Five Years On: Related Photos

Spiegel Online International

Photo Gallery: Five years of war in Iraq

When The World Said No To War: Photographic exhibition

When The World Said No To War is a photographic exhibition and peace education forum inspired by the 35 million people who took to the streets in Febuary 2003 to protest the impending war in Iraq.

The aim of the project is to highlight the significance of the largest peace demonstrations in history and to contribute to the ongoing call for peace.

The photographs were first exhibited in Sydney in 2005 and are being shown again now, 5 years after the start of the Iraq war, as part of a suite of programming related to the exhibition The 1970s: a decade of protest – photography by Roger Scott at the Museum of Sydney.

“Although it may be difficult to envisage an end to war as a form of political behaviour, there was a time when people could not foresee an end to slavery, the emancipation of women, the vote for blacks or the end of apatheid, but these things came to pass. Not because some magnamious government or world body decreed them to be so, but because ordniary citizens said it should be so. We need not be Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Martin Luther King Jnr, or Gandhi, for none of those people effected change alone; behind each stood millions of likeminded individuals with their own acts of moral courage. Our strength lies in the recognition of this – our shared humanity – rather than in the seperation imposed by the constructs of the state, religion and ethnicity.”

Dr. Denise Leith, Bearing Witness : The Lives of War Correspondents and Photojournalists

“One little person giving all her time to peace, can make news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history.”

Peace Pilgrim

Major NGO Report: “War and Occupation in Iraq” (2007)

“War and Occupation in Iraq” – A New NGO Report (June 2007)

Picture Credit: US Dept of Defense/Spec. Charles Gill

As the Iraq crisis deepens, this new NGO report provides a comprehensive and original analysis of the conflict. Prepared by Global Policy Forum and co-sponsored by 30 NGOs, the report sheds new light on the US Coalition role in the country and the terrible violence there.

Public discussion on Iraq too often focuses on the violent conflict among Iraqis. The US-led occupation is increasingly misunderstood as a humanitarian enterprise to establish peace and democracy. The report presents a starkly different view. It emphasizes the responsibility of the US Coalition for much of the violence, corruption and sectarian division in Iraq.

Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including official reports, this twelve chapter document provides a unique and compelling approach to understanding the conflict, with an emphasis on violations of international law by the US Coalition.

Because the UN Security Council gave the Coalition a mandate as a “multinational force,” the Coalition forces have a particularly important responsibility to adhere to international law, the report argues. Yet there have been constant and gross violations without accountability. The Security Council has avoided all meaningful oversight, despites numerous scandals such as torture at Abu Ghraib, urban destruction at Falluja and atrocity at Haditha.

The report covers the round-the-clock air strikes, destruction of neighborhoods and cities, interruption of food, water and medical supplies, and unlawful detention of an increasing number of Iraqis in crowded and abusive jails and prison camps. Among other topics covered are: destruction of Iraq’s world-class cultural heritage, the huge refugee and displacement crisis, the Coalition’s use of illegal and indiscriminate weapons, and the construction of permanent US military bases.

The report concludes with recommendations that call for a speedy and complete withdrawal of all Coalition forces from Iraq.

Download the Report: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/report/index.htm

Documentary: Bush’s War

View the PBS FRONTLINE 2-part documentary about the Iraq War online:
Bush’s War

Synopsis:

From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge — for seven years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence.

Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush’s War. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk draws on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism — more than 40 FRONTLINE reports on Iraq and the war on terror. Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush’s War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation’s history.

“Parts of this history have been told before,” Kirk says. “But no one has laid out the entire narrative to reveal in one epic story the scope and detail of how this war began and how it has been fought, both on the ground and deep inside the government.”

In the fall of 2001, even as America was waging a war in Afghanistan, another hidden war was being waged inside the administration. Part 1 of Bush’s War tells the story of this behind-the-scenes battle over whether Iraq would be the next target in the war on terror.

On one side, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet squared off against Vice President Dick Cheney and his longtime ally, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The battles were over policy — whether to attack Iraq; the role of Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi; how to treat detainees; whether to seek United Nations resolutions; and the value of intelligence suggesting a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks — but the conflict was deeply personal.

“Friendships were dashed,” Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage tells FRONTLINE. As the war within the administration heated up, Armitage and Powell concluded that they were being shut out of key decisions by Cheney and Rumsfeld. “The battle of ideas, you generally come up with the best solution. When somebody hijacks the system, then, just like a hijacked airplane, very often no good comes of it,” Armitage adds.

