The lies that led the United States and its allies to invade Iraq 20 years ago (and what are the consequences today)

It is one of the episodes that causes more controversy in recent history.

On March 20, 2003, a coalition led by the United States and allied countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain began the invasion of Iraq.

The target? End with saddam hussein -who ruled Iraq for nearly 25 years- and its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

What would have been a three-week lightning war lasted 7 years and had brutal consequences: more than 100,000 civilians killed, said the organization Iraq Body Count (IBC), and a country plunged into chaos.

What prompted George W. Bush and some of his allies to invade this country (despite not having the backing of the United Nations or traditional allies like Germany or France)? And what consequences does it have to this day? Here we tell you.

Why did the invasion take place?

To understand what happened on March 20, 2003, you have to go back a bit in history.

Despite the fact that Saddam Hussein had a good relationship with the United States early in his administration, as he was seen as a natural ally to curb the influence of Iran’s Islamic revolution, his ties with the West were finally severed in 1990, when he decided to intrude Kuwait.

The Iraqi occupation set alarm bells ringing in the West. The United Nations (UN) even gave him a deadline to withdraw from the Arab country, but Hussein refused.

So a UN-authorized international coalition made up of 34 countries, including the United States, intervened and eventually drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, in what came to be known as the first Gulf War.

Saddam Hussein’s image deteriorated more and more in Western eyes. were imposed on him harsh economic sanctions that led Iraq into a deep financial crisis and left the population penniless, with high levels of malnutrition and a lack of medical supplies.

The country was also subject to a series of UN inspections to monitor the alleged destruction of chemical weapons. But Hussein did not cooperate.

Ten years later, the attacks of September 11, 2001, took place in New York, after which the President of the United States, George W. Bush, declared Iraq among the countries of the “Axis of Evil” (a list that also included North Korea and Iran) for allegedly supporting terrorism.

Not more than two years after that episode, Washington and its allies decided to overthrow Hussein’s regime.

Weapons of mass destruction: the main evidence that never existed

“Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Your refusal to do so will result in a military conflict commencing at a time chosen by us.”

The words, spoken by Bush on March 17, 2003, were the first kick for the powerful offensive that would begin in Iraq just three days later.

But what was the justification for the attack?

Several reasons have been put forward – including Hussein’s alleged support for terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda – but one is crucial: the existence of an alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological and nuclear) in Iraq.

However, this arsenal has never been found.

Years later, it was learned that the data used to confirm this theory was based lies and inventionswhich was one of the greatest military intelligence failures in history.

In their defense, those in power pointed out that their own informants assured them that the weapons existed.

“It’s very important to understand that the information you received is what you trusted, and I think you had a right to rely on it,” the former British prime minister told the BBC. Tony Blair.

The lies of some Iraqi spies played a central role in this.

One of them was Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabian Iraqi defector who came to Germany in 1999 seeking political asylum, saying he was a chemical engineer.

At the time, he claimed to have worked in a factory that manufactured mobile biological weapons as part of an alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program.

Alwan al-Janabiera was known by the name of curved ball (which in English means a baseball field that takes a turn and fools batters).

Despite British, American and German intelligence agencies questioning the authenticity of his claims, Washington and London finally decided to believe him.

The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told the UN in 2003 that Iraq had “mobile laboratories” to produce biological weapons. While the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, he said Saddam Hussein “without a doubt” continued to produce this arsenal.

Yet there was no irrefutable evidence.

But according to BBC News security correspondent Gordon Corera, for the United States, “the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was secondary to a deeper goal: to overthrow the Iraqi leader.”

“We would have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein had a rubber band and a paper clip”Luis Rueda, head of the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group, told Corera.

“We would have said, ‘Oh, he’s going to gouge your eye out,'” he added.

Later, Alwan al-Janabi admitted that he had lied to overthrow Hussein, but the US and its allies had already begun the invasion.

Hans Blix, head of the UN’s chemical and biological inspections, told the BBC he thought there were weapons until early 2003, but began to doubt their existence after the claims could not be confirmed.

It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein once had weapons of mass destruction which he used against the Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s.

According to Gordon Corera, the Iraqi leader ordered the destruction of much of his arsenal during UN inspections in the early 1990s after the first Gulf War.

However, he allegedly destroyed it all in secret, partly to keep up the appearance that he still had something to use against his neighbor Iran.

So when UN inspectors later asked Iraq to prove it destroyed everything, it couldn’t.

consequences of war

The controversial military operation did not take long to end the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was captured in December 2003 and executed three years later.

Little by little, however, the hopes of the Iraqis began to fade with the arrival of the Americans.

“After the invasion, the impression in cities like Baghdad or Basra was that the occupiers concentrated more on controlling the country militarily, capturing Saddam Hussein and suppressing any source of resistance, than on providing aid and services to the local population,” remembers Matías Zibell, sent by BBC Mundo to the Iraq war.

This created the power vacuum after the fall of Hussein chaos among the local population. Public buildings, museums and hospitals were raided and looted.

Months later, bloody sectarian violence erupted. Especially by the majority of Shiites over Sunnis, who were most privileged under Saddam’s regime.

“There was poor post-war planning for how they wanted the country to move forward. There was no clear vision on whether or not to hold elections, if it was the Iraqis who should write the constitution,” he explained to BBC Mundo. Hamzeh Haddad, Iraqi political analyst.

“I think more effort should have been made to give them a role sooner, and just accept the fact that Iraq got rid of Saddam and they now had to choose who led the Iraqis,” he added.

The lack of post-invasion planning has been cataloged as one of the great failures that still has repercussions today.

For BBC News correspondent Jeremy Bowen, who covered the two wars in Iraq, the March 2033 invasion was a catastrophe for the country and its people:

“Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who deserved to be overthrown – he had imprisoned and killed thousands of Iraqis, even using chemical weapons against rebellious Kurds – the problem was how it was done, the way the US and UK violated international law ignored, and the violence that gripped Iraq after the Bush administration failed to come up with a plan to fill the power vacuum left by the regime change.

An “incubator” for extremists

One of the most controversial decisions the United States has made was to demobilize the Iraqi army.

Thousands of people with military experience were left without jobs and many chose to join the insurrection. This is how subversive groups arose that turned Iraq into one breeding ground for jihadist extremists.

He Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) it grew out of that chaos, pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and continues to be a factor of violence and uncertainty in the Middle East.

Rebel groups attacking the US military also sprang up in the Shiite area, such as the al-Mahdi Army, a militia led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

US troops did not leave Iraq until late 2011, when they thought the fight against these rebel groups was under control.

But the insurgency of some of these extremist factions forced the United States to redeploy troops repeatedly.

In recent years, however, Iraq has regained some stability and, with it, some of its weight in the region.

“Especially after the defeat of IS in 2017, Iraq began to take on a greater role at the regional level. He starts playing a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is starting to hold regional and international conferences in Baghdad, and I think that is very important,” says Hamzeh Hadad.

Despite the progress, however, two decades after the invasion, Iraq is suffering from a serious economic and political crisis and, above all, a social wound that seems far from closed.

For Jeremy Bowen, Iraq is more stable so far this year than it has been in a long time. But the Iraqis are feeling the effects of the invasion every day.

“A sign of how bad the past 20 years have been is that nostalgia for Saddam’s days is deep-rooted in Iraq, not just among its own Sunni community,” the correspondent concludes.

*Featuring coverage from BBC News Mundo journalists Gonzalo Cañada and Fernanda Paúl, and Gordon Corera and Jeremy Bowen, BBC News correspondents.