Lies, more lies and the invasion of Iraq

Twenty years ago, on 20 March 2003, Iraq was invaded by American and British forces in a disastrous and illegal war that has had endless repercussions since, including, arguably, multiple suicide bombings across the world.  

The Iraqi people have since endured civil war and the exacerbation of historic religious divides. A large part of the country was subsequently occupied by ISIS forces, who murdered tens of thousands of men. As an Iraqi noted recently, “we had learned to live with Saddam. Since then we have had to live with 1,000 Saddams”.

The war was framed as part of the so-called War on Terror and justified on the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, that could be mobilised by the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, in 45 minutes. There was also the further lie that Iraq was protecting Al-Qaeda.

Both these falsehoods were manufactured in joint efforts by the George W. Bush government in Washington and New Labour under Tony Blair in London. The infamous “dodgy dossier” produced by the Blair government was a cut-and-paste job.

In New York, US secretary of State Colin Powell, waved a “secret” report around the UN Security Council purporting to show that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons. Powell came to regret the lies but it was all too late.

The real purpose of the war led by the US was to re-establish power and influence in the oil-rich Middle East, to defend Israel at all costs, and to impose the US image of democracy by force on Iraq. In short, it was a neoliberal capitalist project.

The strategy for the war was concocted by Bush, and his even more hawkish advisers, the so-called neo-cons, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz et al. The Republican Party, which had majorities in Congress, could be counted on to vote for war.

At first most Americans in a poll favoured diplomacy over an invasion, but an elaborate domestic public relations campaign helped swing opinion.

It was essential for the US to be seen to have allies for this military adventure, so Britain was swiftly enrolled as the key ally. “I will be with you, whatever,” Blair had told Bush in writing nine months before the war. And Blair went along with the whole conspiracy towards war, insisting that Saddam was a credible threat in spite of the official UN weapons inspector not finding any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 

The rest of Europe kept a healthy distance from the build-up. The resulting conflict, kicked off with the shameful “shock and Awe” aerial bombardment of Baghdad, and the civil war in Iraq that followed killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Most people in Britain opposed the war. There were numerous protests culminating in the largest demonstration ever seen in Britain. A month before the war began well over a million people marched through London to Hyde Park. Huge demonstrations took place in capitals around the globe.

But nothing was going to stop it. The House of Commons voted by 412 to 149 for the invasion, although the UN had refused to endorse it.

As the saying goes, a lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes. The truth took a lot longer to come out than that! Only in 2016 did the official inquiry report say that there no threats to the UK from Saddam in 2003 and that the legal basis for the invasion was flimsy.

The systematic lying by the UK state has deepened under the Tories. No wonder that trust in the political system is at an all-time low. The invasion of Iraq was a turning point in more ways than one.