Others inside the administration believe they understand the motivation behind some of the vice president’s actions. “I think the vice president felt he kind of looked death in the eye on 9/11,” former White House counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke says. “Three thousand Americans died. The building that the vice president used to work in blew up, and people died there. This was a cold slap in the face. This is a different world you’re living in now. And the enemy’s still out there, and the enemy could come after you. That does cause you to think [about] things differently.”

More than anything else, the Iraq war will be the lasting legacy of the Bush presidency. Part 2 of Bush’s War examines that war — beginning with the quick American victory in Iraq, the early mistakes that were made, and then recounting the story of how chaos, looting and violence quickly engulfed the country.

As American forces realized they were unprepared for the looting that followed the invasion, plans for a swift withdrawal of troops were put on hold. With only a few weeks’ preparation, American administrator L. Paul Bremer was sent to find a political solution to a rapidly deteriorating situation. Bremer’s first moves were to disband the Iraqi military and remove members of Saddam Hussein’s party from the government. They were decisions that the original head of reconstruction, Gen. Jay Garner (Ret.), begged Bremer to reconsider at the time. Now they are seen by others as one of the first in a series of missteps that would lead Iraq into a full-blown insurgency.

But Bremer has his defenders: “We believed, Bremer believed, and I think the leadership in Washington believed that it was very important to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that whatever else was going to happen, Saddam and his cronies were not coming back,” Walter Slocombe, the national security adviser to Bremer, tells FRONTLINE.

Garner was not the only one on the outside. As senior officials complained about inattention at the top, Gen. Tommy Franks and his deputy, Gen. Michael DeLong — the generals who had planned the war — found that decisions were being made without them as well.

“All the recommendations that we were making now in the Phase IV part weren’t being taken — weren’t being taken by Bremer or Rumsfeld,” DeLong tells FRONTLINE. “That’s when Franks said, ‘I’m done.’ They said, ‘Well, you’ll be chief of staff of the Army.’ He said, ‘No, I’m done.’”

What followed is well documented: insurgency, sectarian strife, prisoner abuse and growing casualties. But within the administration, a new battle over strategy was being fought — this one between a new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The clash between America’s top diplomat and its chief defense official would go on for more than two years and be settled only after the Republican loss in the 2006 congressional elections. It was then that the president forced Rumsfeld out, ended his strategy of slow withdrawal and ordered a surge of troops. FRONTLINE goes behind closed doors to tell the most recent chapter in this ongoing story, and asks what Bush will leave for a new U.S. president both in Iraq and in the larger war on terror.

Five years on: related news articles

International Herald Tribune, John F. Burnes, March 19 2008
Iraq: Five years in

New York Times, March 18 2008
Iraq 5 Years In

Spiegel Online International, March 17 2008
The Iraq Fiasco 2003 – 2008

ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) / AFP, March 20 2008
Five years on, Bush vows victory in Iraq

The Times UK, March 19 2008
Iraq: Five Years Hence

The Institute for Southern Studies, March 19 2008
Facing South: Southern newspapers weigh in on Iraq

The Huffington Post, Michael Goldfarb, March 19 2008
Happy Anniversary

Online Opinion: Australia’s e-journal of social & political debate,
Antony Loewenstein, March 26 2008
Iraq Five Years On

Japan On the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War

Japan On the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War

Michael Penn and the Asahi Shinbun

We have recently crossed the five-year mark since the American invasion of Iraq. President George W. Bush used the occasion to triumphantly declare that, due to his decision to invade, ‘the world is better, and the United States of America is safer.’

In Japan, the Asahi Shinbun appears virtually alone in using this occasion to reflect upon the Iraq War. For all its pro-war cheerleading, the Yomiuri Shinbun did not even see fit to produce an English-language editorial on the subject. The Foreign Ministry offered no statement either. Iraq shattered and dying? Hmm, that’s too bad — just so long as it doesn’t die on the streets of Tokyo.

Among the political parties, only the Japan Communist Party seems to have marked the anniversary on their webpage. They also called for a small demonstration in the capital.

When a reporter asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press secretary to comment, he simply talked about the great political progress made in Iraq balanced against a tough humanitarian situation. He then briefly outlined the assistance that the Japanese government has been giving to Iraq. Business as usual.

If Japan appears unwilling to accept responsibility for the horrors it helped unleash in Iraq, the honorable exception is the Asahi Shinbun. Much maligned by their enemies, at least there are a few voices left in Japan that show a little reflection, show a little conscience.

The two English-language pieces that the Asahi published are reproduced in full here. Michael Penn

SDF Mission to Iraq Still Not Properly Evaluated

Sato Taketsugu

Five years ago Thursday (Japan time), U.S. bombers started pounding Iraq as part of an invasion force intended to topple Saddam Hussein, an action that would eventually embroil Japan. Yet, key questions remain unanswered over Tokyo’s decision to dispatch Self-Defense Forces to the war-torn nation. Why did Japan feel so strongly that it had to support the U.S.-led invasion by sending SDF troops? What was its significance, justification and repercussions?

Unfortunately, the government has made no serious efforts to look into these and other key questions by reviewing what has taken place.

The dispatch of SDF personnel to Iraq marked a radical shift in Japan’s diplomacy from its emphasis on working closely with the United Nations to putting priority on cooperating with the United States. Tokyo even stepped into a constitutional gray area with its decision to put Ground SDF troops in a nation where war was being waged. The government and the ruling coalition cannot afford to move ahead with proposed permanent legislation on SDF missions overseas without first reflecting on their decision to dispatch Japanese troops to Iraq.

At the outset, the government supported the U.S.-led invasion on grounds Saddam’s regime had weapons of mass destruction. When the U.S. airstrikes on Baghdad got under way in March 2003, then Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro told President George W. Bush that it was ‘natural’ for Japan to support Washington because of the WMD issue. Koizumi told the nation that Iraq was ‘not somebody else’s problem.’

But those weapons did not exist.

The government eventually dropped ‘activities to help dispose of WMDs from a draft of a special measures bill to support rebuilding Iraq. Bush himself later admitted that U.S. intelligence had erred on the issue of WMDs, which at a stroke negated the justification for the SDF dispatch.

But the miscalculations did not stop there.

‘Never did we expect the Iraq situation to sink this deep into a quagmire,’ says a senior Defense Ministry official. To tone down the ‘military’ colors in the special measures law, the government made the dispatch of civilian personnel another pillar of Japan’s rebuilding assistance program. Four years since SDF personnel were first dispatched, the government has still been unable to send civilians.

Tokyo deployed troops in early 2004, prodded by Washington’s call for ‘boots on the ground.’ The decision did not have the blessing of the United Nations. The government argued that the dispatch did not infringe on the constitutional ban on the use of the force because the SDF would work only in ‘non-combat’ areas for reconstruction assistance. Koizumi brandished this argument in the Diet to defend the constitutionality of the mission.

SDF forces deployed to Iraq

Tokyo has since stepped up its cooperation with Washington, from missile defense to the realignment of U.S. forces. ‘It shows that Japan and the United States got closer because of the decision to send the SDF to Iraq,’ says a senior Foreign Ministry official.

SDF charm offensive in Iraq. This image appeared on Japanese water trucks

The Fukuda administration aims to enact a permanent law to enable the SDF to join a U.S.-led multinational force for peace cooperation. But discussions stalled after a series of scandals involving the Defense Ministry and the SDF, the latest being the Feb. 19 collision of an Aegis-equipped destroyer with a fishing boat. Suspicions that the SDF fuel supplied to U.S. vessels in the Indian Ocean may have been diverted to the Iraq war have also divided the public on the anti-terror mission.

This article appeared in The Asahi Shinbun, March 21, 2008

Iraq War Five Years On

Five years have elapsed since the start of the Iraq war, but there are people who are still trying to justify this historic blunder.

President George W. Bush asserted in his State of the Union address in late January that ‘high-profile terrorist attacks are down.’ He went on: ‘The Iraqis still have a distance to travel. But after decades of dictatorship and the pain of sectarian violence, reconciliation is taking place — and the Iraqi people are taking control of their future.’

According to figures released by the Bush administration, there have been fewer terrorist attacks in Iraq since the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge last spring.

But the drop in the number of the attacks is not proof that the Iraq war has turned for the better, nor does it suggest that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was anything other than a huge mistake. About 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed in this war. The World Heath Organization estimates that Iraqi civilian deaths must have reached 150,000 in June last year. How many more have been killed since then?

‘Baghdad Burning,’ an English-language blog by an Iraqi girl, contains this passage: ‘The tears had stopped about an hour after we’d left Baghdad. Just seeing the dirty streets, the ruins of buildings and houses, the smoke-filled horizon all helped me realize how fortunate I was to have a chance for something safer.’ This is her recollection of the day she and her family left Baghdad last year to seek safety in Syria.

More than 2 million Iraqis have fled their country to become refugees. Another 2 million Iraqis have become displaced. For these people, Bush’s speech must have sounded as if it came from another planet.

Iraq Refugees

The U.S. military resorted to a dangerous gamble to restore stability in Iraq. By providing weapons and funds to Sunnis in anti-U.S. regions, the Americans sought to pit them against terrorist factions affiliated with al-Qaida, the international terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden. This setup helps to minimize U.S. troop casualties. It also makes attacks against the terrorist factions more effective because they are being mounted by Iraqis who are familiar with the situation on the ground.

But even if the gamble pays off and temporarily restores stability, experts on Iraq are increasingly voicing concern that those U.S.-supplied weapons will be eventually used in sectional conflicts that will spell even more Iraqi deaths.

Iraq is not the only country where things are going south. In Afghanistan, the fundamentalist Taliban regime, toppled in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has regrouped, making the country unsafe again while Washington remains mired in Iraq.

Amid the turmoil in Afghanistan, the political situation in neighboring Pakistan became volatile. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last December. President Pervez Musharraf, who supported America’s ‘war against terror,’ is now on the verge of being forced out of office.

And while the Palestinian peace process grew even more uncertain, Turkish forces attacked Kurdish communities in northern Iraq. In Iran, last week’s legislative election was won by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-line anti-American conservative, by a landslide.

The Middle East has always been a hot spot, which is all the more reason why Washington needs to deal with this region with utmost care. But the present reality is that the situation has effectively spun out of control since the start of the Iraq war five years ago. Anti-U.S. sentiment is escalating throughout the Middle East.

The justification for this war, which Bush used to argue fervidly, has since evaporated completely. Contrary to the Bush administration’s insistence, the weapons of mass destruction did not exist. And hardly anybody is talking anymore about the once-popular slogan of ‘democratizing the Middle East.’

Bush’s popularity back home is abysmal. In other countries that sent troops to Iraq in support of Bush’s war, not a few leaders have since been driven out of power by popular vote or due to low job approval ratings.

We believe the key reason for this disastrous state of affairs is that the United States went after the wrong enemy. What Washington should have done was to seek the support of the Arab-Islamic world to isolate and drive al-Qaida into a corner.

Instead, the Bush administration declared war on Saddam Hussein and his regime — which had nothing to do with al-Qaida — for the most spurious of reasons. This created a rift in the international community and made enemies of even moderate Muslims.

Bitter feelings linger in the international community, particularly in Germany and France that opposed the Iraq war. A good number of nations — even those that did not send troops to Iraq — still participated in Bush’s ‘war against terror’ in all sorts of ways because they valued their alliance with the United States. The battlefront expanded and the United Nations was helpless to exercise its influence. Japan certainly bears a part of the blame for supporting this war.

There is no panacea for ending this mess. So long as a large U.S. military contingent remains stationed in Iraq, anti-U.S. terrorism will continue. But withdrawing from Iraq before the situation stabilizes could trigger a civil war. This is the dilemma that Washington faces.

One cause for concern is that the longer the Iraq debacle continues, the United States could become ‘worn out’ not only militarily, but also economically, diplomatically, and in terms of ’soft power.’ The United States is still the world’s sole superpower, but its leadership could be eroded. For Japan, which has North Korea’s nuclear problem to contend with, the debilitation of its key ally is certainly not desirable.

The United States must get over its major blunder in Iraq and find a way out. We hope the presidential debates before the November election will serve as a cue. But for that, the United States must first face and accept the fact that it has gone against the wrong enemy, and think once again about where its true target lies.

The international community, too, must rebuild a system that will enable all its members to work together to contain international terror. It will not be easy, but efforts must be made to ameliorate the growing hostility and distrust of the Arab-Islamic world toward the United States and the Western world.

We in Japan must think seriously what our country can do.

This article appeared in The Asahi Shinbun on March 19, 2008.

Michael Penn is Executive Director of the Shingetsu Institute for the Study of Japanese-Islamic Relations and a Japan Focus Associate.

This article was posted at Japan Focus on March 21, 2208.