With the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Saad Abdel-Wahab looks at its covert beginnings and many dark moments On 20 March 2003, explosions were heard in Baghdad. There is now evidence that various Special Forces and Special Operations troops crossed the border into Iraq well before the air war started to guide strike aircraft in air attacks. United States President George W Bush announced that he had ordered an "attack of opportunity" against targets in Iraq. When this word was given the troops on standby crossed the border into Iraq. These troops were led by the 4th bomb disposal unit which at the time had three RAF Regiment airmen from 15 squadron on a tour. Before the invasion, many observers had expected a lengthy campaign of aerial bombing before any ground action, taking as examples the 1991 Arab Gulf War or the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. In practice, US plans envisioned simultaneous air and ground assaults to decapitate the Iraqi forces as fast as possible, attempting to bypass Iraqi military units and cities in most cases. The assumption was that superior mobility and coordination of US and UK forces would allow them to attack the heart of the Iraqi command structure and destroy it in a short time, and that this would minimise civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure. It was expected that the elimination of the leadership would lead to the collapse of the Iraqi forces and the government, and that much of the population would support the invaders once the government had been weakened. Occupation of cities and attacks on peripheral military units were viewed as undesirable distractions. Following Turkey's decision to deny any official use of its territory, the US was forced to abandon a planned simultaneous attack from north and south, so the primary bases for the invasion were in Kuwait and other Arab Gulf nations. One result of this was that one of the divisions intended for the invasion was forced to relocate and was unable to take part in the invasion until well into the war. Many observers felt that the US devoted insufficient numbers of troops to the invasion, and that this (combined with the failure to occupy cities) put them at a major disadvantage in achieving security and order throughout the country when local support failed to meet expectations. Initially, the US 1st Marine Division fought through the Rumaila oil fields, and moved north to Nasariyah -- a moderate-sized, Shia- dominated city with important strategic significance as a major road junction close to the nearby Talil Airfield. The US Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and bypassed the city to the west. On 23 March, US Marines and Special Forces units pressed the attack in and around Nasariyah. During the battle an Air Force A-10 was involved in a case of fratricide that resulted in the death of six marines. Because of Nasariyah's strategic position as a road junction, significant gridlock occurred as US forces moving north converged on the city's surrounding highways. With Nasariyah and Tallil Airfield secured, US forces gained an important logistical centre in southern Iraq, establishing FOB/EAF Jalibah, some 10 miles outside of Nasariyah through which additional troops and supplies were brought. The 101st Airborne Division continued their attack north behind the 3rd Infantry Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division began to consolidate in and around Tallil airfield for further operations. By 27-28 March, a severe sand storm slowed the US advance as the 3rd Infantry Division fought on the outskirts of Najaf and Kufa, with heavy fighting in and around the bridge next to the town of Kifl before moving north towards Karbala. In the south, the British 7 Armoured Brigade fought their way into Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, on 6 April, coming under constant attack by regulars and fedayeen of Saddam, while the British Red Devils cleared the old quarter of the city that was inaccessible to vehicles. Entering Basra had only been achieved after two weeks of conflict, which included the biggest tank battle by British forces since World War II when the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks on 27 March. Elements of 1 (UK) Armoured Division began to advance north towards US positions around Al-Amarah on 9 April. Pre-existing electrical and water shortages continued throughout the conflict and looting began as Iraqi forces collapsed. While British forces began working with local Iraqi police to enforce order, Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers and Royal Engineers of the British Army rapidly set up and repaired dockyard facilities to allow humanitarian aid to arrive from ships arriving in the port city of Um Qasr. After a rapid initial advance, the first major pause occurred near Karbala city. There, US Army elements met resistance from Iraqi troops defending cities and key bridges along the Euphrates River. These forces threatened to interdict supply routes as US forces moved north. By the end of March, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division augmented with a mechanised infantry battalion task force of the US 1st Armoured Division began diversionary assaults in and around the city of Samawah to divert Iraqi forces that may have otherwise threatened the extended rear of the US and UK's lead elements. Meanwhile, the US 101st Airborne Division supported by an armoured battalion task force of the 1st Armoured division and infantry elements of the US 1st Marine Division with US Marine and Army air support, attacked and secured the cities of Najaf and Karbala to prevent any Iraqi counterattacks from the east. These attacks effectively protected the eastern flank and rear of the 3rd Infantry Division, which allowed the western flank of the invasion to resupply and continue its advance north through the Karbala Gap and on towards Baghdad, where US Marine and British forces had already begun a preliminary assault on the outskirts of the city. In the north, the 10th Special Forces Group (10th SFG) had the mission of aiding the Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, de facto rulers of Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, and employed them against the 13 Iraqi Divisions located near Kirkuk and Mosul. Turkey had officially prohibited any US troops from using their bases or