Iraq War

This article is about the war that began in 2003. For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation).

Iraq War
Clockwise, starting at top left: a joint patrol in Samarra; the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square; an Iraqi Army soldier readies his rifle during an assault; an IED detonates in South Baghdad.
Date March 20, 2003 – present Location Iraq Status Conflict ongoing Occupation of Iraq Overthrow of Baath Party government and execution of Saddam Hussein. Humanitarian crisis with human rights abuses, civilian casualties and refugees Iraqi insurgency and outbreak of civil war. Widespread infrastructure damage Privatisation of Iraqi services Election of a democratic government Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq.
Belligerents
Baathist Iraq Baath Party Loyalists Mahdi Army al-Qaeda in Iraq File:IAILogo.gif Islamic Army of Iraq Other Insurgent groups File:Kurdistan Workers Party flag (current).gif Kurdistan Workers Party	United States United Kingdom Australia Poland New Iraqi Army Iraqi Kurdistan Other Coalition forces Awakening Councils Turkey
Commanders and leaders
Saddam Hussein (POW)☠ Muqtada al-Sadr Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri File:IAILogo.gif Ishmael Jubouri Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (KIA) Abu Ayyub al-Masri File:Kurdistan Workers Party flag (current).gif Murat Karayilan	George W. Bush Tommy Franks Ricardo Sanchez George Casey David Petraeus Queen Elizabeth II Tony Blair Gordon Brown Brian Burridge John Howard Kevin Rudd Leszek Miller Marek Belka Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz Jaroslaw Kaczynski Donald Tusk Aleksander Kwasniewski Lech Aleksander Kaczynski Nouri al-Maliki Massoud Barzani Abdullah Gul Tayyip Erdogan Yaşar Büyükanıt
Strength
Iraqi (under Saddam Hussein): 375,000+ regular forces. Post-Baathist government, multi-sided conflict: Sunni Insurgents ~70,000 Mahdi Army ~60,000 al Qaeda/others 1,300+ PKK: ~4,000	Coalition ~300,000 invasion ~177,000 current Contractors* ~182,000 (118,000 Iraqi, 43,000 Other, 21,000 US) Peshmerga 50,000 invasion 250,000 current New Iraqi Army 180,000 Iraqi Police 227,000 Awakening Council militias 65,000-80,000 Turkish Armed Forces: ~3,000-10,000
Casualties and losses
Iraqi combatant dead (invasion period): 7,600-10,800 Insurgents dead (post-Saddam): 16,978-22,807 per these reports. 19,429 per U.S. military (22 September 2007) Detainees: 43,000 PKK: 412 killed (Turkish government claim) 9 killed (PKK claim)	Iraqi Security Forces (post-Saddam, Coalition allies) Police/military killed: 10,554 See: Casualties of the Iraq War Coalition dead (4,079 US, 176 UK, 136 other): 4,391 Coalition missing or captured (US): 3 Coalition wounded:29,978 US, ~300 UK Coalition injured, diseased, or other medical:**28,645 US, 1,155 UK. Contractors dead (US 243): 1,028 Contractors missing or captured (US 4): 18 Contractors wounded & injured: 10,569 Awakening Councils: 450+ killed Turkish Armed Forces: 27 killed
All Iraqi violent deaths, Opinion Research Business. As of August 2007: 1,033,000 (946,000-1,120,000). Causes; gunshots (48%), car bombs (20%), aerial bombing (9%), accidents (6%), another blast/ordnance (6%). ***Total deaths (all excess deaths) Johns Hopkins (Lancet) - As of June 2006: 654,965 (392,979-942,636). 601,027 violent deaths (31% by Coalition, 24% by others, 46% unknown) All Iraqi violent deaths. Iraqi Health Ministry casualty survey for the World Health Organization. As of June 2006: 151,000 (104,000 to 223,000).
*Contractors (U.S. government) perform "highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops." ** "injured, diseased, or other medical" - required medical air transport. UK number includes wounded ("aeromed evacuations"). ***Total deaths include all additional deaths due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. For more on casualty estimates, see: Casualties of the Iraq War

The Iraq War is an ongoing conflict which began on March 20, 2003 with the United States-led invasion of Iraq by a multinational coalition composed of U.S. and UK troops supported by smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland, and other nations.. The Iraq War is also known as Operation Iraqi Liberation and then Operation Iraqi Freedom (U.S), Operation Telic (UK),

At the start of the war, U.S. officials argued that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the interest of the United States, Europe and the other nations of the Middle East. The supporting intelligence was supported by British intelligence , as well as given tacit support by Russian and German intelligence.. But the intelligence was also criticized by others. and weapons inspectors found no evidence of WMD. After the invasion, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its WMD programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if and when the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some earlier degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned WMD were found, they were not the weapons for which the coalition invaded. Some U.S. officials claimed Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda had been cooperating, but no evidence of any collaborative relationship has been found. Other reasons for the invasion stated by officials included concerns over Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses, spreading democracy, and Iraq's oil reserves, although the latter has been denied by other officials.

The invasion led to the quick defeat of the Iraqi military, the flight of President Saddam Hussein, his capture in December, 2003 and his execution in December, 2006. The U.S.-led coalition occupied Iraq and attempted to establish a new democratic government. But shortly after the initial invasion, violence against coalition forces and among various sectarian groups led to asymmetric warfare with the Iraqi insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. Estimates of the number of people killed range from over 150,000 to more than 1 million. Member nations of the Coalition began to withdraw their forces as public opinion favoring troop withdrawals increased and as Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for security.

1991–2003: U.N. inspectors, No-fly zones, and Iraqi opposition groups

See also: Oil-for-Food Programme and Operation Northern Watch

Following the 1991 Gulf War, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 mandated that Iraqi chemical, biological, nuclear, and long range missile programs be halted and all such weapons destroyed under United Nations Special Commission control. U.N. weapons inspectors inside Iraq were able to verify the destruction of a large amount of WMD-material, but substantial issues remained unresolved in 1998 when the inspectors left Iraq due to then current UNSCOM head Richard Butler's belief that U.S. and UK military action was imminent. Shortly after the inspectors withdrew, the U.S. and UK launched a four-day bombing campaign.

In addition to the inspection regimen, the U.S. and UK (along with France until 1998) engaged in a low-level conflict with Iraq by enforcing northern and southern Iraqi no-fly zones. These zones were created following the Persian Gulf War to protect Iraqi Kurdistan in the north and the southern Shia areas, and were seen by the Iraqi government as an infringement of Iraq's sovereignty. Iraqi air-defense installations and American and British air patrols regularly exchanged fire during this 6 year period.

Approximately one year before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. initiated Operation Southern Focus as a change to its response strategy, by increasing the overall number of missions and selecting targets throughout the no-fly zones in order to disrupt the military command structure in Iraq. The weight of bombs dropped on Iraq increased from none in March 2002 and 0.3 in April to between eight and 14 tons per month in May-August. The total reached a pre-war peak of 54.6 tons in September 2002.

Iraqi opposition groups

Following the Persian Gulf War, President George Bush signed a presidential finding directing the Central Intelligence Agency to create conditions for Hussein's removal in May 1991. Coordinating anti-Saddam groups was an important element of this strategy and the Iraqi National Congress(INC), led by Ahmed Chalabi, was the main group tasked with this purpose. The name INC was reportedly coined by public relations expert John Rendon (of the Rendon Group agency) and the group received millions in covert funding in the 1990s, and then about $8 million a year in overt funding after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998.

2001–2003: Iraq disarmament crisis and pre-war intelligence

See also: Rationale for the Iraq War, Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq, Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, 10 Days to War, and Iraq and weapons of mass destruction

Main articles: Iraq disarmament crisis timeline 2001-2003 and 2002 in Iraq

U.N. weapons inspections resume

The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when President Bush demanded a complete end to alleged Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and full compliance with UN Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to suspected weapons production facilities. Previously, the UN had prohibited Iraq from developing or possessing such weapons after the Gulf War and required Iraq to permit inspections confirming compliance.

During 2002, Bush repeatedly backed demands for unfettered inspection and disarmament with threats of military force. In accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1441 Iraq reluctantly agreed to new inspections in late 2002. The results of these inspections were mixed, with the inspectors discovering no WMD programs but concluding that Iraqi WMD program declarations failed to prove that all such weapons had been destroyed.

Alleged weapons of mass destruction

In the initial stages of the war on terror, the Central Intelligence Agency, under George Tenet, was rising to prominence as the lead agency in the Afghanistan war. But when Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with President Bush that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to re-examine the evidence and marginalize the CIA and Tenet. The questionable intelligence acquired by this secret program was "stovepiped" to Cheney and presented to the public. In some cases, Cheney’s office would leak the intelligence to news correspondents, who would in turn cover it in such outlets such as The New York Times. Cheney would subsequently appear on the Sunday political television talk shows to discuss the intelligence, referencing The New York Times as the source to give it credence.

File:Joseph Wilson.jpg

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson

In late February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate dubious claims about Iraq's attempted purchase of yellowcake uranium from Niger. Wilson returned and informed the CIA that reports of yellowcake sales to Iraq were "unequivocally wrong." The Bush administration, however, continued to allege Iraq's attempts to obtain yellowcake were a justification for military action - most prominently in the January, 2003 State of the Union address when President Bush said that Iraq had sought uranium, citing British intelligence sources. In response, Wilson wrote a critical New York Times op-ed piece in June 2003 stating that he had personally investigated claims of yellowcake purchases and believed them to be fraudulent. Wilson's report did not clarify the matter for analysts, but they found it interesting that the former Nigerien Prime Minister said an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger for what he believed was to discuss uranium sales. Shortly after Wilson's op-ed, the identity of Wilson's wife, undercover CIA analyst Valerie Plame, was revealed in a column by Robert Novak. Since it is a felony to reveal the identity of a CIA agent Novak's column launched an investigation by the Justice Department into the source of the leak. In March, 2007, Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby was convicted of perjury in the Plame leak investigation. The source of the leak was found to be former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who was never charged with the crime.

