The 2003 Iraqi invasion is the first stage of the Iraq War (also called Operation Iraqi Freedom ). The invasion phase began on March 20, 2003 and lasted for more than a month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which joint forces from the United States, Britain, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. The initial phase of this war officially ended on May 1, 2003 when US President George W. Bush declared "the end of major combat operations", after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments to lead. for Iraq's first parliamentary election in January 2005. US military forces then remain in Iraq until withdrawal in 2011.
The US-led coalition sent 177,194 troops to Iraq during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 19 to April 9, 2003. Approximately 130,000 people arrived from the US alone, with about 45,000 British troops, 2,000 Australian troops and 194 Polish troops. 36 other countries are involved in the consequences. In preparation for the invasion, 100,000 US troops gathered in Kuwait on 18 February. Coalition forces also received support from Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan.
According to George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the coalition aims "to disarm Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." Others place a much greater emphasis on the impact of the September 11 attacks on the role played in altering the US strategic account, and the emergence of the freedom agenda. According to Blair, the trigger is the failure of Iraq to take the "last chance" to disarm its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons so that US and British officials call the immediate and unbearable threat to world peace.
In a CBS poll of January 2003, 64% of Americans have approved military action against Iraq; However, 63% want Bush to find a diplomatic solution rather than go to war, and 62% believe the threat of terrorism directed against the US will increase due to the war. The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by several US allies, including the governments of France, Germany, and New Zealand. Their leaders argue that there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that attacking the country is not justified in the context of UNMOVIC's report February 12, 2003. On February 15, 2003, a month before the invasion, there were worldwide protests against the Iraq War, including three million people in Rome, where the Guinness Book of Records is listed as the biggest anti-war rally ever. According to French academic Dominique ReyniÃÆ'Â ©, between January 3 and 12 April 2003, 36 million people worldwide took part in nearly 3,000 protests against the Iraq war.
The invasion was preceded by air strikes at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on March 20, 2003. The next day, coalition troops launched an assault on Basra Province from their mass point near the Iraqi-Kuwait border. While the special forces launched an amphibious assault from the Persian Gulf to secure Basra and the surrounding oilfields, the main invading forces moved to southern Iraq, occupied the area and engaged in the Battle of Nasiriyah on March 23. Massive air strikes across the country and against Iraqi command-and-control threw defensive soldiers into chaos and prevented effective resistance. On March 26, the 173th Airborne Brigade was dropped near the northern town of Kirkuk, where they joined Kurdish rebels and made several actions against the Iraqi Army to secure the northern part of the country.
The main body of the coalition forces continued their journey into the heart of Iraq and met with little resistance. Most of the Iraqi army was quickly defeated and the coalition occupied Baghdad on 9 April. Another operation occurred against the pockets of Iraqi soldiers, including the capture and occupation of Kirkuk on April 10, and the attacks and arrests of Tikrit on April 15. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and central leadership are hiding as coalition troops complete the country's occupation. On May 1, President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations: this ended the period of invasion and began a period of military occupation.
Video 2003 invasion of Iraq
Mendahului invasi
The 1991 Gulf War Enemy was suspended on 28 February 1991, with a ceasefire negotiated between the UN Coalition and Iraq. The United States and its allies tried to keep Saddam in check with military actions such as Operation Southern Watch, conducted by the Joint Southeast Asian Joint Task Force (JTF-SWA) with the monitoring mission and control of the southern airspace of the 32nd Parallel (expanded to 33 Parallel in 1996) as well as using economic sanctions. It was revealed that the biological weapons program (BW) in Iraq had begun in the early 1980s with assistance from the US and Europe in violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The details of the BW program - along with the chemical weapons program - emerged after the Gulf War (1990 -91) following an investigation by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) that has been accused of disarming Iraq after the Iraq war. The investigation concluded that there was no evidence that the program continued after the war. The US and its allies then maintain a policy of "detention" against Iraq. This policy involves a lot of economic sanctions by the UN Security Council; enforcement of Iraq's no-fly zone declared by the United States and Britain to protect Kurds in Iraqi and Shia Kurdistan in the south from air strikes by the Iraqi government; and ongoing inspections. Iraqi military helicopters and aircraft regularly compete with the no-fly zone.
In October 1998, removing the Iraqi government into official US foreign policy with the enactment of the Iraq Liberation Act. Enforced after the expulsion of the UN weapons inspector in August (after some accused of spying for the US), the measure gave $ 97 million to Iraq's "democratic opposition organization" to "create a program to support the transition to democracy in Iraq." this is contrary to the provisions set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which focuses on arms and weapons programs and does not mention regime changes. One month after the passage of the Iraq Freedom Act, the United States and Britain launched an Iraqi bombing campaign called Operation Desert Fox. The rationale for the campaign is to hamper the ability of Saddam Hussein's government to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, but US intelligence personnel also hope it will help weaken Saddam's rule.
With the election of George W. Bush as president in 2000, the US is moving towards a more aggressive policy toward Iraq. The Republican campaign platform in the 2000 election called for a "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act as a "starting point" in the plan to "wipe out" Saddam. After leaving the George W. Bush administration, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that an attack on Iraq had been planned since the inauguration of Bush, and that the first US National Security Council meeting involved a discussion of the invasion. O'Neill later stepped down, saying that this discussion was part of a continuation of the foreign policy first imposed by the Clinton administration.