airspace, so lead elements of the 10th SFG had to make a detour infiltration; their flight was supposed to take four hours but instead took 10. Hours after the first of such flights, Turkey did allow the use of its air space and the rest of the 10th SFG infiltrated in. The preliminary mission was to destroy the base of the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar Al-Islam, believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda. Concurrent and follow-on missions involved attacking and pinning down Iraqi forces in the north, thus preventing their deployment to the southern front and the main effort of the invasion. On 26 March, the 173rd Airborne Brigade augmented the invasion's northern front by parachuting into northern Iraq onto Bashur Airfield, controlled at the time by elements of 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga. The fall of Kirkuk on 10 April to the 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga precipitated the 173rd's planned assault, preventing the unit's involvement in combat against Iraqi forces during the invasion. The successful invasion of Kirkuk came as a result of approximately two weeks of fighting that included the Battle of the Green Line (the unofficial border of the Kurdish autonomous zone) and the subsequent Battle of Kani Domlan Ridge (the ridge line running northwest to southeast of Kirkuk), the latter fought exclusively by 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga against the Iraqi I Corps. The 173rd would eventually take responsibility for Kirkuk days later, becoming involved in the counterinsurgency fight and remaining there until redeploying a year later. Three weeks into the invasion, US forces moved into Baghdad. Initial plans were for armoured units to surround the city and gradually move in, forcing Iraqi armour and ground units to cluster into a central pocket in the city, and then attack with air and artillery forces. This plan soon became unnecessary, as an initial engagement of armour units south of the city saw most of the Republican Guard's armour assets destroyed and much of the southern outskirts of the city occupied. On 5 April TF 1-64 Armour of the US Army executed a raid, later called the "Thunder Run", to test remaining Iraqi defences, with 29 tanks and 14 Bradley Armoured Fighting Vehicles rushing from a staging base to the Baghdad airport. They met heavy resistance, including many Al-Qaeda suicide attacks, but were successful in reaching the airport.Two days later another thunder run was launched by the US army into the palaces of Saddam Hussein, which they seized along with the government offices of central Baghdad. Within hours of the palace seizure, and television coverage of this spreading through Iraq, US forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on 9 April 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by US forces and the power of Saddam Hussein was declared ended. Much of Baghdad remained unsecured, however, and fighting continued within the city and its outskirts well into the period of occupation. Saddam had vanished, and his whereabouts were unknown. Many Iraqis celebrated the downfall of Saddam by vandalising the many portraits and statues of him together with other pieces of his personality cult. One widely publicised event was the dramatic toppling of a large statue of Saddam in Baghdad's Firdos Square in central Baghdad. This attracted considerable media coverage at the time. What virtually the entire media ignored was that this was a staged PSYOPS event. As Staff Sergeant Brian Plesich reported in On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, "the Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down. Since we were right there, we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do. Somehow along the way, somebody had gotten the idea to put a group of Iraqi kids onto the wrecker that was to pull the statue down. While the wrecker was pulling the statue down, there were Iraqi children crawling all over it. Finally they brought the statue down." The fall of Baghdad saw the outbreak of regional violence throughout the country, as Iraqi tribes and cities began to fight each other over old grudges. The Iraqi cities of Al-Kut and Nasariyah declared war upon each other immediately following the fall of Baghdad to establish dominance in the new country, and the US and its allies quickly found themselves embroiled in a potential civil war. US forces ordered the cities to cease hostilities immediately, and explained that Baghdad would remain the capital of the new Iraqi government. Nasariyah responded favourably and quickly backed down, however Al-Kut placed snipers on the main roadways into town, with orders that invading forces were not to enter the city. After several minor skirmishes, the snipers were removed, but tensions and violence between regional, city, tribal, and familial groups continued into the occupation period. General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defence of Baghdad, rumours were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck wherein the US had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite or the Baath Party itself to stand down. In May 2003, General Franks retired, and confirmed in an interview with Defense Week that the US had paid Iraqi military leaders to defect. The extent of the defections and their effect on the war are unclear. US troops promptly began searching for the key members of Saddam's government. These individuals were identified by a variety of means, most famously through sets of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards. On 22 July during a raid by the US 101st Airborne Division and men from Task Force 20, Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, and one of his grandsons were killed. Saddam was captured on 13 December by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121 during Operation Red Dawn in Al-Dour near Tikrit city. In the north, Kurdish forces opposed to Saddam had already occupied for years an autonomous area. With the assistance of US Special Forces and air strikes, they were able to rout the Iraqi units near them and to occupy oil-rich Kirkuk on 10 April. US special forces had also been involved in the extreme south of Iraq, attempting to occupy key roads to Syria and air bases. In one case two armoured platoons were used to convince Iraqi leadership that an entire