LIES THAT LED TO WAR

"... investigative journalist Charles Lewis... new book, 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity details the many government falsehoods that have led us into the current nightmare... “An outrageous thing happened. We lost $2 trillion. More than 100,000 people died. Folks are going to be maimed for life in the tens of thousands… And no one has ever acknowledged that this was a war on a lark. It was a complete war of choice, because a certain little faction wanted to do it and they orchestrated it… Did they make statements that weren’t true? The answer is yes.”
http://billmoyers.com/episode/the-truth-vs-dcs-propaganda-machine/

NEW CALIPHATE IS DECLARED

"... the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant... formally declared the creation of an Islamic state... the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is the new leader, or caliph, of the Islamic state... with the creation of the caliphate, the group was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant..."
http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaida-breakaway-formally-declares-islamic-state-184155646.html

ISIS' BOOTY

"... The list of military hardware captured after Iraq's troops fled Mosul and Kirkuk includes, sources say, some 4,000 medium machine-guns, 1,500 Humvees and other military vehicles, 50 state-of-the-art 155mm GPS-guided artillery pieces which can "aim like a sniper rifle" over a 40km range, 50 T-55 tanks and two helicopters. They are also reported to have seized an eyewatering $427m (£251m; 314m euros) from Mosul's branch of Iraq's central bank, boosting their coffers to independence levels..."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28045054

A NEW ISLAMIC COUNTRY ECHOES AN OLD ONE

"With the alleged fall to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria... the border between Iraq and Syria has now been effectively erased. A new country exists, stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad all the way to Aleppo. In history, it uncannily resembles the state ruled by Imad ad-Din Zangi (AD 1085 – 1146), a Turkish notable who came to power in 1128..."
http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/erases-border-hizbullah.html

U.S. BUILDUP IN IRAQ
Two private security guards to protect each American soldier


"... Equipped with Hellfire missiles, the predator drones are being deployed from a base in Kuwait to accompany unarmed surveillance flights that include drones as well as manned aircraft... Meanwhile, the United States has opened a "joint operations center" in Baghdad, boosting the total number of U.S. service members to 500... And ... the U.S. is planning to send more than 1,000 U.S. private security guards to Iraq to protect U.S. troops..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/27

"The United States is flying F-18 surveillance missions over Iraq from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf... but F-18's are not traditional surveillance aircraft -- they are attack aircraft..." 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/18/us-now-flying-surveillance-missions-over-iraq/

SUNNI MILITANTS IN CONTROL 80 MILES FROM BAGHDAD

"... Al-Qaida-inspired militants pushed deeper into Iraq's Sunni heartland Wednesday, swiftly conquering Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts... Iraqi security officials confirmed that the city, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad and the capital of Salahuddin province, was under ISIL's control..."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/governor-says-iraq-determined-retake-mosul

THE FALL OF MOSUL IS CIVIL WAR

"... Instead of sowing human rights and democracy in Iraq, as was promised by Bush administration officials and their supporters leading up to and during the war, the country is now... "a riven, embattled, dilapidated country" wracked by violence. As events in Mosul on Tuesday show, the nation is likely no longer on the verge of civil war... but actually engaged in one...  the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 unleashed a brutal, bloody, Sunni-Shiite civil war across the region..."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/10-4

SUNNI MILITANTS CAPTURE MOSUL

“… in Mosul [population just under 2 million], the second-largest Iraqi city after Baghdad… Sunni militants freed hundreds of prisoners and seized military bases, police stations, banks, the airport and the provincial governor’s headquarters… government security forces fled from some places without firing a shot…”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/militants-in-mosul.html?_r=1>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/militants-in-mosul.html?_r=1

U.S. ARMING IRAQ WITH MISSILES AND DRONES

“The U.S. is quietly shipping hellfire missiles and surveillance drones to war-torn Iraq in an alleged bid to help the government fight the country's Al Qaeda affiliate… Iraq bought 75 Hellfire missiles… The weapons are strapped beneath the wings of small Cessna turboprop planes, and fired at militant camps with the C.I.A. secretly providing targeting assistance… Ten surveillance drones will likely be sent to Iraq by March…”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/26-0

REVISED IRAQI DEATH ESTIMATE

"... The latest and perhaps most rigorous survey... puts the figure at close to 500,000... The study,  a collaboration of researchers in the U.S., Canada and Iraq appearing in the journal PLoS Medicine...  estimated 405,000 deaths, with another 55,800 projected deaths from the extensive migration in and emigration from Iraq occurring as a result of the war. The researchers estimated that 60 percent of the deaths were violent, with the remaining 40 percent occurring because of the health-infrastructure issues that arose as a result of the invasion…"
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/15/iraq-war-civiliandeathtoll500knewstudyestimates.html

IRAQ WAR BENEFITTED CHINA, NOT U.S.

"... The United States has spent well over $3 trillion on its Iraq War, while... the studiously neutral government of China that has most clearly benefited from George W. Bush's folly. Beijing... picked up the winner's prize... Iraq has become one of the world's top oil producers... and China is now its biggest customer. Almost half of Iraq's oil production already is shipped to China... [which is] bidding for an even larger stake in Iraq's oil field production..."
"We lost out," Bush Defense Department official Michael Makovsky admits to the Times. "The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint, they are benefitting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/china-benefits-from-bushs_b_3382137.html

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS WILL COST $4-6 TRILLION

"Costs to U.S. taxpayers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will run between four and six trillion dollars, making them the most expensive conflicts in U.S. history… While Washington has already spent close to two trillion dollars in direct costs related to its military campaigns in the two countries, that total “represents only a fraction of the total war costs”… The single largest accrued liability of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to war veterans…"
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/iraq-afghanistan-wars-will-cost-u-s-4-6-trillion-dollars-report/

IRAQ THEN AND NOW

The Iraq war, which most today in the U.S. see as a mistake, has cost the U.S. trillions of dollars, billions of which were "wasted."

But the devastation for the people of Iraq is incalculable: hundreds of thousands have been killed, over a million remain refugees and U.S. weapons used in the country, such as depleted uranium, have left a haunting legacy far past the drawdown of U.S. troops.

While many mark March 19, 2003 as the day the U.S.-led invasion of the country began, crippling sanctions against Iraq began more than a decade before.  And while the George W. Bush administration launched the war, it found willing partners in the Democratic party and corporate media.  Below are some voices offering perspective on the anniversary and lead-up to the invasion: 

On the invasion:

Arundhati Roy, writer and global justice activist, speaking on Democracy Now! Monday:

When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC News poll said that 55 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein directly supported al-Qaeda. None of this opinion is based on evidence, because there isn’t any. All of it is based on insinuation or to suggestion and outright lies circulated by the U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "free press," that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests. Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a multitiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.

Hans Blix, head of U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion, writing "Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter" in CNN on Monday:

The war aimed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but there weren't any.

The war aimed to eliminate al Qaeda in Iraq, but the terrorist group didn't exist in the country until after the invasion. [...]

The Bush administration certainly wanted to go to war, and it advanced eradication of weapons of mass destruction as the main reason. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has since explained, it was the only rationale that was acceptable to all parts of the U.S. administration.

U.N. inspectors were asked to search for, report and destroy real weapons. As we found no weapons and no evidence supporting the suspicions, we reported this. But U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield dismissed our reports with one of his wittier retorts: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Rumsfeld's logic was correct, I believe, but it was no excuse for the American and British governments to mislead themselves and the world, as they did, by giving credit to fake evidence or assuming that if weapons items were "unaccounted for" that they must exist. They did not exist.

Christian Parenti, investigative journalist, giving author Belen Fernandez his response to John Bolton's admission that the Iraq invasion "was never about making life better for Iraqis, but about ensuring a safer world for America and its allies."

That sort of honesty, spoken like a true war criminal, would be refreshing if it didn't reveal such an appalling disregard for the value of human life and happiness. The US has destroyed Iraq and in doing so broken the hearts and ruined the lives of millions of people… That sort of psychopathic lack of empathy belies a deep bigotry towards other cultures and a general alienation from the life of our species.

Widespread blame

Sam Husseini, director for the Institute for Public Accuracy, in a statement Monday:

It’s common to simply blame Bush and Cheney for the Iraq war, but it’s not accurate. Many voted for or otherwise backed the Iraq war — including Obama’s entire foreign policy team from Kerry to Hagel; from Clinton to Rice toBiden. Even among those who voted against the war, many facilitated it, likePelosi, who claimed during the buildup to the Iraq invasion that ‘there was no question Iraq had chemical and biological agents.’ None of these individuals have ever seriously come clean about their conduct during this critical period (and I’ve questioned most of them) — so there’s never been a moment of reckoning for the greatest foreign policy disaster of this generation. The elevation of Democrats who did not seriously question the war likely facilitated Bush and Cheney never being held accountable for their conduct.

2003 or 1991?

Raed Jarrar, Communications Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, speaking on Up with Chris on Sunday:

Unlike the perception that we have in the U.S. that the war started in 2003, the war started in 1991 and Iraq was pretty much destroyed by 2003. ... When the 2003 invasion happened, it came on the top of another 13 years of destruction, very destructive sanctions and semi-daily bombing campaigns.

(See more from the segment "Iraqis still face violence, corruption as they rebuild" here andhere.)

Iraq now

Norman Solomon, author, co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, writing in Common Dreams:

Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, don’t expect the vast numbers of media hotshots and U.S. officials who propelled that catastrophe to utter a word of regret. Many are busy with another project: assisting the push for war on Iran.

Raed Jarrar:

Millions of Iraqis have been killed, injured or displaced. One of the most developed countries in the region at the time of the invasion, Iraq now is among the worst in terms of infrastructure and public services. Baghdad ranks lowest in the quality of life of any city in the world, according to a recent global survey from the consultant group Mercer. Moreover, the Iraqi national identity has been replaced by ethnic and sectarian affiliations.

Danny Muller, formerly of Iraq Peace Team and Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign that broke US law to resist economic sanctions and prevent further warfare in Iraq, stated Monday:

The Iraqi people, especially children, have suffered and been brutalized by US troops, mercenaries and multinational corporations to such an extreme extent that a decade later, the US has managed to make a brutal dictator look tepid compared to the level of horror that the US has inflicted on civilians.

Epidemics of cholera after the 2003 massacre, to take one example, speak volumes to the level of destruction that the US caused to the water, sanitation and electrical grids in 1991 and 2003—those basic systems that provide for the public's health have still not been repaired. The ensuing corruption, inefficiency and outright theft still leave most Iraqis without basic access to the most human of needs.

This war lives on in the blood of US soldiers, in the birth defects of stillborn Iraqi infants, in the skyrocketing cases of cancer and toxicity countrywide. The US people saw an entire country of 25 million Iraqis as disposable and less than human. America seems to have developed the collective memory and historical consciousness of a dead moth, but what we have done is downright unforgettable and unforgivable. And as much as we choose to pretend otherwise, most of us know what we did in Iraq: our money, our weapons, our boys in uniform, were sent to kill kids for lies and greed. It's as simple and horrific as that.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/18-2

THE TOLL OF IRAQ WAR

"A decade of war in Iraq has killed roughly 134,000 Iraqi civilians and potentially contributed to the deaths of many hundreds of thousands more, according to researchers at Brown University.... A 2006 report published in The Lancet by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found 655,000 people had died in the first 40 months of the war both from violence and indirect causes related to the devastated infrastructure... the Iraq war has cost the U.S. more than $2 trillion, including $500 billion in benefits owed to veterans... Most of the more than $200 billion supposedly set aside for reconstruction in Iraq was actually used for security or lost amid rampant fraud and waste... "
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/15/headlines>http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/15/headlines

TENTH ANNIVERSARY

"... happy 10th anniversary, Iraq War! A decade after the invasion, a chaotic and unstable Middle East is the unfinished legacy of our invasion... Having somehow turned much of Islam into a foe, Washington has essentially assured itself of never-ending crises that it stands no chance whatsoever of winning. In this sense, Iraq was not an aberration, but the historic zenith and nadir for a way of thinking that is only now slowing waning. For decades to come, the U.S. will have a big enough military to ensure that our decline is slow, bloody, ugly, and reluctant, if inevitable. One day, however, even the drones will have to land..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/07-12

TEN YEARS LATER

"... the country that we were going to garrison for a lifetime... didn’t want us. The government we essentially installed chose Iran as an ally and business partner.  The permanent bases we built to the tune of billions of dollars are now largely looted ghost towns.  The reconstruction of the country that we promoted proved worse than farcical.  And an outfit proudly carrying the al-Qaeda brand name, which did not exist in Iraq before our invasion, is now thriving in a still destabilized country..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/08-0

FALLUJAH HEALTH CRISIS STIFLED BY WEST

"...  stomach-turning collection of pictures of babies born with scaly skin, missing and deformed limbs, and horrifying tumors. ... in addition to shocking increases in pediatric cancers, there had also been an 18% reduction in male births. Such a finding is a well-known indication of genetic damage... One weapon system that may use uranium, in some form or another, is the SMAW-NE (Shoulder-fired Multipurpose Assault Weapon – Novel Explosive)... there is a potential connection between this weapons system and the health crisis in Fallujah – and this connection needs to be investigated...  More studies need to be done to figure out what is harming those poor children... But first, we must find a way to overcome the stifling silence of governments."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-health-crisis-silence

TOXIC RESIDUES CAUSING BIRTH DEFECTS IN FALLUJAH

"New study links heavy bombing of Falluja...  to staggering rise... in miscarriages and birth defects including Anencephaly and Spina Bifida in the years following heavy bombardment of 2003 and 2004...  the study found elevated levels of mercury and lead -- an integral part of war ammunition and are extensively used in the making of bullets and bombs... in the children... there is a "footprint of metal in the population" and...  "compelling evidence linking the staggering increases in Iraqi birth defects to neuro-toxic metal contamination following the repeated bombardments"... there's a fivefold increase in Fallujah..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/14-0

AL QAEDA TRAINING IN IRAQ, DOUBLED IN SIZE

"... the extremist group has set up training camps for insurgents in the nation's western deserts, seizing on regional instability and government security failures... Iraq has seen a jump in al Qaeda attacks over the last 10 weeks... the insurgent group has more than doubled in numbers from a year ago to about 2,500 fighters..."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57529084/al-qaeda-in-iraq-is-rebuilding-officials-say/

RUSSIA IRAQ'S SECOND LARGEST ARMS SUPPLIER

"Iraq has signed contracts to buy Russian arms worth $4.2bn this year... thus becomes the country's second-biggest arms supplier after the US... Thirty Mi-28 attack helicopters and 42 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile systems are said to be among items being sold.Further discussions are said to be under way for Iraq eventually to buy MiG-29 jets, heavy armoured vehicles and other weaponry..."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19881858>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19881858