to quantify the figures of how many died. According to the UNHCR the war left behind 5 million orphans; and there are still around 1.2 million displaced people. In comparison, the US had 5,000 casualties. The looting and profiteering of transnationals and the local comprador politicians ran into billions of unaccountable dollars. The country’s infrastructure was blown to smithereens, civil society was annihilated and, in its place came self-serving politicians and a bloody sectarian divide. In between the cracks and debris of the invasion Islamic State (IS) was hatched.
Yet if one looks at media coverage of the 20year anniversary except for brief editorial pieces bemoaning what they term ‘mistakes’ of the invasion, there is barely a mention that this immoral invasion was hatched by our AUKUS partners, who were also instrumental in the brutal occupation of Afghanistan and the quick unravelling of the proxy regime, Australia and its allies left in place – leaving the country to endure the reign of medieval fundamentalist – the Taliban. Nary a critical word is written on the deliberate surrounding by NATO of Russia led by the paranoid and dictatorial Putin and its tragic consequences for the Ukrainian population. If they win the war will Ukraine be given the money and the resources to rebuild; or will it follow the tragic trajectory of Iraq and Afghanistan? The mainstream’s disgraceful orgy of celebration of the AUKUS and its unnecessary needling of China, show we have learnt nothing and will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is therefore instructive to understand what led to the invasion of Iraq and its tragic consequences, so we can cast a more critical eye on AUKUS.
Since the end of World War 2, the United States’ military interventions and nation building have been an unmitigated disaster – starting with Korea, then moving on to Vietnam and Indonesia, Afghanistan and Iraq amongst others have resulted in millions of deaths, devastated infrastructure, and a fragile civil society of these occupied countries. Ennobling in Iraq and Afghanistan the rise of a medievalist and intolerant strain of a violent religious insurrection. It is in this historical context; this paper will look at “coalition of the willing” invasion of Iraq.
It is 20 years since the US-UK led Iraq invasion. It began with what David Rumsfeld called “Operation Shock and Awe.” To market the operation, the Bush White House created the slogan “axis of evil,” with Iraq and Iran forming one part of the axis. President Joe Biden, then a Democratic senator prominently supported the invasion and argued for it.
There was no evidence that Iraq was involved in or planning attacks on the USA or its allies. Saddam Hussein maintained a tyranny that brutally violated the human rights of Iraqi people. However, the ruling elites in the rest of the Middle East were no different. The US depicted and justified the operation as part of its response to the war on terror. This was in response to the 9/11 attacks in which Iraq was said to have been involved. Iraq’s invasion was only one component of the US-led “War on Terror” campaign. The US is said to be conducting such operations in 85 countries. Researchers believe that more than 929,000 people including over 387,000 civilians have died since the 9/11 terror attacks. Thirty-eight million people are said to have been displaced as a result with Iraq being one of the larger disasters.
The then Secretary of State, Colin Powell stated confidently that Saddam Hussein posed a grave and imminent security threat to the US and the world, as he was developing nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Powell’s now notorious and erroneous speech at the UN became the prelude to the nine-year-long Iraqi war. The US Congress had already authorised George Bush to “use any means necessary” against Iraq. As proof, Powell produced satellite images, audio recordings and illustrations of supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and charged that Iraqi officials purposely evaded their obligations and hid their weapons. He was ably assisted by the conservative hawk John Bolton, who worked to thwart any efforts to establish whether Iraq possessed chemical weapons.
What the US regime cited as “solid intelligence” was based on uncorroborated reports received from Iraqi exiles, such as Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi had gained the trust of senior bureaucrats in the Bush administration. He and his accomplices had convinced the Bush administration of the necessity of destroying the Baathist regime. Despite the State Department wanting to get rid of Chalabi, George Bush and Dick Cheney did not allow that to happen. Chalabi and his collaborators fed the US administration “alternate facts”, facts that they wanted to hear.
When no evidence of WMDs and other weapons or any links to terrorism could be found, Bush, Blair and Howard astutely reframed the war agenda against Iraq: to topple Saddam Hussein so as to bring peace to the people of Iraq, to replace the autocratic Ba’athist regime with a democratic one and to transform the Iraqi economy to a free-market economy.
The imperial objective of the invasion, shorn of its sham and opportunist democratic rhetoric was nothing but regime change. A tactic the US has done many times in the past, especially in its own back yard: Central and South America. Since this disastrous imperial invasion Iraqis are neither freer, wealthier, or more pro-US than they were under the Baathists. In fact, for many years Saddam Hussein was seen as a pro-American lackey.
