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On March 20, 2003, the United States – in defiance of the UnitedNations, which had weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq –opened a military offensive against the Arab Republic on thepremise that the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein washarboring weapons of mass destruction.One decade later, the global community is aware that theintelligence claims of Iraqi WMDs were patently false at least –and a blatant fabrication at worst – but this knowledge has donenothing to erase the damage of the conflict.The exact number of Iraqi civilians who lost their lives duringthe war varies considerably, depending on the source. The Iraq BodyCount project (IBC), for example, puts the number between 110,937and 121,227. But the Opinion Research Business (ORB), anindependent polling agency based in London, has calculated thenumber of fatalities at over 1 million.For the survivors, each of whom seems to know somebody who waskilled or injured in the conflict, the physical aftermath of eightyears of war and insurgency is visible everywhere.In Fallujah, previously the site of fierce fighting betweenIraqi resistance fighters and US forces, more than half of allbabies conceived after the start of the war were born with heartdefects, and the area has a disturbingly high infant mortalityrate.A World Health Organization (WHO) study published last yearconnected the grave situation with the effect of toxic substancesprevalent in many conventional weapons. Hair samples taken from thecivilian population of Fallujah showed levels of lead in childrenwith birth defects five times higher than elsewhere; mercury levelswere recorded at six times higher.Much of the country’s infrastructure remains in shambles aswell. Critics point to corruption and the mismanagement ofreconstruction funds: Of the $60 billion that Washington supposedlyspent on reconstruction, much of that amount wassquandered.“President George W. Bush asked for $20 billion dollars forreconstruction, but Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld said ‘$20billion may be too much because of Iraqi oil, Iraq will be able topay for reconstruction itself,” John Gannon, former deputydirector for intelligence at the CIA, commented at the Center forNational Policy, a Washington think tank.This broken promise is yet another debt to the Iraqi people thatremains unpaid, Gannon added.At the same time, the American people – who lost 4,488 militarypersonnel and 3,400 security contractors in the conflict – are alsosuffering 10 years later, although in much less perceptible ways.One recent study put the price of the war at $2 trillion dollars,with a price tag that could eventually reach $6 trillion over thenext four decades.‘The end of America’s unipolar moment’The consequences of the war in Iraq go beyond loss of life andphysical destruction. Scott Bates, President of Center for NationalPolicy, a Washington think tank, said there is a geopolitical priceto pay for the decision to invade Iraq.Pointing to the “law of unintended consequences,” Batessaid that US credibility and influence were tarnished following theattack on Iraq, while Iran’s clout has increased. America is stillliving with the consequences of this, 10 years later: “Ourunipolar moment ended when we went into Baghdad, but we didn’t knowit,” Bates said.Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff toSecretary of State Colin Powell at the time of the invasion, saidthat Iraq has changed the way the world sees the US. “Ourrhetoric is high and lofty and we talk about human rights and humandignity and freedom and democracy, and then what do we do? We mounta war of aggression on Iraq, kill a couple hundred thousand people,and mess it up majorly, including the region,” Wilkerson toldRT in an interview.Wilkerson explained that when such incidents occur, “theworld stands up and begins to balance the hegemon.”When asked if the individuals who made the decision to invadeIraq, despite widespread global protest, should be heldresponsible, Wilkerson said that “history will hold themresponsible,” emphasizing that there is “no accountabilityfor people who make grievous errors in high office in the UnitedStates.”He then quoted the title of a book by American author GoreVidal, saying: “We’re the United States of amnesia!”Washington’s tendency to forget its past mistakes could provedisastrous, with new war talk brewing on Capitol Hill. Former CIAintelligence officer Gannon warned that the US intelligencecommunity was experiencing something he called the“politicization of intelligence,” which, he argues, has beenhampering US foreign policy since at least the Vietnam War.“Whenever you have a situation where you have a forcedmindset, as you did in the early 2002 to 2003 period [in the run upto war in Iraq], or as you did in the Lyndon Johnson administrationin the early years of Vietnam, or with Iran in 1979… when weweren’t allowed to deal with the opposition, you create anenvironment for ‘politicization of intelligence,’” Gannonwarned.The retired CIA officer concluded by saying that Washingtoncurrently holds similar attitudes towards the Middle East. … Read More