When Nadia Gattan first landed in London from war-torn Iraq in March 2004, she remembers being struck by the silence on the streets.
“When I got to London, I was like wow, it’s so quiet,” she said.
Until then, Gattan had spent her life in Baghdad and witnessed the fallout from the Iraq war in 2003, when a US-led coalition invaded Iraq to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein. “Iraq was in a state of freefall. I had struggled to get a passport,” she said.
Before leaving, a series of suicide bombings targeted her offices at the International Committee of the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad. “We were walking in our own colleagues' pools of blood,” she said.
Gattan arrived in the UK as a tourist, but when the violence continued to escalate in her home city, she decided not to go back. She obtained a work visa and has lived in the UK ever since. “All my tangible memories stayed in Baghdad,” she said.
Today, Gattan is among the tens of thousands of Iraqi-born residents in the UK. Yet 20 years on her memories of the Iraq war conjure mixed feelings.
Gattan recalled the days and weeks after Saddam’s capture. “We were so happy. We had grown up in a blackout. We didn’t know what was going on outside of Iraq, beyond what was reported in state media,” she said. Before the invasion, Iraqis had lived through the Iran-Iraq war and a UN embargo which isolated the country.
But the moment of hope was short-lived. “And then everything broke down,” she said. A surge in sectarian violence, threats from armed groups, and a collapse of the country’s institutions compelled Iraqis like Gattan to flee.
Many Iraqis in the UK echo a similar sense of disappointment.
“People were happy that Saddam was gone,” said Ahmed Agha, a resident of north London, who was a teenager during the 2003 invasion. “But the chaos and corruption that followed hasn’t changed. So many children live in poverty.”
Agha left Iraq in 2017. He had served as a relief worker during ISIS’s occupation of Mosul in 2014, making two dangerous journeys to Mount Sinjar. After the war, repeated threats from government-backed militias caused him to flee.
He came to the UK illegally, spending months in government accommodation for asylum seekers. “I did not feel safe going to Germany or other parts of Europe, as I knew that former militiamen had sought asylum there,” he said.
Today, he works as a cook in a local restaurant, but hopes to set up his own business.
Before the 2003 invasion, the UK served a refuge for those fleeing Saddam’s government. Shorsh Saleh, an Iraqi-Kurdish artist and teacher based in London, came to the UK in 2002. For decades, his family had been involved in the Kurdish resistance against Saddam.
To get to the UK, he first journeyed on foot across the Kurdish mountains into Iran, and then to Turkey. “We were hiding in caves in the night. There were guerrillas hiding in the mountains, and we worried that the border guards would mistake us for fighters,” he said. “I don’t think I could make such a journey again.”
Today, Saleh teaches carpet weaving at the Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts and has produced work about the Iraq war and its legacy.
Yet despite his Kurdish heritage, the past 20 years have left him with more questions than answers. “We thought we would have a brighter future after Saddam, but the country seems to be getting worse,” he said. “The Kurdistan Region did well after Saddam was gone, but the rest of Iraq did not.”
Emad Al Ibady, co-founder of the Iraqi Welfare Association, a UK charity that supports Iraqi refugees, said that many Iraqi exiles in the UK returned after the 2003 invasion — only to have their dreams thwarted by the ensuing chaos.
“They had hope that Iraq would be a better place,” he said. “But the Americans and the West mismanaged the war and created fatal errors and mistakes. A lot of people then changed their minds, they said Iraq is not the place that we dreamt of.”
Today, families that were scattered across the globe are struggling to be reunited again. Gattan’s parents fled Iraq in 2006, first as refugees to Damascus, and are now settled in Helsinki. “But they dream of living in the UK,” she said.
More could be done, she added, to allow Iraqis into the country. “The UK has a responsibility towards Iraq’s refugees. Ukrainians were welcomed to the UK last year,” she said, referring to the Homes for Ukraine refugee sponsorship scheme. “Why is it different for Iraqis?”
The Iraq War: A Timeline of Events — In Pictures
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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
Many also point to the brain drain caused by continuous migration out of the country. Maher Nawaf, an activist for Iraq’s Yazidi community, is a senior scientist and immunologist at the Charles River Laboratories in Bristol. He came to the UK on a government-funded scholarship in 2011.
But continuing violence and ISIS's occupation of northern Iraq prevented him from returning. “I came to finish my PhD and go back to Iraq,” he said. “We lost our property, we lost family members and friends, it was too hard to go back.”
“Any Iraqi who is given the option would leave Iraq,” said Nawaf, who supports Yazidi families with their asylum applications to the UK. Since 2014, he said, about 30 Yazidi families have resettled in the UK.
The continuing exodus is not a solution, however. “We don’t want to bring all Iraqis to the UK,” he said.
Instead, he hopes that support from the international community can make Iraq a better place to live. “The international community has a duty to offer a safe place for Iraqis to live in Iraq. They could change the political system, and stop neighbours from intervening, so that Iraqis can go back and build a great country.”