On May 1, 2005 the "Downing Street memo" was published in The Sunday Times. It contained an overview of a secret July 23, 2002 meeting among UK Labour government, defense, and intelligence figures who discussed the build-up to the Iraq war — including direct references to classified U.S. policy of the time. The memo stated, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

On September 18, 2002, George Tenet briefed Bush that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. Bush dismissed this top-secret intelligence from Saddam's inner circle which was approved by two senior CIA officers, but it turned out to be completely accurate. The information was never shared with Congress or even CIA agents examining whether Saddam had such weapons. The CIA had contacted Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who was being paid by the French as an agent. Sabri informed them that Saddam had ambitions for a nuclear program but that it was not active, and that no biological weapons were being produced or stockpiled, although research was underway. The U.S. obtained three subsequent human intelligence reports indicating that Saddam had authorized the use of chemical weapons in the event of war.

In September 2002, the Bush administration said attempts by Iraq to acquire thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes pointed to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. Iraq was not permitted to import such tubes under the U.N. monitoring plan. This view was supported by the CIA and DIA but opposed by the Department of Energy (DOE) and INR which was significant because the DOE was the only department in the United States government that had expertise in gas centrifuges and nuclear weapons programs. All agencies believed the tubes could be used in a centrifuge program but the latter two argued that they were poorly suited to do so. An effort by the DOE to change Powell's comments before his UN appearance was rebuffed by the administration. Indeed, Colin Powell, in his address to the U.N. Security Council just prior to the war, made reference to the aluminum tubes. But a report released by the Institute for Science and International Security in 2002 reported that it was highly unlikely that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium. Powell later admitted he had presented an inaccurate case to the United Nations on Iraqi weapons, and the intelligence he was relying on was, in some cases, "deliberately misleading."

Between September, 2002 and June, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz created a Pentagon unit known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), headed by Douglas Feith. It was created to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq, unvetted by intelligence analysts, and circumventing traditional intelligence gathering operations by the CIA. One former CIA officer described the OSP as dangerous for U.S. national security and a threat to world peace, and that it lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam Hussein. He described it as a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality, taking bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignoring anything contrary. Subsequently, in 2008, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity has enumerated a total of 935 false statements made by George Bush and six other top members of his administration in a carefully launched campaign of misinformation during the two year period following 9-11, in order to rally support for the invasion of Iraq.

Authorization for the use of force

Colin Powell holding a model vial of anthrax while giving a presentation to the United Nations Security Council

In October, 2002, a few days before the U.S. Senate voted on the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein had the means of attacking the eastern seaboard of the U.S. with biological or chemical weapons delivered by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell presented further evidence in his Iraqi WMD program presentation to the UN Security Council that UAVs were ready to be launched against the U.S. At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the US military and intelligence community as to whether CIA conclusions about Iraqi UAVs were accurate. In fact, Iraq's UAV fleet was never deployed and consisted of a handful of outdated 24.5-foot (7.5 m) wingspan drones with no room for more than a camera and video recorder, and no offensive capability. Despite this controversy, the Senate voted to approve the Joint Resolution on 11 October 2002 providing the Bush Administration with the legal basis for the U.S. invasion.

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix remarked in January 2003 that "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance – not even today – of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace." Among other things he noted that 1,000 tons of chemical agent were unaccounted for, information on Iraq's VX nerve agent program was missing, and that "no convincing evidence" was presented for the destruction of 8,500 liters of anthrax that had been declared. Secretary of State Collin Powell's presentation to the U.N. on February 3, 2003 was designed to influence U.N. members that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. After his presentation 71% of those who watched his presentation thought his case was persuasive, while 56% believed he had presented enough hard evidence to prove Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. France even believed that Saddam had stockpiles of anthrax and botulism toxin, and the ability to produce VX. But in March, Blix said no evidence of WMDs had been found, and progress had been made in inspections.

In early 2003, the U.S., UK, and Spain proposed the so-called "eighteenth resolution" to give Iraq a deadline for compliance with previous resolutions enforced by the threat of military action. This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn due to lack of support on the U.N. Security Council. In particular, NATO members France, Germany and Canada together with Russia, were opposed to military intervention in Iraq due to the high level of risk to the international community's security and defended disarmament through diplomacy.

Opposition to invasion

Further information: criticism of the Iraq War, legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and legality of the Iraq War

On January 20, 2003, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin declared "we believe that military intervention would be the worst solution." Meanwhile anti-war groups across the world organised public protests. According to French academic Dominique Reynié between the 3rd of January and 12th of April 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against war in Iraq, the demonstrations on February 15 2003 being the largest and most prolific.

In February, 2003, the U.S. Army's top general, Eric Shinseki, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to secure Iraq. Two days later, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war and, "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces is far from the mark." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Shineski's estimate was "way off the mark," because other countries would take part in an occupying force.

In March 2003, Hans Blix reported that, "No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found," in Iraq, saying that progress was made in inspections which would continue. But the U.S. government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a coalition of allied countries, named the "coalition of the willing", to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. government abruptly advised U.N. weapons inspectors to immediately pull out of Baghdad.

There were also serious legal questions surrounding the launching of the war against Iraq and the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said of the invasion, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

2003: Invasion

Main articles: 2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 in Iraq, 2003 Iraq war timeline, and List of people associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq

See also: Coalition military operations of the Iraq War and Iraq War order of battle

At 5:34 AM Baghdad time on 20 March 2003 (9:34 PM, 19 March EST) the Iraq Invasion began. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by General Tommy Franks, began under the U.S. codename "Operation Iraqi Freedom", the UK codename Operation Telic, and the Australian codename Operation Falconer. Coalition forces also cooperated with Kurdish peshmerga forces in the north. Approximately forty other nations, the "coalition of the willing," participated by providing equipment, services, security, and special forces. The initial coalition military forces were roughly 300,000, of which 98% were U.S. and UK troops.

Map of major operations and battles of the Iraq War as of 2007

The invasion had eight military objectives. Each one followed from key points laid out in President Bush’s National Security Strategy. The objectives were to end Saddam Hussein’s regime, identify, isolate and eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, search, capture and drive out terrorists, obtain intelligence related to terrorist networks, accumulate intelligence related to the illicit network of weapons of mass destruction, end sanctions and distribute humanitarian aid to those in need, secure Iraq’s oil fields and other resources, and to assist the Iraqi people in transitioning to a representative government.

The invasion was a quick and decisive operation encountering little resistance. In the north, Operation Iraqi Freedom used the largest special operations force since Vietnam. The operation, codenamed "Ugly Baby", was also the largest ground fighting the Special Operations Forces have encountered since Vietnam. The Iraqi Army was quickly overwhelmed with only the elite Fedayeen Saddam putting up strong resistance before melting away into the civilian population.

On April 9 Baghdad fell, ending Saddam's 24-year rule. U.S. forces seized the deserted Baath Party ministries and helped tear down a huge iron statue of Saddam, photos and video of which became symbolic of the event. The abrupt fall of Baghdad was accompanied by massive civil disorder, including the looting of government buildings and drastically increased crime.The invasion phase concluded when Tikrit, Saddam's home town, fell with little resistance to the Marines of Task Force Tripoli and on April 15 the coalition declared the invasion effectively over.

In the invasion phase of the war (March 20-April 30), 9,200 Iraqi combatants were killed along with 7,299 civilians, primarily by U.S. air and ground forces. Coalition forces reported the death in combat of 139 U.S. military personnel and 33 UK military personnel.

Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraq Survey Group

See also: Iraqi Governing Council, International Advisory and Monitoring Board, CPA Program Review Board, Development Fund for Iraq, and Reconstruction of Iraq

Shortly after the invasion, the multinational coalition created the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) سلطة الائتلاف الموحدة, based in the Green Zone, as a transitional government of Iraq until the establishment of a democratic government. Citing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483 (22 May 2003) and the laws of war, the CPA vested itself with executive, legislative, and judicial authority over the Iraqi government from the period of the CPA's inception on April 21, 2003, until its dissolution on June 28, 2004.

The CPA was originally headed by Jay Garner, a former U.S. military officer, but his appointment lasted only until May 11, 2003. After Garner resigned, President Bush appointed L. Paul Bremer as the head the CPA and he served until the CPA's dissolution in July 2004. Another group created in the spring of 2003 was the Iraq Survey Group (ISG; its final report is commonly called the Duelfer Report.). This was a fact-finding mission sent by the multinational force in Iraq after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes developed by Iraq. It consisted of a 1,400-member international team organised by the Pentagon and CIA to hunt for suspected stockpiles of WMD, such as chemical and biological agents, and any supporting research programmes and infrastructure that could be used to develop WMD. In 2004 the ISG's Duelfer report stated that Iraq did not have a viable WMD program.

Post-invasion phase

Main article: Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–present

Further information: U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis and Terrorist attacks of the Iraq War

The USS Abraham Lincoln returning to port carrying its Mission Accomplished banner

On May 1, 2003, President Bush staged a dramatic visit to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln operating a few miles west of San Diego, California. The visit climaxed at sunset with Bush's now well-known "Mission Accomplished" speech. In this nationally-televised speech, delivered before the sailors and airmen on the flight deck, Bush effectively declared victory due to the defeat of Iraq's conventional forces. However, Saddam Hussein remained at large and significant pockets of resistance remained.