Although the Bush administration expressed interest in liberating Iraq, a bit of formal movement towards invasion occurred until the 9/11 attacks. For example, the government is preparing Operation Desert Badger to respond aggressively if Air Force pilots are shot down while flying over Iraq, but this is not the case. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed available intercept National Security Agency (NSA) data at midday on 11 pointing to al-Qaeda's errors, and in the afternoon ordered the Pentagon to prepare a plan to attack Iraq. According to the maids who were with him at the National Military Command Center on that day, Rumsfeld asked: "The best quick info The judge is good enough to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time, not just Osama bin Laden." A memo written by Rumsfeld in November 2001 considered the Iraq war. The reason for attacking Iraq in response to 9/11 has been widely questioned, as there is no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Shortly after September 11, 2001 (on September 20), Bush addressed a joint session of Congress (broadcast live to the world), and announced his new "War on Terror". This announcement was accompanied by the doctrine of "pre-emptive" military action, which was then termed Bush Doctrine. The alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda was made by several US Government officials who asserted that a very secret connection existed between Saddam and al Qaeda radical Islamic radical organization from 1992 to 2003, in particular through a series of meetings reportedly involving the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS ). Some Bush advisers prefer a direct invasion of Iraq, while others advocate building an international coalition and obtaining UN authorization. Bush eventually decided to seek UN authorization, while still maintaining the option of attacking without it.
Prepare for war
While there were previous discussions about action against Iraq, the Bush administration waited until September 2002 to call for action, with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card saying, "From a marketing standpoint, you are not introducing new products in August." Bush began to formally present his case to the international community to invade Iraq in his September 12, 2002 address to the UN Security Council.
The key US allies in NATO, such as Great Britain, agreed with US action, while France and Germany criticized plans to attack Iraq, arguing for continued diplomacy and weapons inspection. After a major debate, the UN Security Council adopted a compromise resolution, UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which certifies the continuation of weapons inspections and promises "serious consequences" for non-compliance. Members of the French and Russian Security Council confirmed that they did not consider these consequences including the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi government. Both the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, and the British ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, publicly confirmed the reading of this resolution, ensuring that Resolution 1441 did not provide "automatic" or "hidden triggers" for an invasion without further consultation on Security. Board.
Resolution 1441 gave Iraq "a last chance to comply with disarmament obligations" and set up inspections by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Saddam accepted the resolution on 13 November and the inspectors returned to Iraq under the direction of UNMOVIC chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. In February 2003, the IAEA "found no reasonable evidence or indication of a resurgence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq"; The IAEA concludes that certain items that may have been used in centrifugal nuclear enrichment, such as aluminum tubes, are actually intended for other uses. UNMOVIC "found no evidence of continuation or return of weapons of mass destruction programs" or a large number of illicit goods. UNMOVIC supervised the destruction of a small number of empty chemical rocket warriors, 50 liters of mustard gas declared by Iraq and sealed by UNSCOM in 1998, and the number of mustard gas precursor laboratories, along with about 50 Al-Samoud missiles from a design that Iraq does not claim exceeding the 150 km allowed range, but which has covered up to 183 km in tests. Shortly before the invasion, UNMOVIC declared that it took "months" to verify Iraqi compliance with resolution 1441.
In October 2002, the US Congress passed the "Iraqi Resolution". The resolution authorizes the President to "use all necessary means" against Iraq. Americans surveyed in January 2003 widely favored diplomacy over an invasion. Later that year, however, the Americans began to agree with Bush's plan. The US government is engaged in a complicated domestic public relations campaign to market war to its citizens. America strongly believes that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction: 85% say so, even though the inspectors did not find the weapons. Of those who think that Iraq has a weapon confiscated somewhere, about half say that the weapons will not be found in combat. In February 2003, 64% of Americans supported taking military action to remove Saddam from power.
The Central Intelligence Division Special Action Team (SAD), consisting of paramilitary operations officers and 10 Special Forces soldiers, was the first US troops to enter Iraq, in July 2002, before the main invasion. Once on the ground, they prepare for the arrival of the next US Army Special Forces to organize the Kurdish Peshmerga. The joint team (called the Northern Iraq Liaison Element (NILE)) combined to defeat Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to al-Qaeda, in Iraqi Kurdistan. This battle to take control of the territory occupied by Ansar al-Islam. It was done by the Paramilitary Operations Officers from SAD and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. This battle resulted in the defeat of Ansar and the capture of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat. Sargat is the only facility of its kind found in the Iraq war.
The SAD team also conducts missions behind enemy lines to identify leadership targets. These missions caused early air strikes against Saddam and his generals. Although the strike against Saddam did not succeed in killing him, it effectively ended his ability to lead and control his troops. The strike against Iraqi generals was more successful and significantly lowered Iraqi commando's ability to react, and maneuvered against, US-led invasion forces. SAD's operations officers have also managed to convince key Iraqi Army officers to hand over their units once the battle begins.
NATO member Turkey refuses to allow US troops across its territory to northern Iraq. Therefore, the Army's combined forces and Special Forces and Pershmerga formed all the forces of the North against the Iraqi army. They managed to keep the northern divisions in place rather than allowing them to assist their comrades against US-led coalition forces from the south. These four CIA officers were awarded Intelligence Star for their actions.
In a State of the 2003 speech, President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, has several mobile biological weapons labs". On February 5, 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to the United Nations General Assembly, continuing US efforts to gain UN authorization for an invasion. His presentation to the UN Security Council, which contains computer images produced from a "mobile biological weapons laboratory". However, this information is based on the claims of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball", an Iraqi immigrant living in Germany who later admitted that his claim was wrong.
Powell also presented evidence that Iraq has links with al-Qaeda. As a follow up to Powell's presentation, the United States, Britain, Poland, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Japan and Spain submitted a resolution permitting the use of force in Iraq, but NATO members such as Canada, France, and Germany, together with Russia, strongly urged diplomacy sustainable. Faced with losing voices and the possibility of veto from France and Russia, the United States, Britain, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Japan and Australia finally withdrew their resolution.
