Weapons in Iraq

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af Esben Morthorst, Christian Moeslund og Jesper Petersen

The Enemy

When the American forces invaded Iraq they thought, that they could go in, intimidate the Iraqi forces, capture Saddam Hussein, find the weapons of mass destruction they thought he had, and then make Iraq a democratic country. This is far from what reality was, because when the forces went in they were “greeted” by Iraqi soldiers, Kurds, various militias and Al-Qaeda. They dressed like civilians to trap the US forces to kill civilians, kind of like what happened Vietnam. In Vietnam the forces could not recognize the enemy from the civilian, so they killed many innocent civilians. The media got it out to the world which ultimately turned the war down, because the people in the US lost their faith in the military and then they lost the war.

When you talk about the war it is hard to say, how many adversaries there were in Iraq, because they were trained in fighting in the city and the dessert, and because the military dressed up like civilians and made the US forces confused about whom to shoot at and not to shoot at. The Iraqi soldiers were trained like some of the special corps in the states. Some were, but some other were trained specially in how to fight in the city and the desert. Which also led the war to be fought like a “normal” war, but also city war, which the Americans should adapt to before they could get the upper hand in the war.

Other than Hussein’s forces fighting the war against the US military, they had some supporting groups which helped them bring down the US military, but they also provided the Iraqi soldiers with weapons. While fighting the war, they had to hide in the cities and around the country where they could hide and then fight the Americans, from different angels, while having the upper hand in the fights. One big problem for the American soldiers was that the Iraqi soldiers hid with the civilians so the US soldiers didn’t from where they got shot. This war later on turned into a civil war.

Status Quo - The Iraq War (porn images)

Number of soldiers in the country today

Currently the U.S. has a total of 44.000 troops in Iraq. All the other nations have already withdrawn most of their troops, the few that are left are mostly there to train the Iraqi police and military, as well as keeping order.

What is their job?

Everybody finds the situation in Iraq very critical, which is why soldiers from all over the world are still in the country. Al-Qaeda wants to control the citizens of Iraq with fear based on theology. The countries that are supporting the war are against that fact, and want to fight for democracy in Iraq. They want equality, the freedom of speech and the freedom to choose. The soldiers try to fight the terrorists and educate Iraqi soldiers to rebuild a stronger and fairer society for the civilians. This is necessary for them to be able to leave with a good conscience and leave the responsibility to the Iraq people themselves. If the situation shouldn't continue to develop and al-Qaeda should stop the suppression of the citizens of Iraq, the soldiers are going to have to fight the Sunni Islamic terror organization and various other groups

But whose responsibility is it to make the switch from theocracy to democracy happen?

And how many innocent lives should be allowed taken before the war of terrorism ends?

Number of casualties

So far the total estimated amount of casualties is over 100.000, while the official number is at 33.150. Since the war began the American Military has lost 4436 soldiers. Other than the physical injuries, there are also 30% of the U.S. troops who develop serious mental health problems a few months after returning home.

Not only have (K) there been a lot of casualties among the soldiers, there have (K) also been a lot of civilians who have (K) had violent deaths. WikiLeaks has released logs that record a total of 66,000 civilians deaths from 2003-2010. The Iraqi troops are being targeted too, since the start of the war there has been a total of 10.000 dead people amongst Iraqi police and military.

Estimates of cost

It is very hard to tell what the war in Iraq really did cost, since there are so many numbers to keep track of. But according to Stiglitz, who is the former chief economist of the World Bank, the indirect costs and delayed costs, are around $3 trillion[1] or even more!

The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) is nonpartisan and wrote in a letter to the House and Senate budget committee, what the estimated cost of the Iraq war would be[2]:

- Initial deployment of troops: $9-$13 billion

- Conduction of the war: $6-$9 billion per month!

- Returning forces to US – transportation: $5-$7 billion

- Temporary occupation in Iraq: $1-$4 billion per month!

The war began in 2003, which means it lasted for 8 year approximately. Now, you do the math!

But the CBO is aware of several unknown factors, which could have a minor or a major influence, on the total cost of the Iraq War – here they are:

- Actual force size deployed

- Duration of the conflict

- Strategy employed

- Number of casualties

- Military equipment lost

- Need for reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure

The Future

The future is uncertain. We don’t really know when the war will end, and what will cause it to end? Will the American soldiers pull out of Iraq, when they’ve helped them reconstruct their cities, and educated the Iraq authorities?

