2003 invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq, which occurred between March 20 and May 1, 2003, was carried out by a coalition of countries, led by the United States together with the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland. Other countries were involved in the occupation phase. The invasion marked the start of the Iraq war. According to Kofi Annan, the then Secretary General of the United Nations, this invasion was illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter. According to the Iraq Body Count website, a group that relies on press reports, reports From NGOs and official figures to measure civilian casualties, approximately 7,500 civilians died during this stage of the war. According to a report by Project on Defense Alternatives, an estimated 3,200 to 4,300 civilians died during the invasion.
According to US President George W. Bush, the reasons for the invasion were "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - which were never found and whose existence was not proven -", end Saddam Hussein's alleged support for terrorism (a link proven false according to the 9/11 Commission) and achieve "freedom" of the Iraqi people." The main detractors of the war point to these reasons as excuses to carry out the invasion, motivated by economic and political interests.
The invasion of Iraq caused a political fracture between the great powers, which were divided among those who actively opposed the invasion, such as France, Belgium, Germany, Russia, China (as well as other countries that showed passive opposition[which one?]), and those that did publicly support the United States, such as the United Kingdom, Spain (until 2004), Poland, Portugal, and other nations that made up the coalition. The invasion (and thus the war) also led to the first ever global citizen demonstration against conflict.
Background
During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein carried out the well-known Operation al-Anfal, a series of systematic massacres in the Kurdish region, described by different countries as genocide, since it was estimates the killing of around 100,000 civilians and the destruction of more than 4,000 villages. In 1988, the Ba'athist Iraqi army used chemical weapons, specifically mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX, against Kurdish civilians, leading to a massacre in the chemical attack on Halabja. It is estimated that at least 5,000 Kurds died in the attack. Despite the dramatic consequences of the conflict, it managed to avoid the breakup of the country or even a civil war of unforeseeable consequences. The UN mediated in the conflict and ordered a ceasefire to then continue with the inspections and pressure on Iraq to collaborate with the tasks of the United Nations delegated commissions to verify Iraqi disarmament. This conflict, during which the United States and Russia alternately, due to global geopolitical interests, supported Iraq and Iran, does not have a specific relationship with the episodes in Kuwait and the US invasion, beyond US pressure.
On August 3, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait with armored vehicles and light infantry. The long-term argument was the integrity of those territories ("both nations" were designed during the withdrawal by the British colonization government); the short-term argument was the drop in oil prices caused by Kuwaiti overproduction, which was ruining Iraq. On January 16, 1991, an international coalition led by the United States and under the mandate of the United Nations attacked Iraqi troops stationed in Kuwait, starting what is known as the Gulf War. The Iraqi army initially put up weak resistance and could not avoid being driven out of Kuwait. With the country's capital devastated by bombing, Hussein was faced with a civil war. The Kurds demanded their rights and the Shiite regions in the south rose up in arms. However, the fear that the fall of the Iraqi president would destabilize the area led the victors not to support these movements.
From that time on, the United Nations, through its Security Council, imposed a number of obligations on Iraq, including the unconditional acceptance of the destruction of its long-range chemical, biological and ballistic missiles under international supervision. In addition, it established an economic blockade to pressure the Asian country.
The following May 15, the Security Council rectifies and approves a system of easing of a harsh embargo, which consisted of granting Iraq the possibility of exporting oil whose benefits would be destined to the purchase of food, medicine and other basic subjects for the civilian population. This program, financially administered by the UN, became popular as the "oil for food" and it was made official on April 14, 1995 with a new resolution.
Saddam Hussein's government resisted actively cooperating with UN inspectors because of suspicions of espionage. The United States maintained a trade embargo for years despite the consequences for the Iraqi population. The constant bombardments to which the country was subjected intermittently for years by the US Air Force caused casualties among the Iraqi population.
In 1998, after a previous crisis the previous year, the Iraqi government completely expelled the international inspectors on October 31. A few days later, on November 17, he changed his mind, decided to negotiate and requested to return. After Richard Butler's report denouncing Baghdad's lack of collaboration, the United Nations ordered all its inspectors to leave Iraq.
On March 2, 2000, Hans Blix takes over as Executive Director of UNMOVIC, the United Nations Commission on Monitoring, Verification and Inspection.
The Axis of Evil and the War on Terror
Months after the start of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, US President George W. Bush established Iraq as the axis of evil, a term reminiscent of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis or comparable to the Curtain Steel during the Cold War. He also accused Saddam Hussein's government of having weapons of mass destruction, and of having ties to Al Qaeda, ties that have not been confirmed either.
On 29 November 2001, the list of items to be considered by the next inspections and its analysis procedure was adopted and set on 30 May 2002 as the date on which it would be implemented. Iraq ' s obligation to cooperate with the implementation of the resolutions was also underlined.
