Iraq News War Yahoo
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Further information: 2003 invasion of Iraq and Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–present
The Iraq War , also known as the Occupation of Iraq , The Second Gulf War Operation Iraqi Freedom , or Operation New Dawn is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003, with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Prior to the war, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a threat to their security and that of their coalition/regional allies. In 2002, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441 which called for Iraq to completely cooperate with UN weapon inspectors to verify that Iraq was not in possession of WMD and cruise missiles. The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) found no evidence of WMD, but could not verify the accuracy of Iraq's weapon declarations. Lead weapons inspector Hans Blix advised the UN Security Council that while Iraq was cooperating in terms of access, Iraq's declarations with regards to WMD still could not be verified.
After investigation following the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical, and biological programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons which had been the main argument to justify the invasion. Some US officials also accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, but no evidence of a meaningful connection was ever found. Other proclaimed reasons for the invasion included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses, and an effort to spread democracy to the country.
The invasion of Iraq led to an occupation and the eventual capture of President Hussein, who was later tried in an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government. Violence against coalition forces and among various sectarian groups soon led to the Iraqi insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and the emergence of a new faction of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. In October 2006, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Iraqi government estimated that more than 365,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million. By 2008, the UNHCR raised the estimate of refugees to a total of about 4.7 million (~16% of the population). The number of refugees estimated abroad was 2 million (a number close to CIA projections) and the number of internally displaced people was 2.7 million. In 2007, Iraq's anti-corruption board reported that 35% of Iraqi children, or about five million children, were orphans. The Red Cross stated in March 2008 that Iraq's humanitarian situation remained among the most critical in the world, with millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources.
In June 2008, U.S. Department of Defense officials claimed security and economic indicators began to show signs of improvement in what they hailed as significant and fragile gains. Iraq was fifth on the 2008 Failed States Index, and sixth on the 2009 list. As public opinion favoring troop withdrawals increased and as Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for security, member nations of the Coalition withdrew their forces. In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi governments approved a Status of Forces Agreement effective through January 1, 2012. The Iraqi Parliament also ratified a Strategic Framework Agreement with the U.S., aimed at ensuring cooperation in constitutional rights, threat deterrence, education, energy development, and other areas.
In late February 2009, new U.S. President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for combat forces, with approximately 50,000 troops remaining in the country "to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and surveillance". General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said he believes all U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011, while UK forces ended combat operations on April 30, 2009. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he supports the accelerated pullout of US forces. On February 17, 2010 Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates announced that as of September 1 2010 the name "Operation Iraqi Freedom" would be replaced by "Operation New Dawn".
2001–2003: Iraq disarmament crisis and pre-war intelligence
See also: Lead up to the Iraq War, Rationale for the Iraq War, Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq, Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and Iraq and weapons of mass destructionMain articles: Iraq disarmament crisis timeline 2001-2003 and 2002 in IraqAccording to documents provided by former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, George W. Bush, ten days after taking office in January 2001, instructed his aides to look for a way to overthrow the Iraqi regime. A secret memo entitled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq" was discussed in January and February 2001, and a Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts", included a map of potential areas for petroleum exploration.
UN weapons inspections resume
The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when Bush demanded a complete end to alleged Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and full compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to suspected weapons production facilities. The UN had prohibited Iraq from developing or possessing such weapons after the Gulf War and required Iraq to permit inspections confirming compliance. During inspections in 1999, Iraq alleged that UN inspectors included U.S. intelligence agents that supplied the U.S. with a direct feed of conversations between Iraqi security agencies as well as other information. This was confirmed by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal .
During 2002, Bush repeatedly warned of military action unless inspections were allowed to progress unfettered. In accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1441 Iraq reluctantly agreed to new inspections in late 2002. The weapons inspections did not uncover any WMD in Iraq. Shortly before the invasion Hans Blix, the lead weapons inspector, advised the UN Security Council that Iraq was cooperating with inspections and that the confirmation of disarmament through inspections could be achieved in a short period of time if Iraq remained cooperative.
Alleged weapons of mass destruction
In the initial stages of the war on terror, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), under George Tenet, was rising to prominence as the lead agency in the Afghanistan war. But when Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with President Bush that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to reexamine the evidence and marginalize the CIA and Tenet. A major part of this program was a Pentagon unit known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), created by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and headed by Douglas Feith to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq, unvetted by intelligence analysts, and circumventing traditional intelligence gathering operations by the CIA. The questionable intelligence acquired by the OSP was "stovepiped" to Cheney and presented to the public.
In some cases, Cheney’s office would leak the intelligence to news correspondents, who would cover it in such outlets as The New York Times . Cheney would subsequently appear on the Sunday political television talk shows to discuss the intelligence, pointing to The New York Times reportage as corroboration of his view.
Prior to the Gulf War, in 1990, Iraq had stockpiled 550 short tons (500 t) of yellowcake uranium at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Baghdad. In late February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate reports (later found to be forgeries) that Iraq was attempting to purchase additional yellowcake from Niger. Wilson returned and informed the CIA that reports of yellowcake sales to Iraq were "unequivocally wrong." The Bush administration, however, continued to allege Iraq's attempts to obtain additional yellowcake were a justification for military action, most prominently in the January, 2003, State of the Union address, in which President Bush declared that Iraq had sought uranium, citing British intelligence sources.
In response, Wilson wrote a critical New York Times op-ed piece in June 2003 stating that he had personally investigated claims of yellowcake purchases and believed them to be fraudulent. After Wilson's op-ed, Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was publicly identified as an undercover CIA analyst by a columnist. This led to a Justice Depar
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