A sham for when western powers speak of democracy in the Middle East, one would expect them to start with those regimes with whom the west has close relations and linkages. In the region, there are many tyrants and authoritarian regimes, whose survival simply depends on the US’s material and financial support. The most suitable candidate for such a campaign would be Saudi Arabia. Yet the US remain mute of its multiple human rights abuses at home and abroad, especially in Yemen.
If there was a genuine commitment to democracy, a country’s sovereignty needs to be respected unless that country directly endangers one’s own security. Vietnam for example invaded Kampuchea after the genocidal policies of Pol Pot spilled into its borders.
The world-wide left movement agitated for and supported when trade sanctions and sporting boycotts were imposed against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The west could have intervened militarily to overthrow minority white rule, but they did not.
Any social transformation will be inspiring and successful if it is driven by their own people’s struggles and assisted by international solidarity. Promoting democracy has become a slogan when it suits US imperial and strategic interests. Where was the democracy when the US security apparatus helped and aided the brutal dictators in Indonesia and Chile? When Suharto’s military dictatorship systematically annihilated any dissent against their rule in Indonesia, resulting in around a million extra judicial murders?
Globally, there was a tidal wave of opposition to the war, both before and during the invasion, and then following the occupation. It was probably the largest protest movement in human history. According to the BBC around one million Londoners protested. There were 54 countries that officially condemned the occupation. Many believed that the invasion was illegal as per the UN Charter. Some of them contested the information presented as facts for validating the intent of the invasion.
I was residing in Canberra at the time and witnessed and actively led some of the protests and marches held at the time. However, the invasion could not be prevented. This was due to a lack of organisation and coordination by the anti-war activists and groups. Nevertheless, those protests were stimulating and inspiring.
The invasion became a war of occupation and attrition, despite the expectation that coalition troops would be welcomed as liberators of Iraq. Bush, Blair, Howard (a proto AUKUS coalition) and their ilk carried out a huge propaganda campaign through the media supporting the neo-liberal agenda spearheaded by then US Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. In Australia, the Australian Labour Party led by Simon Crean and Kim Beasley supported that propaganda campaign.
Even some progressive forces supported the invasion. Some in the protest movement believed that the United Nations (UN) could prevent the invasion. History provides us ample evidence that this is not a tenable option. According to the UN rules if one of the five permanent members (US, Russia, Britain, France and China), veto a resolution, no action can be taken. One good example would be the many resolutions the UN passed condemning the Israeli apartheid regime over many war crimes committed against Palestinians. The catastrophic results for the Iraqis were not hard to discern.
“Operation Shock and Awe” directly resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths and millions of others were wounded and displaced. Hundreds of thousands were adversely affected by the war, due to the disruption of water supplies and associated health issues. Thousands of US soldiers and contractors lost their lives, tens of thousands were wounded and many thousands have been suffering from serious physical and psychological debilities. The overall loss of life due to the conflict is said to be about one million. This is said to exclude suicides committed by Iraq war veterans and veterans of America’s other post-9/11 wars. But that was just the start of the horrors that Iraqis were enduring and are still enduring.
Unemployment in Iraq rose to 60 per cent which led to a humanitarian crisis. Iraqis are still suffering from food shortages. More than half the population and tens of thousands of members of the armed forces are said to be suffering from psychological disorders that resulted due to the invasion. If not for the invasion, IS would not have had a social and material base to emerge. However, none of the war criminals has shown any remorse for the colossal devastation they have executed. They need to be brought to justice for their falsifications, mass killings and widespread destruction of humanity.
The overthrow of the Saddam-led Baathist regime created a power vacuum as the US-dominated occupiers excluded the Sunni-dominated political, military, and administrative apparatus. This in turn contributed to a bloody and protracted militant campaign against the occupation and sectarian conflicts between the Shias and Sunnis. The US-led occupying regime brutalized communities, destroying cultural artefacts and cities like Fallujah. Iraqi prisoners were subjected to torture violating all international human rights conventions.
If there is one incident and image that summarises the brutal, racist and incompetent occupation of the invading forces, it is Abu Ghraib, a charnel house of torture. Private security firms like Blackwater killed with impunity. The invasion resulted in the sectarian fragmentation between Sunnis and Shiites, and the rise of the Islamic State, which was defeated later. US troops were withdrawn when Iraq ordered them to leave. This happened when US forces assassinated a top Iranian general.
In a repeat of what happened in Iraq, US forces had to retreat from Afghanistan, in an embarrassing manner. Whilst the erstwhile reason they were there for nigh of 20 years – the Taliban are now firmly ensconced.
