USA and Britain’s failed Iraq mission

On the 20th of March 2002, British and American troops were sent on a mission to Iraq by their federal leaders in hope to find Saddam Hussein (Iraq’s president at the time) and disarm him of his ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ However, once they captured Saddam, they realised he didn’t have any weapons. Chris Cooper, a senior curator of contemporary conflict, reported that ‘the primary reason USA went to war with Iraq was 9/11, even though the 9/11 attacks were committed by Al Qaeda, who were mainly situated in Afghanistan.’ George W. Bush (USA’s president at the time) justified his mission by stating that ‘Iraq was providing these weapons of mass destruction to the Al Qaeda terrorists’, and in November 2002 he formed a coalition with Britain in which they both agreed on the invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war lasted a total of 9 years (2002–2011). BBC news reported that ‘according to IBC there have been between 97,461 and 106,348 civilian deaths from 2003 up to July 2010. By September 2010, 4487 US combat troops were killed and almost 3,505 were wounded. The UK lost 179 servicemen and other coalition countries accounted for 139 deaths, according to the icasualties website. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the US will have spent almost $802bn (£512.8bn) on funding the war, by the end of 2011.

The impact of this war can be seen to this day and in September 2021 war veteran Mike Prysner confronted Bush at his red-carpet event. He said

‘when are you going to apologise for the millions of Iraqis that are dead because you lied? You lied about weapons of mass destruction. You lied about connections to 9/11. You lied about Iraq being a threat. You sent me to Iraq in 2003. My friends are dead. When are you going to apologize?’