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Iraq War

The Iraq War (Arabic: حرب العراق, romanizedḥarb al-ʿirāq) was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011.

This article is about the 2003–2011 war. For other uses, see Iraq War (disambiguation).

The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition. The insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict are ongoing. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's war on terror following the September 11 attacks in 2001 in the United States.


In October 2002, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution that granted Bush the power to use military force against the Iraqi government. The Iraq War officially began on 20 March 2003, when the US, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Shortly following the bombing campaign, US-led forces launched a ground invasion of Iraq. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as coalition forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam Hussein was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year and executed three years later.


The power vacuum following Saddam's demise, and mismanagement by the Coalition Provisional Authority, led to widespread civil war between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against coalition forces. The United States responded with a build-up of 170,000 troops in 2007. This build-up gave greater control to Iraq's government and military while also giving the United States a greater say in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. In 2008, President Bush agreed to a withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq. The withdrawal was completed under Barack Obama in December 2011.


The United States based most of its rationale for the invasion on claims that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and that Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaeda. US government also alleged that Al-Qaeda was covertly co-operating with Iraq to build weapons of mass destruction and argued that Iraq posed a threat to the United States and its allies. However, in 2004 the 9/11 Commission concluded that there was no evidence of any relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda. No stockpiles of WMDs or active WMD program were ever found in Iraq. Bush administration officials made numerous claims about a purported Saddam–al-Qaeda relationship and WMDs that were based on insufficient evidence rejected by intelligence officials. The rationale for the Iraq war faced heavy criticism both domestically and internationally. Kofi Annan, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter. The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry into the United Kingdom's decision to go to war, concluded that not every peaceful alternative had been examined, that the UK and US had undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, that the process of identification for a legal basis of war was "far from satisfactory", and that, these conclusions taken together, the war was unnecessary. When interrogated by the FBI, Saddam Hussein confirmed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the US invasion, although the Iraq Survey Group did find that Saddam had the aim of WMD proliferation and maintained the laboratories and scientists necessary for WMD development.


In 2005, Iraq held multi-party elections. Nouri al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006 and remained in office until 2014. The al-Maliki government enacted policies that alienated the country's previously dominant Sunni minority and worsened sectarian tensions.


The war killed an estimated 150,000 to 1,033,000 people, including more than 100,000 civilians (see estimates below). Most died during the initial insurgency and civil conflicts. The 2013–2017 War in Iraq, which is considered a domino effect of the invasion and occupation, caused at least 155,000 deaths and internally displaced more than 3.3 million Iraqis.


The war hurt the United States' international reputation as well as Bush's domestic popularity and public image. The war reduced Blair's popularity, leading to his resignation in 2007.

[428][429][430][431]

Human casualties

Human rights violations such as the

Iraq prison abuse scandals

Insufficient post-invasion plans, in particular inadequate troop levels (A study stated that 500,000 troops would be required for success.)[432]

RAND Corporation

with approximately $612 billion spent as of 4/09 the CBO has estimated the total cost of the war in Iraq to the United States will be around $1.9 trillion.[433]

Financial costs

Adverse effect on US-led global ""[434][435]

war on terror

Damage to US' traditional alliances and influence in the region.[437]

[436]

Endangerment and of religious and ethnic minorities by insurgents[229][438][439][440][441]

ethnic cleansing

Disruption of and related energy security concerns (the price of oil quadrupled between 2002 and 2008).[442][443]

Iraqi oil production

The Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States,[415][416][349] with many US citizens finding many parallels with the Vietnam War.[417] For example, a former CIA officer described the Office of Special Plans as a group of ideologues who were dangerous to US national security and a threat to world peace, and stated that the group lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam.[418] The Center for Public Integrity stated that the Bush administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.[419]


Both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticized the prosecution of the war effort along with a number of other lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the United States and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs. In 2016, the United Kingdom published the Iraq Inquiry, a public inquiry which was broadly critical of the actions of the British government and military in making the case for the war, in tactics and in planning for the aftermath of the war.[420][421][422]


Criticisms include:

Deaths of civilians as a result of bombing and missile strikes that fail to take feasible precautions with regards to civilians casualties.

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by US Army personnel,[445] involving the detention of thousands of Iraqi people. Torture at Abu Ghraib included rape, sodomy and extensive sexual abuse, waterboarding, pouring phosphoric acid on detainees, sleep deprivation and physical beatings.

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

of 24 civilians by US soldiers.

Haditha massacre

Widespread use of the incendiary munition such as during the battle of Fallujah. The documentary Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, claimed that Iraqi civilians, including women and children, had died of burns caused by white phosphorus during the battle, however, US Department of Defense spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable denied that this was true but confirmed to the BBC that US forces had used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon there against enemy combatants.[446][447][448] The use of white phosphorus against civilian populations is banned by international legislation.[449]

white phosphorus

where US soldiers raped and killed 14-year old Abeer Qasim Humza. They also killed 3 of her relatives.[450][451]

Mahmudiyah rape and killings

The torture and killing of , Iraqi Air Force commander, Abed Hamed Mowhoush.

prisoner of war

The while in British Army custody.

killing of Baha Mousa

where 42 civilians were allegedly killed by coalition airstrikes.[452]

Mukaradeeb wedding party massacre

Planting weapons on noncombatant, unarmed Iraqis by three US Marines after killing them.[454] According to a report by The Nation, other similar acts have been witnessed by US soldiers.[455]

[453]

by Blackwater Security Consulting personnel.

Nisour Square massacre

Allegations of beatings, , mock executions, and sexual assault by British troops were presented to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) on 12 January 2014.[456]

electrocution

Foreign interventions by the United States

United States involvement in regime change

Criticism of United States foreign policy

Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

Iraq–United States relations

The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs

List of wars by death toll

National Network to End the War Against Iraq

United States military casualties of war

Joint Special Operations Command Task Force in the Iraq War

Bishku, Michael B. (2018), Israel and the Kurds: A Pragmatic Relationship in Middle Eastern Politics, vol. 41, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Bellavia, David (2007). . Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1416574712.

House to House: An Epic Memoir of War

(Report). International Center for Transitional Justice.

A Bitter Legacy: Lessons of Debaathification in Iraq

Butt, Ahsan. 2019. "Why did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003?" Security Studies

Dexter Filkins (17 December 2012). . The New Yorker. pp. 76–81.

"General Principles: How good was David Petraeus?"

(2014). Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0307959478. 318 pages

Gates, Robert M.

Gordon, Michael R. (2006). . Pantheon. ISBN 978-1557782328. michael gordon cobra II.

Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

Larson, Luke S. (2008). . Phoenix, Arizona: Key Edition Incorporated. ISBN 978-1449969868.

Senator's Son: An Iraq War Novel

MacDonald, Michael. 2014. . Harvard University Press.

Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq

Mikulaschek, Christoph and Jacob Shapiro. (2018). . Journal of Conflict Resolution 62(1): 174–202.

Lessons on Political Violence from America's Post-9/11 Wars

North, Richard (2009). Ministry of Defeat: The British War in Iraq 2003–2009. Continuum Publishing Corporation.  978-1441169976.

ISBN

Payne, Andrew. 2019/2020. "Presidents, Politics, and Military Strategy:  Electoral Constraints during the Iraq War." International Security 44(3):163–203

Bruce R. Pirnie; Edward O'Connell (2008). Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003–2006). Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.  978-0-8330-4297-2.

ISBN

ed. (2010). Iraq at a Distance: What Anthropologists Can Teach Us About the War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4203-4.

Robben, Antonius C.G.M.

Siracusa, Joseph M., and Laurens J. Visser, "George W. Bush, Diplomacy, and Going to War with Iraq, 2001–2003." The Journal of Diplomatic Research/Diplomasi Araştırmaları Dergisi (2019) 1#1: 1–29

online

Wertheim, Stephen, "Iraq and the Pathologies of Primacy: The Flawed Logic That Produced the War Is Alive and Well", , vol. 102, no. 3 (May/June 2023), pp. 136–140, 142–152. "Washington is still in thrall to primacy and caught in a doom loop, lurching from self-inflicted problems to even bigger self-inflicted problems, holding up the latter while covering up the former. In this sense, the Iraq war remains unfinished business for the United States." (p. 152.)

Foreign Affairs

International Center for Transitional Justice, Iraq

: total US cost of the Iraq War

Dollar cost of war

by Rupert Cornwell, The Independent, March 2007

"Bleak Pentagon study admits 'civil war' in Iraq"

GulfWarrior.org

High resolution maps of Iraq

on the evening of 19 March 2003, announcing war against Iraq.

Presidential address by George W. Bush

: The Second US–Iraq War (2003– )

Bibliography

. Zogby International, 10 September 2003.

1st Major Survey of Iraq

. Chronological polls of Americans 18 and older

Iraq at Polling Report.com

(PDF) – Legal dissertation by Thomas Dyhr from University of Copenhagen.

Just War in Iraq 2003

a Guardian and Observer archive in words and pictures documenting the human and political cost, The Guardian, April 2009.

Iraq war stories

Archived 3 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Center for Public Integrity.

Iraq: The War Card

. CMAJ. 17 September 2013.

Jargin SV. "Health care in Iraq: 2013 vs. 2003"

Mather-Cosgrove, Bootie (17 March 2005). . CBS News.

"The War with Iraq: Changing Views"