Oct. 7, 2002: President George W. Bush in Cincinnati warns that Saddam is an imminent threat to the United States, saying that “facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
Oct. 10 and 11, 2002: The House and Senate overwhelmingly authorize Bush to use military force to disarm Saddam. Among those voting against the resolution was then-Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Lorain.
March 19, 2003: 148,000 American soldiers and 45,000 British soldiers invade Iraq.
April 6, 2003: British forces capture the key southern port city of Basra.
April 12, 2003: U.S. forces secure Baghdad, statute of Saddam is toppled.
May 1, 2003: Aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, Bush declares an end to combat operations before a banner that declares, “Mission Accomplished.”
July 2, 2003: As insurgent attacks against Americans and British soldiers escalate, Bush says, “Bring ‘em on.’’
December 13, 2003: U.S. forces capture Saddam.
Jan. 16, 2004: U.S. Central Command announces investigation into reports of abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad.
March 2, 2004: Multiple insurgent bombings kill more than 200 Iraqis.
Oct. 15, 2005: Iraqi voters approve new Constitution.
May 20, 2006: Nouri al-Maliki becomes prime minister.
Dec. 30, 2006: Iraqi government executes Saddam.
Jan. 10, 2007: With Iraq on the verge of civil war, Bush orders an additional 20,000 American troops to Baghdad. Under the command of General David Petraeus, the Americans launch what becomes known as the surge.
Dec. 22, 2007: Independent report shows violence in Iraq has dipped to its lowest level since 2004.
Aug. 18, 2010: Last U.S. combat forces leave Iraq.
and Joe Hallett
Columbus Dispatch
WASHINGTON — At first, everything seemed so easy: U.S. and British forces swarmed into Iraq, seized Baghdad within three weeks and toppled the statute of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. What could possibly go wrong?
The answer, as it turned out, was a lot. A search for Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction came up empty. U.S. soldiers became targets of Iraqi insurgents as the country descended into virtual chaos. Not for another seven years would the last American soldier leave.
Now, a decade later, many analysts have concluded that President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair committed a grievous blunder that cost the lives of 4,475 American soldiers, 179 British soldiers, and more than 100,000 Iraqis while wounding 32,221 Americans and squandering $1 trillion of U.S. wealth.
“It was a horrible mistake and has done considerable damage to the country,’’ said Adrian Lewis, a professor of military history at the University of Kansas.
“It’s hard to see how we are better off with the invasion than with what we had before,’’ said retired Army Col. Pete Mansoor, a professor of military history at Ohio State University.
The primary reason for the invasion — to eliminate weapons of mass destruction being secretly produced by Saddam — was based on faulty intelligence or, as some critics charge, a narrative concocted by the Bush administration, which exaggerated or falsified the intelligence.
Analysts argue that the allies could have contained Saddam through a combination of sanctions and no-fly zones by U.S. and British jets. By destroying Iraq, some argue, the United States eliminated a potential check on Iranian ambitions to expand their influence or build their own nuclear devices.
Yet those arguments are sharply dismissed by defenders of the conflict who point out that removing Saddam from power was crucial to the security of the Middle East.
His war with Iran in the 1980s killed nearly one million people and he murdered tens of thousands of his own citizens. They contend the region today would be far more dangerous today with Saddam in power, Iran working on a nuclear weapon, and Bashar al-Assad killing thousands of Syrians in a brutal civil war.
While acknowledging Iraq’s imperfections today, they insist it is something of a democracy. Iraqi annual oil exports reached a 30-year high in 2012, and its gross domestic product expanded at nearly 10 percent last year.
In an interview last month with the BBC, Blair said “if we hadn’t removed Saddam from power, just think, for example, what would be happening if these Arab revolutions were continuing now and Saddam — who’s probably 20 times as bad as Assad in Syria — was trying to suppress an uprising in Iraq. Think of the consequences of leaving that regime in power.’’
Others say it is simply too soon to pass judgment. Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University said that it is “impossible to know if the Iraq was worth it since we cannot know what might have happened if the war had not occurred.’’
The question — was it worth it? — is common after most wars. But most wars don’t end with such clarity. In the aftermath of U.S. entry into World War I, Americans yearned for what President Warren Harding called a “return to normalcy’’ and a withdrawal from European and Asian affairs.
When President Harry Truman left office in 1952, U.S. intervention in South Korea was regarded as a ghastly failure that took the lives of 38,000 Americans. Yet today, most historians have concluded that Truman’s action saved South Korea, a U.S. ally which transformed itself into a democracy and economic powerhouse.
What is beyond doubt with Iraq is that the Americans and British launched the attack based on the flawed premise that Saddam was trying to rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapon.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, Bush’s neo-conservative advisers were eager to destroy what they believed was Saddam’s nuclear program. As Smith pointed out, both Bush and former President Bill Clinton believed Iraq had such weapons and “with the proximity to 9/11, the decision to go to war is more understandable.’’
But the neo-cons also had a second motive: They wanted the U.S. military to topple a repressive tyrant and clear the way for the development of democratic governments in the turbulent Middle East and increase security for the United States.
“It would have been easier to prevent him from acquiring nuclear weapons than it would be to turn Iraq into some sort of bulwark of stability in the Middle East,’’ said Mansoor, who served in Iraq as executive officer to General David Petraeus.
Instead, for Bush and the Republicans the outcome was the worst of all worlds: Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction no longer existed and the current Iraqi regime remains at best a work in progress and at worst, sympathetic to Iran. In Ohio Iraq was a big factor in Republican Sen. Mike DeWine losing his re-election bid in 2006 while polls today show that voters trust Democrats more with national security than Republicans.
“We paid a high price and there are a lot of people in this society who felt it deeply, particularly in military families,’’ said Richard Herrmann, chairman of Ohio State’s political science department. While saying he does not wish to disparage the sacrifice made by U.S. forces, Hermann said the U.S. is not “better off” in the Middle East now than before the war.
“The regime that’s in power in Baghdad is less anti-American, but it’s not very pro-American,” he said. “It’s not very stable, it’s not very democratic and it’s being sucked into a civil war both internally and next door in Syria.’’
Herrmann said the outcome will also impact decision-making going forward. Any future president wishing to mount a military invasion will not “get a lot of enthusiasm” from the public, he said.
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