http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2012/07/2012724124452974165.html
What is in store for Iraq and its people is anyone's guess. The effects of the country being turned upside down, and the social fabric perhaps irrevocably damaged, will likely make Iraq a question mark for at least the mid-term future.
Prior to invasion, Iraq was a functional country with a sizable middle class. Sectarian relations were civil, with common intermarriage between Sunni and Shiite families. While life under Saddam Hussein was less than ideal, it is a cruel reality that Iraq was better off under the "Beast of Baghdad" than it was under US occupation, during and after. As one man mentions in the documentary, "it used to be that one person was killed, now a hundred are killed." Despite the man providing a figurative ratio for purposes of illustration - one not to be taken literally - his point is valid.
Over the years 2003 to 2011, the death toll was conceivably in the range of half a million. Before the invasion, Iraq's mortality rate was 5.5 per thousand. This makes for 148,500 deaths a year, owing to the normal range of factors, 2 percent of which were caused by "violence" (taken generally). Therefore the number of deaths due to violence in prewar Iraq was roughly 2,970 annually. Given the half-million figure for the 2003-11 period, the average comes to over 55,000 per year. In other words, the rate of deaths due to violence increased by 1,800 percent from pre-invasion levels.[1]
From the end of the Gulf War in 1991 to the commencement of operations in 2003, it should be borne in mind that the United States and Great Britain controlled the top third and bottom half of Iraq in the form of no-fly zones, where US-UK fighter jets would occasionally bomb various sites. This is tantamount to China establishing total air supremacy over the United States, holding at gunpoint everything west of Omaha and east of Cincinnati.
The devastating sanctions regime during these years was covered in an excellent 2002 article by Joy Gordon in Harper's:
http://harpers.org/archive/2002/11/0079384
The prewar situation of no-fly zones and crippling sanctions completely contradicted the Bush administration's fiction of an imminent Iraqi threat, to say nothing of the weapons of mass destruction issue.
It was a wholly concocted military adventure, making it patently clear (as history tends to do) that power approaches these things in a detached, nonchalant manner; because for them there is nothing at stake. With the essential support of the intellectual class it was ensured that the matter would be discussed in a delicate, "objective" way. Even the liberal New York Times played a key role in aiding what became the criminal devastation of a country that did not attack the United States. This media backing of core doctrine mitigates against the population becoming knowledgable and current, which, had it been, would never have approved (at an alarming 70 percent). An uninformed population is a pliable one. As the facts and realities trickled down after 2003, so too went the approval rating, however late.
For now the population is unsupportive of foreign military adventures - especially in light of the economy - and therefore the White House and Congress will probably lie low for a while. Iran is a possibility though a remote one; there are a range of other factors likely giving the White House pause for thought. However, not among those factors is a concern for sending the military back into a meat grinder. At the level of executive decision making, there are no moral qualms about losing another 6,000 service personnel, because there are no moral qualms.
NOTES
[1] The Lancet-Johns Hopkins report arrived at a death toll figure of 650,000 in 2006. My use of 500,000 for 2003-11 hews close to this figure while at the same time falling between two respected but vastly differing studies: The British firm Opinion Research Business (ORB) conducted surveys indicating 1 million Iraqi deaths, while the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) reports 100,000. The IBC number, based on media reports, is in all likelihood low.
Sources:
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3962969.stm
Johns Hopkins: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html
Hannah Fischer, "Iraq Casualties: U.S. Military Forces and Iraqi Civilians, Police, and Security Forces" (R40824), Congressional Research Service, October 7, 2010. PDF download: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40824.pdf
The prewar situation of no-fly zones and crippling sanctions completely contradicted the Bush administration's fiction of an imminent Iraqi threat, to say nothing of the weapons of mass destruction issue.
It was a wholly concocted military adventure, making it patently clear (as history tends to do) that power approaches these things in a detached, nonchalant manner; because for them there is nothing at stake. With the essential support of the intellectual class it was ensured that the matter would be discussed in a delicate, "objective" way. Even the liberal New York Times played a key role in aiding what became the criminal devastation of a country that did not attack the United States. This media backing of core doctrine mitigates against the population becoming knowledgable and current, which, had it been, would never have approved (at an alarming 70 percent). An uninformed population is a pliable one. As the facts and realities trickled down after 2003, so too went the approval rating, however late.
For now the population is unsupportive of foreign military adventures - especially in light of the economy - and therefore the White House and Congress will probably lie low for a while. Iran is a possibility though a remote one; there are a range of other factors likely giving the White House pause for thought. However, not among those factors is a concern for sending the military back into a meat grinder. At the level of executive decision making, there are no moral qualms about losing another 6,000 service personnel, because there are no moral qualms.
NOTES
[1] The Lancet-Johns Hopkins report arrived at a death toll figure of 650,000 in 2006. My use of 500,000 for 2003-11 hews close to this figure while at the same time falling between two respected but vastly differing studies: The British firm Opinion Research Business (ORB) conducted surveys indicating 1 million Iraqi deaths, while the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) reports 100,000. The IBC number, based on media reports, is in all likelihood low.
Sources:
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3962969.stm
Johns Hopkins: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html
Hannah Fischer, "Iraq Casualties: U.S. Military Forces and Iraqi Civilians, Police, and Security Forces" (R40824), Congressional Research Service, October 7, 2010. PDF download: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40824.pdf
