It has been 20 years since the invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition, an event that unleashed a violent instability still evident today, but not only within the country but throughout the Middle East.
The controversial military operation began he March 20, 2003 and succeeded in quickly subduing Saddam Hussein’s regime, but this was followed by a long fight against the insurgency and a political polarization that continues to this day.
hussein eluded capture for nearly nine months before being apprehended in December 2003 and executed by the new Iraqi government three years later.
What happened to the protagonists of a war that still arouses heated debates today? Let’s take a look.
saddam hussein
Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist from 1979 to 2003. This despite his resounding defeat at the hands of US-led coalition forces in the 1991 Gulf War, which fell short of overthrowing him but forced him to to withdraw its forces from neighboring Kuwait, which it had occupied in August of the previous year.
But with the March 2003 invasion, his forces collapsed within three weeks.hussein went into hiding until he was captured on December 13 of that year by the Americans.
He was executed by hanging in Baghdad in 2006. Iraqi state television showed footage of Hussein hanging before dawn in a building his intelligence services once used for executions.
In a last act of defiance, refused to wear a hood tothe scaffold.
George W. Bush
In 2003, George W. Bush became the second US president to launch a war against Iraq, following in the footsteps of his own father, George Bush, who held the White House from 1989 to 1993.
In the weeks that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush achieved approval ratings highest ever recorded by a US president (91%, according to the Gallup poll).
However, his handling of the Iraq war – especially the death of more than 4,400 US soldiers, according to US Department of Defense figures – caused Bush to end his term in 2009 as the House occupant. White less popular since polls exist.
Since leaving office, Bush, 75, has kept a low profile but, in his few media appearances, has also stood firm in his decision to invade Iraq.
“There has been an ongoing effort by some figures in the Bush administration to say that, despite the hoaxes (the alleged weapons of mass destruction were never found), the iraq war it was himor correct“, declared to the BBC the American journalist Thomas E. Ricks, author of the book “Fiasco: the military adventure in Iraq”.
The former president often argued that Hussein’s removal was part of this logic. But Ricks, who covered the invasion of Iraq, isn’t convinced.
“These kinds of justifications do not speak to the enormous costs of the war, both for the Iraqis and for the Americans. They also do not address how the us invasion changed the middle east“, explained the communicator.
Bush has limited himself to appearing publicly on state occasions such as presidential inaugurations and funerals.
Now he spends most of his time at his ranch in the state of Texas, where he pursues his hobbies, among which are painting. in 2021 published a book of portraits of his authorship.
Dick Cheney
The former vice president of George W. Bush was a strong advocate of military action against Iraq and made numerous public statements accusing Saddam Hussein’s regime of possessing weapons of mass destruction, the claim on which Washington built its case. to justify the invasion.
As Iraq was rocked by sectarian strife in 2006, Cheney himself got involved a fact of bloodwhen he accidentally shot a fellow hunter, wounding him in the face, neck and chest.
The incident gave him a minor heart attack, but his friend, Harry Whittington, 78, survived. “It’s not Harry’s fault,” Cheney told Fox television. “Ultimately, I was the one who pulled the trigger.”
At 82, Cheney has taken a radically different stance from Bush since leaving office. Thus he has established a position on different political issues and even ha participated in electoral rallies.
Likewise, he openly criticized the then president, Donald Trump, for the assault on Congress that in January 2021 carried out by his followers.
Cheney was famously portrayed by a “transformed” Christian Bale in the 2018 satirical film “Vice,” which was the second production to portray the Bush administration after the biopic Oliver Stone’s presidential “W”, released in 2008.
donald rumsfeld
He was Bush’s defense secretary from 2001 to 2006 and played a critical – and controversial – role in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Among other things, Rumsfeld was accused of providing “alternative intelligence assessments” to support the invasion and the ousting of Hussein, while ignored the complaints of torture prisoners of war by US forces.
Rumsfeld left office in 2006 amid growing US public and political opposition to his management of post-war Iraq.
The former official did not shy away from the spotlight, however, publishing an autobiography, participating in a documentary about his career and joining other former defense secretaries in warning then-President Donald Trump not to try to ignore the results of the 2020 presidential election.
rumsfeld he died of cancer in June 2021.
Condoleezza Rice
She was National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State during the eight years of Bush’s tenure, becoming the first black woman to hold these positions in US government history.
In addition to being a supporter of the Iraq war, she was constantly featured in the US media to warn of the threat posed by Hussein’s regime. She even went so far as to affirm to the CNN news network that Iraqi leader could quickly acquire nuclear weapons.
After Bush’s departure from the White House, Rice resumed her academic career at Stanford University and is the director of the Hoover Institution, a research center.