The opposition to the invasion united in the worldwide anti-war protests of 15 February 2003 draws between six and ten million people in over 800 cities, the biggest protest in human history according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
On March 20, 2003, the Prime Minister of Spain, JosÃÆ'Â © MarÃÆ'a Aznar, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, United States President George W. Bush, and Prime Minister of Portugal, JosÃÆ'Â © Manuel DurÃÆ'Â £ o Barroso as the host, met at Azores, to discuss the invasion of Iraq, and the potential for Spanish involvement in the war, as well as the beginning of the invasion. This meeting is highly controversial in Spain, and even now remains a sensitive point for the Aznar government. Almost a year later, Madrid suffered the worst terrorist attacks in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing, spurred by the Spanish decision to participate in the Iraq war, prompting some Spaniards to accuse the Prime Minister of being responsible.
In March 2003, the United States, Britain, Poland, Australia, Spain, Denmark and Italy began preparing for the invasion of Iraq, with a number of public relations and military movements. In his speech on March 17, 2003 for the nation, Bush demanded that Saddam and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, surrender and leave Iraq, giving them a 48 hour deadline. But the US started the bombing of Iraq on the day before the deadline expired. On March 18, 2003, Iraqi bombings by the United States, Britain, Australia, Poland, Spain, Italy and Denmark began. In contrast to the first Gulf War, this war did not have clear UN authorization.
The British House of Commons held a debate about going to war on March 18, 2003 in which the government movement was approved 412-149. Voting is a key moment in the history of the Blair administration, as the number of government MPs who rebel against the vote is the largest since the revocation of the Corn Law in 1846. Three government ministers resigned in protest against the war, John Denham, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath , and the Leader of the Robin Cook Family. In an eager speech to the House of Commons after his resignation, he said, "What matters to me is the suspicion that if 'hang chads' from Florida has gone the other way and Al Gore has been elected, we will not now be doing troops England to act in Iraq. "During the debate, it was stated that the Attorney General had informed him that the war was legitimate according to previous UN Resolutions.
Maps 2003 invasion of Iraq
Efforts to avoid war
In December 2002 a deputy Iraqi Intelligence chief, General Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, contacted former head of the Central Terrorism Counterintelligence Agency, Vincent Cannistraro, who said Saddam "knew there was a campaign to link him to September 11 and proved he had weapons of mass destruction WMDs). "Cannistraro further added that" Iraqis are ready to meet this concern.I reported the conversation to the senior level of the state department and I was told to stand aside and they would handle it. " Cannistraro stated that the bids made were all "killed" by the George W. Bush administration because they allowed Saddam to remain in power, a result that was deemed unacceptable. It has been suggested that Saddam Hussein is ready to go into exile if allowed to save $ 1 billion USD.
Egypt's national security adviser Hosni Mubarak, Osama El-Baz, sent a message to the US State Department that the Iraqis wanted to discuss allegations that the country had weapons of mass destruction and links with Al-Qaeda. Iraq is also trying to reach the US through intelligence services Syria, France, Germany, and Russia.
In January 2003, Lebanon-America Imad Hage met with Michael Maloof from the US Department of Defense's Special Plan Office. Hage, a resident of Beirut, has been recruited by the department to assist in the War on Terror. He reported that Mohammed Nassif, a close aide to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, had expressed frustration about the difficulty of Syria contacting the United States, and had tried to use it as an intermediary. Maloof arranged for Hage to meet with civilian Richard Perle, then Head of the Defense Policy Board.
In January 2003, Hage met with head of foreign intelligence operations of Iraq, Hassan al-Obeidi. Obeidi told Hage that Baghdad did not understand why they were targeted, and that they did not have WMD. He then made an offer to Washington to send 2000 FBI agents to confirm this. He also offered oil concessions, but not until Saddam relinquished power, suggesting that elections could be held within two years. Later, Obeidi suggested that Hage travel to Baghdad to negotiate; he accepted.
Later that month, Hage met with General Habbush and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. He was offered a top priority for US companies in oil and mining rights, UN-supervised elections, US inspections (with up to 5,000 inspectors), to have al-Qaeda agents Abdul Rahman Yasin (in Iraqi custody since 1994) handed in as a sign of goodwill, and giving "full support for US plans" in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. They also want to meet with top US officials. On February 19, Hage faxed Maloof about his travel report. Maloof reportedly brought the proposal to Jaymie Duran. The Pentagon denied that either Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld, Duran's superiors, knew the plan.
On February 21, Maloof told Duran in an email that Richard Perle wanted to meet with Hage and Iraq if the Pentagon would remove it. Duran replied "Mike, do this. Keep this closeness." On March 7, Perle met with Hage at Knightsbridge, and stated that he wanted to pursue the matter further with the people in Washington (both of whom had admitted the meeting). A few days later, he told Hage that Washington refused to let him meet with Habbush to discuss the offer (Hage stated that Perle's response was "that consensus in Washington is no way"). Perle told The Times, "The message is' Tell them we'll see them in Baghdad. ??
Casus belli and rational
George Bush, speaking in October 2002, said that "The policy of declaring the United States is a regime change... But if Saddam must meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions I have described are very clear in terms that everyone can understand, that alone will signal the regime has changed ". Citing reports from certain intelligence sources, Bush declared on 6 March 2003 that he believed that Saddam did not comply with UN Resolution 1441.
In September 2002, Tony Blair stated, in response to a parliamentary question that "the regime change in Iraq will be an extraordinary thing, it is not the purpose of our actions, our goal is to disarm Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." "In November of that year, Blair further stated that," As far as our goal, it is disarmament, not a time change - that is our goal. Now I believe that Saddam's regime is very brutal and repressive. regime, I think it is very damaging to the Iraqi people... so I have no doubt that Saddam is very bad for Iraq but on the other hand I have no doubt whether the goal of our UN challenge is the disarmament of mass destruction, it is not a regime change. "
At a press conference on January 31, 2003, Bush again confirmed that the single trigger for the invasion was Iraq's failure to disarm, "Saddam Hussein must understand that if he does not disarm, for peace, we, together with others, will disarm Saddam Hussein. "As of February 25, 2003, it was still the official line that the only cause of the invasion was a failure to disarm. As Blair explained in a statement to the House of Commons, "I hate his regime, but even now he can save it by fulfilling the UN request, even now we are ready to go further to achieve peaceful disarmament.
