Iraq 10 Years Later: The Deadly Consequences of Spin

[TruthOut10]

One night, more than a decade ago, I was a guest on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show along with Bill Kristol, the godfather (or son-of-the-godfather) of the neoconservative movement. The subject: What to do about Iraq? The Bush administration had begun pounding the drums for war, claiming, as Vice President Dick Cheney had put it, that there was "no doubt" tyrant Saddam Hussein was "amassing" weapons of mass destruction "to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." As one of the few political analysts on television to question the rush to war, I noted that WMD inspections in Iraq could be useful in preventing Saddam from reaching the "finish line" in developing nuclear weapons. Kristol responded by exclaiming, "He's past that finish line! He's past the finish line!"

Saddam wasn't—as it turned out, he wasn't even in the race. He possessed no WMD nor any significant program to develop them. And his repressive regime had no meaningful connections with Al Qaeda. Yet in those dreadful months before the March 19, 2003, invasion of Iraq, the cheerleaders for war inhabited a place of privilege within the media. They could say anything—and get away with it. Kristol could declare—as he did the day before our exchange—that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East," face little challenge, and gain plenty of debate-shaping attention.

There was at that time a sort of madness within the political-media world. With the nation still under the shadow of 9/11, prominent journalists had jettisoned the most crucial of traits in our profession: skepticism. At one point, I debated David Brooks, then of the Weekly Standard, over the necessity of launching a war against Iraq. He summed up his support for the endeavor by asking: Don't you believe the people of Iraq desire democracy just as much as we do?

Iraq 10 Years Later: The Deadly Consequences of Spin | Mother Jones

 

[tjvh]

Mother Jones???? Thanks for the laugh!

 

[Mr. H.]

Remind us again of Clinton's "spin" on Iraq.

 

[American_Jihad]

Iraq, Ten Years Later

March 19, 2013
By Alan W. Dowd

...

Operation Iraqi Freedom lived up to its name.

The war liberated 24 million Iraqis. Iraq is anything but perfect today, but its people are free—free from tyranny, free from being required to pledge their “souls and blood…for Saddam,” free from the vast torture chamber Saddam turned Iraq into, free from his omnipresent terrors. As Odierno recently reflected, “It’s hard to describe to somebody what an awful dictator Saddam Hussein was unless you were there in Iraq.” Iraqis held their first post-Saddam election in 2005, when 75 percent of eligible voters walked, marched, limped and ran to the polls to prove they belong in the democratic family.

The world is better—and America more secure—without Saddam Hussein.

...

Iraq, Ten Years Later

 

[TruthOut10]

 

[TruthOut10]

 

[hortysir]

The Iraqis are celebrating the anniversary in style




BAGHDAD (CNN) - At least 55 people were killed and scores more wounded when bombs exploded across Iraq on Tuesday, a stark reminder of the violence and instability that grips the country 10 years after the start of the U.S.-led war.
Attacks claim 55 lives on Iraq anniversary | News - Home

 

[TruthOut10]

March 19, 2003: President Bush addresses the nation to announce the beginning of military operations "to disarm Iraq, to free it's people and to defend the world from grave danger."

2003: President Bush announces invasion of Iraq - CBS News Video

 

[TruthOut10]

For the past few months, a strange thing has been happening in the central Iraq town of Fallujah. Thousands of citizens, virtually all of them Sunni Muslims, have been gathering in public squares to protest the oppressive Shiite-led government in Baghdad. Sleeping in tents and wielding Twitter feeds and YouTube accounts, the young Sunnis have attempted to take democracy, and a certain sectarian disaffection, into their own hands.

It's not quite the Iraqi Arab Spring -- although that's what it's been tentatively called by some -- but it is a reminder of the stark failure of nearly a decade of American-led warfare in that country.

When President George W. Bush announced the invasion into Iraq in March 2003, the goal was to remove a dangerous dictator and his supposed stocks of weapons of mass destruction. It was also to create a functioning democracy and thereby inspire what Bush called a "global democracy revolution."

The effort was supposed to be cheap -- to require few troops and even less time. Instead, it cost the United States $800 billion at least, thousands of lives and nearly nine grueling years (see the graphic below for a further breakdown of various costs).

The toll on the people of Iraq were even greater. A decade of war left chaos and impoverishment, hundreds of thousands of citizens dead and millions more displaced, and a vicious sectarianism that still threatens to rip the country apart at the seams. The government of Nouri al-Maliki, which has reportedly interfered with independent government bureaucracies and ordered the arrest of his Sunni vice president on trumped-up terrorism charges, often rules in a manner more befitting the autocrat the U.S. invaded to remove.

Iraq War Cost $800 Billion, And What Do We Have To Show For It?

 

[hortysir]

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 296-133 and the U.S. Senate voted 77-23 to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002.

A March 2003 Pew Research Center poll showed 72 percent of U.S. adults supported the invasion of Iraq.


lemme guess......you're the rare 28%

 

[TruthOut10]

Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq

At A congressional hearing examining the march to war in Iraq, Republican congressman Walter Jones posed "a very simple question" about the administration's manipulation of intelligence: "How could the professionals see what was happening and nobody speak out?"

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, responded with an equally simple answer: "The vice president."

But the blame for Iraq does not end with Cheney, Bush, or Rumsfeld. Nor is it limited to the intelligence operatives who sat silent as the administration cherry-picked its case for war, or with those, like Colin Powell or Hans Blix, who, in the name of loyalty or statesmanship, did not give full throat to their misgivings. It is also shared by far too many in the Fourth Estate, most notably the New York Times' Judith Miller. But let us not forget that it lies, inescapably, with we the American people, who, in our fear and rage over the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, allowed ourselves to be suckered into the most audacious bait and switch of all time.

The first drafts of history are, by their nature, fragmentary. They arrive tragically late, and too often out of order. Back in 2006, we attempted to strip the history of the runup to the war to its bones, to reconstruct a skeleton that we thought might be key in resolving the open questions of the Bush era. As we prepare to leave Iraq, we present that timeline to you again. MotherJones.com offers a greatly expanded (if now technologically outdated) version of this timeline, one that is completely sourced to primary documents and initial news accounts. It was our hope to make this second draft of history as definitive as possible. So that we won't be fooled again.—THE EDITORS

Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq | Mother Jones

 

[hortysir]

What were the House and Senate votes for sending an unmanned drone into Yemen to kill an American citizen without trial?

 

[TruthOut10]

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 296-133 and the U.S. Senate voted 77-23 to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002.

A March 2003 Pew Research Center poll showed 72 percent of U.S. adults supported the invasion of Iraq.


lemme guess......you're the rare 28%

What part are you NOT understanding that we were LIED to by the Bush Administration to invade an unarmed Nation, doesn't ring a bell?

What pisses me off is first and foremost, most of your "punk ass" chicken hawks never served in the Military.

But be the first to advocate for war..

 

[hortysir]

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 296-133 and the U.S. Senate voted 77-23 to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002.

A March 2003 Pew Research Center poll showed 72 percent of U.S. adults supported the invasion of Iraq.


lemme guess......you're the rare 28%

What part are you NOT understanding that we were LIED to by the Bush Administration to invade an unarmed Nation, doesn't ring a bell?

What pisses me off is first and foremost, most of your "punk ass" chicken hawks never served in the Military.

But be the first to advocate for war..

The Bush Admin was lied to by British intelligence.

Unarmed nation?
We knew Saddam had shit because WE SOLD IT TO HIM!!!!!!



"Punk ass" chicken hawk?

Fuck you, bitch!


Name your duty stations!

Not only did I serve my enlistment.
I "got to" serve another tour of duty glued to the 24hr news, hoping to catch a glimpse or a whisper about my son's unit.

One shouldn't speak of shit they know nothing about

 

[TruthOut10]

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 296-133 and the U.S. Senate voted 77-23 to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002.

A March 2003 Pew Research Center poll showed 72 percent of U.S. adults supported the invasion of Iraq.


lemme guess......you're the rare 28%

What part are you NOT understanding that we were LIED to by the Bush Administration to invade an unarmed Nation, doesn't ring a bell?

What pisses me off is first and foremost, most of your "punk ass" chicken hawks never served in the Military.

But be the first to advocate for war..

The Bush Admin was lied to by British intelligence.

Unarmed nation?
We knew Saddam had shit because WE SOLD IT TO HIM!!!!!!



"Punk ass" chicken hawk?

Fuck you, bitch!


Name your duty stations!

Not only did I serve my enlistment.
I "got to" serve another tour of duty glued to the 24hr news, hoping to catch a glimpse or a whisper about my son's unit.

One shouldn't speak of shit they know nothing about

I was in the first Gulf War, I have 2 daughters who have been serving. Like I said you haven't served in War time...big fooking difference and asking me what my unit is, one's first question might wanna find out what branch of service I served.

Punk Ass Chicken Hawk....

 

[TruthOut10]

On October 11, 2002, the United States Senate voted 77-23 in favor of Joint Resolution 114 – the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

We are, of course, all too familiar with the consequences of that vote and the extent to which many Democrats such as John Kerry and John Edwards are only recently willing to admit to making such a terrible mistake. Others – certainly the vast majority of George W. Bush's henchmen on the Republican side of the aisle – will never come clean and take responsible for the mess they have allowed our president to make of the world. Indeed, as we have seen over the last couple of days, Bush and Cheney are even willing to use that vote as a weapon against those they duped three years ago.

Although we spend a lot of time talking about what – and who – got us into this quagmire, let's take a moment to look at the names and the words of the Senators who defied bullying by Team Bush and had the wisdom and courage to vote "nay" on October 11, 2002.

Here are the brave ones:
•Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
•Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
•Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
•Robert Byrd (D-WV)
•Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)
•Kent Conrad (D-ND)
•Jon Corzine (D-NJ)
•Mark Dayton (D-MN)
•Richard Durbin (D-IL)
•Russell Feingold (D-WI)
•Robert Graham (D-FL)
•Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
•James Jeffords (I-VT)
•Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
•Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
•Carl Levin (D-MI)
•Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
•Patty Murray (D-WA)
•Jack Reed (D-RI)
•Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)
•Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
•Paul Wellstone (D-MN)
•Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Now let's give credit where it is due and look back on what some of these Senators had to say on October 11, 2002 or in the days leading up to that vote.

Voices From 2002: Senators Who Voted Against War | Democrats.com

 

[uscitizen]

And do not forget that the adminstration assured us the war would last no more than 6 months and cost 40 billion tops.
And we would be greeted as liberators.

 

[TruthOut10]

A Marine officer who served two tours in Iraq looks back at 10 years of war, death, and destruction and asks what we learned: nothing. By Benjamin Busch


Today marks the 10-year anniversary of our second invasion of Iraq, and the questions that were never answered about our nearly nine-year occupation are no longer being asked. Americans, our allies, and the Iraqi people are still owed an honest answer from the leaders who created the war and kept us in it: why were we there?


Hundreds of thousands of Americans protested at the start of the war, but bombing inevitably began on March 19, 2003. The next day U.S. and British forces drove through a breach in the high berm dividing Kuwait from Iraq. I entered as part of the invasion force sent to disarm Iraq. Colin Powell told the U.N. that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to 9/11. Rumsfeld said we would be done within a few months at a cost of around $50 billion. Paul Wolfowitz said Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction with oil revenue. Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators. President Bush declared an end to major combat operations 44 days later under a banner that read “Mission Accomplished.” We were not briefed on a post-hostilities plan, and even Saddam Hussein managed to evade capture for another seven months.
IRAQ WAR
Bruce Adams/AP


Iraq was to be made a democracy, by force, but I quickly felt our ideological irrelevance. Saddam’s state fell apart into tribal factions, religious sects, and ethnic divisions under our cosmetic stewardship. The country murdered and looted itself as we watched, hopelessly ignorant of causality and cure. We spent the early years telling Iraqis who they couldn’t be but never deeply sought an understanding of who they already were. A strange symbiotic bond formed between us; their increasing dependency on our resources justifying our continued occupation. The State Department was largely restrained, leaving our military under the control of political appointees like Paul Bremer, who dictated policy by decree in a series of missteps without any comprehension of consequence. It was he who disbanded the Iraqi Army, flooding the country with unemployed militants, and it was under his rule that all former Baath Party members were banned from ever holding government posts again, decapitating Iraq of its only experienced managers. Our military, in turn, divided into sects of its own, the initiatives of regional commanders entirely dependent upon their personalities and situations. Iraq was reinvented all the way back to where it had been before our invasion, only with dysfunctional corruption installed where functional corruption had been.


This war, which was never even a declared war, went on for 4,101 days, sent more than 1 million U.S. service members into the desert, left 31,926 troops wounded, and brought 4,409 of them back in flag draped coffins. The cost ballooned into an incalculable sum over a trillion dollars, a considerable amount of it impossible even to account for. The money was borrowed, and what we haven’t printed is still owed with interest. There has been no political contrition for the war’s false necessity, myopic approach, or inept management. We kept context out of the discussion, refused to exert wisdom over rhetoric, stripped the conflict down to catchphrases, and finally just stopped talking about it.

America?s Lost Decade in Iraq: A Marine Officer Looks Back - The Daily Beast

 

[TruthOut10]

Contamination from Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions and other military-related pollution is suspected of causing a sharp rises in congenital birth defects, cancer cases, and other illnesses throughout much of Iraq.

Many prominent doctors and scientists contend that DU contamination is also connected to the recent emergence of diseases that were not previously seen in Iraq, such as new illnesses in the kidney, lungs, and liver, as well as total immune system collapse. DU contamination may also be connected to the steep rise in leukaemia, renal, and anaemia cases, especially among children, being reported throughout many Iraqi governorates.

There has also been a dramatic jump in miscarriages and premature births among Iraqi women, particularly in areas where heavy US military operations occurred, such as Fallujah.

Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.

As shocking as these statistics are, due to a lack of adequate documentation, research, and reporting of cases, the actual rate of cancer and other diseases is likely to be much higher than even these figures suggest.

"Cancer statistics are hard to come by, since only 50 per cent of the healthcare in Iraq is public," Dr Salah Haddad of the Iraqi Society for Health Administration and Promotion told Al Jazeera. "The other half of our healthcare is provided by the private sector, and that sector is deficient in their reporting of statistics. Hence, all of our statistics in Iraq must be multiplied by two. Any official numbers are likely only half of the real number."

Toxic environments

Dr Haddad believes there is a direct correlation between increasing cancer rates and the amount of bombings carried out by US forces in particular areas.

"My colleagues and I have all noticed an increase in Fallujah of congenital malformations, sterility, and infertility," he said. "In Fallujah, we have the problem of toxics introduced by American bombardments and the weapons they used, like DU."

During 2004, the US military carried out two massive military sieges of the city of Fallujah, using large quantities of DU ammunition, as well as white phosphorous.

"We are concerned about the future of our children being exposed to radiation and other toxic materials the US military have introduced into our environment," Dr Haddad added.

A frequently cited epidemiological study titled Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009 involved a door-to-door survey of more than 700 Fallujah households.

The research team interviewed Fallujans about abnormally high rates of cancer and birth defects.

One of the authors of the study, Chemist Chris Busby, said that the Fallujah health crisis represented "the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied".

Dr Mozghan Savabieasfahani is an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the author of more than two dozen peer reviewed articles, most of which deal with the health impact of toxicants and war pollutants. Her research now focuses on war pollution and the rising epidemic of birth defects in Iraqi cities.

"After bombardment, the targeted population will often remain in the ruins of their contaminated homes, or in buildings where metal exposure will continue," Dr Savabieasfahani told Al Jazeera.

"Our research in Fallujah indicated that the majority of families returned to their bombarded homes and lived there, or otherwise rebuilt on top of the contaminated rubble of their old homes. When possible, they also used building materials that were salvaged from the bombarded sites. Such common practices will contribute to the public's continuous exposure to toxic metals years after the bombardment of their area has ended."

She pointed out how large quantities of DU bullets, as well as other munitions, were released into the Iraqi environment.

"Between 2002 and 2005, the US armed forces expended six billion bullets - according to the figures of the US General Accounting Office," she added.

According to Dr Savabieasfahani, metal contaminants in war zones originate from bombs and bullets, as well as from other explosive devices. Metals, most importantly lead, uranium, and mercury, are used in the manufacture of munitions, and all of these contribute to birth defects, immunological disorders, and other illnesses.

"Our study in two Iraqi cities, Fallujah and Basra, focused on congenital birth defects," she said.

Her research showed that both studies found increasing numbers of birth defects, especially neural tube defects and congenital heart defects. It also revealed public contamination with two major neurotoxic metals, lead and mercury.

"The Iraq birth defects epidemic is, however, surfacing in the context of many more public health problems in bombarded cities," she said. "Childhood leukemia, and other types of cancers, are increasing in Iraq."

Iraq: War's Legacy of Cancer

 

[TruthOut10]

Ten years ago today, Iraqis braced themselves for the anticipated “Shock and Awe” attacks that the United States was planning to launch against them. The media buildup for the attack assured Iraqis that barbarous assaults were looming. I was living in Baghdad at the time, along with other Voices in the Wilderness activists determined to remain in Iraq, come what may. We didn’t want U.S.-led military and economic war to sever bonds that had grown between ourselves and Iraqis who had befriended us over the past seven years. Since 1996, we had traveled to Iraq numerous times, carrying medicines for children and families there, in open violation of the economic sanctions which directly targeted the most vulnerable people in Iraqi society — the poor, the elderly and the children.

I still feel haunted by children and their heartbroken mothers and fathers whom we met in Iraqi hospitals.

“I think I understand,” murmured my friend Martin Thomas, a nurse from the U.K., as he sat in a pediatric ward in a Baghdad hospital in 1997, trying to comprehend the horrifying reality. “It’s a death row for infants.” Nearly all of the children were condemned to death, some after many days of writhing in pain on bloodstained mats, without pain relievers. Some died quickly, wasted by water-borne diseases. As the fluids ran out of their bodies, they appeared like withered, spoiled fruits. They could have lived, certainly should have lived — and laughed and danced, and run and played — but instead they were brutally and lethally punished by economic sanctions supposedly intended to punish a dictatorship over which civilians had no control.

The war ended for those children, but it has never ended for survivors who carry memories of them.

Likewise, the effects of the U.S. bombings continue, immeasurably and indefensibly.

Upon arrival in Baghdad, we would always head to the Al Fanar Hotel which had housed scores of previous delegations.

Often, internationals like us were the hotel’s only clients during the long years when economic sanctions choked Iraq’s economy and erased its infrastructure. But in early March of 2003, rooms were quickly filling at the Al Fanar. The owner invited his family members and some of his neighbors and their children to move in, perhaps hoping that the United States wouldn’t attack a residence known to house internationals.

Parents in Iraq name themselves after their oldest child. Abu Miladah, the father of two small girls, Miladah and Zainab, was the hotel’s night desk clerk. He arranged for his wife, Umm Miladah, to move with their two small daughters into the hotel. Umm Miladah warmly welcomed us to befriend her children. It was a blessed release to laugh and play with the children, and somehow our antics and games seemed at least to distract Umm Miladah from her rising anxiety as we waited for the United States to rain bombs and missiles down on us.

When the attacks began, Umm Miladah could often be seen uncontrollably shuddering from fear. Day and night, explosions would rattle the windows and cause the Al Fanar’s walls to shake. Ear-splitting blasts and sickening thuds would come from all directions, near and far, over the next two weeks. I would often hold Miladah, who was three years old, and Zainab, her 18-month-old baby sister, in my arms. That’s how I realized that they both had begun to grind their teeth, morning, noon and night. Several times, we witnessed eight-year-old Dima, the daughter of another hotel worker, gazing up in forlorn shame at her father from a pool of her own urine, having lost control of her bladder in the first days of “Shock and Awe.”

And after weeks, when the bombing finally ended, when we could exhale a bit, realizing we had all survived, I was eager to take Miladah and Zainab outside. I wanted them to feel the sun’s warmth, but first I headed over to their mother, wanting to know if she felt it was all right for me to step out with her children.

She was seated in the hotel lobby, watching the scene outside. U.S. Marines were uncurling large bales of barbed wire to set up a check point immediately outside our hotel. Beige military jeeps, armored personnel carriers, tanks and Humvees lined the streets in every direction. Tears were streaming down Umm Miladah’s face. “Never before did I think that this would happen to my country,” she said. “And I feel very sad. And this sadness, I think it will never go away.”

She was a tragic prophet.

War Without End