armoured battalion was entrenched in the west of Iraq. On 15 April, US forces took control of Tikrit, the last major outpost in central Iraq, with an attack led by the Marines' Task Force Tripoli. About a week later the Marines were relieved by the Army's 4th Infantry Division. Looting took place in the days following the invasion. Similar looting occurred for two weeks following the 1989 US invasion of Panama. Looting in Iraq was left uncontrolled, however, by the decision of (American viceroy) Paul Bremer to de-Baathify Iraq's government and by his decision not to use Iraq's military to maintain order, though Bremer writes in My Year in Iraq that there was no military to disband. Peter Galbraith wrote in The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War, that he also found no active Iraqi military, but that Bremer "had never been there, did not speak Arabic, had no experience dealing with a country emerging from war, and had never been involved with nation- building." The National Museum of Iraq was among the looted sites. The assertion that US forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Petroleum and Ministry of Interior is apparently true. According to US officials the "reality of the situation on the ground" was that hospitals, water plants, and ministries with vital intelligence needed security more than other sites. There were only enough US troops on the ground to guard a certain number of the many sites that ideally needed protection, and so, apparently, some "hard choices" were made. Also, it was reported that many trucks of Iraqi gold and $1.6 billion of bricks of US cash were seized by US forces. The FBI was soon called into Iraq to track down the stolen items. It was found that the initial claims of looting of substantial portions of the collection were heavily exaggerated. Initial reports claimed a near-total looting of the museum, estimated at upward of 170,000 pieces. The most recent estimate places the number of looted pieces at around 15,000. Over 5,000 looted items have since been recovered. There has been speculation that some objects still missing were not taken by looters after the war, but were taken by Saddam or his entourage before or during the fighting. There have also been reports that early looters had keys to vaults that held rarer pieces, and some have speculated as to the premeditated systematic removal of key artifacts. The National Museum of Iraq was only one of many museums and sites of cultural significance that were affected by the war. Many in the arts and antiquities communities briefed policymakers before the need to secure Iraqi museums. Despite the looting being lighter than initially feared, the cultural loss of items from ancient summer is significant. More serious for the post-war state of Iraq was the looting of cached weaponry and ordnance which fuelled the subsequent insurgency. As many as 250,000 tonnes of explosives were unaccounted for by October 2004. Disputes within the US Defense Department led to delays in the post-invasion assessment and protection of Iraqi nuclear facilities. Tuwaitha, the Iraqi site most scrutinised by UN inspectors since 1991, was left unguarded and may have been looted. Zainab Bahrani, professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, reported that a helicopter landing pad was constructed in the heart of the ancient city of Babylon, and "removed layers of archaeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops." Bahrani also reported that in the summer of 2004, "the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters." Electrical power is scarce in post-war Iraq, Bahrani reported, and some fragile artifacts, including the Ottoman Archive, would not survive the loss of refrigeration. The USS Abraham Lincoln returned to port carrying its Mission Accomplished banner. On 1 May, Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Bush's landing was criticised by opponents as an overly theatrical and expensive stunt. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished". The banner, made by White House staff and supplied by request of the US Navy, was criticised as premature, especially as sectarian violence and American casualties continued to increase since the official end of hostilities. The White House subsequently released a statement that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq and disputing the claim of theatrics. The speech itself noted: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous." Iraq was subsequently marked by violent conflict between US-led soldiers and forces described by the occupiers as insurgents. The ongoing resistance in Iraq was concentrated in, but not limited to, an area referred to by Western media and the occupying forces as the Sunni triangle and Baghdad. This resistance may be described as guerrilla warfare. The tactics in use include mortars, suicide bombers, roadside bombs, small arms fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and handheld anti-tank grenade-launchers (RPGs), as well as sabotage against the petroleum infrastructure. There are also accusations, questioned by some, about attacks on the power and water infrastructure. There is evidence that some of the resistance was organised, perhaps by the fedayeen of Saddam or Baath loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis angered by the occupation or foreign fighters. Many experts now consider Iraq to have degenerated into civil war, although the Bush administration disputes the accuracy of the term. According to a 2006 study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, more than 601,000 Iraqis have died in the violence following the 2003 invasion. While estimates of the number of casualties during the invasion in Iraq vary widely, the majority of deaths and injuries occurred after US President Bush declared the end of "major combat operations" on 1 May 2003. According to CNN, the US government reported that 139 American military personnel were killed before then, while more than 3,000 have been killed since. Estimates of civilian casualties are more variable than those for military personnel. According to Iraq Body Count, a group that relies on Western press reports to measure civilian casualties, approximately 7,500 civilians were killed during the invasion phase, while more than 60,000 civilians have been killed as of April 2007. In November 2006 Iraq's Health Minister Ali