After President Bush's speech, coalition forces noticed a gradually increasing flurry of attacks on its troops in various regions, especially in the "Sunni Triangle". In the initial chaos after the fall of the Iraqi government, there was massive looting of infrastructure, including government buildings, official residences, museums, banks, and military depots. According to The Pentagon, 250,000 tons (of 650,000 tons total) of ordnance was looted, providing a significant source of ammunition for the Iraqi insurgency. The insurgents were further helped by hundreds of weapons caches created prior to the invasion by the conventional Iraqi army and Republican Guard.

May 18, 2004: Staff Sgt. Kevin Jessen checks the underside of two anti-tank mines found in a village outside Ad Dujayl, Iraq in the Sunni Triangle.

Initially, Iraqi resistance (known to the coalition as "Anti-Iraqi Forces") largely stemmed from fedayeen and Saddam/Baath Party loyalists, but soon religious radicals and Iraqis angered by the occupation contributed to the insurgency. The three provinces with the highest number of attacks were Baghdad, Al Anbar, and Salah Ad Din. Those three provinces account for 35% of the population, but are responsible for 73% of U.S. military deaths (as of December 5, 2006), and an even higher percentage of recent U.S. military deaths (about 80%). Insurgents use guerrilla tactics including; mortars, missiles, suicide attacks, snipers, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), car bombs, small arms fire (usually with assault rifles), and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), as well as sabotage against the oil, water, and electrical infrastructure.

Post-invasion Iraq coalition efforts commenced after the fall of the Hussein regime. The coalition nations, together with the United Nations, began to work to establish a stable democratic state capable of defending itself, holding itself together as well as overcoming insurgent attacks and internal divisions.

Meanwhile, coalition military forces launched several operations around the Tigris River peninsula and in the Sunni Triangle. A series of similar operations were launched throughout the summer in the Sunni Triangle. Toward the end of 2003, the intensity and pace of insurgent attacks began to increase. A sharp surge in guerrilla attacks ushered in an insurgent effort that was termed the "Ramadan Offensive", as it coincided with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. To counter this offensive, coalition forces begin to use air power and artillery again for the first time since the end of the invasion by striking suspected ambush sites and mortar launching positions. Surveillance of major routes, patrols, and raids on suspected insurgents were stepped up. In addition, two villages, including Saddam’s birthplace of al-Auja and the small town of Abu Hishma were wrapped in barbed wire and carefully monitored.

However, the failure to restore basic services to pre-war levels, where over a decade of sanctions, bombing, corruption, and decaying infrastructure had left major cities barely functioning, contributed to local anger at the IPA government headed by an executive council. On July 2, 2003, President Bush declared that American troops would remain in Iraq in spite of the attacks, challenging the insurgents with "My answer is, bring 'em on," a widely criticized line which Bush later expressed misgivings about. In the summer of 2003, the multinational forces also focused on hunting down the remaining leaders of the former regime. On July 22, a raid by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and soldiers from Task Force 20 killed Saddam Hussein's sons (Uday and Qusay) along with one of his grandsons. In all, over 300 top leaders of the former regime were killed or captured, as well as numerous lesser functionaries and military personnel.

Saddam Hussein shortly after capture

Saddam Hussein captured

See also: Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal and Trial of Saddam Hussein

In the wave of intelligence information fueling the raids on remaining Baath Party members connected to insurgency, Saddam Hussein himself was captured on December 13, 2003 on a farm near Tikrit in Operation Red Dawn. The operation was conducted by the United States Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121.

Saddam was captured in a hole below a two-room mud shack. When he was captured only a Styrofoam square and a rug were between Saddam and U.S. forces. Major General Raymond Odierno commented, “he was caught like a rat.” Intelligence on Saddam’s whereabouts came from information obtained from his family members and former bodyguards.

With the capture of Saddam and a drop in the number of insurgent attacks, some concluded the multinational forces were prevailing in the fight against the insurgency. The provisional government began training the New Iraqi Security forces intended to defend the country, and the United States promised over $20 billion in reconstruction money in the form of credit against Iraq's future oil revenues. Oil revenue was also used for rebuilding schools and for work on the electrical and refining infrastructure.

Shortly after the capture of Saddam, elements left out of the Coalition Provisional Authority began to agitate for elections and the formation of an Iraqi Interim Government. Most prominent among these was the Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The Coalition Provisional Authority opposed allowing democratic elections at this time, preferring instead to eventually hand-over power to the Interim Iraqi Government. Due to the internal fight for power in the new Iraqi government more insurgents stepped up their activities. The two most turbulent centers were the area around Fallujah and the poor Shia sections of cities from Baghdad (Sadr City) to Basra in the south.

2004: The insurgency expands

Main article: 2004 in Iraq

See also: Military operations of the Iraq War for a list of all Coalition operations for this period, 2004 in Iraq, Iraqi coalition counter-insurgency operations, History of Iraqi insurgency, United States occupation of Fallujah, Iraq Spring Fighting of 2004

The start of 2004 was marked by a relative lull in violence. Insurgent forces reorganised during this time, studying the multinational forces' tactics and planning a renewed offensive. However, violence did increase during the Iraq Spring Fighting of 2004 with foreign fighters from around the Middle East as well as al-Qaeda in Iraq (an affiliated al-Qaeda group), led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi helping to drive the insurgency.

As the insurgency grew there was a distinct change in targeting from the coalition forces towards the new Iraqi Security Forces, as hundreds of Iraqi civilians and police were killed over the next few months in a series of massive bombings. An organized Sunni insurgency, with deep roots and both nationalist and Islamist motivations, was becoming more powerful throughout Iraq. The Shia Mahdi Army also began launching attacks on coalition targets in an attempt to seize control from Iraqi security forces. The southern and central portions of Iraq were beginning to erupt in urban guerrilla combat as multinational forces attempted to keep control and prepared for a counteroffensive.

Coalition Provisional Authority director L. Paul Bremer signs over sovereignty to the appointed Iraqi Interim Government, June 28 2004.

The most serious fighting of the war so far began on March 31, 2004, when Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah ambushed a Blackwater USA convoy led by four American private military contractors who were providing security for food caterers Eurest Support Services. The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Michael Teague, were killed with grenades and small arms fire. Subsequently, their bodies were dragged from their vehicles, beaten, set ablaze, and their burned corpses hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates. Photos of the event were released to news agencies worldwide, causing a great deal of indignation and moral outrage in the United States, and prompting an unsuccessful "pacification" of the city: the First Battle of Fallujah in April 2004.

The offensive was resumed in November, 2004 in the bloodiest battle of the war so far: the Second Battle of Fallujah, described by the U.S. military as "the heaviest urban combat (that they had been involved in) since the battle of Hue City in Vietnam." Intelligence briefings given prior to battle reported that Coalition forces would encounter Chechnyan, Filipino, Saudi, Iranian, Italian, and Syrian combatants, as well as native Iraqis. During the assault, U.S. forces used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against insurgent personnel, attracting controversy. The 46-day battle resulted in a victory for the coalition, with 95 Americans killed along with approximately 1,350 insurgents. Fallujah was totally devastated during the fighting, though civilian casualties were low, as they had mostly been evacuated before the fight.

Another major event of this year was the revelation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib which received international media attention in April 2004. First reports of the abuse, as well as graphic pictures showing American military personnel taunting and abusing Iraqi prisoners, came to public attention from a 60 Minutes II news report (April 28) and a Seymour M. Hersh article in the The New Yorker (posted online on April 30). Thomas Ricks, an author who has studied the war, claimed that these revelations dealt a blow to the moral justifications for the occupation in the eyes of some Iraqis and was a turning point in the war.

2005: Elections and transitional government

Main article: 2005 in Iraq

On January 31, Iraqis elected the Iraqi Transitional Government in order to draft a permanent constitution. Although some violence and widespread Sunni boycott marred the event, most of the eligible Kurd and Shia populace participated. On February 4, Paul Wolfowitz announced that 15,000 U.S. troops whose tours of duty had been extended in order to provide election security would be pulled out of Iraq by the next month. February to April proved to be relatively peaceful months compared to the carnage of November and January, with insurgent attacks averaging 30 a day from the prior average of 70.

Hopes for a quick end to an insurgency and a withdrawal of U.S. troops were dashed in May, Iraq's bloodiest month since the invasion. Suicide bombers, believed to be mainly disheartened Iraqi Sunni Arabs, Syrians and Saudis, tore through Iraq. Their targets were often Shia gatherings or civilian concentrations mainly of Shias. As a result, over 700 Iraqi civilians died in that month, as well as 79 U.S. soldiers.

The summer of 2005 saw fighting around Baghdad and at Tall Afar in northwestern Iraq as US forces tried to seal off the Syrian border. This led to fighting in the autumn in the small towns of the Euphrates valley between the capital and the that border.

A referendum was held in October 15 in which the new Iraqi constitution was ratified. An Iraqi national assembly was elected in December, with participation from the Sunnis as well as the Kurds and Shia.

Insurgent attacks increased in 2005 with 34,131 recorded incidents, compared to a total 26,496 for the previous year .

