Daily Times

“Ten years on from Iraq: was it worth it?”, the recent discussion sponsored by the Huffington Post (UK) consisted of a panel that included a number of prominent journalists such as David Aaronovitch of The Times, Owen Jones of The Independent and. Mehdi Hassan, Huffington Post’s own. political editor. Aaronovitch and his panel argued for the motion, whereas Jones and Hassan’s group vehemently opposed it. The pro-war panelists further included Tory MP Bernard Jenkins, Ali Latif of the Iraqi Prospects Organisation (IPO) and Shiraz Maher of Kings College, London. Former Labour MP Clare Short and Iraqi author Hafia Zangana completed the opposition quartet.

The crux of the pro-war panel’s arguments revolved heavily around the inhumane crimes of Saddam Hussein and his regime. His record of inconceivable human atrocities and painful tactics of repression could have only been tackled by war. He stressed that Iraq is now a safer and freer place. Taking a stab at the opposition, he said that if Hussein’s rule was left unopposed, an equally high number of people would have died as they did during this intervention. Bernard Jenkins opined that instead of asking whether the war was worth it, the question should be rather if history would show that it was justified. He argues that Hussein’s uncooperative attitude had left the international community with no choice and hence intervention was a necessity.

Had the war been about Hussein’s moral deficiencies, some may have cautiously endorsed the case for intervention. Unquestionably, however, it is no secret that the invasion was sold to the world as a security threat. This concern revolved around the apparent links of al Qaeda to Saddam, to the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that the Iraqi regime supposedly possessed, and finally, the danger of anthrax possession, thanks to the slam dunk, vial-shaking testimony of Colin Powell in the UN General Assembly.

The link between Hussein and 9/11 turned out to be a farce; no anthrax was stashed, and certainly no WMDs were found. The 9/11 commission report found no links between al Qaeda and Hussein. Richard Clark, a counter-terrorism expert working under both Clinton and Bush, testified in March 2004 in front of the commission that the White House pushed to find evidence linking Iraq and al Qaeda when none such connection seemed to exist. He claims attention paid to Iraq served as a distraction from nabbing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The case for WMDs turned out to be false. Numerous documents recovered in the aftermath of the war strongly indicated that the Saddam Hussein government had destroyed its weapons programme in the mid-1990s. Today, both Bush and Blair admit that the case for WMDs was an intelligence failure. As for the anthrax accusations, Powell says his much-lauded performance at the UN was the lowest point in his four years as the Secretary of State.

Over a decade before the war, Hussein was the darling of the western powers. Clare Short pointed out that western allies had used the Hussein regime for their own dirty work during its conflict against Iran.

In 1982, when Iran started a counteroffensive to Iraqi excursions, the US made its support of Iraq more pronounced, sharing intelligence and military equipment with the Hussein regime in a more aggressive fashion. Bob Woodward’s article in 1986 for The Washington Post claimed that the CIA was assisting Hussein in bombing Iranian oil fields with sensitive satellite data for over two years. Furthermore, the Reagan government removed Iraq from its list of states considered to sponsor terrorism. Many remember vividly as Secretary of. Defence Donald Rumsfeld shook Hussein’s hand, promising his country’s support to the ongoing war against Khomeini’s theocracy. In the eloquent words of former MSNBC host Phil Donahue, “Saddam was a b******, but he was our b******.”

Civilian atrocities during the Iraq invasion were no less catastrophic than the crimes of Hussein. Hafia Zangana, a former prisoner of Hussein, brought to light the issue of human rights abuses shortly after the invasion and capture of Baghdad. She recounted an incident on April 25, 2003 where four young men, wrongly accused, were paraded naked in the streets of the Iraqi capital. One of those youths had since decided that his aim in life was to “throw a grenade at the Americans.” She recounted how rape was no longer a women’s issue, but all lived under the fear of sexual abuse. An Iraqi imam had testified in front of Iraqi MPs that foreign soldiers threatened and went as far as conducting rape to gather intelligence.

Unfortunately, the worst was still to come. The jaw-dropping, fist-clenching pictures from Abu Ghraib in 2004 was likely the source of Rumsfeld’s resignation as Secretary of Defence. The world witnessed the barbarity with which US soldiers conducted the brutal and humiliating torture on Iraqis who were never to receive a fair trial. Their dignities were ravaged as they stood completely bare, and at the mercy of a rodeo, their mental states reduced to paralysing nightmares. Ironically, for many Iraqis, Operation Iraqi Freedom had become a prison.

The loss of lives for the American and other forces has been severely detrimental. Jones mentioned that this war had taken the lives of over 4,000 Americans and approximately 700 British military personnel. Thousands were left injured and made hapless as a result of their soul-crushing injuries.

The US Veteran Administration reports that over 20,000 veterans have been made homeless and many suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — an all too common occurrence. In a report by ABC News, it was estimated that around 20 percent of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD. The condition has been linked to violence, substance abuse and possibly suicide. The Office of Veterans Affairs in the US estimates that close to 5,000 Iraqi War veterans commit suicide every year.

Political pundit Mehdi Hassan ended the debate with the usual flare for which he has become quite famously renowned. As he explains, only a few out of nearly 60 people he approached were willing to debate in favour of the motion. Like him, I am left bewildered that there still remain a few who could think this war was worth it. This is not surprising considering I seldom meet anyone nowadays who agrees that this war or invasion amounted to a “catastrophic success” as opposed to a monumental crime.

Aaronovitch was right to suggest at the conclusion of the debate that one day we might be debating whether the choice of non-intervention in Syria was worth it. It is true the international community has failed to protect innocent Syrians in this conflict. Over the past two years nearly 80,000 people have perished. Sadly, the Iraq mishap, combined with the faltering situation in Afghanistan, has fostered such distrust that many are unwilling to support another intervention in Damascus, no matter how genuine the need may be.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at u.siddiqui@utoronto.ca