Additional justifications used at various times include Iraqi violations of UN resolutions, the suppression of the Iraqi government against its citizens, and Iraq's violation of the 1991 ceasefire.
The main allegations are: that Saddam has or is trying to produce weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam Hussein has used in places like Halabja, owns, and makes efforts to obtain, especially in light of two earlier attacks on Baghdad's nuclear weapons production facilities by both. Iran and Israel alleged to have delayed development of weapons development; and, furthermore, that he has links with terrorists, especially al-Qaeda.
Despite never making an explicit connection between Iraq and the September 11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration repeatedly quipped a link, thus creating a false impression for the US public. The testimony of the Grand Jury from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing experiment cited many direct links from the bombers to Baghdad and the 13th Department of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in an initial attack that marked the second anniversary of justifying the handover of Iraqi armed forces in Operation Desert Storm. For example, The Washington Post has noted that,
Although it does not explicitly state the errors of Iraq in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, government officials, at various times, imply relationships. In late 2001, Cheney said it was "confirmed fairly well" that the mastermind attack by Mohamed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official. Later, Cheney referred to Iraq as "the geographical base of the terrorists that have kept us under attack now for years, but especially on 9/11."
Steven Kull, director of the International Policy Attitudes Program (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, observed in March 2003 that "The government has succeeded in creating a sense that there is a connection between September 11 and Saddam Hussein]." It follows a New York Times CBS poll showing 45% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was "personally involved" in the 9/11 atrocities. As the Christian Science Monitor was observed at the time, while "The source of knowledge about US intelligence said there was no evidence that Saddam was playing a role in the September 11 attacks, or that he had been or was helping Al Qaeda... The White House seems to be pushing this wrong impression, as it seeks to maintain American support for a possible war against Iraq and shows the seriousness of its goals for Saddam's regime. "CSM went on to report that, while poll data collected" just after 11 September 2001 " which mentions Iraq or Saddam Hussein, in January 2003 the attitude "has changed" with a Knight Ridder poll showing that 44% of Americans believe "most" or "some" of the September 11 hijackers are Iraqis.
According to General Tommy Frank, the purpose of the invasion is, "First, end the regime of Saddam Hussein, Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate weapons of mass destruction of Iraq Third, to seek, arrest and expel terrorists from the country, Fourth, to gather intelligence as we can be linked to terrorist networks, Fifth, to gather intelligence as we can in connection with the global network of forbidden weapons of mass destruction Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately provide humanitarian support to refugees and many Iraqis in need. securing Iraq's oil fields and resources, owned by the Iraqi people and, finally, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for the transition to self-governing representatives. "
The BBC also notes that, while President Bush "never directly accused the former Iraqi leader of having a hand in attacks against New York and Washington", he "repeatedly linked the two in the keynote address delivered since 11 September", adding that " "For example, the BBC report quoted Colin Powell in February 2003, stating that" We have learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in the manufacture of bombs and poison and lethal gases and we know that after September 11 , Saddam Hussein's regime is happily celebrating terrorist attacks on America. "The same BBC report also notes the results of a recent poll, which shows that" 70% of Americans believe that Iraqi leaders are personally involved in the attack. "
Also in September 2003, the Boston Globe reported that "Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants to defend the White House's foreign policy amid ongoing violence in Iraq, shocked intelligence analysts and even members of his own government this week by failing to ignore widely discredited claims: that Saddam Hussein might play a role in the September 11 attacks. "A year later, presidential candidate John Kerry charged that Cheney continued" deliberately misleading the American public by drawing ties between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in efforts to invade Iraq are part of a global war on terror. "
Throughout 2002, the Bush administration insisted that removing Saddam from power to restore international peace and security was the overriding goal. The principal declared the justification for this "regime change" policy is that the ongoing production of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the so-called terrorist association, as well as Iraq's continued violation of UN Security Council resolutions, pose a threat to the United States and the United States. world community.
The thorough thinking of the Bush administration for the Iraq invasion was presented in detail by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003. In a nutshell, he states,
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to defend his weapons of mass destruction; he is determined to make more. Given the history of Saddam Hussein's aggression... in light of what we know about his terrorist association and giving his determination to take revenge on those who oppose it, should we risk that he will not someday use these weapons at a time and place and in a way choose it when the world is in a much weaker position to respond? The United States will not and can not run that risk for the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction for several months or years is not an option, not in the post-9/11 world.
Since the invasion, the US government's statement on Iraq's weapons program and its links with al-Qaeda have been discredited. While the debate over whether Iraq intends to develop future chemical, biological and nuclear weapons remains open, no WMD has been found in Iraq since the invasion despite a comprehensive inspection lasting more than 18 months. In Cairo, on February 24, 2001, Colin Powell had predicted, saying, "[Saddam] has not developed a significant capability with regard to weapons of mass destruction, he can not project conventional forces against his neighbors." Similarly, the statement of operational relations between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda has largely been discredited by the intelligence community, and Minister Powell himself later admitted that he had no evidence.
In September 2002, the Bush administration said Iraqi efforts to acquire thousands of high-powered aluminum tubes pointed to a secret program for making enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. Powell, in his address to the UN Security Council before the war, referred to the aluminum tubes. A report released by the International Institute of Science and Security in 2002, however, reported that highly unlikely tubes could be used to enrich uranium. Powell later admitted he had filed an inaccurate case with the United Nations on Iraqi weapons, based on the wrong sources and in some cases "deliberately misleading."