2006: Civil war and permanent Iraqi government

Main articles: 2006 in Iraq and Civil war in Iraq

Nouri al-Maliki meets with George W. Bush, June 2006

The beginning of 2006 was marked by government creation talks, growing sectarian violence, and continuous anti-coalition attacks. Sectarian violence expanded to a new level of intensity following the al-Askari Mosque bombing in the Iraqi city of Samarra, on February 22, 2006. The explosion at the mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shi'a Islam, is believed to have been caused by a bomb planted by Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Although no injuries occurred in the blast, the mosque was severely damaged and the bombing resulted in violence over the following days. Over 100 dead bodies with bullet holes were found on February 23, and at least 165 people are thought to have been killed. In the aftermath of this attack the US military calculated that the average homicide rate in Baghdad tripled from 11 to 33 deaths per day. The United Nations has since described the environment in Iraq as a "civil war-like situation." A 2006 study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has estimated that more than 601,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the U.S. invasion and that fewer than one third of these deaths came at the hands of Coalition forces. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Iraqi government estimate that more than 365,000 Iraqis have been displaced since the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million.

The current government of Iraq took office on May 20, 2006 following approval by the members of the Iraqi National Assembly. This followed the general election in December 2005. The government succeeded the Iraqi Transitional Government which had continued in office in a caretaker capacity until the formation of the permanent government.

Increased sectarian violence

In September 2006, The Washington Post reported that the commander of the Marine forces in Iraq filed "an unusual secret report" concluding that the prospects for securing the Anbar province are dim, and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there.

As of October 20 the U.S military announced that Operation Together Forward had failed to stem the tide of violence in Baghdad, and Shiite militants under al-Sadr seized several southern Iraq cities.

On November 23, the deadliest attack since the beginning of the Iraq war occurred. Suspected Sunni-Arab militants used suicide car bombs and mortar rounds on the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 215 people and wound 257. This attack was retaliated by Shia militias who fired mortar rounds at various Sunni neighborhoods and organizations.

Iraq Study Group report and Saddam’s execution

Main articles: Iraq Study Group and Execution of Saddam Hussein

The Iraq Study Group Report was released on December 6, 2006. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group was led by former secretary of state James Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, and concludes that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and "U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end." The report's 79 recommendations include increasing diplomatic measures with Iran and Syria and intensifying efforts to train Iraqi troops. On December 18, a Pentagon report found that attacks on Americans and Iraqis were averaging about 960 a week, the highest since the reports had begun in 2005.

Coalition forces formally transferred control of a province to the Iraqi government, the first since the war. Military prosecutors charged 8 Marines with the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November 2005, 10 of them women and children. Four officers were also charged with dereliction of duty in relation to the event.

Saddam Hussein was hanged on December 30, 2006 after being found guilty of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court, after a year-long trial.

2007: U.S. troop surge

Further information: 2007 in Iraq, Iraq War troop surge of 2007, and Strategic reset

In a January 10, 2007 televised address to the American public, Bush proposed 21,500 more troops for Iraq, a job programme for Iraqis, more reconstruction proposals, and $1.2 billion for these programmes. Asked why he thought his plan would work this time, Bush said: "Because it has to." On January 23, 2007 in the 2007 State of the Union Address, Bush announced "deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq." On February 10, 2007 David Petraeus was made commander of Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I), the four-star post that oversees all U.S. forces in the country, replacing General George Casey. In his new position, Petraeus has overseen all coalition forces in Iraq and employed them in the new "Surge" strategy outlined by the Bush administration. . 2007 also saw a sharp increase in insurgent chlorine bombings.

However, maintaining higher troop levels in the face of higher casualties required two changes in the army. Tours of duty were increased and the exclusions of volunteers with a history of criminal acts were relaxed. A defense department sponsored report described increased length of tours leading to higher stress which increase manifestations of anger and disrespect for civilians. Statistics released in April indicated that more and more soldiers have been deserting their duty, a sharp rise from the years before.

British Land Rover Wolfs on patrol around Basra

Pressures on U.S. troops were compounded by the continuing withdrawal of British forces from the Basra Governorate. In early 2007, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that following Operation Sinbad UK troops would begin to withdraw from Basra, handing security over to the Iraqis. This announcement was confirmed in the Autumn by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Blair's successor, who again outlined a withdrawal plan for the remaining UK forces with a complete withdrawal date sometime in late 2008. In July Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen also announced the withdrawal of 441 Danish troops from Iraq, leaving only a unit of nine soldiers manning four observational helicopters.

Planned troop reduction

In a speech made to Congress on September 10, 2007, General David Petraeus "envisioned the withdrawal of roughly 30,000 U.S. troops by next summer, beginning with a Marine contingent [in September]." On September 14, President Bush backed a limited withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Bush said 5,700 personnel would be home by Christmas 2007, and expected thousands more to return by July 2008. The plan would take troop numbers back to their level before the surge at the beginning of 2007. Some controversy has arisen due to the fact that former secretary of state Colin Powell announced before the surge took place that there would have to be a draw down of troops by mid-2007.

Effects of the surge on security

U.S. soldiers take cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Al Doura section of Baghdad March 7 2007

By mid-March 2007, violence in Baghdad was reported by US sources close to the military as having been curtailed by 80%; however, independent reports have raised questions about such assessments. An Iraqi military spokesman claims that civilian deaths since the start of the troop surge plan were 265 in Baghdad, down from 1,440 in the four previous weeks. The New York Times has found more than 450 Iraqi civilians were killed during the same 28-day period, based on initial daily reports from Interior Ministry and hospital officials. Historically, the daily counts tallied by the NYT have underestimated the total death toll by 50% or more when compared to studies by the United Nations, which rely upon figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry and morgue figures.

Also, the rate of American combat deaths in Baghdad over the first seven weeks of the "surge" security escalation has nearly doubled from the previous period to a rate of 3.14/day.

An Iraqi woman looks on as U.S. soldiers search her house in Ameriyah, Iraq. House searches by U.S. soldiers are a common occurrence in the Iraq war.

On August 14 2007 the deadliest single attack of the whole war occurred. Nearly 800 civilians were killed by a series of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Qahtaniya. More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. US officials blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq. The targeted villagers belong to the non-Muslim Yazidi ethnic minority. The attack may represent the latest spasm in a blood feud that erupted earlier this year when members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl called Du’a Khalil Aswad accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on camera-mobiles and the video was uploaded onto the internet

On September 13, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed in a bomb attack in the city of Ramadi. He was an important US ally because he led the "Anbar Awakening", an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rose up against al-Qaeda in Iraq. The latter organisation claimed responsibility for the attack. A statement posted on the Internet by the shadowy Islamic State of Iraq called Abu Risha "one of the dogs of Bush" and described Thursday's killing as a "heroic operation that took over a month to prepare".

Graph of US Fatalities in Iraq by month. The reported decline in violence has been highlighted in red.

There has been a reported trend of decreasing US troop deaths since May of 2007, and violence against coalition troops has fallen to the "lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion". These, and several other positive developments, have been attributed to the surge by many analysts. Data from The Pentagon and other US agencies such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that daily attacks against civilians in Iraq have remained “about the same” since February. The GAO also stated that there was no discernible trend in sectarian violence. However, this report runs counter to the most recent report to Congress, which shows a general downward trend in civilian deaths and ethno-sectarian violence since December 2006. By late 2007, as the U.S. troop surge began to wind down, violence in Iraq had begun to decrease from its 2006 highs. However, political progress remained slow as the Shia-Kurd coalition government continued to stall on any significant progress on the host of issues facing Iraq.

In the Shia region near Basra, British forces turned over security for the region to Iraqi Security Forces. Basra is the ninth province of Iraq's 18 provinces to be returned to local security forces' control since the beginning of the war.

Political developments

File:Congbench.PNG

Official Iraq-benchmark of the Congress 2007

More than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country for the first time. 144 of the 275 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition that would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from parliament before it requests an extension of the U.N. mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq expiring at the end of 2007. It also calls for a timetable for the troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of the foreign forces. The U.N. Security Council mandate for U.S.-led forces in Iraq will terminate "if requested by the government of Iraq." Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution called for by a majority of lawmakers. 59% of those polled in the U.S. support a timetable for withdrawal.

In mid-2007, the Coalition began a controversial program to recruit Iraqi Sunnis for the formation of "Guardian" militias. These Guardian militias are intended to support and secure various Sunni neighborhoods unable to provide internal security themselves.

Tensions with Iran

Further information: United States-Iran relations and Karbala provincial headquarters raid

During 2007, tensions increased greatly between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan due to its sanctuary given to the militant anti-Iranian group Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan(PEJAK). According to reports, Iran has been shelling PEJAK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan since August 16th. These tensions further increased with an alleged border incursion on August 23rd by Iranian troops who attacked several Kurdish villages killing an unknown number of civilians and militants.

Coalition forces also began to target alleged Iranian Quds force operatives in Iraq, either arresting or killing suspected members. The Bush administration and coalition leaders began to publicly state that Iran was supplying weapons, particularly EFP devices, to Iraqi insurgents and militias although to date have failed to provide any proof for these allegations. Further sanctions on Iranian organizations were also announced by the Bush administration in the Autumn of 2007. On November 21 2007 Lieutenant General James Dubik, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces, praised Iran for its "contribution to the reduction of violence" in Iraq by upholding its pledge to stop the flow of weapons, explosives and training of extremists in Iraq.

In April, 2008, the United States accused Iranian backed insurgency of launching attacks on Iraqi civilians and US-led multinational forces and claimed that approximately 90 percent of foreign terrorists enter Iraq through Syria.

"Iran and Syria must stop the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq, and their malign interference in Iraq," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Monday in a report to the U.N. Security Council on behalf of the multinational force in Iraq. The Iranian and Syrian governments, however, have repeatedly denied trying to destabilize Iraq and insist there is no proof.