Iraq holds elections, yet, in 2022 Iraq was 124th out of 167 countries in democracy rankings and the regime is characterised as authoritarian and corrupt. Despite this, the people have been holding frequent protests, which were never permitted to occur under Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, society has become so fragmented due to narrow sectarian interests of the many ethno-religious political factions. This amply demonstrates the negative experiences a society will undergo when it is invaded with no real idea about the impact it would have on civil society.
Iraq remains one of the most violent societies on the planet. The legacy of the invasion destroyed what it meant to be an Iraqi, their identity, and their self-respect as a nation. The sectarian political system the invaders left Iraq with destroyed whatever plural aspects that remained under the Ba’athist regime between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. Iraqis live in ethno-religious enclaves without appropriate power-sharing arrangements. Significant land areas in both Syria and Iraq were captured and controlled by religious fundamentalists and extremists, who continue to be a threat even today. They imposed Sharia law in those areas and slaughtered and enslaved many communities. When the Islamic State was ousted, about 10,000 civilians were slaughtered and thousands more had been forced to leave.
The so-called free market economy, as the experiences of countries around the world attest, has only benefited a minority of corrupt elites. According to Transparency International’s annual Corruption Index, Iraq ranked 157 out of 180 countries in 2022. Iraq’s oil wealth has boosted its GDP, and it is the 50th largest economy in the world. However, there is no trickle-down of such economic gains to the Iraqi people. Ordinary Iraqis continue to suffer from power cuts, lack of potable water, and poor sewage systems, health care and education. As has been experienced globally, “trickle-down” economic policies have disproportionately benefited those who are at the top of the social ladder. In terms of achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals, its Sustainable Development Report, 2022 ranked Iraq 115th out of 163 countries. Iraqi schools and universities have fallen decades behind international standards. Isn’t this a dire report card?
Most Iraqis do not wish to revert to Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. However, they still bemoan the destruction caused to the harmony of the plurality that existed within Iraqi society. It is reported that since 2003, $150 billion to $300 billion of Iraqi wealth has been siphoned off. Iraq is categorised as one of the 25 most corrupt countries in the world.
The Western world, including Australians, appears to have forgotten the disastrous imperial and illegal invasion of Iraq – if the $368 billion nuclear submarines purchase by Australia is the barometer of their collective forgetfulness. This treaty is designed to protect US and UK-led neo-liberal interests in the Asia-Pacific region, not those of Australia or of Asia; it will in fact make the lives of Australians more fraught, for wars and invasions are profitable business ventures, but disastrous for civic society. Starting a war will enable the selling of weaponry and associated military equipment produced by the military-industrial complexes, enabling the fossil fuel industries to enrich themselves, and arms producers to test their new weapon systems and manufacture more advanced arms and ammunition. In the meantime, vital services like health, education, and civic infrastructure will be raided to fund the purchase of weaponry like nuclear submarines.
Faced with this untenable situation, the only option available for preventing authoritarian tyrants from popping up all over the world, will be for the working people around the globe to develop a civil society that is courageous, empowered, and energetic. Only such a mobilisation could develop into a mass campaign of civil disobedience against authoritarianism and tyranny and fight dangerous follies like AUKUS.
This has happened before when the British wanted to send their troops to Russia when the Tsar’s feudal regime was overthrown in 1917. British workers threatened a general strike and prevented troops from being sent. During the Vietnam war led by the US-led imperial forces including Australia, there were mass mobilisations the world over, against it.
Without such civil society action, political entities that pledge to bring liberation to the working people in the form of top-down authoritarian bureaucracies will ultimately resort to the use of force and violence. Mass opposition can only occur when dynamic, committed, and tested individuals are harnessed – to create an organization with principled policy and program positions that place working people’s interests first. During the Arab Spring, the Aragalaya mass protests in Sri Lanka and currently the anti-judicial reforms mass protest movement in Israel, show the way forward.
This issue of organisation has become more pressing than ever as neo-liberal coalitions prepare for future wars to maintain and expand their military-industrial and economic interests the world over. As progressives, we ought to oppose all these neo-liberal wars that will lead to colonising whole societies which is being forcefully and violently pushed across lands, where neo-liberalism is not yet the dominant mode of production.
We need to stand up for all oppressed people in their struggles to defend their rights. This does not mean supporting demagogues, whether political, religious, or ethnic, those who use progressive populist phraseology to protect the privileges and interests they themselves enjoy.
The twenty-year anniversary of the Iraqi invasion starkly reminds us that unity against oppression is necessary not only because it is just but because of the horrendous effects it imposes on the civilian population, which can blow back to us in the most unexpected and deadly ways. For if the current hullabaloo on AUKUS is anything to go by, those same imperial dunces who have learnt nothing from disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan are up to their same old tricks, they need to be opposed by all.