The Bush administration insists that Saddam's government has been trying to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. On March 7, 2003, the United States filed intelligence documents as evidence to the International Atomic Energy Agency. These documents are dismissed by the IAEA as counterfeiting, with approval in the assessment of outside experts. At that time, a US official stated that the evidence was submitted to the IAEA without the knowledge of its origin and marked the error as "most likely due to non-malicious incapacity".
Iraqi drone
In October 2002, a few days before the US Senate voted for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the Iraqi Resolution, about 75 senators were told in a closed session that the Iraqi government has a means of dispatching biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aircraft. drones of air vehicles (UAVs) that can be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack the US east coast cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the United States.
In fact, Iraq does not have an offensive UAV fleet or the ability to place UAVs on ships. The Iraqi UAV fleet consists of fewer than some of the ancient Czech training drones. At that time, there was a strong dispute within the intelligence community whether the CIA's conclusions about the Iraqi UAV fleet were accurate. The US Air Force has denied that Iraq has an offensive UAV capability.
Human rights
As evidence supporting US and British allegations about weapons of mass destruction of Iraq and its relation to terrorism is weakening, some invasion advocates are increasingly shifting their justification to Saddam's human rights abuses. Leading human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch argue, however, that they believe the human rights issue has never been a central justification for the invasion, nor does it believe that military intervention can be justified on the basis of humanity, most significantly because "murder in Iraq at the time not a tremendous trait that would justify such an intervention. "
Legality of invasion
The Authorization of the Use of Military Forces against the 2002 Iraqi Resolution was endorsed by Congress with Republicans with a 98% vote in favor of the Senate, and 97% in the House. Democrats support 58% and 39% shared resolutions in the Senate and House respectively. The resolution confirms authorization by the United States Constitution and Congress for the President to counter anti-American terrorism. Citing the Iraq Freedom Act of 1998, the resolution reaffirms that the US policy should be necessary to abolish Saddam Hussein's regime and promote the replacement of democracy.
The resolution "supports" and "encourages" diplomatic efforts by President George W. Bush to "strictly enforce through the Security Council the United Nations all relevant Security Council resolutions on Iraq" and "receive prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its suspension strategy , avoidance and disobedience and immediately and strictly comply with all relevant Security Council resolutions concerning Iraq. "The resolution authorizes President Bush to use the United States Armed Forces" when he decides to become necessary and appropriate "to" defend the national security of the United States to the ongoing threat posed by Iraq, and to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council. " Iraq-related resolution. "
The legality of the invasion of Iraq has been challenged since its founding on a number of fronts, and some of the main advocates of invasion in all attacking countries have openly and privately questioned its legality. It has been argued that the invasion is entirely legal because authorization is implied by the United Nations Security Council. International legal experts, including the International Commission of Jurists, a group of 31 prominent Canadian law professors, and the US-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, have denounced both of these reasons.
On Thursday November 20, 2003, an article published in the Guardian alleged that Richard Perle, senior member of the Defense Policy Advisory Committee, acknowledged that the invasion was illegal but still justifiable.
The United Nations Security Council has issued nearly 60 resolutions in Iraq and Kuwait since the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The most relevant to this issue is Resolution 678, adopted on 29 November 1990. It authorizes "member states to cooperate with The Kuwaiti Government... to use all necessary means "to (1) implement Security Council Resolution 660 and other resolutions calling for an end to the occupation of Kuwait and the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from the territory of Kuwait and (2)" restoring international peace and security in the region. " Resolution 678 has not been revoked or canceled with a successful resolution and Iraq was not charged after 1991 to invade Kuwait or threaten to do so.
Resolution 1441 was most prominent during wartime and served as the primary background for the speech of Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council a month before the invasion. According to an independent commission of inquiry established by the Dutch government, UN resolution 1441 "can not be interpreted as sensible (as the Dutch government) to authorize individual member states to use military force to force Iraq to comply with Security Council resolutions. Thus, the Dutch commission concluded that the 2003 invasion violated international law.
At the same time, Bush Administration officials filed parallel legal arguments using the previous resolution, which legitimized the powers in response to Iraq's invasion of Iraq in 1990. For this reason, by not disarming and subject to weapons inspection, Iraq has violated UN Security Council Resolution 660 and 678, and the United States can legally impose Iraqi compliance through military means.
Critics and supportive legal reasons based on UN resolutions argue that the legal right to decide how to enforce resolutions lies with the Security Council alone, not with individual countries.
In February 2006, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the principal prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, reported that he had received 240 separate communications on the legality of the war, many of which involved British participation in the invasion. In a letter addressed to the complainants, Moreno Ocampo explains that he can only consider issues related to behavior during the war and not on the underlying legality as a crime of aggression that may be because there has not been an adopted provision that "defines the crime and establishes the conditions under which the Court may exercise jurisdiction in respect of it. "In a March 2007 interview with Sunday Telegraph, Moreno Ocampo encouraged Iraq to register for trial so that it could bring in cases related to alleged war crimes.
US Congressman, Ohio, Dennis Kucinich held a press conference on the night of 24 April 2007, revealing Resolution 333 of the House of Representatives and three articles impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. He accused Cheney of manipulating evidence of Iraqi weapons programs, tricking the nation about Iraq's relations with al-Qaeda, and threatening aggression against Iran in violation of the UN Charter.
Military aspect
The British military operation was named Telic Operations .
Multilateral support
In November 2002, President George W. Bush, who visited Europe for the NATO summit, stated that, "should the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein choose not to disarm, the United States will lead a coalition willing to disarm."