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

[2] http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aairaqwarcost.htm

The Abu Ghraib prison

The Abu Ghraib prison is placed in Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib is an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad.

The prison was built in 1960s by British contractors and covers 280 acres which is 1.15 km². The prison is equipped with 24 guard towers. The prison is internationally known as a place where Saddam Hussein’s government tortured and executed dissidents and later as the site of abuse of Iraqi suspects by the US military.

In 2001 Saddam Hussein was still in power and Abu Ghraib may have held as many as 15.000 people. The cells were horribly overcrowded, with up to forty people in a way too small cell. In October 2002 Saddam Hussein is declared a general amnesty and all the prisoners were released.

Soon after the American invasion of Iraq, the building was restored by American occupation forces as a detention and holding facility. In May 2004, the United States President George W. Bush told that he planned to demolish the prison. A month later, military judge Col. James Pohl ruled that the prison was a crime scene and that the prison couldn’t be demolished.

From the time were Saddam Hussein’s government ruled the prison there were photographs from inside Abu Ghraib. On these pictures the prisoners were tortured and that was an evidence of the prison’s history.

According to reports from Amnesty International it gives some idea of the brutality that was going on in the Abu Ghraib prison. To mention some of it:

- In January 1994, more than 150 detainees were executed over two days.

- In November 1996, hundreds of opposition group members were executed.

- In June 1998, more than 60 people were executed, mostly detainees from 1991 Shia uprising.

- On 12 October 1999, at least 100 prisoners were executed.

- In October 2001, more than 23 political prisoners, mainly Shia Muslims, were executed.

The mass executions, detainees were subjected to extreme torture – including the use of electric shocks, drills and lighted cigarettes on the body; the extraction of fingernails, beatings, mock executions and threats to rape detainees’ relatives.

- do you want to read and learn more about the American situation, check out this link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

Jessica Lynch

-          Born April 26,1983 in Palestine, West Virginia (USA)

-          Served in Iraq during the invasion in 2003.

-          19 years old when captured by the Iraq forces.

Jessica Lynch. Perhaps the most well-known soldier from the Iraq war. She became involved in an incident in 2003, an incident which made her famous. But exactly what happened during that incident? After being presented like a heroine, the story told by the government was put into question. Why was this the case? What was wrong with the story? What truly happened? Hopefully you’ll find some answer to these questions by reading this.

Official story

According to the official story released by the U. S government, Jessica and her unit were taking fire under a mission. Eleven American soldiers were killed and four others were captured by the attacking Iraqis. Jessica Lynch fired all her ammo and killed several enemies before she was captured. The four surviving soldiers were brought to a local hospital close to where the fighting took place.

A large mission was arranged to rescue Jessica Lynch and the other soldiers. Due to the fact that she was being tortured and held as prisoner the American forces stormed the hospital with heavy equipment. The American soldiers fought their way to Jessica Lynch. Jessica Lynch was put in a helicopter and flown away to a hospital. Back in the U. S she was welcomed as a heroine.

Jessica`s story

Jessica Lynch was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Prisoner of War Medal. And after what she did, she truly deserved every single one of them – or at least, that would be the case if the story was true. After the official story was released, contradictions started appearing. In fact, Lynch herself rejected the official story. She claimed that she was not the hero that she had been portrayed as. She did not keep fighting until she ran out of ammo, she did not keep fighting after being shot; in fact she wasn’t even hit by gunshots at all. Firing her weapon wasn’t even an option as it had jammed. The story further continued to crumble as information was released from the hospital, where she had been kept. According to this information, the rescue mission had not involved the intense combat as previously told, but was closer to a staged raid in a civilian environment. The other soldiers, who were kept at the hospital as well, had already been released the day before she was rescued and Lynch had actually been offered the same as well. Finally, leaked medical information confirmed that she hadn’t been shot during the combat.

Why would the government make up this kind of story?

That leaves us with two different stories. One from the Government portraying Lynch as a heroine, who was kept as a prisoner, and another one showing what might actually have happened. Something is clearly not right here. Why would the government make up this kind of story? The war in Iraq was unpopular. The soldiers were not being recognized and supported by their fellow Americans. The government needed to do something about it. They needed something to make their soldiers look like heroes. And that’s when Jessica Lynch was attacked. This gave the government exactly what they had needed: An opportunity to create a story about a heroine.

Anders, Hussam, Esben & Simon

Background

Iraq is a nation in the Middle East. From 1979 to 2003 the nation had been controlled by Saddam Husain and his family under dictatorial conditions.

What was the background for the Iraq war which started in 2003?

The war started when George Bush was president. After 9/11 2001 America saw Iraq as a dangerous threat which was in possessions of weapons of mass destruction and they knew Iraq supported Al Qaeda, they abused human right etc.In 2003 America invaded Iraq and Saddam Hussain lost his power of the country. Not very many countries supported America in their invasion, but Denmark was among those who did.

In 2006 Iraq had a new government and in 2008 many countries left Iraq. In August 2010 the last American soldiers left Iraq.

When Bush declared war, it’s said very clearly what it’s all about:

"My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger”.

So basically, the background of the war was mainly to find the weapons of mass destruction and disarm Iraq. In addition to this, America expressed that they did it for a noble goal, too. Furthermore many think that America invaded Iraq to find oil.

Interelationship with the War on Terror

Many politicians saw a link between Iraq and terror, especially after 9/11. They don’t trust them anymore and think they consider making others attacks – that was very clear 9/11 2011 – ten years after the attack at World Trade Center.

Was there a US drive for resource control in Iraq?

Some sources claims that it was a resource war. The economy is worldwide based on resources, and if America were able to find some fossil fuel or something else, they could definitely stabilize their own economy. What’s more important is that the rest of the world’s economy depends on the US dollar, so therefore it’s important that the dollar doesn’t make an extremely steep fall.

Was there a “noble” international goal?

Bush paid a lot attention to put the war in a noble view. As he said, when he declared war, America wants to free the civilian citizens and defend the world from grave danger.

A quote from George Bush expresses it very well,

- “That every effort would be made to spare the lives of innocent civilians,- But the campaign will be "broad and concerted" and will use "decisive force."- No outcome but victory will be accepted, - America's freedom will be defended, and freedom will be brought to others”.

Describe how/why the US had formerly been on “good” terms with Saddam

In the 1970’es the economy was growing in Iraq, due to the fact that Iraq found a lot of Oil in the underground. You could imagine that those countries that had some oil resources, those were the ones who had the power. So America and of course many other countries around the world, would like to be good friends with Iraq. But Iraq went to war with their neighbor countries a lot of times after they found the oil. Furthermore the organization UN decided to help them out, inclusive America. Therefore America had had a lot of times shaking hands with Saddam and the Iraq regime.

Before 9/11 America helped Saddam in more than one way; JFK’s CIA helped put Saddam to power by supporting his party with money. Reagan armed him to fight Iran and George Bush senior initiated the first Gulf War against him.

Find out if the war was sanctioned by international law and/or world opinion

Neither NATO, UN or any other international organization supported this war, so America just did it as the superpower they are. The organizations were actually against the war and feared it would threaten the international co-operation. There were not many countries that followed America in their invasion into Iraq, but some few countries supported them anyway, among them is Denmark.

Saddam Hussein’s toppled statue

In April 2003, the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was toppled. The reason for this event was to make the point to the rest of the world that the U.S. Army now had conquered the capital of Iraq.

The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue was a huge media event and was covered by many journalists from all over the world. These journalists told the world about how this was a great day (April 9, 2003), and how the Iraqi people joined in toppling his statue.

These journalists lived at a nearby hotel which had a great view of the statue and the park which surrounded the statue it. A greater place to make a big media event was hard to find in a country like Iraq.

The media covered the toppling of Saddam’s statue to make Bush look good. By making Bush look good, he could continue his campaign through Iraq and finish off the rest of Saddam’s forces. The media happened to help Bush in his campaign through Iraq by making him look good to the rest of the world. The media just wrote about what they saw, and they saw hundreds of happy civilians toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein with the help from U.S. soldiers. This has happened to give a positive effect for further missions in Iraq, as long as the media doesn’t tell the world about the killing of innocents.

Some years later the truth behind this mass media coverage was told to the world through blogs and reader’s letters in various news media. It was all a media-stunt. What really happened was that there wasn’t nearly any people at the plaza, which indicate that some of the information from the media hasn’t been quite true. Most of the people at the plaza were journalists, American soldiers and anti-Saddam-people (people who are against Saddam Hussein -Iraqi people from outside Iraq).

By Jonas and Dianna