Baghdad/Obelisk: Twenty years after the United States invaded Iraq, analysts say the conflict has fundamentally changed the United States’ view of war and its military strategy on the ground.
The search for weapons of mass destruction, along with former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorist groups, was the pretext and justification for the campaign.
Then-US President George W. Bush described the military operation as a mission to liberate the Iraqi people and prevent Saddam’s regime from “(threatening) us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
“My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, liberate its people, and defend the world from grave danger,” Bush said on March 19, 2003, the day before. The US-led invasion of Iraq.
Within weeks, the United States overthrew Saddam’s government, but American forces bogged down in years of fighting the insurgents. Building a stable democracy in the war-torn country has proven equally challenging.
And a final CIA report two years after the invasion found no stockpiles of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
In 2011, the United States announced the end of operations in Iraq.
And as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will be home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will come to an end,” said then-US President Barack Obama, on October 21, 2011.
The failure to find any weapons of mass destruction and the loss of thousands of US troops in a protracted conflict have strained many Americans’ support for what the Bush administration called the “war on terror.”
Many military analysts argue that the withdrawal of US forces led to the rise of ISIS and strengthened Iranian influence in the region.
“There were elements of success and elements of failure,” said Marc Cancian, a senior advisor at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“I think most people looking back would say we shouldn’t have done it, they wouldn’t have done it again just because of the long campaign that resulted.”
A growing number of Americans say the United States should not have intervened in Iraq, and that the invasion only undermined American influence in the Middle East. The latest example of this waning influence was seen earlier this month when Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established relations in a deal brokered by China, not the United States.
The Iraq war also created a reluctance to put American soldiers on the ground in conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the weapons of mass destruction debacle led to continued caution to act solely on intelligence — something Cancian said would have an impact on how the United States does. Responds to any potential threats to Taiwan.
“I think there’s still a lot of uncertainty about taking action before the Chinese actually do some obvious operations,” said Cancian, also a retired Marine colonel.
And I think if the intelligence community comes to the president and says their assessment is that the Chinese are going to attack Taiwan, there will be a lot of resistance, (wait and see) how that unfolds, and a reluctance to take aggressive action based solely on intelligence.”
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