Thereafter, the Bush Administration briefly used the term Coalition of the Will to refer to states that supported, militarily orally, military action in Iraq and subsequent military presence in Iraq after the invasion since 2003. The original list prepared in March 2003 included 49 members. Of the 49, only six in addition to the US contributed troops to the invading forces (England, Australia, Poland, Spain, Portugal and Denmark), and 33 provided a number of troops to support the occupation after the invasion was over. The six members have no military, which means that they are holding troops completely.
Strength of invasion
About 148,000 troops from the United States, 45,000 British troops, 2,000 Australian troops and 194 Polish troops from the special forces unit of GROM were sent to Kuwait for the invasion. The invasion forces are also supported by Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, estimated to number over 70,000. In the final stages of the invasion, 620 troops from opposition groups of the Iraqi National Congress were deployed to southern Iraq.
The Command Center Command Center Command report, indicating that, on April 30, 2003, there were a total of 466,985 US personnel deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These include USAF, 54,955; USAF Reserve, 2,084; Air National Guard, 7,207; USMC, 74405; USMC Reserve, 9,501; USN, 61.296 (681 members of the U.S. Coast Guard); USN Reserve, 2.056; and the US Army, 233,342; US Army Reserve, 10,683; and the National Guard of the Army, 8,866.
The plan to open the second front in the north was severely hampered when Turkey refused the use of its territory for that purpose. In response to Turkey's decision, the United States dropped several thousand paratroopers from the 173th Airborne Brigade to northern Iraq, far less than the 15,000th Infantry Division of 15,000 originally planned by the United States to open the northern front.
Get started
The CIA's Special Activities Division (SAD) The paramilitary team entered Iraq in July 2002 before the 2003 invasion. Once on the ground, they prepared for the arrival of the next US military forces. The SAD team was then combined with US Army Special Forces to organize the Kurdish Peshmerga. The combined team is combined to defeat Ansar al-Islam, an ally of Al Qaeda, in a battle in the northeast corner of Iraq. The US side was conducted by Paramilitary Officers from SAD and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group.
The SAD team also undertook a high-risk special surveillance mission behind the Iraqi line to identify senior leadership targets. These missions lead to the initial offensive against Saddam Hussein and his key generals. Although the initial strikes against Saddam did not succeed in killing their dictators or generals, they effectively ended the ability to control and control Iraqi forces. Other strikes against key generals succeeded and significantly lowered the command's ability to react and maneuver against US-led invading forces coming from the south.
SAD's operations officers also managed to convince Iraqi army officers to hand over their units as soon as the fighting began and/or did not oppose the invading forces. Turkish NATO members refused to allow its territory to be used for the invasion. As a result, a joint team of Special Forces SAD/SOG and US and Kurdish Kurdish Peshmerga Forces formed all the northern forces against government forces during the invasion. Their efforts to keep the 5th Corps of Iraqi forces in place to defend against the Kurds rather than move into coalition coalition contests.
According to Gen. Tommy Franks, April Fool, an American officer working undercover as a diplomat, was approached by Iraqi intelligence agents. April Fools were then sold to Iraq's fake "secret" attack plan provided by Frank's team. The trick misleads the Iraqi army to deploy large forces in northern and western Iraq in anticipation of attacks through Turkey or Jordan, which never happened. This greatly reduces defense capacity throughout Iraq and facilitates actual attacks through Kuwait and the Persian Gulf in the southeast.
Maintaining power
The number of personnel in the prewar Iraq military was uncertain, but believed to have been poorly equipped. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates the Iraqi armed forces amounted to 538,000 (Iraqi Army 375,000, Iraqi Navy 2,000, Iraqi Air Force 20,000 and 17,000 air defense), Saddam's paramilitary Fedayeen 44,000, Republican Guards 80,000 and 650,000 reserves.
Another estimate mentions the number of Republican Army and Guards between 280,000 and 350,000 and 50,000 to 80,000, and paramilitaries between 20,000 and 40,000. There are about thirteen infantry divisions, ten mechanical and armored divisions, as well as some special forces units. The Iraqi Air Force and Navy play a negligible role in the conflict.
During the invasion, foreign volunteers traveled to Iraq from Syria and took part in the fighting, usually under the command of Fedayeen Saddam. It is not known exactly how many foreign fighters fought in Iraq in 2003, however, intelligence officers from the US First Division estimate that 50% of all Iraqi fighters in central Iraq are foreigners.
In addition, the Kurdish militant group Ansar al-Islam controls a small part of northern Iraq in an area outside of Saddam Hussein's control. Ansar al-Islam has been fighting secular Kurdish forces since 2001. At the time of the invasion they fielded about 600 to 800 fighters. Ansar al-Islam was led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who would later become an important leader in the Iraqi insurgency. Ansar al-Islam was expelled from Iraq in late March by a joint American-Kurdish force during Operation Viking Hammer.
Invasion
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the United States and Britain have been involved in attacks on Iraqi air defenses while enforcing Iraq's no-fly zone. These zones, and attacks to enforce them, are described as illegal acts by former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine. Other countries, especially Russia and China, also condemned the zones as violating Iraqi sovereignty. In mid-2002, the US began to more carefully select targets in the southern part of the country to disrupt the military command structure in Iraq. A change in enforcement tactics was recognized at the time, but it was not made public that this was part of a plan known as the Southern Focused Operation.
The number of armaments that fell on Iraq's position by Coalition aircraft in 2001 and 2002 was less than in 1999 and 2000 during the Clinton administration. This information has been used to try to deny the theory that the Bush administration has decided to go to war against Iraq before coming to office and that bombings during 2001 and 2002 laid the groundwork for the eventual invasion in 2003. However, information obtained by the British Liberal Democrats shows that Britain dropped twice as many bombs in Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001. British bomb tonnages dropped from 0 in March 2002 and 0.3 in April 2002 to between 7 and 14 tonnes per month on in May-August, reached a pre-war peak of 54.6 tons in September - before the October 11 US Congress's authorization of the invasion.