On May 2, 2008, An Iraqi delegation in Iran confronted the Iranian security officials with evidence that Tehran was providing support for Shi'ite militias battling Iraqi government forces. According to Haidar al-Ibadi, a member of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawah party, list of names, training camps and cells linked to Iran were presented to the Iranian officials. The Iranian officials denied the accusations and the Iraqi government has since announced that there is no hard evidence against Iran.

Tensions with Turkey

Further information: 2008 Turkish incursion into northern Iraq

File:December 2007 bombing of northern Iraq.jpg

Turkish aircraft on an attack mission during the 2008 Turkish incursion into northern Iraq

Border incursions by PKK militants based in Iraqi Kurdistan have continued to harass Turkish forces, with casualties on both sides increasing tensions between Turkey, a NATO ally, and Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the fall of 2007, the Turkish military stated their right to cross the Iraqi Kurdistan border in "hot pursuit" of PKK militants and began shelling Kurdish villages in Iraq and attacking PKK bases in the Mount Cudi region with aircraft. The Turkish parliament approved a resolution permitting the military to pursue the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan. In November, Turkish gunships attacked parts of northern Iraq in the first such attack by Turkish aircraft since the border tensions escalated. Another series of attacks in mid-December hit PKK targets in the Qandil, Zap, Avashin and Hakurk regions. The latest series of attacks involved at least 50 aircraft and artillery and Kurdish officials reported one civilian killed and two wounded.

Additionally, weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military are being recovered by authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country.

Private security firm controversy

Main article: Blackwater Baghdad shootings

On September 17, 2007, the Iraqi government announced that it was revoking the license of the American security firm Blackwater USA over the firm's involvement in the deaths of eight civilians, including a woman and an infant, in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade. Additional investigations of alleged arms smuggling involving the firm was also under way. Blackwater is currently one of the most high-profile firms operating in Iraq, with around 1,000 employees as well as a fleet of helicopters in the country. Whether the group may be legally prosecuted is still a matter of debate..

2008: Confronting the Shia militias

Further information: 2008 in Iraq

In early January, the Maliki government began consideration of a new law to politically rehabilitate former Baath Party members.

On January 8 Operation Phantom Phoenix began in an attempt to hunt down the remaining 200 al-Qaeda extremists in the province of Diyala following the end of the previous offensive. The operation also included targeting insurgent elements in Salah ad-Din province.

3D Map of Southern Turkey and Northern Iraq

The ongoing conflict between Turkey and PKK intensified on February 21, when Turkey launched a ground attack into the Quandeel Mountains of Northern Iraq. In the nine day long operation, around 10,000 Turkish troops advanced up to 25 km into Northern Iraq. This was the first substantial ground incursion by Turkish forces since 1995. Shortly after the incursion began, both the Iraqi cabinet and the Kurdistan regional government condemned Turkey's actions and called for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from the region. Turkish troops withdrew on February 29.

The fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war on 20 March was marked by a speech by George Bush declaring that the surge strategy had been a success and that America was headed for victory. Critics of the war were less optimistic.

Meanwhile the war went on, with American forces targeting al-Qaeda strongholds in Mosul.In late March, the Green Zone in Baghdad came under repeated rocket attack, killing two U.S. government officials and injuring several others. According to General David Petraeus, the attack was the responsibility of Iranian trained insurgents.On a day of increased violence and suicide bombings across Iraq, the death of four soldiers brought the total death toll of American forces, since the beginning of the war, to 4000.

Spring offensives on Shia militias

Further information: Iraq Spring Fighting of 2008 and Battle of Basra (2008)

At the end of March, the Iraqi Army, with Coalition air support, launched an offensive, dubbed "The Knights Assault", in Basra to secure the area from militias. This was the first major operation where the Iraqi Army did not have direct combat support from conventional coalition ground troops. The offensive was opposed by the Mahdi Army, one of the militias, which controlled much of the region. Fighting quickly spread to other parts of Iraq: including Sadr City, Al Kut, Al Hillah and others. During the fighting Iraqi forces met stiff resistance from militiamen in Basra to the point that the Iraqi military offensive ground to a halt.

Following talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the intercession of the Iranian government, on March 31, 2008, al-Sadr ordered his followers to lay down their weapons. The militiamen did keep their weapons and blended back into the population.

By May 12, 2008, Basra "residents overwhelmingly reported a substantial improvement in their everyday lives" according to The New York Times. "Government forces have now taken over Islamic militants’ headquarters and halted the death squads and 'vice 'enforcers’ ' who attacked women, Christians, musicians, alcohol sellers and anyone suspected of collaborating with Westerners", according to the report. However, when asked how long it would take for lawlessness to resume if the Iraqi army left, one resident replied, "one day".

In late April roadside bombings continued to rise from a low in January of 114 to over 250, surpassing the May 2007 high.

In early May, the Iraqi government called on the residents of Sadr City to flee after more than 40 days of fighting, which has left between 500-1,000 people dead. Due to the nearly constant violence, there are ongoing shortages of food, water, and other supplies.

Congressional testimony

Speaking before the U.S. Congress on April 8, 2008, General David Petraeus urged delaying troop withdrawals, saying, "I’ve repeatedly noted that we haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel," referencing the comments of President Bush and former Vietnam-era General William Westmoreland. When asked by Senator Evan Bayh if reasonable people could disagree on the way forward, Petraeus responded, "I don’t know if I would go that far." When asked twice again about that point, Petraeus said, "We fight for the right of people to have other opinions."

General David Petraeus in testimony before Congress

When asked by Republican Senator John Warner whether the Iraq War is making the U.S. safer, Petraeus stated that it would ultimately be up to history. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel asked about Ambassador Ryan Crocker's "diplomatic surge," and its apparent lack of results in the region.

Upon questioning by Senate committee chair Joe Biden, Ambassador Crocker admitted that Al-Qaeda in Iraq was less important than the separate Al-Qaeda organization led by Osama bin Laden along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Lawmakers from both parties complained that U.S. taxpayers are carrying Iraq's burden as it earns billions of dollars in oil revenues. Democrats plan to push legislation this spring that would force the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus to rebuild.

Iraq asks the U.S. to leave as the situation allows

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told President Bush on April 9, 2008 that Iraqi security forces are capable of their duties and U.S. troops should be pulled out as the situation allows. In May 2007, Bush said, "We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave."

Bush said on April 11, 2008, that he is not ready to order further troop withdrawals from Iraq. The last of the surge troops are expected to return home in July. Any further withdrawals will be suspended for at least 45 days while General David Petraeus decides if they are possible.

Coalition troop deployment

Main article: Multinational Force in Iraq

See also: Dancon/Irak, Deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq, Polish involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Operation Telic order of battle, and Plus Ultra Brigade

Distinctive unit insignia of the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I)

The Multinational Force in Iraq is a military command led by the United States fighting the Iraq War against Iraqi insurgents. "Multi-National Force - Iraq" replaced the previous force, Combined Joint Task Force 7, on May 15, 2004. The media in the U.S. has been known to use the term U.S.-led coalition to describe this force, as around 93% of the troops are from the United States.

United Nations

The United Nations has also deployed a small contingent to Iraq to protect UN staff and guard their compounds.

United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI)

• Georgia: 550 blue-helmets
• Fiji: 168 blue-helmets
• Romania: 130 blue-helmets
• Denmark: 35 blue-helmets
• Canada: 0 blue-helmets

Armed Iraqi groups

Further information: History of Iraqi insurgency, Sectarian violence in Iraq, and Iraqi coalition counter-insurgency operations

The Iraqi insurgency is the armed resistance, by diverse groups, including private militias, within Iraq opposed to the US occupation and the U.S.-supported Iraqi government. The fighting has clear sectarian overtones and significant international implications (see Civil war in Iraq). This campaign has been called the Iraqi resistance by its supporters and the anti-Iraqi forces(AIF) by Coalition forces.

Insurgents

Most of the insurgent attacks are against Coalition forces.

Main article: Iraqi insurgency

By fall 2003 these insurgent groups began using typical guerrilla tactics: ambushes, bombings, kidnappings, and the use of IEDs. Other actions include mortars and suicide attacks, explosively formed penetrators, small arms fire, anti-aircraft missiles (SA-7, SA-14, SA-16) and RPGs. The insurgents also conduct sabotage against the oil, water, and electrical infrastructure of Iraq. Multi-national Force-Iraq statistics (see detailed BBC graphic) show that the insurgents primarily targeted coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and infrastructure, and lastly civilians and government officials. These irregular forces favored attacking unarmored or lightly armored Humvee vehicles, the U.S. military's primary transport vehicle, primarily through the use of roadside IED. In November 2003, some of these forces successfully attacked U.S. helicopters with SA-7 missiles bought on the global black market. Insurgent groups such as the al-Abud Network have also attempted to constitute their own chemical weapons programs, trying to weaponise traditional mortar rounds with ricin and mustard toxin.

There is evidence that some guerrilla groups are organised, perhaps by the fedayeen and other Saddam Hussein or Baath loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis angered by the occupation, and foreign fighters. On February 23, 2005

Militias

Two of the most powerful current militias are the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, with both militias having substantial political support in the current Iraqi government. Initially, both organisations were involved in the Iraqi insurgency, most clearly seen with the Mahdi Army at the Battle of Najaf. However in recent months, there has been a split between the two groups.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the United Iraqi Alliance

This violent break between Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the rival Badr Organization of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, was seen in the fighting in the town of Amarah on October 20, 2006, would severely complicate the efforts of Iraqi and American officials to quell the soaring violence.

More recently in late 2005 and 2006, due to increasing sectarian violence based on either tribal/ethnic distinctions or simply due to increased criminal violence, various militias have formed, with whole neighborhoods and cities sometimes being protected or attacked by ethnic or neighborhood militias. One such group, known as the Anbar Awakening, was formed in September 2006 to fight against Al Qaeda and other radical islamist groups in particularly violent Anbar province. Led by Sheik and Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, who heads the Sunni Anbar Salvation Council, the Anbar Awakening has more than 60,000 troops and is seen by key U.S. officials such as Condoleezza Rice as a potential ally to U.S. occupation forces.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a term to describe a group which is playing an active role in the Iraqi insurgency. The group was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death in 2006; it is now believed to be led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (aka Abu Ayyub al-Masri).

Casualty estimates

Main article: Casualties of the Iraq War

See also: Suicide bombings in Iraq since 2003, Foreign hostages in Iraq, List of Coalition forces killed in Iraq in 2006, and List of insurgents killed in Iraq

For coalition death totals see the infobox at the top right. See also Casualties of the Iraq War, which has casualty numbers for coalition nations, contractors, non-Iraqi civilians, journalists, media helpers, aid workers, wounded, etc.. The main article also gives explanations for the wide variation in estimates and counts, and shows many ways in which undercounting occurs. Casualty figures, especially Iraqi ones, are highly disputed. This section gives a brief overview.

U.S. General Tommy Franks reportedly estimated soon after the invasion that there had been 30,000 Iraqi casualties as of April 9, 2003. After this initial estimate he made no further public estimates.

In December 2005 President Bush said there were 30,000 Iraqi dead. White House spokesman Scott McClellan later said it was "not an official government estimate", and was based on media reports.

There have been several attempts by the media, coalition governments and others to estimate the Iraqi casualties:

• Iraqi Health Ministry casualty survey. In January 2008 the Iraqi health minister, Dr Salih Mahdi Motlab Al-Hasanawi, reported the results of the "Iraq Family Health Survey" of 9,345 households across Iraq which was carried out in 2006 and 2007. It estimated 151,000 violence-related Iraqi deaths (95% uncertainty range, 104,000 to 223,000) from March 2003 through June 2006. Employees of the Iraqi Health Ministry carried out the survey for the World Health Organization. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said in November 2006 that since the March 2003 invasion between 100,000-150,000 Iraqis have been killed. Al-Shemari said on Thursday, Nov. 9, that he based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals.
• The United Nations found that 34,452 violent civilian deaths were reported by morgues, hospitals, and municipal authorities across Iraq in 2006.
• The Iraqi ministries of Health, Defence and Interior said that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police, and 627 soldiers were killed in 2006. The Iraqi government does not count deaths classed as "criminal", nor those from kidnappings, nor wounded persons who die later as the result of attacks. However "a figure of 3,700 civilian deaths in October 2006, the latest tally given by the UN based on data from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, was branded exaggerated by the Iraqi Government."
• The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) has documented 73,264 - 79,869 violent, non-combatant civilian deaths since the beginning of the war as of September 20, 2007. However, the IBC has been criticized for counting only a small percentage of the number of actual deaths because they only include deaths reported by specific media agencies. IBC Director John Sloboda admits, "We've always said our work is an undercount, you can't possibly expect that a media-based analysis will get all the deaths."
• The 2006 Lancet survey of casualties of the Iraq War estimated 654,965 Iraqi deaths (range of 392,979-942,636) from March 2003 to the end of June 2006. That total number of deaths (all Iraqis) includes all excess deaths due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc, and includes civilians, military deaths and insurgent deaths. 601,027 were violent deaths (31% attributed to Coalition, 24% to others, 46% unknown). A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion of the reported deaths (92 per cent of surveyed households produced one). The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56%), car bomb (13%), other explosion/ordnance (14%), air strike (13%), accident (2%), unknown (2%). The survey results have been criticized as "ridiculous" and "extreme and improbable" by various critics such as the Iraqi government and Iraq Body Count project.. However, in a letter to The Age, published Oct. 21, 2006, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously."
• An Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths due to the Iraq War (range of 733,158 to 1,446,063). Out of a national sample of 1,499 Iraqi adults, 22% had one or more members of their household killed due to the Iraq War (poll accuracy +/-2.4%). ORB reported that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from car bombs, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. It is the highest estimate given so far of civilian deaths in Iraq and is consistent with the Lancet study. On 28 January 2008, ORB published an update based on additional work carried out in rural areas of Iraq. Some 600 additional interviews were undertaken and as a result of this the death estimate was revised to 1,033,000 with a given range of 946,000 to 1,120,000.

Criticisms and costs

Main article: Criticism of the Iraq War

A local memorial in North Carolina in December 2007; US casualty count can be seen in the background.

The U.S. rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States, with many American citizens finding many parallels with the Vietnam War. According to the Center for Public Integrity, President Bush's administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States. Both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticised the prosecution of the war effort along a number of other lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the U.S. and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating widespread human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs.

The financial cost of the war has been more than £4.5 billion ($9 billion) to the UK, and over $845 billion to the U.S., with the total cost to the U.S. economy estimated at $3 trillion.

The military armored vehicle manufacturing and tank manufacturing industry is expected to come down from the intense investment in the early years of the Iraqi occupation amidst growing public pressure to commence withdrawal of troops. In 2008, revenue in the sector is expected to decline by 22.9 percent.

Criticisms include:

• Legality of the invasion
• Inadequate troop levels (a RAND study stated that 500,000 troops would be required for success)
• Insufficient post-invasion plans
• Human casualties
• Financial costs with approximately $474 billion spent as of 12/07 the CBO has estimated the total cost of the war in Iraq to U.S. taxpayers will be around $1.9 trillion.
• Adverse effect on global war on terror
• Negative impact on Israel
• Endangerment of religious minorities
• Damage to America's traditional alliances and influence
• Disruption of Iraqi oil production and related energy security concerns (the price of oil has quadrupled since 2002)

Further information: Opposition to the Iraq War, Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Protests against the Iraq War, American popular opinion on invasion of Iraq, Governments' positions pre-2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage, and Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq

Humanitarian crises

Iraqi public opinion

The U.S. has long maintained its involvement there is with the support of the Iraqi people, but in 2005 when asked directly, 82–87% of the Iraqi populace was opposed to U.S. occupation and wanted U.S. troops to leave. 47% of Iraqis supported attacking U.S. troops.

A March 2007 survey of more than 2,000 Iraqis commissioned by the BBC and three other news organizations found that 51% of the population consider attacks on coalition forces "acceptable," up from 17% in 2004 and 35% in 2006. Also:

• 64% described their family's economic situation as being somewhat or very bad, up from 30% in 2005.
• 88% described the availability of electricity as being either somewhat or very bad, up from 65% in 2004.
• 69% described the availability of clean water as somewhat or very bad, up from 48% in 2004.
• 88% described the availability of fuel for cooking and driving as being somewhat or very bad.
• 58% described reconstruction efforts in the area in which they live as either somewhat or very ineffective, and 9% described them as being totally nonexistent.

A US Navy (USN) Hospital Corpsman and Iraqi doctor, provide medical aid to an Iraqi civilian, injured during fighting between Insurgents and Coalition forces near Umm Qasr, Iraq, in March 2003.

In a report entitled "Civilians without Protection: The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq", produced well after the stepped-up American-led military operations in Baghdad began February 14, 2007, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement said that millions of Iraqis are in a disastrous situation that is getting worse, with medical professionals fleeing the country after their colleagues were killed or abducted. Mothers are appealing for someone to pick up the bodies on the street so their children will be spared the horror of looking at them on their way to school. Red Cross Director of Operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl said that hospitals and other key services are desperately short of staff, with more than half the doctors said to have already left the country.

A soldier carries a wounded Iraqi child into the Charlie Medical Centre at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, March 20, 2007

According to an anonymous Iraqi government official, 1,944 civilians and at least 174 soldiers and policemen were killed in May, 2007, a 29% increase in civilian deaths over April. The Iraqi government's estimate of the number of civilian deaths has always been much lower than reports from independent researchers, such as the Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties. Mortar attacks in the capital are becoming deadlier.

Between June 18 and July 18, 2007, up to 592 unidentified bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. Most of the approximately 20 per day found by the police have been bound, blindfolded and shot execution style. The police attribute these deaths to Sunni and Shi’ite death squads. According to Baghdad medical sources, many have also shown signs of torture and mutilation. Despite official Iraqi and U.S. statements to the contrary, the reports indicated that the number of unidentified bodies in the capital rose to pre-surge levels in July. Media reports have indicated that the U.S. military has usually focused on areas where they have been attacked rather than districts witnessing such sectarian reprisal killings.

Iraqi health care deterioration

See also: Health in Iraq

Iraq's health has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, said Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist. "They were at the forefront", he said, referring to health care just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "Now they're looking more and more like a country in sub-Saharan Africa." Malnutrition rates have risen from 19% before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28% four years later. Some 60-70% of Iraqi children are suffering from psychological problems. 68% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water. A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq is thought to be the result of poor water quality. As many as half of Iraqi doctors have left the country since 2003.

In December 2007 the Iraqi government announced plans to cut food rations and subsidies by almost 50 per cent as part of its overall 2008 budget because of insufficient funds and rising inflation. Apart from the cut in subsidies, Baghdad also wants to reduce the number of people dependent on the rationing system by five million. Rationing was first introduced in 1991 after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq but the country has seen an alarming rise in poverty since the 2003 invasion. Nearly 10 million Iraqi's living in poverty now depend heavily on the rationing system.