However, in the past there have been rumors about his eventual return to active politics.
paul bremer
He was named interim administrator of the coalition in Iraq by President Bush in May 2003, becoming the country’s highest civilian authority.
His decision to dismantle the andIraqi army was heavily criticized and had to face accusations of embezzlement in the reconstruction efforts.
Bremer, now 81, leads a quiet life in rural Vermont.
In 2018, his name once again occupied space in the United States media when it became known that he worked as a ski instructor at a tourist center.
thinking about how Paul Bremer went from de-facto President of Iraq and Mister Very Good Ideas to being a ski instructor pic.twitter.com/rhczQX7nLO
— Reconstructionist (@un_a_valeable) March 10, 2023
Colin Powell
The general was the secretary of state at the time the invasion of Iraq broke out, being the first black person to hold that position. In the first Gulf War he had been head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Unlike other members of the Bush cabinet, Powell was initially opposed to plans to invade Iraq.
However, in February 2003 it was he who turned to the UN to advocate military intervention and even presented evidence that Hussein’s regime concealed weapons of mass destruction.
The general resigned in 2004 after admitting to Congress that intelligence data presented a year earlier was “inaccurate” and fall out of favor with the Bush administration.
He pursued a career as a public speaker and in the 2008 presidential election broke ranks with the Republicans to Support Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
In 2021, Powell passed away at the age of 84 from complications stemming from covid-19.
Tony Blair
The former British prime minister’s reputation has suffered arguably more than George W. Bush’s because of the Iraq war.
Blair was heavily criticized in the official inquiry into the conflict, which in 2016 concluded that he had exaggerated the threat he posed the weapons program saddam husyesein.
He was also accused of sending ill-prepared troops into battle and having “totally inadequate” plans for the aftermath of the invasion.
Blair, 69, resigned in 2007 and has since devoted himself mainly to his NGO, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. But Iraq continues to shadow his legacy: In January last year, more than 500,000 people signed a petition asking the British government not to grant the Labor politician an honorary knighthood.
Hans Blix
The Swedish diplomat and politician headed the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which investigated the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the 2003 US invasion.
Blix currently lives in Stockholm and continues to participate actively in international security policy debates.
And at the age of 94, he is about to launch a new book, “Farewell to Wars.”
Ali Hasan alMajid or “Ali the Chemist”
The former Iraqi military commander earned the nickname “Chemical Ali” for his alleged role in the poison gas attacks Hussein’s army launched against Kurdish rebels after the first Gulf War. It is estimated that thousands of people died in these events.
Al-Majid was captured in August 2003 by US forces, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.
In January 2010 was executed by hanging.
Muhammad Saeed alSahhaf or ‘Ali the Comedian’
At the time of the invasion, he was Iraq’s Information Minister and soon earned the humorous nickname “Comic Ali” by the Western media, due to his colorful daily press briefings, in which he presented a vision very say distorted from the situation on the ground.
The official came to assure on several occasions that the American forces would be defeated. This, despite the fact that the Iraqi army had been crushed.
His whereabouts are currently unknown. However, it is believed that there fled to the United Arab Emirates.
Moqtada alSadr
The Shiite Muslim cleric rose to prominence after the US invasion, when his powerful militia, the Mehdi army, fought foreign troops and was accused of running sectarian “death squads”.
Since then he has presented himself as a nationalist and an activist in the fight against corruption, becoming a key political figure in the country.
His Saeroun coalition won the most seats in the 2018 and 2021 Iraqi parliamentary elections.
Nouri alMaliki
In 2006 he assumed the post of Prime Minister of Iraq, the first after the fall of Hussein.
Critics accused him of alienate sun politiciansitas and kurdsand already in 2007 his resignation was requested.
Al Maliki did not resign until 2014, after a series of defeats in the fight against the Islamic State organization.
Ayatollah Ali alSistani
As Iraq’s top Shiite clerical authority, Al Sistani has been playing a key role in Iraqi politics and religion since the invasion. Unlike Al Sadr, he preferred political pressure to insurgency.
At 92, Al Sistani remains a hugely influential figure in Iraq.
mount to theZaidi
The Iraqi journalist rose to international fame in December 2008, when he threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference he gave in Baghdad, held on the occasion of his last trip to Iraq as a tenant of the White House.
“This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog”Al Zaidi yelled as he threw the first shoe.
The journalist served six months in prison, during which he claims to have been tortured, and went to Lebanon after his release.
Al Zaidi later returned to Iraq and unsuccessfully tried to be elected as an MP in the country’s 2018 parliamentary elections.
“This scene stands as proof that one day a simple person was capable of saying ‘no’ to that arrogant person with all his power, tyranny, weapons, media, money and authority,” he recently told the Reuters news agency. .
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