The September 5 attacks include a 100 aircraft attack on the main air defense site in western Iraq. According to an editorial in New Statesman this is "Located at the furthest end of the southern flight ban zone, away from areas that need to be patrolled to prevent attacks on Shi'ites, it is destroyed not because it is a threat to patrols, allowing allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected. "
Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq, has since admitted that the bombing was designed to "degrade" Iraqi air defenses in the same way as the air strikes that started the 1991 Gulf War. This "spurt of activity", in the words of the British Minister of Defense, Geoff Hoon, designed to "suppress the Iraqi regime" or, as The Times reports, to "provoke Saddam Hussein into giving allies a reason for war". In this case, when provocations are designed to start a war, leaked foreign legal advice from the Foreign Office concludes that such attacks are illegal under international law.
Another attempt to provoke the war was mentioned in a leaked memo from a meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair on January 31, 2003 in which Bush allegedly told Blair that "the US is thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with combat cover over Iraq, painted with If on Sunday 17 March 2003, US President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave the country, along with his sons Uday and Qusay, or face war.
The special forces mission previously in al-Qa'im
On the night of March 17, 2003, most of the British B and D squads of the SAS 22 Regiment, designated as Task Force 14, crossed the border from Jordan to carry out ground attacks on a suspected chemical powder site at a water treatment plant. in the city of al-Qa'im. It has been reported that the site may be the location of SCUD or depot missile launches; a SAS officer quoted by writer Mark Nicol said "it is the location where the missiles have been fired into Israel in the past, and a strategically important site for WMD material." 60 members of D squadron, along with their Pinkie DPV (the last time the vehicle was used before retirement), was flown as far as 120 km to Iraq in 6 MH-47Ds in 3 waves. After their insertion, D squadron formed a patrol of a laager in a remote location outside al-Qa'im and awaited the arrival of the B squadron, which had pushed ashore from Jordan. Their approach to the plant was compromised, and a firefight developed that ended with a little finger should be abandoned and destroyed, repeated attempts to attack the plant were halted, causing SAS to summon an airstrike that silenced opposition.
Opening salvo: Dora Farms strike
On the morning of March 19, 2003, US forces canceled plans for an early non-nuclear beheading strike against 55 top Iraqi officials, given reports that Saddam Hussein visited his son Uday and Qusay at Dora Farms in the al-Dora farming community on the outskirts of Baghdad. At about 5:30 UTC, two F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters from the 8th Expedition Combatron Combed four Bunker Busters GBU-27 that were reinforced and guided by satellites in the compound. Completing the shooting of nearly 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from at least four vessels, including the USC's Ticonderoga class cruiser, the Cowpens (CG-63), is credited with being the first to attack, Arleigh Burke - the USSÃ destroyer class, Donald Cook , and two submarines in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.
One bomb missed the compound and three others missed the target, landing on the other side of the palace complex wall. Saddam Hussein is absent, nor are members of the Iraqi leadership. The attack killed one civilian and wounded fourteen others, including four men, nine women and one child. Investigations later revealed that Saddam Hussein had not visited the farm since 1995.
The opening attack
On March 19, 2003 at 21:00, the first attack of the operation was performed by the 160th SOAR member: the MAP-60L DAP (Direct Action Plan) flight and four Black Swarm flights - each consisting of a pair of AH-6M Little Birds and FLIR equipped MH-6M to identify targets for the AH-6s (each Black swarm flight assigned a pair of A-10As) involved Iraqi visual observation posts along the southern and western border of Iraq. Within seven hours, more than 70 sites were destroyed, effectively seizing the Iraqi army from any early warning of the impending invasion. When these sites were eliminated, the first helforne SOF teams were launched from the H-5 air base in Jordan, including patrol mounted by vehicles from British and Australian components transported by MH-47D from the 160th SOAR. The basic elements of the Dagger Task Force, Task Force 20, Task Force 14 and Task Force 64 violated the sand dykes along the Iraqi border with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the early hours of the morning and drove to Iraq. Unofficially, Britain, Australia and Task Force 20 had been in Iraq a few weeks earlier.
On March 20, 2003 around 2:30 UTC or about 90 minutes after the deadline of 48 hours, at 5:33 pm local time, an explosion was heard in Baghdad. Special operations commands from the CIA's Special Activities Division of the Northern Iraqi Liaison Element were infiltrated across Iraq and called for early air strikes. At 03:15 UTC, or 10:15 GMT EST, George W. Bush announced that he had ordered an "opportunity attack" against targets in Iraq. When this word is given, troops are preparing to cross the border into Iraq.
Before the invasion, many observers expected a long campaign of air bombardment before any land action, taking the 1991 Persian Gulf War or the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. In practice, US plans envisioned air and ground attacks simultaneously to cut off Iraqi forces quickly (see Shock and awe), trying to bypass Iraqi military and city units in many cases. The assumption is superior mobility and coordination of Coalition forces will allow them to attack the heart of Iraq's command structure and destroy it in a short time, and this will minimize civilian deaths and infrastructure damage. It is expected that the abolition of leadership will lead to the collapse of the Iraqi Forces and the government, and that many residents will support the invaders once the government has been weakened. City occupation and attacks on peripheral military units are seen as an unwanted intrusion.
Following Turkey's decision to reject the official use of its territory, the Coalition was forced to modify the planned simultaneous attacks from the north and south. The Special Operations Forces of the CIA and the US Army managed to build and lead the Kurdish Peshmerga into effective strength and attack for North Korea. The main base for the invasion was in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries. One result of this is that one division intended for the invasion was forced to move and could not take part in the invasion until the war. Many observers felt that the Coalition devoted enough troops to the invasion, but too much was withdrawn after its expiration, and that the failure to occupy the city put them at a huge disadvantage in achieving security and order across the country when local support failed to meet expectations.
