Irak (Continuación)

Piro, right, with Todd Irinaga, a fellow FBI agent, in 2003. Piro questioned Saddam over seven months. Courtesy George Piro

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Two decades ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the US invasion of Iraq. Bush and senior administration officials had repeatedly told Americans that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction and that he was in league with al Qaeda.

These claims resulted in most Americans believing that Saddam was involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks. A year after 9/11, two-thirds of Americans said that the Iraqi leader had helped the terrorists, according to Pew Research Center polling, even though there was not a shred of convincing evidence for this.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘The repeated failure to address Iraqis’ concerns has triggered cycles of protests.’ US soldiers and Baghdad residents, Iraq, May 2003. Photograph: Nam Hun Sung/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

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Twenty years ago, around this time, the US-led military operation to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein’s regime finally seemed inevitable for Iraqis. With it, the idea of leaving started to sink in.

By leaving, I do not mean fleeing the country. That was not even an option. After the 1990s Gulf war, and the international sanctions that followed it, Iraqis were isolated from the rest of the world. For many, there was no exit. Leaving meant departing schools, universities or workplaces, saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, and moving to relatively safer places within the country, away from the areas targeted by strikes and bombings.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘Countries outside the west have an interest in defending the principle that sovereignty should be respected.’ Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

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Two decades ago, the United States invaded Iraq, sending 130,000 US troops into a sovereign country to overthrow its government. Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, voted to authorize the war, a decision he came to regret.

Today another large, world-shaking invasion is under way. Biden, now the US president, recently traveled to Warsaw to rally international support for Ukraine’s fight to repel Russian aggression. After delivering his remarks, Biden declared: “The idea that over 100,000 forces would invade another country – since world war II, nothing like that has happened”.

The president spoke these words on 22 February, within a month of the 20th anniversary of the US military’s opening strike on Baghdad.…  Seguir leyendo »

New and old graves at a cemetery on the outskirts of Samarra in Salahuddin Province in 2010.

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Twenty years ago this week, I witnessed the opening salvos of the United States invasion of Iraq from the rooftop of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. I was among the few foreign journalists not embedded with the American military who remained to cover the start of the war from the capital. It was not my first war as a photographer, but it was the first time I had experienced bombardment in a densely populated urban center.

I recall the unnatural silence blanketing the city before the first American cruise missiles were launched. I saw them before I heard them, heading across the river from us toward their targets into what the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Visitors walk by a flower installation during the International Festival of Flowers and Gardens in Baghdad on Thursday. (Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)

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Twenty years ago this month, as tens of thousands of U.S. troops prepared to storm into Iraq, the task of rebuilding and governing the soon-to-be-liberated country of some 25 million people fell to a few dozen Americans ensconced at a Hilton resort on the Kuwaiti beachfront. Some were military reservists with skills in civic administration. Others were long-serving officials or retired diplomats eager for one final tour of adventure. None of them, however, had a plan.

Because there wasn’t one.

The failure of President George W. Bush’s national security team to craft a detailed strategy for what to do once U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Prisoners in the Abu Ghraib jail, northwest of Baghdad, on Oct. 20, 2002. (Jerome Delay/AP)

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As a French citizen of Iraqi descent, I have watched a collective amnesia overtake the world since the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago. The anniversary of the start of the war is an excuse for uneasy acknowledgments that mistakes were made. Everyone wants to focus on the future.

In Iraq, the war is well remembered. It shapes the everyday lives of people trying to build a life for themselves and their families. But the war has also erased a coherent sense of Iraqi identity. This is the war’s most bitter legacy.

I have been going to Iraq since I was 9.…  Seguir leyendo »

A U.S soldier walks in Baghdad, April 2003. Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

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Twenty years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. It spent a decade breaking the country and then trying to put it back together again. It spent another decade trying to forget. “We have met our responsibility”, U.S. President Barack Obama told the nation in 2010 while declaring a short-lived end to the U.S. combat mission in Iraq. “Now, it is time to turn the page”.

For Obama, moving on meant taking the fight to al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan through a surge of U.S. troops. Obama’s critics, for their part, soon found another reason to tell Americans to “get over Iraq”: the debacle was, in their view, making the president and the public too reticent to use military force, this time to sort out Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani speaks to press in Baghdad, Iraq on 27 November 2022. Photo by Iraqi Government Press Office/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

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After nearly a year of political gridlock and violence, Iraq has a new government and a new prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. Sudani has made several reform pledges, including creating tens of thousands of new jobs and tackling rampant corruption. His predecessors all made similar promises, but ultimately failed to deliver. Can Sudani chart a different path, or will he repeat their mistakes?

He takes office at a time when many Iraqis feel disenfranchised. In the almost 20 years since regime change, Iraq’s elite have steadily lost economic and ideological power. The country’s economic decline and a growing youth population have put a strain on the system.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraqi populist leader Muqtada al-Sadr delivering a speech in Najaf, Iraq, August 2022. Alaa Al-Marjani / Reuters

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On August 29, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced that he would withdraw from politics after months of failed attempts to form a new government. Thousands of supporters of the nationalist leader, who has emerged as a staunch opponent of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, surged into the streets in anger, clashing with Iraqi security forces, breaching concrete barriers around Baghdad’s Green Zone, and storming the seat of government. After dozens of people were killed, Sadr went on television and instructed his supporters to go home, easing—for the moment, at least—a political crisis that has paralyzed Iraq’s caretaker government for months.…  Seguir leyendo »

A supporter of Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr lifts a placard depicting him during a a collective Friday prayer in Sadr City, east of Baghdad on 15 July 2022. Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images.

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Following their shock victory in the 2021 elections, the Sadrists claimed they were poised to push Iraq towards a new type of politics. But after nine months of failing to form a government, their leader, populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has seemingly given up and withdrawn from the government formation process. Instead, he called for mass protests, sent his followers to invade and occupy parliament, and demanded another election. In response, his opponents, Nouri al-Maliki and the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces, sent loyalists to Baghdad’s Green Zone, risking conflict between the two heavily armed sides.

Although it is still unlikely this will lead to a Shia civil war, there are increasing concerns about the lengths Sadr is willing go to.…  Seguir leyendo »

A youth stands on the bank of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, as flare stacks burn in the eponymous oil field and installation across the water, in Basra governorate, Iraq, on 5 December 2021. Photo: HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP via Getty Images.

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As Iraq’s political stalemate persists, many observers expect protests will erupt over the country’s worsening socio-economic situation, the increasing effects of climate change – such as heat waves and dust storms – and a lack of political will to change the status quo. The young people who played a crucial role in previous protests have once again been excluded from critical debates.

While Iraq has not witnessed mass protests following early elections in 2021, the protest movement is not dead. Rather, young activists are seeking to establish their own spaces and challenge the system in different ways. ‘The present political elite look at youth as either tools or rivals, not as partners’, stated a participant at a recent Baghdad workshop organized by the Chatham House Iraq Initiative in partnership with Al-Bayan Centre.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraqis wait at the department of emergency in Baghdad's Sadr City Imam Ali hospital on 2 February 2019. Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images.

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Last November, the head of the Iraqi Medical Association, Jassim al-Azzawi, stated that his team was making progress on digitized pharmaceutical prescriptions. This assertion may sound strangely mundane considering the many challenges facing Iraq’s healthcare system. But handwritten medical prescriptions have for years been a point of contention in the country.

Some doctors use handwritten coding systems when prescribing medications, scripts illegible to everyone but the pharmacists with whom the prescribing doctor has a partnership. Prescription in hand, patients are directed to the doctor’s chosen pharmacy – and the only pharmacist able to interpret the scribbled code.

Labelled ‘dealer doctors’ by some in the industry, these doctors negotiate incentives for carrying particular drugs hawked by pharmaceutical representatives, such as cash payments per unit sold.…  Seguir leyendo »

The plenary session of Iraq's new parliament in Baghdad, held three months after the October 2021 parliamentary elections. Photo by Iraqi Parliament Press Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

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Iraq’s newly-elected MPs recently gathered for the first time, three months after an election in which an alternative new generation of independents and protest parties won dozens of seats in parliament. This new cohort have the potential to gradually reform the political system, but must work towards forging a unified strategy if they are to effect change.

Early statements from some of these ‘alternative MPs’, who combined represent more than 70 seats, indicated a desire to form a unified coalition, but such an alliance has been difficult to forge.

Even before the October 2021 elections, divisions in tactics emerged amongst disillusioned Iraqis who had taken part in popular protests in 2019-20.…  Seguir leyendo »

Why Are American Troops Still in Iraq?

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U.S. troops in Iraq quietly thwarted two separate drone attacks on bases hosting American soldiers in the first week of 2022. The attacks, attributed to Iraqi Shiite militias, are no surprise: America’s presence in Iraq is increasingly unwelcome. More attacks are bound to come as long as the Biden administration decides to keep forces there. With each passing day, the risk of a deadly attack increases.

And for what?

The presence of U.S. troops won’t stop terrorist attacks from happening and they can’t contain Iran, which has cemented its hold on some Iraqi military institutions since 2003. American soldiers are likely to die in vain because, just as in Afghanistan, they have been given the impossible task of acting as an ephemeral thumb on the scale of a foreign country’s politics.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi poses in his office during an interview with the Associated Press in Baghdad on July 23. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed, File)

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Even by the brutal political rules of Baghdad, the recent attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi appears to have shocked many Iraqis — and undermined the Iranian-sponsored militias who had been trying to drive him from power.

The “cowardly” attack, as Kadhimi described it, has been condemned by the United Nations, the Biden administration, a wide range of Iraqi politicians — and even Iran, a prime suspect in the strike by three drones early Sunday morning. Two of the drones were shot down, but one hit Kadhimi’s residence, a small villa decorated with modern art where I met with him just a few months ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iraqis arrive to cast their vote at a polling station in Baghdad during the 2021 general election. Photo by Murtadha Al-Sudani/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

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Several big stories came out of Iraq’s sixth election since the 2003 US-led invasion. The first is low voter turnout which officially at 36 per cent of eligible voters is the lowest recorded in the country’s post-2003 electoral history. With many Iraqis disillusioned with a political system which entrenches a corrupt political elite at their expense, this was expected, reflecting a trajectory of fewer Iraqis voting in each election.

More surprising is the relative success of Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement, which increased its seat tally from 54 in 2018 to 73 according to preliminary results, while its main rival from the previous election Fateh – which represents the Popular Mobilization Forces – saw a decrease from 48 to only 16.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Iraqi independent candidate prepares to hang his own electoral poster in the Najaf. Photo by ALI NAJAFI/AFP via Getty Images.

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On October 10, Iraqis head to the polls in their country’s sixth election since regime change in 2003. Despite the promises of democracy, many Iraqis have become disillusioned with their political system, which deprives them of basic services and fundamental standards of living.

Many disillusioned Iraqis tried to bring about change through protests in October 2019. They believed their voice could be heard louder through mass demonstrations, instead of elections that only reinforced their corrupt political system.

Their demands were to put an end to the political elite’s institutionalized corruption, and many asked for a change in government through early elections in a safe and fair atmosphere.…  Seguir leyendo »

Tishreen protester holds an Iraqi flag in Tayaran Square. Baghdad, 19 January 2020. PHOTOGRAPHER/Ali Dab Dab

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What’s at stake in Iraq’s elections on 10 October? 

These elections are the first test of Iraq’s political institutions since countrywide protests paralysed the country in 2019-2020. Those protests forced the government elected in 2018 to step down and pass a new elections law, which brought the polls originally planned for 2022 forward by six months. The so-called Tishreen (October) protests were a serious warning that the ruling parties and political system face a growing legitimacy crisis. If the balloting unfolds in a free and fair manner, without major violence, it may restore a degree of confidence in electoral democracy. Ideally, the vote would produce a new government empowered to tackle the country’s enormous socio-economic challenges head on, but that outcome is unlikely.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Iraqi man registers to obtain his voting cards ahead of the parliamentary elections, in Najaf, September 2021. Photo by Ali NAJAFI / AFP) (Photo by ALI NAJAFI/AFP via Getty Images.

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For many Western and Iraqi policymakers, parliamentary elections are essential to Iraq’s fledgling but critical transition to democracy. But in Iraq’s first free election in 2005, turnout was almost 80 per cent. Since then, the figure has declined.

In the most recent elections in 2018, the official turnout was 44 per cent of registered voters, though most observers and even some officials acknowledge it was probably much lower, possibly less than 30 per cent. Iraqis do not feel that elections represent a channel for their voices or an instrument for change.

To express their despair, protesters in October 2019 began sitting in city squares in Baghdad and in the south.…  Seguir leyendo »

A car burns outside the UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel after a huge suicide truck bomb explosion rocked the building. Baghdad, Iraq, September 2003. AFP PHOTO/Sabah ARAR

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My friend Arthur telephoned me one summer morning in 2003, when I had just returned from Iraq, which had fallen into U.S. hands that April. Arthur was head of the refugee program at the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights. A decade earlier, he and I had travelled together to Iraq, Iran and Turkey to investigate the refugee crisis in the wake of the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Now, he said, he wanted to go to Baghdad for meetings about addressing the new war’s human cost. He asked me if he should bring a bulletproof vest. We at Crisis Group had raised the alarm about an incipient insurgency in Iraq, based on my observations during two visits since the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »