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March 20, 2006.
Three Years In Iraq
On March 19, 2003, US bombs began dropping on Iraq.
Early the next morning, American troops rolled across the border, and the dogs of war were unleashed.
Twenty-one days later, on April 9, 2003, Saddam Hussein was toppled.
And on May 1, 2003, George W. Bush announced "Mission Accomplished."
But as we all now know all too well, it was only the beginning. Three years later Iraq has become an inferno that would make Dante proud. It has become the battlefield where anyone who is pissed off at the world can come and get their licks in at the Big Bad Americans, who, as we all know, are the ones responsible for everything that's bad in this world. And Iraqi civilians, caught in the middle, die. Over thirty thousand so far. Of course a lot of nasty people have died too. And Americans. Two thousand, three hundred and fifteen of them. Six thousand miles from home.
Of course, Iraqi civilians had been dying by the droves before the Americans came along.
Mass graves, containing thousands of Saddam Hussein's victims were found all over the country.
There was plenty of evidence of Saddam's cruelty, such as the tools of torture pictured below,
found in the building that housed Iraq's Olympic team, used to torture althletes who didn't win.
Then we find out the Americans have been doing a little torturing of their own.
Amidst all this horror there was one bright, shining moment, in January, 2005,
when Iraqi citizens proudly risked death to take part in democratic elections for the first time in 50 years.
There are those who say the war in Iraq was all about oil. These people are guilty of intellectual reductionism, a term introduced by D.H., who honours these pages with his well crafted insights from time to time. But those who believe the war was all about altruism are equally naive. This war was about a lot of things, but I will not bore you by listing them all here. What matters is the here and now, and how to make it better.
The 133,000 American troops in Iraq are not just fighting. They are involved in 3,600 reconstruction projects, including 825 schools and 160 hospitals. American taxpayers have spent 18.4 billion dollars so far in reconstruction costs in Iraq. Still, because of relentless sabotage by insurgents, Iraqis line up for days for a few gallons of gas. Clean water is scarce, and electric power is only available a few hours a day.
And then there's the ubiquitous violence. Daily bombings and kidnappings. Dozens of Iraqis killed every single day. Former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Allawi: "If this is not a civil war, then God knows what a civil war is." Iraqis have a lot to complain about these days. But as one Iraqi citizen recently noted: "At least we are allowed to complain now."
Is Iraq better off? The last word goes to an Iraqi civilian on the front lines: I remember one day when my mother was watching news on local TV as they showed the aftermath of an explosion that missed a joint U.S. and Iraqi military convoy, but killed two nearby children. Tears ran down her face, as she cried in silence. I approached her, hugged her shoulder and asked her in this moment as she sat there crying, "Hey Mom, if you could return to the days before the war, would you?"
She looked at me for a while -- and still crying, shook her head slowly and said, No.