The invasion was rapid, causing the collapse of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army in about three weeks. Iraq's oil infrastructure was quickly confiscated and secured with limited damage at that time. Securing the oil infrastructure is considered very important. In the Gulf War, when withdrawing from Kuwait, Iraqi troops had burned many oil wells in an attempt to disguise troop movements and to divert Coalition forces. Before the 2003 invasion, Iraqi forces had mined about 400 oil wells around Basra and Al-Faw peninsula with explosives. Coalition forces launched air and amphibious strikes on the Al-Faw peninsula during the closing hours of March 19 to secure the oil fields there; amphibious assaults supported by Royal Navy warships, the Polish Navy, and the Australian Navy.
Meanwhile, Royal Air Force Tornados of 9 and 617 squadrons attacked a radar defense system that protects Baghdad but lost Tornado on March 22 along with pilots and navigators (Lieutenant Kevin Main and Lieutenant Flight Dave Williams), shot down by an American Patriot Missile when they returned to their air base in Kuwait. On April 1, the F-14 from the USS Kitty Hawk crashed in southern Iraq was reportedly due to engine failure, and the Viking S-3B crashed from the USS Constellation deck after damage and the AV-8B Harrier jump jet entered the Bay when it attempted to land on the USS Nassau.
British 3 Command Brigade, with Marine Expedition Unit to 15 United States Marine Corps and Polish Special Forces units, installed, attacked the port of Umm Qasr. There they met with heavy resistance by Iraqi forces. A total of 14 coalition troops and 30-40 Iraqi soldiers were killed, and 450 Iraqis were held captive. The British Air Force's 16th Assault Brigade also secures oil fields in southern Iraq in places like Rumaila as Polish commandos seize offshore oil bases near the harbor, preventing their destruction. Despite the rapid invasion of invading forces, some 44 oil wells were destroyed and burned by Iraqi explosives or by incidental fire. However, the well was quickly sealed and the fire extinguished, preventing ecological damage and loss of oil production capacity occurring at the end of the Gulf War.
In accordance with the rapid progress plan, the 3rd US Infantry Division moves west and then north through the western desert to Baghdad, while the Marine Expeditionary 1 troop moves along Highway 1 through the center of the country, and 1 (British Armored Division) moved north through the eastern swamp.
During the first week of the war, Iraqi forces fired Scud missiles at the US battlefield renewal center at Camp Doha, Kuwait. The missile was intercepted and shot down by a Patriot missile seconds before crashing into the compound. Furthermore, two A-10 Warthogs bombed a missile launcher.
Battles Nasiriyah
Initially, the Marine Division 1 (United States) fought through the Rumaila oil field, and moved north to Nasiriyah - a Shiite-dominated moderate city with important strategic significance as a major crossroads and its proximity to nearby Talil. Airfield. It is also located near a number of important strategic bridges over the Euphrates River. The city is maintained by a mixture of regular Iraqi army units, Ba'ath loyalists, and Fedayeen from Iraq and abroad. The US Army's 3rd Infantry Division defeated the Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and through the city to the west.
On March 23, convoys from the 3rd Infantry Division, including American women's army Jessica Lynch, Shoshana Johnson, and Lori Piestewa, were ambushed after taking the wrong path to town. Eleven US troops were killed, and seven, including Lynch and Piestewa, were arrested. Piestewa died of wounds shortly after his arrest, while the remaining five prisoners of war were rescued. Piestewa, originally from Tuba City, Arizona, and a registered member of the Hopi Tribe, is believed to have become the first Native American woman to have died in combat in a foreign war. On the same day, US Marines from the Second Marine Division entered Nasiriyah with power, facing heavy resistance as they moved to secure two large bridges in the city. Several Marines were killed in a firefight with Fedayeen in an urban battle. On the Saddam Canal, another 18 Marines were killed in a fierce battle with the Iraqi army. An Air Force A-10 was involved in a friendly shot case that resulted in the deaths of six marines when accidentally attacked an American amphibious vehicle. Two other vehicles were destroyed when a series of RPG shots and small firearms killed most of the Marines inside. A Marine from the Sea Air Control Group 28 was killed by enemy fire, and two Marines engineers drowned in the Saddam Canal. The bridges were secured and the Second Marines division set up perimeters around the city.
On the night of March 24, the 2nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, attached to Regimental Combat Team One (RCT-1), pushed through Nasiriyah and established a 15 kilometer (9.3 mile) perimeter north of the city. Iraqi reinforcements from Kut launched several counter-attacks. The Marines managed to expel them using indirect fire and close air support. Iraq's last attack was beaten at dawn. The battalion estimated that 200-300 Iraqi soldiers were killed, with no casualties in the United States. Nasiriyah was declared safe, but attacks by Fedayeen Iraq continued. These attacks were uncoordinated, and resulted in a shootout in which large numbers of Fedayeen were killed. Because of Nasiriyah's strategic position as a crossroads, significant congestion occurs as US troops move north gathered in the surrounding city streets.
With Nasiriyah and Talil Airfield secured, Coalition forces obtained an important logistics center in southern Iraq and established the FOB/EAF Jalibah, about 10 miles (16 km) outside of Nasiriyah. Additional troops and supplies were immediately taken through this front operating base. The 101st Airborne Division continued its northern attack in support of the 3rd Infantry Division.
On March 28, a severe sand storm slowed the Coalition's progress when the 3rd Infantry Division halted the northern route between Najaf and Karbala. Air operation by helicopter, ready to carry reinforcements from the 101st Airborne, was blocked for three days. There was a very fierce battle inside and around the bridge near the town of Kufl.
Battle of Najaf <
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments