On March 20, 2003, a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq in a ground assault. Twenty-two days later, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by coalition forces. When U.S. military forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, the death toll had risen to 100,000, with many more thousands having fled. The stated goal of the coalition had been to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, to end Iraqi President Saddam Hussein鈥檚 support of terrorism and to free the Iraqi people.听
University of Notre Dame experts look back on this 20-year anniversary and discuss whether those objectives were adequately met, and the aftermaths of war and peace on the Iraqi people and on the U.S.听
Lessons of the Iraq war
, the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and research professor of international dispute resolution, is the author of 鈥淥ccupation Failures and the Legality of Armed Conflict: The Case of Iraqi Cultural Property,鈥� 鈥淭he Iraq War One Year Later,鈥� 鈥淭he Prohibition of Force鈥� in The Research Handbook on International Conflict and Security Law 89, and a former professional military educator for the U.S. Department of Defense.
鈥淭heir war aim was to remove Saddam Hussein from power,鈥� O鈥機onnell said. 鈥淭heir legal justification involved a 1991 United Nations Security Council resolution mandating an end to any Iraqi program for weapons of mass destruction. On its face the legal case bore virtually no connection to the war aim. Hearings in the UK after the invasion revealed government officials were fully aware of the far greater flaws--the legal argument was a sham.听
鈥淭oday, the U.S., UK, Poland and Australia are joined again, this time in the effort to defend Ukraine from Russia's invasion. Russia's war aims are even more egregious than those respecting Iraq 20 years ago. Russia's legal justification is an even greater sham.
鈥淎n imperative lesson of both invasions, however, is the same: There is no substitute for strict compliance with the UN Charter prohibition on the use of force, binding equally on all states.鈥澨�
The U.S. has an obligation to assist the Iraqi people
, professor emeritus from the Kroc Institute for International Peace 91视频 in the Keough 91视频 of Global Affairs, holds expertise in nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. He is the co-editor of more than 20 books and has a long history of public advocacy for disarmament and the prevention of war.听
鈥淭he U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq caused widespread chaos, death and destruction,鈥� Cortright said. 鈥淲ar, armed insurgency and bitter ethnic strife turned Iraq into a setting of vast economic and social suffering. Violence spread from multiple sources: U.S. bombing and military operations, the armed insurrection that rose against the invasion, the development of militias and extremist groups and the emergence and growth of the Islamic State.鈥�
Cortright noted that one of the most rigorous of the period between 2003 and 2011 concluded that approximately half a million deaths were attributable to the direct and indirect consequences of the U.S. war and military occupation.听
Because of the harm U.S. policies created for the country, he says that the U.S. has a special responsibility to help the people of Iraq.听
鈥淲e can fulfill that duty by working in concert with other states to provide development and humanitarian assistance for investments in education, health care and employment opportunities for all Iraqis, especially women, who suffered grievously during the war and its violent aftermath.鈥�
Justifications of war based on unfounded claims
, professor of religion, conflict and peace studies in the Keough 91视频 of Global Affairs and core faculty member of the Keough 91视频鈥檚 Kroc Institute for International Peace 91视频, focuses her research on religion, violence, peacebuilding, conflict transformation and justice. Omer sees the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq as being based on the false justification that weapons of mass destruction existed there, that the U.S. was responding in kind to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that the 鈥渨ar on terror鈥� that eventually justified the invasion/occupation of Iraq is far from over and made the world less safe.
鈥淭his lie (about weapons of mass destruction) was an effort to show the consistency of the decision to invade with just war theory (the presumption of just cause for war),鈥� Omer said. 鈥淎nd while this lie receded to the background as a narrative frame, an anti-Muslim and unfounded association of the attacks of Sept. 11 鈥� which featured Islamic activists 鈥� with the secular regime of Saddam Hussein has provided an enduring narrative underpinning the ongoing global infrastructure of the so-called 鈥榳ar on terror.鈥櫶� 听
鈥淭ragically, the destruction of the Hussein regime resulted in the emergence of Da鈥檈sh (ISIS) and the proliferation of sectarian violence and destruction in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, which persists until today,鈥� Omer added.
This association is considered orientalist because it presumes identification between Muslim groups of radically different worldviews and geographic locations, Omer explained, in addition to viewing them as an ahistorical 鈥渆ssence鈥� that remains constant across time and space.
鈥淚t reductively explained the violence of Sept. 11 as an outcome of culture and religion, rather than of historical and geopolitical factors and the meddling of the U.S. in the region before those momentous events (including the devastating sanctions regime in the 1990s),鈥� Omer said. 鈥淚nstead of asking historically grounded questions explaining the attacks of Sept. 11, the reaction to the event signaled a move to American (white) 鈥榠nnocence鈥� undergirded by reductive and orientalist rhetoric about a and a gendered appeal to 鈥�
The other persisting misconception, which is likewise orientalist, Omer said, was that the invasion and occupation were part of an effort to prevent 鈥渧iolent religious extremism鈥� in the world, relying on the 鈥渨ar on terror鈥� narrative as further justification. This claim entails investment in religious literacy in policy and diplomacy, as well as development to compliment and soften the military鈥檚 approach.
鈥淭his form of securitizing religion is the ongoing legacy of the U.S.鈥檚 invasion of Iraq and occupation, which began with a lie but, more deeply, has relied on orientalism and Islamophobia while benefiting the oil and defense industries,鈥� Omer said. 鈥淐onsidering that, contrary to perceptions, the 鈥榳ar on terror鈥� is ongoing, we must continue questioning the link between al Qaeda and the attacks on Afghanistan immediately following Sept. 11 and, two years later, the turn to Iraq.鈥� 听
As part of this year鈥檚 on War and Peace, the University of Notre Dame will hold two events exploring the impact and aftermaths of the Iraq war on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion.听
To learn more about these events, visit news.nd.edu.