| Two years ago America invaded Iraq Exactly two years ago, on the night of March 20, America began bombing Iraq. Three weeks later, Saddam Hussein's regime fell. On May 1, 2003, US President George W. Bush announced the victorious end of the operation.
But the war did not end. Over the course of two years, 1,513 American troops died in Iraq. Most of them - 1,374 people - after Bush's declared victory. Another 167 military personnel from coalition countries and dozens of foreign specialists, including three from Russia, also died. Over the past year alone, more than one and a half hundred foreigners have been kidnapped in the occupied country, dozens of them have been executed, and many have been released for ransom. More than 6 thousand Iraqi military personnel were killed, and 19 thousand civilians became victims of terrorist attacks.
The second anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq was marked by mass protests around the world. But President Bush is confident that he is right. “We must and will confront America's threats before they materialize,” the US president said in a radio address on Saturday. He stressed: “Two years ago, we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to disarm a brutal regime, set Iraqis free, and protect the world from great danger.”
“America has not achieved its stated goals in Iraq, is mired in the Iraqi swamp and is putting a good face on a bad game,” Deputy Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anatoly Yegorin told Vremya Novostei. According to Sergei Oznobishchev, director of the Institute for Strategic Assessments, evidence of the complete failure of the operation in Iraq is the fact that a country where there was no terrorism became its breeding ground. “The invasion of Iraq was a mobilizing factor for terrorists; they closed their ranks,” Mr. Oznobishchev emphasized in an interview with Vremya Novostei.
On the eve of the war, America explained the need for the invasion by the fact that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Baghdad supports al-Qaeda terrorists. The Americans did not find any WMD in Iraq, nor did they find any evidence of Saddam’s connections with Osama. “Already during the war, its goals were shifted. When it became obvious that there were no WMD in Iraq, Washington started talking about the democratization of Iraq and the Middle East,” Oznobishchev sums up.
Indeed, President Bush does not recall his own pre-war accusations against Iraq, emphasizing the “democratic shift”: “The invasion of Iraq made America safer and inspired a movement towards democratic reform throughout the Middle East.” “We are talking less about the so-called reign of democracy in the Middle East, and more about the change of regimes that are undesirable to America,” says Anatoly Yegorin. In just a year or two, he believes, Washington will be forced to withdraw troops from Iraq. And then the inevitable internal conflicts will lead to the coming to power in Iraq of a new strong personality like Saddam Hussein. Andrey ZLOBIN |
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