The Fifteenth Anniversary of the Beginning of the Liberation of Iraq

           Last week was the fifteenth anniversary of the commencement of the Liberation of Iraq on March 19, 2003 that removed the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein from power.  The coalition was led by the United States under President George W. Bush and included dozens of Western and Muslim states.

Hussein’s Iraqi brutal regime had committed serial aggression, culminating in its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and violated the 1991 ceasefire it had signed after the Liberation of Kuwait by failing to make reparations to Kuwait and by firing at Coalition aircraft patrolling no-fly zones over Kurdish and Shi’ite areas of Iraq, as well as violated United Nations Resolutions that required it to prove it had destroyed its known weapons of mass destruction and materiel and ceased its programs and not to have missiles over a certain length of range and sponsored terrorism by openly harboring and financing terrorists, including those who targeted and killed Americans.  

Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, had declared the overthrow of Hussein’s regime to be U.S. policy, but after the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, the U.S. was even less willing than before to tolerate terrorism, especially potential large-scale threats from state-sponsors of terrorism, particularly those with weapons of mass destruction programs.  Iraq, a former Soviet client state, had repeatedly used chemical weapons against Iranians and Iraqi Kurds.  The U.N. Security Council had unanimously declared Iraq in “material breach” of its resolutions in regard to weapons of mass destruction, which expressly meant it would face “serious consequences,” which was diplomatic language for the use of force.  Therefore, although there was some reasonable debate about the prudence of the war, there were abundant justifications.

Hussein’s regime was toppled within weeks with relatively low casualties for the American-led “Coalition of the Willing,” but the Baathists had fostered Islamists to conduct a post-regime guerilla and terrorist campaign, in alliance with al-Qaeda in Iraq, which had been present before the beginning of the war.  Al-Qaeda encouraged violent jihadists to come to Iraq, where they were easier to kill or capture than in Afghanistan.  Unable to win militarily, the militant Islamists engaged in a campaign to kill enough American and allied servicemen to turn public opinion against the war.  Before the war, public opinion surveys suggested the American people would tolerate up to the same number of fatalities as lost on September 11, nearly 3,000, but the Islamists were successful in turning public opinion much sooner, as the Coalition had been victimized by its own early success in removing the Baathists from power with less than expected losses. 

There has also been criticism about the post-war management by the Bush Administration, but although Iraq was far from perfect, after some Coalition changes in strategy, it was relatively peaceful and stable enough for President Barack Obama to justify ending the war and withdrawing in 2013.  However, as predicted by Bush, without a status of forces agreement to allow American troops to remain, the premature withdrawal allowed al-Qaeda in Iraq, which broke away from al-Qaeda and renamed itself the “Islamic State,” to seize large swaths of northern and western Iraq, with the continued help of Baathist remnants, and to engage in a terrorism campaign, as well as for Iran and Syria to extend their malign influence over Iraq.  The Islamists declared a Muslim Caliphate, but have recently been all but defeated in Iraq and Syria.    

When calculating the cost of the Liberation of Iraq in blood and treasure, it is necessary to consider the costs of the continuation of the status quo ante, such as the keeping of troops to defend Iraq’s neighbors and to continue the no-fly zones.  Those who claim Iraq and the region were destabilized by its Liberation forget that Iraq was not stable or peaceful and neither Iraq nor the region was stable and to the extent that Iraq was stable it was only because of the degree of totalitarianism imposed in the “Republic of Fear.”  Iraq had not been internally peaceful and was at war with the Coalition since before Bush took office, such as attacking Coalition aircraft nearly on a daily basis, as Hussein, who regarded himself as another Saladin (the Muslim commander who fought the Christian Crusaders), had considered the “Mother of All Battles,” his name for the Liberation of Kuwait, never to have ended.  Thus, Iraq had been attacking Americans both military and through terrorism. 

Instead of labeling the Liberation of Iraq as some kind of a blunder or useless waste, it is appropriate to consider and appreciate the accomplishments of the Coalition troops.  The American and allied troops liberated Iraq from a tyrant and gave the Iraqi people the ability to exercise self-determination, brought him and his henchmen to justice for crimes against humanity, protected Iraq’s neighbors from intimidation, enforced U.N. resolutions, captured and killed thousands of Islamist jihadists and captured and destroyed thousands of chemical weapons of mass destruction, including hundreds that had not been known to U.N. inspectors, and the banned chemicals used to make them.  As additional benefits of the Liberation of Iraq, the oil embargo was lifted and the large number of American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, where they had been under attack and their presence had provided al-Qaeda with an excuse to attack Americans, were withdrawn on U.S. terms, instead of through the demands of Islamist terrorists.  

Now that Iraq, now an ally in the War on Terrorism instead of a sponsor of it, is returning to peace, it is hoped that its internal divisions can be healed and it will be able to defend itself on its own against Islamists, without reliance on Iran or Syria, and that the constitutional parliamentary republic can more fully enjoy self-determination and increased prosperity.