Orphans

On December 15 2007 a conference dedicated to orphans in Iraq was held in Baghdad. Iraq's anti-corruption board reported that official government statistics revealed that five million (or 35%) of Iraqi children are orphans. Wijdan Salem Mikhail, the Iraqi minister of human rights, stated the phenomenon "is one of the most passive things that grew immensely during the past few years due to destructive wars and unbridled violence in the country." The Iraqi parliament's women and family committee have proposed a draft law to set up a fund for the orphans. Abeer Chalabi head of the state orphanages section of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimates more than 4 million orphans and says the number may be exaggerated "but to have so many is a catastrophe." Iraqi orphanages have the capacity to look after no more than 26,000 children but the government says it has only 700 children in its institutions. This is due mainly to the Iraqi tradition that obligates relatives to take in orphaned or abandoned children but many of these families cannot afford to care for them and send them out during the day to beg or gather scrap metal.

Iraqi refugees

Main article: Refugees of Iraq

File:Chaldeansinjordan.jpg

Iraqis fleeing to neighboring countries.

There are more than 3.9 million refugees of Iraq, almost 16% of the population. Two million fled Iraq while approximately 1.9 million are internally displaced people. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated on June 21, 2007 that 2.2 million Iraqis had fled to neighboring countries and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.

Roughly 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the U.N. said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been murdered and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan live in impoverished communities with little international attention to their plight and little legal protection. Many of the Iraqi women fleeing the war in Iraq are turning to prostitution.

Although Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the refugees now living in nearby countries, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR estimates that Christians comprise 24% of Iraqis currently seeking asylum in Syria. The census in 1987 counted 1.4 million Christians, however since the 2003 invasion radicalized Iraqi culture, the total number of Christians dropped to about 500,000, half of which live in Baghdad. Between October 2003 and March 2005 alone, 36% of 700,000 Iraqis who fled to Syria were Assyrians and other Christians, judging from a sample of those registering for asylum on political or religious grounds. Furthermore, the small Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to ethnic cleansing by Islamic militants.

Human rights abuses

Main articles: Human rights in occupied Iraq and Suicide bombings in Iraq since 2003

Throughout the entire Iraq war there have been human rights abuses on all sides of the conflict.

Iraqi government

• The use of torture by Iraqi security forces.

• Shiite-run death squads run out of the Interior Ministry that are accused of committing numerous massacres of Sunni Arabs and the police collusion with militias in Iraq have compounded the problems.

Coalition forces and private contractors

U.S. Army Private Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner collapsed on the floor in the Abu Ghraib prison. England was convicted by a US Army court martial for abusing prison detainees.

• Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

• Haditha killings of 24 civilians

• White phosphorus use in Iraq

• Gang-rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the murder of her family, in Mahmoudiyah

• The torture and killing of prisoner of war, Iraqi General. Abed Hamed Mowhoush

• Bombing and shooting of 42 civilians in Mukaradeeb (under investigation)

• Controversy over whether disproportionate force was used, during the assaults by Coalition and (mostly Shia and Kurdish) Iraqi government forces on the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah in 2004. Fatalities (both combatant and civilian) were estimated in the hundreds, and much of the city destroyed.

• Planting weapons on noncombatant, unarmed Iraqis by three US Marines after killing them. According to a report by The Nation, other similar acts have been witnessed by US soldiers. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War tell similar stories.

Insurgent and terrorist groups

Car bombings are a frequently-used tactic by insurgents in Iraq.

Main article: Terrorist attacks of the Iraq War

Further information: [[:Tactics of the Iraqi insurgency]]

• Killing over 12,000 Iraqis from January 2005 - June 2006, according to Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, giving the first official count for the victims of bombings, ambushes and other deadly attacks. The insurgents have also conducted numerous suicide attacks on the Iraqi civilian population, mostly targeting the majority Shia community. An October 2005 report from Human Rights Watch examines the range of civilian attacks and their purported justification.

• Attacks on diplomats and diplomatic facilities including; the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 killing the top U.N. representative in Iraq and 21 other UN staff members;beheading several diplomats: two Algerian diplomatic envoys Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, Egyptian diplomatic envoy al-Sherif, and four Russian diplomats.

• The February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, destroying one of the holiest Shiite shrines, killing over 165 worshipers and igniting sectarian strife and reprisal killings.

• The publicised murders of several contractors; Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley, Kenneth Bigley, Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov (Bulgarian truck drivers). Other non-military personnel murdered include: translator Kim Sun-il, Shosei Koda, Fabrizio Quattrocchi (Italian), charity worker Margaret Hassan, reconstruction engineer Nick Berg, photographer Salvatore Santoro (Italian) and supply worker Seif Adnan Kanaan (Iraqi). Four private armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague, were killed with grenades and small arms fire, their bodies dragged from their vehicles, beaten and set ablaze. Their burned corpses were then dragged through the streets before being hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates.

• Torture or murder of members of the New Iraqi Army, and assassination of civilians associated with the Coalition Provisional Authority, such as Fern Holland, or the Iraqi Governing Council, such as Aqila al-Hashimi and Ezzedine Salim, or other foreign civilians, such as those from Kenya.

Public opinion on the war

International opinion

According to a January 2007 BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, 73% of the global population disapproves of the U.S. handling of the Iraq War. A September 2007 poll conducted by the BBC found that 2/3rds of the world's population believed the U.S. should withdraw its forces from Iraq. According to an April 2004 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, only a third of the Iraqi people believed that "the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger." Majorities in the UK and Canada believe the war in Iraq is "unjustified" and - in the UK - are critical of their government's support of U.S. policies in Iraq (Canada opposed the U.S.-led invasion force and has one observer blue helmet in Iraq). According to polls conducted by The Arab American Institute, four years after the invasion of Iraq, 83% of Egyptians had a negative view of the U.S.'s role in Iraq; 68% of Saudi Arabians had a negative view; 96% of the Jordanian population had a negative view; 70% of the UAE and 76% of the Lebanese population also described their view as negative. The Pew Global Attitudes Project reports that in 2006 majorities in the Netherlands, Germany, Jordan, France, Lebanon, China, Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Morocco believed the world was safer before the Iraq War and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. However, pluralities in the U.S. and India believe the world is safer without Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi opinion

A woman pleads to an Iraqi army soldier from 2nd Company, 5th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division to let a suspected insurgent free during a raid near Tafaria, Iraq

The U.S. has long maintained its involvement there is with the support of the Iraqi people, but in 2005 when asked directly, 82–87% of the Iraqi populace was opposed to U.S. occupation and wanted U.S. troops to leave. 47% of Iraqis supported attacking U.S. troops.

A March 7, 2007 survey of more than 2,000 Iraqis commissioned by the BBC and three other news organisations found that 78% of the population opposes "the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq," that 69% believe the presence of U.S. forces is making things worse, and that 51% of the population consider attacks on coalition forces "acceptable", up from 17% in 2004 and 35% in 2006. However, only 35% want them to leave "now". 64% described their family's economic situation as being somewhat or very bad, up from 30% in 2005. 58% described reconstruction efforts in the area in which they live as either somewhat or very ineffective, and 9% described them as being totally nonexistent.

An NGO-sponsored survey for the first time asked ordinary Iraqis their view on the highly contentious draft oil law. According to the poll, 76 percent of Iraqis feel "inadequately" informed about the contents of the proposed law. Nonetheless, 63 percent responded that they would prefer Iraqi state-owned companies – and not foreign corporations – to develop Iraq’s extensive oil fields.

Relation to the Global War on Terror

Main article: Iraq War and U.S. Global War on Terror

President Bush has consistently referred to the Iraq war as "the central front in the War on Terror", and has argued that if the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here." While other proponents of the war have regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict has dragged on, members of the U.S. Congress, the American public, and even U.S. troops have begun to question the connection between Iraq and the fight against terrorism. In particular, a consensus has developed among intelligence experts that the Iraq war has increased terrorism. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna frequently refers to the invasion of Iraq as a "fatal mistake." London's conservative International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for jihadists and that the invasion "galvanised" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there. The U.S. National Intelligence Council concluded in a January 2005 report that the war in Iraq had become a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists; David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." The Council's Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity." And the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which outlined the considered judgment of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."

Regarding Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, the Bush administration has produced inconsistent statements. Asked to describe the connection between the Iraqi leader and the al-Qaeda terror network at an appearance on October 5, 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld first refused to answer, then said: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two." Several hours after his appearance, Rumsfeld issued a statement from the Pentagon saying his comment "regrettably was misunderstood" by some. He said he has said since September 2002 that there were ties between Osama bin Laden's terror group and Iraq. Despite statements from the Bush administration, inspectors never found hidden stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, and the September 11 Commission reported no collaborative relationship between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi leadership. However, several months prior to the commencement of military action, Saddam Hussein had began providing financial assistance to the families of Palestinian militants killed in fighting with, or civilians killed by, the Israeli military (including relatives of suicide bombers). He also sponsored a small number of regional groups, designated terrorist organisations by the U.S. Department of State, among them, the People's Mujahedin of Iran. Former National Intelligence Officer Paul R. Pillar notes that,

Iraq did provide other kinds of sponsorship to terrorist groups, some of the Palestinian groups that aren't so active anymore... But in terms of it having provided support or sustenance or strength, or having anything close to an alliance with al Qaeda, it simply wasn't there.

Al-Qaeda leaders have seen the Iraq war as a boon to their recruiting and operational efforts, providing evidence to jihadists worldwide that America is at war with Islam, and the training ground for a new generation of jihadists to practice attacks on American forces. In October 2003, Osama bin Laden announced: "Be glad of the good news: America is mired in the swamps of the Tigris and Euphrates. Bush is, through Iraq and its oil, easy prey. Here is he now, thank God, in an embarrassing situation and here is America today being ruined before the eyes of the whole world." Al-Qaeda commander Seif al-Adl gloated about the war in Iraq, indicating, "The Americans took the bait and fell into our trap." A letter thought to be from al-Qaeda leader Atiyah Abd al-Rahman found in Iraq among the rubble where al-Zarqawi was killed and released by the U.S. military in October 2006, indicated that al-Qaeda perceived the war as beneficial to its goals: "The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness ... indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest."

Further information: Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda timeline, and Criticism of the War on Terrorism

See also

• "Curveball"
• List of wars 2003-current
• Al-Anfal Campaign
• Iran-Iraq war
• Oil reserves in Iraq
• Energy crisis
• Petrodollar warfare
• Asylum in the United States
• United States Army
• Ayad Rahim, Iraqi-American journalist who reports on Middle East affairs
• Vietnam war

Topical images

• 
  A satellite image of Iraq.
• The ethno-religious makeup of Iraq.
  The ethno-religious makeup of Iraq.
• 
  Anti-war demonstration, Seattle, Washington, 19 March 2007. "Veterans for Peace" sign.
• 
  A Latvian army soldier with Multinational Division (Central South) at a checkpoint on Tampa Road in Diwaniyah, Iraq.
• 
  A group of US Marines in Haditha, Iraq.
• 
  An anti-war demonstration in London, in the UK.
• 
  A destroyed Coalition M1A1 Abrams tank.
• 
  February 28, 2003. Iraqi troops on an APC before the Iraq War.
• 
  Several destroyed Iraqi T55 tanks
• 
  The various occupation zones in Iraq.
• 
  George W. Bush on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 to deliver the "Mission Accomplished" speech.

Bibliography

• David Bellavia (2007) House to House: an Epic of Urban Warfare. Simon and Schuster. About the 2nd Battle of Fallujah - written by a participant.
• Michael R. Gordon (2006) Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
• Thomas E. Ricks (2006) Fiasco, The American Military Adventure In Iraq. Penguin.

References

...

External articles

Overview

• Journalists in Iraq: Video of Panel discussion.
• Template:PDFlink
• ProCon's Extensive Iraq War Examination.
• "The Iraq war and the reconstruction effort," Google.
• "Bleak Pentagon study admits 'civil war' in Iraq, by Rupert Cornwell, The Independent, March 16, 2007

Maps of Iraq

• High resolution maps of Iraq, GulfWarrior.org.

Road to War

• "Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," Information Act request to the Department of Defense seeking DoD staffer Stephen Cambone's notes from meetings with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.
• "White House Meeting Memorandum," details of January 31, 2003 private meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in which they discussed using U.S. spyplanes in UN colours to lure Saddam Hussein into war.
• UK Attorney-General leak, legal advice given to British Prime Minister Tony Blair weeks before the 2003 invasion, Channel 4, Great Britain.
• Presidential address by George W. Bush on the evening of March 19, 2003, announcing war against Iraq.

Iraqi sources

• "Iraq Diaries," Iraqis writing about their experiences of war at ElectronicIraq.net.
• "The Ground Truth Project," a series of exclusive, in-depth interviews with Iraqis, aid workers, military personnel and others who have spent significant time on-the-ground in Iraq, Epic-USA.org.
• "What Iraqis Think," a compilation of the latest polls and blogs coming out of Iraq, Epic-USA.org.
• "Iraq documents on Weapons of Mass Destruction," from U.S. Army's Leavenworth, a U.S. military site containing approximately one million files captured from the Iraqi military in the aftermath of the invasion.

Opinions and polls

• Sean Rayment, "Secret MoD poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops"; a poll conducted among Iraqis reveals strong opposition toward Allied presence in Iraq. The Daily Telegraph, 23 October 2005.
• Extraordinary renditions: the playwright and the president; Jeff Sommers, Khaled Diab and Charles Woolfson explore the dynamics between playwright and president as America's 'war on terror' stands in the dock. January 2006, published in Al Ahram Weekly
• Caspar Henderson, "Three polls: attitudes across frontiers". 12 December 2002.
• Karl Zinsmeister, What Iraqis Really Think. Wall Street Journal, September 10 2003.
• "1st Major Survey of Iraq". Zogby International, September 10 2003.
• Carl Conetta, "What do Iraqis want? Iraqi attitudes on occupation, U.S. withdrawal, governments, and quality of life". Project on Defense Alternatives, 01 February 2005.
• Iraq at Polling Report.com. Chronological polls of Americans 18 & older
• Public Agenda Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index – Tracking survey of Americans' attitudes on international relations, conducted for Foreign Affairs

Casualties

To find additional links not found in the reference links section here see Casualties of the Iraq War.

Combat operations related

• Aerial Propaganda Leaflet Database. Psywar.org, 06 November 2005. (Iraq War PSYOP leaflets and posters)

News

• Electronic Iraq: Daily news and analysis from Iraq with a special focus on the Iraqi experience of war.
• News from Iraq: Aggregated news on the war, including politics and economics.
• The Struggle for Iraq: BBC Best Link: All the latest news, analysis and images from Iraq.
• War in Iraq: CNN Special Report: This page was archived in May 2003 when President Bush declared an end to major combat. However, the coalition casualties' list continues to be updated.
• Iraq: Transition of Power: CNN Special Report: Three years later, debate rages.
• BBC: US soldiers Jailed for life

Anti-war activists and war critics

• Louis Farrakhan, Washington, D.C. Press Conference on "Neo-cons and the Iraq War,"
• David Shuster, "Road to war; How the Bush administration sold the Iraq War to American people," MSNBC, November 8, 2005.
• Antiwar news and viewpoints [3]
• Mourning the Vote: Students (Boston University and Oglethorpe University) site
• OnlyOneWorld.NET Contains information, news, and opinion on the Iraq War.
• "What Barry Says," by Barry McNamara in 2003, Winner of the Best Animation award at the Brooklyn International Film Festival and Portobello Film Festival in 2004.
• [4] Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches. Independent journalist in Iraq. Many despatches, reports and photos.
• [5] Tales of Iraq War. Anti-war webcomics by cartoonist Latuff.
• The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq Socialist Worker Online’s ongoing coverage and analysis
• FixIraq.com 15 minute updated news, Discussion, Auto-Updating U.S. Deaths counter that can be shown on any website.
• "Unlike Vietnam, There is No End in Sight" iShotTheDeputy.com article criticising comparisons with Vietnam.
• Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield, The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy or Division?, 2004, Palgrave Macmillian ISBN 1-4039-6354-1
• Juan Cole, [Iraq] Three-State Solution? The Nation review, March 29 2004
• Iraq Exit Strategy Watch
• Nowarforisrael.com from David Duke's organization

Independent analysis

• "The Road Ahead: Lessons in Nation Building from Japan, Germany, and Afghanistan for Postwar Iraq" by Ray Salvatore Jennings May 2003 Peceworks No. 49 United States Institute of Peace
• "A New American Century? - Iraq and the Hidden Euro-Dollar wars" by William Engdahl
• Oil and Empire - the backstory to the invasion of Iraq
• The Neocons, Peak Oil and the Invasion of Iraq
• "An ethical blank cheque" British and U.S. mythology about the second world war ignores our own crimes and legitimises Anglo-American war making, Richard Drayton, Tuesday May 10 2005 The Guardian
• "The High Price of Reconstructing Iraq" Pre-Invasion speech by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, March 13, 2003.
• Did the United States Create Democracy in Germany? James L. Payne The Independent Review Volume 11 Number 2 Fall 2006, (Analysis of the Iraq axiom that democracy can be imposed)

War supporters and operation proponents

• Victor Davis Hanson, "An American 'Debacle'? More unjustified negativity on the war in Iraq," National Review Online, October 14, 2005.
• ""The Civilian Casualty Fable," Analysis of Civilian Casualties in the first two years of the Iraq War, Logic Times, October 26, 2005.
• Analogy presented by Jessica Well showing a Life magazine article from 1946 discussing the failures of Denazification, titled "Americans are Losing the Victory in Europe".
• "One Iraq Option Only: Victory," by Michael Johns, May 4, 2007.

Economics

• Scott Wallsten and Katrina Kosec, "The Economic Costs of the War in Iraq". AEI-Brookings Joint Center Working Paper 05-19. September 2005.
• Online cost estimator allows users to change assumptions for predicting expected future cost of the Iraq war.
• Dollar cost of war: total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War
• Iraq war costs could top $2 trillion. Christian Science Monitor, 10 January 2006 based on The Economic Costs of the Iraq War by Linda Bilmes, Harvard University, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, laureate of the Nobel Prize of Economics in 2001.
• The Dollar System and U.S. Economic Reality post-Iraq War by William Engdahl

Judiciary

• Legal System in Iraq Staggers Beneath the Weight of War, New York Times December 17, 2006 (copy)
• Just War in Iraq 2003 pdf Legal dissertation by Thomas Dyhr from University of Copenhagen.

Media Echo

• Eliot Weinberger: What I Heard About Iraq in 2005, and What I Heard about Iraq (a collage of various statements concerning the war) dead link; these links active as of October 01 2006 link1 and link2
• Tatham, Steve (2006), 'Losing Arab Hearts & Minds: The Coalition, Al-Jazeera & Muslim Public Opinion' Hurst & Co (London) Published 1 January2006