20 years after Iraq, Americans remain in the dark about the war

US soldiers patrol a neighbourhood in Baghdad in January 2008. AFP

It’s tragic and deeply distressing that 20 years after the US launched its disastrous invasion of Iraq that the ignorance, lies, and cruelty of that war have never been acknowledged.

The neocons in the Bush administration desperately wanted this war. Believing that the US had been attacked on 9/11 because its enemies perceived it as weak, they postulated that a quick and decisive victory would demonstrate US strength and resolve. This would ensure that the US would remain the world hegemon for decades to come.

I had served on a think tank-sponsored task force with many of the leading proponents of this worldview and was astounded by their hubris born of ignorance. They did not know or even consider it important to know Iraq. Not unlike their Christian evangelical allies, they were guided by a one-size-fits-all Manichean ideology: forces of good and evil were in combat across the globe; a clash between them was inevitable; and in that confrontation good would ultimately prevail. That was all they knew and all they felt it was necessary to know. Those who issued cautions were demeaned as weak and lacking resolve.

To make their case, these “experts” took to the airwaves preying on a still shell-shocked public that knew even less about Iraq or the broader Middle East. In testimonies before Congress and on television talk shows, the war’s proponents not only embellished their “good versus evil” portrait, but also deliberately misinformed the Congress and public about the impending war itself.

The “big lie” about Iraq wasn’t just about the regime’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, but a preposterous deceit about the war’s costs and terms of engagement. Leading administration spokespersons actually testified that: the war would be over in a few weeks; US forces would be greeted as liberators; it would cost no more than $1 or $2 billion; and in the end, a new democracy in Iraq would be a “beacon for the new Middle East”.

Then US president George W Bush meets his cabinet in the White House in Washington in June 2004. Reuters

It is sickening to see the same neocon hawks now on the airwaves peddling their Manichean views about other conflicts

Journalists and commentators echoed these fact-free claims making it the dominant narrative. Most politicians cowered, and because the overwhelming majority of the public couldn’t find Iraq on a map (according to a survey conducted days before the invasion was to begin), they went along.

During the months leading up to the start of the war, my wife and I were in North Carolina where I was teaching at Davidson College. At one point, I flew back to Washington to debate a resolution I had submitted to the Democratic National Committee urging the party to oppose sending our young people into a war without knowing its costs, terms of engagement, and consequences, in a country whose history and culture we did not know. The party leaders allowed me to present it but wouldn’t permit a vote. One even said: “We don’t want to appear weak.”

At the time, I was hosting a weekly live television call-in programme on Abu Dhabi TV and Direct TV in the US. ADTV arranged two live satellite shows connecting students at Davidson with students at Baghdad University. While the exchange exposed the Iraqi students to the debate about the war taking place on campus, my students had their eyes opened to Iraqi history, culture and sensitivities. After the programme, one of the Davidson students told me that it was so hard to be speaking with the Iraqis knowing that we were going to bombing them.

Because North Carolina is also home to military bases that were staging areas for US troops being sent to Iraq, it was especially painful to watch local news programmes interviewing family members about their loved ones heading to the war. Because of the lies they had been told, in interview after interview they tearfully repeated lines like “he’s a hero fighting to keep our country safe”, or “he’s fighting to make the world freer”. I feared for these young soldiers and their families, and in my heart I damned those who had taken advantage of their goodness (and lack of understanding) putting these young people at risk to fulfil their own blind ideology.

January 29, 2002: US President George Bush identifies Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an 'axis of evil' in his State of the Union address. 'States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger,' he says. Getty

February 15, 2002: Thousands of people gather in Hyde Park in London after finishing a protest against war in Iraq. The march is believed to be the UK's biggest ever peace protest. Getty

March 18, 2003: US and British forces move into position before a possible military strike near the Kuwait-Iraq border. A day prior, Mr Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave the country or face war. Getty

March 21, 2003: Fires burn in and around Saddam's Council of Ministers during the first wave of US-led coalition airstrikes on Iraq in Baghdad. 'These are the opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign,' he says in an address. The attack begins with a massive air strike campaign named 'shock and awe'. Getty

March 29, 2003: A man and child walk on a road near the entrance of the besieged city of Basra as oil fires burn in the distance. Baath Party loyalists take up positions in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, making it a target of the US-led war on Iraq. Getty

April 9, 2003: Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, falls to US forces. Saddam’s regime loses control as American troops enter the city centre. On May 1, US President George W Bush prematurely declares the end of major combat in Iraq. Reuters

August 30, 2003: A burnt-out car is removed from outside Najaf’s Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest Shiite shrine in Iraq, a day after 87 people were killed in a car bomb attack. The attack raises sectarian tension as thousands of Iraqi Shiites, some of them backed by Iran, demand the right to form militias. Reuters

December 13, 2003: Ousted president Saddam Hussein is found by US troops in a cellar south of Tikrit, near his hometown. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,' says US ambassador Paul Bremer, who was appointed to lead the Coalition Provisional Authority. AFP

March 31, 2004: A car burns in the aftermath of an insurgent attack on Fallujah, in which four Blackwater private security contractors were killed and their mutilated, burnt bodies were left hanging from a bridge. Reuters

May 3, 2004: Coffins of US military personnel killed in Iraq are prepared to be offloaded at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Days later, Al Qaeda beheaded US businessman Nicholas Berg and recorded his killing. Reuters

June 28, 2004: US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer (R), Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (C) and the country's most senior judge Midhat Mahmoud (L) smile as the US transfers sovereignty to Iraq in Baghdad. Mr Allawi calls the event 'a historic day' and says that Iraq was 'capable of controlling the security situation'. Reuters

January 30, 2005: Iraqis vote in the first parliamentary elections of the post-Saddam era. Sunnis largely boycott the vote, while most Shiite parties coalesce into a sectarian bloc, cementing divisions within the country. Getty

April 7, 2005: Veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani raises his hands after being sworn in as Iraq's first democratically elected president. Later that month, Shiite Islamist Ibrahim Al Jaafari takes office as prime minister, hailing from the exiled Dawa Party. Getty

July 24, 2005: Burnt-out vehicles at the scene of a lorry bombing outside a police station that killed 22 people in south-east Baghdad. The explosion also injured 25 people, destroyed 22 cars and 10 shops. AFP

October 19, 2005: Saddam’s trial begins. Prosecutors focus on a massacre in the village of Dujail, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, where about 150 people, including children, were killed following an assassination attempt against the former dictator. Many other charges relate to a genocidal campaign against Kurds during the 1980s, during which Saddam ordered a chemical attack on the town of Halabja, killing up to 5,000 people. Getty

February 23, 2006: Iraqis clean up debris after an Al Qaeda bombing at Al Askariya holy Shiite shrine in Samarra, Iraq. Shiite police and militia members — in many cases indistinguishable — responded by rampaging through Sunni-majority areas, in an onslaught that coalition forces appeared powerless to halt. Getty

June 8, 2006: Maj Gen Bill Caldwell speaks during a press conference as satellite images are shown of a US air strike that killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, in a joint US-Iraqi raid. Getty

December 30, 2006: Saddam is executed by hanging. The execution and taunting of Saddam before his death is secretly filmed by a witness, stirring further tension within Iraq. Getty

January 11, 2007: US officers watch Mr Bush's speech announcing that another 20,000 soldiers will be sent to Iraq, at Camp Ramadi in Iraq's violent Anbar province. The approach becomes known as the 'Surge,' and envisages a closer partnership between US and Iraqi forces and tribes, as well as American forces being stationed closer to Iraqi communities. Getty

July 12, 2007: Two Reuters photographers and five civilians are killed by a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad. US video footage of the incident would later be released by Wikileaks. EPA

December 14, 2008: Mr Bush makes his final visit to Iraq to sign a co-operation agreement between Iraq and the US known as the Strategic Framework Agreement. At a press conference with Nouri Al Maliki, Munthadar Al Zaidi, a journalist, throws his shoes at Mr Bush. Mr Al Zaidi is severely beaten and jailed for six months. Reuters

February 27, 2009: US President Barack Obama announces Washington’s decision to withdraw most American troops by August 31, 2010. Mr Obama says 50,000 troops will remain for smaller missions and to train Iraqi soldiers. EPA

April 23: At least 80 people are killed in three suicide bombings in Baghdad, making it the biggest daily death toll since early 2008. A woman standing in a group of other women and children receiving aid reportedly set off one of the bombs. EPA

December 21, 2010: Iraqi Prime Minister Mr Al Maliki (L) and members of his newly formed cabinet attend a voting session at the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad, Iraq. The new government was unanimously approved, ending nine months of deadlock. Getty

JANUARY 8, 2011: Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr returns to Iraq after four years of self-imposed exile in Iran. In his first public statement, he urges his followers to resist the 'occupiers' of Iraq. EPA

February 25, 2011: A 'day of rage' is declared as tens of thousands of Iraqis protest against Mr Al Maliki’s government. At least 23 people are killed and hundreds injured in a sign of Mr Al Maliki’s growing authoritarianism. Getty

December 17, 2011: The last of the US Troop Brigade board a plane to depart Iraq at Camp Adder, now known as Imam Ali Base, near Nasiriyah, Iraq. Two days prior, the US military formally declared the end of the Iraq War in a ceremony in Baghdad. Getty

December 23, 2012: Protests against harsh security crackdowns break out in Fallujah, Ramadi and Tikrit. Sunni protesters say men are being arbitrarily jailed without evidence while the government holds back pensions for former army officers. The demonstrations last until December 2013 when the Iraqi army tries to break up protest camps. EPA

July 22, 2013: Mourners pray at the coffin of a victim killed during an attack on a prison in Taji, during a funeral at the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. Reuters

December 22, 2013: Funeral proceedings for a major general of the Iraqi army’s 7th division in Anbar. The division's leadership were killed when a house they are raiding explodes after being rigged with bombs. The mixed Sunni-Shiite group is seen as one of the last non-sectarian units in the Iraqi army. Reuters

June 11, 2014: ISIS fighters stand guard at a checkpoint in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Days prior, the militants seized Iraq's second biggest city of Mosul as well as Tikrit, hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, and other towns and cities north of Baghdad. Reuters

July 9, 2014: Al Nuri Mosque in Mosul before it was destroyed by ISIS militants during their retreat three years later. On June 29, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, appeared for the first time in public at the mosque to declare the caliphate. EPA

October 18, 2014: Smoke rises over Syrian town of Kobani after an air strike. Three days prior, Washington launched a campaign called Operation Inherent Resolve. Over the next year, the US military conducts more than 8,000 air strikes in Iraq and Syria. Reuters

November 13, 2015: Kurdish forces seized Sinjar from ISIS after a prolonged siege, in the largest urban battle undertaken by the Kurdish Peshmerga. Getty

October 16, 2006: Iraq launches US-backed campaign to liberate Mosul from ISIS. EPA

October 21, 2016: Fire at an oil field that was set on fire by retreating ISIS fighters before the Mosul offensive in Qayyarah, Iraq. Getty

July 2, 2017: While retreating from Mosul, ISIS destroys Al Nuri mosque. Iraqi forces encounter stiff resistance from ISIS with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, suicide bombers, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty

July 9, 2017: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi declares victory over ISIS in Mosul. In December, he declares full victory over ISIS. AFP

What remains distressing is that two decades later we’ve largely forgotten the lies, and no one has ever been held accountable. Even Washington’s British allies convened the Chilcot Inquiry, which despite its limited mandate did examine aspects of the war and its aftermath. Nothing of the sort happened here.

When former president Barack Obama released the Bush-era torture memos that had been commissioned to provide a “legal” justification for and define allowable methods that could be used to torture prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq, there was hope that some of those involved would be called to account for their war crimes. The memos were horrifyingly graphic in describing permissible torture practices. But after releasing the memos, Obama announced that “we wouldn’t look backwards” and sought to bury the matter.

And so here we are, two decades after the war with no accountability for the lies that left thousands of young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. It is sickening to see the same neocon hawks, still considered “experts”, now on the airwaves peddling their Manichean views about other conflicts and enemies. And it is deeply troubling that the American public remains uninformed not only about Iraq, and what the US did there, but also about the entire Middle East and its history and culture.

Precisely because of the lack of accountability and understanding of its own history and that of other peoples who America’s policies have affected, the US continues to operate blind in a world that grows increasingly wary of its role. The truth is that accountability wouldn’t make America weaker. Accountability would make it smart, stronger and more respected.