The assault on Ukraine shows me how wrong I was (and we were) about invading Iraq
In early 2003, at the United Nations, Colin Powell, the United States Secretary of State, told the world how the United States had intelligence that indicated that Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator, had nuclear weapons and was prepared to work with al-Qa’ida to use them in striking the United States.
He asked for UN support for an American (technically a “coalition” of allies) invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein find the nuclear weapons before it was too late.
The UN declined.
In March 2003, the United States military invaded Iraq. I watched the war live on television, as many of us did. I was sitting in my dorm room—Smith Hall—at The Ohio State University, while I studied for my upcoming finals of my second quarter in college. Additionally, I was a freshman in Air Force ROTC, hoping I would become a pilot some day. As I watched the video clips of bombs and missiles hitting various strategic targets across the country, the night sky in Baghdad—formerly called the Paris of the Middle East—lit up like a Christmas tree. “Go get em,” I thought. The people conducting the “shock and awe” strikes would be my future brothers- and sisters-in-arms. It was my duty to support them. I thought we were going into Iraq for the right reasons, and 72% of Americans agreed, according to a study by Pew.
I finished my finals and took my spring break, as the bombs continued to drop and hundreds of thousands of American military personnel stormed into Iraqi territory, inflicting tremendous losses on the opposing army. Within a short period of time, Baghdad had fallen, Saddam Hussein fled, and the Ba’ath Party went into exile. The United States installed an occupying government, added supporting military units, aid workers, and diplomats.
And then, over the next decade, thousands and thousands of US military personnel would die. Tens of thousands would be wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would die. Iraq, as a country, would be utterly destroyed.
I arrived in Iraq in mid-2011, only a few short months before we pulled the remaining US combat troops out of the country. I left in mid-2012, having done what I could to help professionalize Iraq’s military through ties to NATO, reform and improve it’s security sector, and ensure the embassy’s Office of Security Cooperation, staffed by US military personnel, understood how an embassy worked in peacetime.
Now, the world has become shocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russian leader Vladimir Put said that his military invaded Ukraine because it posed a security threat to Russia. He said it was run by neo-Nazis and fascists who wanted to inflict significant harm on Russia and its citizens. The only choice, he said, was for Russia to invade the country out of its own security needs.
Sounds familiar…
The United States (and many countries in the world) were quick to condemn the actions and put in place devastating sanctions to cripple Russia’s oligarchy. Russia was removed from the SWIFT international banking system, trade was cut off from dozens of countries, many countries stopped importing Russian energy sources. People were boycotting Russian companies and products. People across Europe are opening their homes to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war. Weapons are piling in from western nations to support the Ukrainian military.
And then I thought…Where was all this for Iraq?
We invaded a sovereign nation under the pretenses of our own “security interests.” Those interests, it turned out, were false. The United States wasn’t removed from the international banking system, our trade wasn’t cut off. No one stopped importing our goods. No one welcomed Iraqi citizens into their homes. But looking back, perhaps all of those things should have happened. Why not?
I realize now how naive I was back then. Just fist-pumping a war I knew nothing about, launched under false pretenses.
I wrote this blog, and published it, because this new revelation has been a struggle for me. I so blindly accepted war. I think about the Iraqis I worked with. I’m sure most were appreciative of my efforts to help…maybe some were grateful that we got rid of Saddam Hussein…but I also wonder how many of them looked at me with disdain, at least in the back of their minds, thinking about how I was part of an operation that destroyed their country as a foreign invader.
I understand my sadness about this realization comes nowhere near the pain and suffering the Iraqi people went through. But my feelings are as they exist. Sad but true.
