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US invasion of Iraq in 2003 turned into a grand failure
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.Until Barky took the reins, I don't see it that way. [REGNUM] Exactly 20 years ago, on March 20, 2003, the United States inspired the invasion of Iraq, presenting the world with shaky and then refuted evidence of "the guilt of Saddam Hussein's regime, " Mais Kurbanov , an expert on the Middle East, told REGNUM. "Washington convinced the whole world that a certain powder allegedly found in Iraq indicates the development of weapons of mass destruction, and therefore the “regime” must be stopped," the source recalled. That old thing. My take is and always has been, based on the number of times Saddam fired on NATO aircraft and other violations of the ceasefire alone, was sufficient cause for war. The administration of George W. Bush was able to "push through" the outbreak of hostilities, but this did not bring success in the long run, the expert noted. The March-May 2003 campaign led to the swift surrender of the Iraqi regular army, the overthrow of Saddam and the Baath Party regime, and the occupation of the country by the Americans and their allies. But, Kurbanov notes, the military campaign that seemed victorious at first became bogged down in a protracted guerrilla war. Iraq has become an endless expenditure item of the American budget - only for the "reconstruction" of the country, the United States spent $ 44.6 billion by 2010. What began bravura ended in complete failure and the actual flight of American troops from Iraq, Kurbanov noted. "The US itself confirms the spending of 7 trillion dollars in order to allegedly liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, from weapons of mass destruction. We spent seven years, a lot of soldiers, a lot of equipment. And one fine day, the 50,000-strong army simply abandoned Iraq and moved to Kuwait to the bases of permanent deployment," the expert continued. All thanks to America's Chief Russian Torturer Barak Obama. Washington is trying not to remember the failure, including because of the complete unseemliness of the actions of American troops on the territory of the country. The United States has brought numerous troubles to the Iraqis, and some names, such as the name of the Abu Ghraib prison, have become household names. "Although initially Bush Jr. asked for an apology, but this does not help. The US has destroyed the infrastructure of the entire country. Millions were injured, prisoners were tortured in Iraqi prisons, and the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad became famous throughout the world for its torture of captives. Of course, not everything can be listed. The murder of children, devastation, destruction," Kurbanov noted. You call torture, I say US frat pledges got worse treatment. The authoritative British medical journal The Lancet gave an estimate: by 2006, the direct result of the war and occupation were the deaths of 655,000 Iraqi residents - experts included in this number people who died due to the destruction of the healthcare system, social infrastructure, due to the growth of crime. As for the actual civilians who died in the fighting, according to estimates by the British-American NGO Iraq Body Count, in 2003-2007, 128,000 people became victims of the war, of which 40,500 were in Baghdad alone. A quarter of the total number of deaths are women and children noted in the Iraq Body Count. According to a number of estimates, the total number of direct and indirect victims of the American occupation could reach 1.1 million. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I seems to recall cooked data by Iraq Body Count.
Despite the attempts of the Western world to "silence" the devastating consequences of the American occupation, "the whole world sees their true face," Kurbanov emphasizes. The Iraqi conflict lasted almost 9 years - until December 15, 2011. During this time, weapons of mass destruction, which became the pretext for the start of the US invasion, were never found in Iraq, REGNUM noted. "The image of (US Secretary of State) Colin Powell, demonstrating a test tube with alleged anthrax powder, has long become a household name as the personification of hypocrisy and the conviction of the US ruling elite in their own impunity," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov noted in February 2023 on his 20th anniversary speeches of the former head of the State Department. Now the West has been trying to prevent the discussion in the UN Security Council of the anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's permanent representative to the UN, said at a press conference on March 20. According to him, "dirty tricks" were used for this. The United States, repeatedly caught in a lie in recent years, no one believes anymore. The beginning of this disbelief was laid by the events in Iraq, Senator Alexei Pushkov noted on March 20 . It is increasingly difficult for Washington to get the countries of the Global South to support sanctions and the policy of isolating Russia, "in the non-Western world, almost no one buys into chatter about the West's struggle in Ukraine for freedom and democracy," the parliamentarian added. March 20, 2023 Mikhail Zakharov Posted by: badanov 2023-03-21 |
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