In 2007 Alan Greenspan, former president of the US central bank (Federal Reserve), claimed in his memoir that the real reason for invading Iraq was not the publicly expressed reasons, which were related to the alleged weapons of mass destruction and put an end to the alleged relationship between the Iraqi Baasid government and the guerrilla organization Al Qaeda, but to control the oil reserves and prevent the European Union or emerging powers such as China and India from approaching these gigantic oil reserves.
Resolution 1441
In the important resolution 1441, approved in the session held on November 8, 2002, the Council decided to order Iraq to carry out inspections referring to the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
To do so, it gave a period of 30 days, from the day the resolution was published, to present a complete declaration of all aspects of the programs for the development of chemical, biological, nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, etc.., in addition to requesting that Iraq not carry out any act or threat against any Member State that adopts measures to enforce its resolutions.
Once the report has been completed, the Council will meet again to examine it and adopt the corresponding decisions. The resolution states "Iraq has been repeatedly warned that it will expose itself to serious consequences if it continues to breach its obligations." However, the resolution excluded authorizing the use of force, which in any case would require a new resolution that was never approved.
Coalition is formed
After pressing the United Nations Security Council, with the presentation of alleged evidence, to pass a resolution explicitly supporting the invasion, the president of the United States, George W. Bush, obtained the support of a group of countries to form an alliance to invade Iraq in order to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein. Calling itself the Coalition of the Will, this coalition consisted of the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Australia, Hungary, and Ukraine.
The majority of the population of these countries, as well as world public opinion, was overwhelmingly against it, making itself felt especially in the world demonstrations against the war in Iraq. Bush also received the support of the governments of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Colombia in America, the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Cyprus, the state of Israel or Kuwait.
France, Germany, China and Russia expressed their opposition to forceful measures against Iraq and were in favor of a negotiated solution to the crisis. France, Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council, advocated the continuity of the inspectors' work and announced their intention to veto any document that explicitly legitimized the attack. During these demonstrations there were several frictions between the United States and the countries that opposed the invasion. But in the end, the opponents of the war relented and remained neutral from the start of the invasion.
On March 16, 2003, the Azores Summit took place, where the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal announced an ultimatum to the Baasid government of Saddam Hussein to disarm.
The then head of the Spanish government, José María Aznar, alluded to the fact that the intervention responded to the conviction that that government constituted a threat to its neighbors and to Western countries themselves. He recalled that sometimes military interventions are carried out under the mandate of the United Nations, as in the case of Afghanistan in 2001, and on other occasions, without a mandate from the United Nations, as in the case of the Bosnian war in 1992. He also stated that Spain would not participate in that war but only supported the allies, but that in no case would the Spanish army participate in the invasion.
Anteroom and preparations
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the US and UK had come under fire from Iraqi air defenses while enforcing Iraqi no-fly zones. These zones, and the attacks to impose them, were described as illegal by the former UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and the French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine. Other countries, notably Russia and China, also condemned the zones as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. In mid-2002, the US began more carefully selecting targets in the southern part of the country to disrupt the structure. military command in Iraq. A change in enforcement tactics was acknowledged at the time, but it was not made public that this was part of a plan known as Operation Southern Focus.
The number of ordnance dropped on Iraqi positions by Coalition aircraft in 2001 and 2002 was less than in 1999 and 2000. However, information obtained by the British Liberal Democrats showed that the UK dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 than for all of 2001. UK bomb tonnage increased from 0 in March 2002 and 0.3 April 2002 to between 7 and 14 tons per month in May-August, reaching a peak pre-war 54.6 tons in September, before the United States Congress authorized the invasion on 11 October. The attacks on September 5 included a strike by more than a hundred aircraft on the main air defense site in western Iraq. According to a New Statesman editorial, it was Located at the far end of the southern no-fly zone, far from areas that needed to be patrolled to prevent attacks on Shiites, it was destroyed not because it was a threat to the patrols, but to allow allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected.
Tommy Franks, who commanded the invasion of Iraq, has since admitted that the bombing was designed to "demean" Iraqi air defenses in the same way as the air strikes that started the 1991 Gulf War, so-called Operation Desert Shield. These "activity spikes" were, in the words of then British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, designed to "put pressure on the Iraqi regime" or, as The Times reported, to "provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war." . 4;. In this regard, as provocations designed to start a war, leaked legal advice from the British Foreign Office concluded that such attacks were illegal under international law.
Another attempt to provoke war was mentioned in a leaked memo from a meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair on January 31, 2003 in which Bush allegedly told Blair that the United States was thinking of fly a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance plane with combat cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors. If Saddam fired at them, he would be breaking the law. On March 17, 2003, US President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave the country, along with his sons Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, or face war.