Al-Shemari said that since the March 2003 invasion between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraqis have been killed. Al-Shemari based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals -- such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total. The Lancet surveys of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, estimates much higher civilian casualties, but does not differentiate between the invasion phase (March- May 2003) and the occupation phase (post May 2003). The Lancet survey estimates that over 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the conflict, with the vast majority of these deaths occurring after May 2003. A September 2007 estimate by ORB (Opinion Research Business), an independent British polling agency, suggests that the total Iraqi violent death toll due to the Iraq War since the US-led invasion is more than 1.2 million (1,220,580). Although higher than the 2006 Lancet estimate, these results, which were based on a survey of 1,499 adults in Iraq in August 2007, are approximately consistent with the figures that were published in the Lancet study. Over 4.7 million Iraqis, more than 16 per cent of the Iraqi population, have lost their homes and become refugees since 2003. As of June 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighbouring countries, and 2.5 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month. Roughly 40 per cent of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the UN said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed and 250 kidnapped since the US invasion. The UN reports that although Christians comprise less than five per cent of Iraq's population, they make up nearly 40 per cent of the refugees fleeing Iraq. More than 50 per cent of Iraqi Christians have already left the country. In the 16th century, Christians composed half the population of Iraq. In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians. But as the war has radicalised Islamic sensibilities, Christians' total numbers slumped to about 500,000, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad. Furthermore, the Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to ethnic cleansing by Islamic extremists. As many as 110,000 Iraqis could be targeted as collaborators because of their work for coalition forces. The US invasion of Iraq was the most widely and closely reported war in military history. Television network coverage was largely pro-war and viewers were six times more likely to see a pro- war source than an anti-war one. The New York Times ran a number of articles describing Saddam's attempts to build weapons of mass destruction. The article "US says Hussein intensifies quest for A-bomb parts" would be discredited, leading the New York Times to issue a public statement admitting it was not as rigorous as it should have been. At the start of the war in March, as many as 775 reporters and photographers were travelling as embedded journalists. These reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on. When asked why the military decided to embed journalists with the troops, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Long of the US Marine Corps replied, "Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment." A September 2003 poll revealed that 70 per cent of Americans believed there was a link between Saddam and the attacks of 9/11. Eighty per cent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception about the invasion, compared to 23 per cent of PBS viewers. Ted Turner, founder of CNN, said that Rupert Murdoch was using Fox News to advocate an invasion. Critics have argued that this statistic is indicative of misleading coverage by the US media since viewers in other countries were less likely to have these misconceptions. Opponents of military intervention in Iraq have attacked the decision to invade Iraq along a number of lines, including calling into question the evidence used to justify the war, arguing for continued diplomacy, challenging the war's legality, suggesting that the US had other more pressing security priorities, (i.e., Afghanistan and North Korea) and predicting that the war would destabilise the Middle East region. The breadth and depth of the criticism was particularly notable in comparison with the first Gulf War, which met with considerably less domestic and international opposition, although the geopolitical situation had evolved since the last decade. One of the main questions in the lead-up to the war was whether the UN Security Council would authorise military intervention in Iraq. When it became increasingly clear that UN authorisation would require significant further weapons inspections, and that the US and Britain planned to invade Iraq regardless, many criticised their effort as unwise, immoral and illegal. Robin Cook, then the leader of the British House of Commons and a former foreign secretary, resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet in protest over Britain's decision to invade without the authorisation of a UN resolution. Cook said then: "In principle I believe it is wrong to embark on military action without broad international support. In practice I believe it is against Britain's interests to create a precedent for unilateral military action." Criticisms about the evidence used to justify the war notwithstanding, many opponents of military intervention objected because a diplomatic solution would be preferable, and war should be reserved as a truly last resort. This position was exemplified by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who responded to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's 5 February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council by saying that, "given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections." Besides arguing that Iraq was not the top strategic priority in the war on terror or in the Middle East, critics of the war also suggested that it could potentially destabilise the surrounding region. Prominent among such critics was Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to ex-president George H W Bush. In a Wall Street Journal editorial "Don't attack Saddam", Scowcroft wrote that, "possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region" where there could be "an explosion of outrage against us" that "could well destabilise Arab regimes" and "could even swell the ranks of the terrorists".