International Law
The war did not have a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, which has led international law experts to condemn the war as an illegal invasion. This was stated by the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. However, not even the members of the International Criminal Court can judge the invaders in case they consider it an aggression because the Rome Statute indicates that a definition of this crime must be found, which did not happen before 2009 and in any case, an alleged crime that was committed before the existence of the law that punishes it cannot be judged.
British prosecutor Peter Goldsmith issued a document on March 7, 2003, expressing doubts about the legality of the invasion, and in 2005 publicly stated that the military action was illegal. For law professor Nicholas Grief it would be possible to file criminal charges against George W. Bush, invoking the 1945 Nuremberg Charter which established the concept of crimes against peace. This position, however, has been rejected by the governments that carried out the invasion. Most experts in international law consider that any type of initiative against the leaders of the coalition is unfeasible, since then actions could be initiated against all the leaders who have carried out a military operation without the support of the United Nations.
The defenders of the intervention allude to the aforementioned Security Council resolutions, especially 1441 to endorse their actions, and recall other interventions without a United Nations mandate that have subsequently been recognized as necessary. Such is the case, for example, of the Kosovo war. Notwithstanding the different opinions regarding the start of the conflict, the United Nations took ownership of the situation, at the moment when the occupying forces began to act under the umbrella of the organization. Thus, in October of the same year as the invasion, resolution 1511 recommended that the member states provide the multinational force present in Iraq with all the necessary assistance, including military assistance.
Some legal advisers claim that the invasion has been legally justified in other existing resolutions. For example, Professor Anthony Aust, former legal adviser to the British Foreign Office, was of the opinion that earlier resolutions provided the necessary justification for invading Iraq and therefore there was no need to seek legality in later resolutions. There are those who today consider that the war started by the Coalition represented an abuse of power motivated by personal interests.
The invasion
On March 19, 2003 at 9:00 p.m., members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment carried out the first attack of the operation: a raid by MH-6 Little Bird and UH-60 helicopters Black Hawk, supported by A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, against Iraqi visual observation posts along Iraq's southern and western borders. Within seven hours, more than seventy targets were destroyed, effectively depriving the Iraqi army of any early warning of the upcoming invasion. However, unofficially, British, Australian and US forces had already entered Iraq weeks before to carry out reconnaissance missions.
On March 20, 2003, at approximately 02:30 UTC, 05:34 local time, explosions were heard in Baghdad. Special operations commandos from the CIA's Special Activities Center had infiltrated all of Iraq and called in the first airstrikes. At 03:16 UTC, or 10:16 p.m. m. EST, George W. Bush announced that he had ordered an attack against selected targets of military importance in Iraq.At this word was given, the waiting troops crossed the border into Iraq. A mishap forced a reconsideration of the invasion plans when the US army was denied entry from Turkey, which would have allowed a quick pincer maneuver to take Baghdad. Despite everything, special forces had contact with the Kurdish militias and a coordinated attack was planned with the guerrillas from the north, with the support of airborne troops; as long as operations in the south went according to plan. Following Turkey's decision to deny any official use of its territory, the Coalition was forced to modify the planned simultaneous attack from the north and south. CIA Special Operations forces and the US Army managed to build and lead the Kurdish Peshmerga into an effective force and assault for the North. The main bases for the invasion were in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf nations, as well as Jordan.
Iraq's oil infrastructure was quickly seized and insured with limited damage in that time. Securing the oil infrastructure was considered of great importance. In the first Gulf War, while withdrawing from Kuwait, the Iraqi army had set fire to many oil wells and spilled oil into Gulf waters; this was to disguise troop movements and distract Coalition forces. Prior to the 2003 invasion, Iraqi forces had blew up some four hundred oil wells around Basra and the Al-Faw peninsula. Coalition troops launched an air and amphibious assault on the Al-Faw peninsula. Faw during closing hours on March 19 to secure the oil fields there; the amphibious assault was supported by warships from the British Royal Navy, the Polish Navy and the Royal Australian Navy.
The invading forces encountered little resistance, which was mainly concentrated in Um Qasr, a key port to secure the entry of troops and supplies, which was immediately taken. The Americans advanced rapidly without encountering notable opposition until they reached the Nasiriyah bridge, the point where the Iraqi Army hoped to stop the invading forces. The casualties for the coalition were much greater, coming to exceed thirty deaths. From Nasirya came the first images of dejected Americans. Iraqi television showed five American prisoners being captured. On March 27, some 1,000 US paratroopers arrived in northern Iraq to join the Kurdish guerrillas. Despite the time lost in Nasiriyah, the Iraqi resistance was soon broken and the long invasion convoy continued its journey through the desert. However, the column of the 3rd Marine Division was broken at several points, mainly in the cities of Najaf and Kerbala, and in Nasirya. The invading forces slowed their advance due to a strong sandstorm and this allowed several Iraqi units to withdraw from the battlefield where they were being overwhelmed. Despite continuing military setbacks, the Iraqi government persisted in being optimistic, so it was quick to move journalists to sites where burnt-out US tank remains could be seen.
The combat operations carried out by the Coalition were not exempt from errors and problems that claimed the lives of several troops. On April 2, a US F/A-18 Hornet was shot down over the skies over Baghdad by US forces. One of the most controversial cases was the one that occurred in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where most of the international journalists were staying, and which on April 8 was shot at by a US Abrams tank. In this action, journalists José Couso from Spain and Taras Protsyuk from Ukraine lost their lives. It was discussed at length whether the soldiers in question knew about the hotel guests, being able to deliberately fire at the journalists to avoid "annoying witnesses," or whether they simply fired by mistaking the television cameras for possible missile launchers or other devices. military. At the same time, while the main battles were taking place in southern and central Iraq, about a thousand Turkish soldiers penetrated a few kilometers into the north to monitor the actions of the Kurds who were fighting against the Iraqi forces. Supported by Coalition troops and planes, the Kurdish guerrillas attacked the main cities and towns in the north of the country, but the Iraqi army responded by launching 37 surface-to-surface missiles.
The Fall of Baghdad
For the defense of the capital, the Iraqi High Command made the decision to form two defensive rings around the city, using the Republican Guard. The Medina Division was located to the south to fight against the US forces; while the Hammurabi Division deployed in the north to contain the Kurds. Each division had 10,000 soldiers, 200 T-72 tanks, 200 BMP-2 armored vehicles, 50 Howitzer GH-45 guns and light artillery. Soldiers had dug trenches on the outskirts of the city, armored vehicles had been placed in garages and wooded areas to protect them from air raids, and some fires had been set to make it difficult for planes and satellites to see. Everything suggested that the invaders would have to fight house to house to take the capital, but that was not the case. Upon reaching the much-feared defensive rings, hardly any notable opposition was found. Many claim that the Republican Guard did not put up a fight due to the devastating US bombardments against the Iraqi lines and the massive desertion of the troops; Others maintain that the commanders ordered their soldiers to withdraw and mix with the population to continue the fight through a guerrilla war that was already being organized. Following the disbandment of most of the Iraqi forces, the Baghdad airport was taken over by the invaders after brief fighting where a US A-10 Thunderbolt was knocked out. Later, the Americans carried out probing raids with armored columns through the streets of Baghdad and then the decision was made to enter en bloc and capture the capital, which fell almost without resistance on April 1st. The fighting would not end with the capture of Baghdad and this was demonstrated when on April 7 an F-15 Eagle was shot down over the skies of Tikrit, resulting in the death of its two pilots.
On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush proclaimed an end to major invasion military operations from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, in an act that would be remembered for the phrase Mission accomplished! (Mission accomplished), which was pronounced by the US president himself and written on a huge blanket that fluttered over the ship. The coalition lost 173 soldiers and approximately 542 were wounded during the first battles of the invasion. The exact number of casualties among the Iraqi armed forces is not known, but different sources estimate that they suffered between 4,000 and 6,000 dead. From then on, the US government began to implement a series of measures aimed at establishing a new government of transition and control in Iraq. However, the Iraqi resistance was far from completely crushed and some argue that the US military only succeeded in occupying the country, but that the war is not yet over.
Post-invasion
Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist government, the US-led coalition claimed victory. Iraqi forces failed to prevent the full occupation of the country, the fall of the capital, and the removal of the Baathist government from power. The first measure of the invading coalition forces was the reorganization of the Iraqi army and police. However, it took time to reach a degree of stability and civil protection has not been guaranteed due to the prevailing political, economic and social uncertainty.
Publishing Iraq War Logs by WikiLeaks
On October 22, 2010, the WikiLeaks page released the Iraq War Logs[1] documents, 391,832 documents from the United States Department of Defense on the Iraq war and its occupation between on January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2009, which revealed, among other issues, the systematic use of torture, the number of 109,032 deaths in Iraq —of which 66,081 were civilians, 63%; 23,984 'enemies labeled insurgents'; 15,196 from the "host country" (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 were killed "friends" (coalition forces). Every day, on average, 31 civilians died, over a period of six years. In the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously published by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, some 20,000 people were killed. In addition to the death toll, the leak confirms Iran's aid to Iraqi militias. As in the leak of the Afghan War Diaries, the leak is monitored through the WikiLeaks page and the digital editions of The Guardian and The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.