La invasión de Irak de 2003 [b] fue la primera etapa de la Guerra de Irak . La invasión comenzó el 20 de marzo de 2003 y duró poco más de un mes, [24] incluyendo 26 días de importantes operaciones de combate, en las que una fuerza combinada liderada por los Estados Unidos de tropas de los Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Australia y Polonia invadió la República de Irak . Veintidós días después del primer día de la invasión, la ciudad capital de Bagdad fue capturada por las fuerzas de la coalición el 9 de abril después de la Batalla de Bagdad que duró seis días . Esta primera etapa de la guerra terminó formalmente el 1 de mayo cuando el presidente estadounidense George W. Bush declaró el "fin de las principales operaciones de combate" en su discurso de Misión Cumplida , [25] después de lo cual se estableció la Autoridad Provisional de la Coalición (CPA) como el primero de varios gobiernos de transición sucesivos que condujeron a la primera elección parlamentaria iraquí en enero de 2005. Las fuerzas militares estadounidenses permanecieron más tarde en Irak hasta la retirada en 2011. [26]
La coalición envió 160.000 tropas a Irak durante la fase inicial de invasión, que duró del 19 de marzo al 1 de mayo. [27] Alrededor del 73% o 130.000 soldados eran estadounidenses, con unos 45.000 soldados británicos (25%), 2.000 soldados australianos (1%) y unos 200 comandos polacos del JW GROM (0,1%). Treinta y seis países más estuvieron involucrados en sus secuelas. En preparación para la invasión, 100.000 tropas estadounidenses se reunieron en Kuwait el 18 de febrero. [27] Las fuerzas de la coalición también recibieron apoyo de los Peshmerga en el Kurdistán iraquí .
Según el presidente estadounidense George W. Bush y el primer ministro británico Tony Blair , la coalición tenía como objetivo "desarmar a Irak de armas de destrucción masiva [ADM], poner fin al apoyo de Saddam Hussein al terrorismo y liberar al pueblo iraquí", a pesar de que el equipo de inspección de la ONU dirigido por Hans Blix había declarado que no había encontrado evidencia de la existencia de ADM justo antes del inicio de la invasión. [28] [29] Otros ponen un énfasis mucho mayor en el impacto de los ataques del 11 de septiembre , en el papel que esto jugó en el cambio de los cálculos estratégicos de EE. UU. y el surgimiento de la agenda de la libertad. [30] [31] Según Blair, el detonante fue el fracaso de Irak de aprovechar una "oportunidad final" para desarmarse de supuestas armas nucleares, químicas y biológicas que los funcionarios estadounidenses y británicos llamaron una amenaza inmediata e intolerable para la paz mundial. [32]
En una encuesta de CBS de enero de 2003, el 64% de los estadounidenses había aprobado una acción militar contra Irak; sin embargo, el 63% quería que Bush encontrara una solución diplomática en lugar de ir a la guerra, y el 62% creía que la amenaza del terrorismo dirigido contra los EE. UU. aumentaría debido a la guerra. [33] La invasión fue firmemente opuesta por algunos aliados de larga data de los EE. UU., incluidos los gobiernos de Francia, Alemania y Nueva Zelanda. [34] [35] [36] Sus líderes argumentaron que no había evidencia de armas de destrucción masiva en Irak y que invadir ese país no estaba justificado en el contexto del informe de la UNMOVIC del 12 de febrero de 2003. Alrededor de 5.000 ojivas químicas , proyectiles o bombas de aviación fueron descubiertos durante la guerra de Irak, pero estos habían sido construidos y abandonados anteriormente en el gobierno de Saddam Hussein antes de la Guerra del Golfo de 1991. Los descubrimientos de estas armas químicas no respaldaron la lógica de invasión del gobierno. [37] [38] En septiembre de 2004, Kofi Annan , entonces Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas , calificó la invasión de ilegal según el derecho internacional y dijo que era una violación de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas . [39]
El 15 de febrero de 2003, un mes antes de la invasión, hubo protestas en todo el mundo contra la guerra de Irak , incluida una manifestación de tres millones de personas en Roma, que el Libro Guinness de los Récords catalogó como la manifestación contra la guerra más grande de la historia . [40] Según el académico francés Dominique Reynié , entre el 3 de enero y el 12 de abril de 2003, 36 millones de personas en todo el mundo participaron en casi 3.000 protestas contra la guerra de Irak. [41]
La invasión fue precedida por un ataque aéreo contra el Palacio Presidencial en Bagdad el 20 de marzo de 2003. Al día siguiente, las fuerzas de la coalición lanzaron una incursión en la Gobernación de Basora desde su punto de concentración cerca de la frontera entre Irak y Kuwait. Mientras las fuerzas especiales lanzaban un asalto anfibio desde el Golfo Pérsico para asegurar Basora y los campos petrolíferos circundantes, el principal ejército de invasión se trasladó al sur de Irak, ocupando la región y participando en la Batalla de Nasiriyah el 23 de marzo. Los ataques aéreos masivos en todo el país y contra el mando y control iraquíes sumieron al ejército defensor en el caos e impidieron una resistencia efectiva. El 26 de marzo, la 173.ª Brigada Aerotransportada fue lanzada desde el aire cerca de la ciudad norteña de Kirkuk , donde unió fuerzas con los rebeldes kurdos y luchó en varias acciones contra el Ejército iraquí , para asegurar la parte norte del país.
El grueso de las fuerzas de la coalición continuó su avance hacia el corazón de Irak y se encontró con poca resistencia. La mayor parte del ejército iraquí fue derrotado rápidamente y la coalición ocupó Bagdad el 9 de abril. Se produjeron otras operaciones contra sectores del ejército iraquí, incluida la captura y ocupación de Kirkuk el 10 de abril y el ataque y captura de Tikrit el 15 de abril. El presidente iraquí Saddam Hussein y la dirección central se escondieron mientras las fuerzas de la coalición completaban la ocupación del país. El 1 de mayo, el presidente George W. Bush declaró el fin de las principales operaciones de combate: esto puso fin al período de invasión y comenzó el período de ocupación militar . Saddam Hussein fue capturado por las fuerzas estadounidenses el 13 de diciembre.
Las hostilidades de la Guerra del Golfo fueron suspendidas el 28 de febrero de 1991, con un alto el fuego negociado entre la coalición de la ONU e Irak. [42] Estados Unidos y sus aliados intentaron mantener a raya a Saddam con acciones militares como la Operación Southern Watch , que fue llevada a cabo por la Fuerza de Tarea Conjunta del Sudoeste de Asia (JTF-SWA) con la misión de monitorear y controlar el espacio aéreo al sur del paralelo 32 (ampliado al paralelo 33 en 1996), así como utilizando sanciones económicas. Se reveló que un programa de armas biológicas (BW) en Irak había comenzado a principios de la década de 1980 con la ayuda involuntaria [43] [44] de los EE. UU. y Europa en violación de la Convención sobre Armas Biológicas (BWC) de 1972. Los detalles del programa de BW -junto con un programa de armas químicas- salieron a la luz después de la Guerra del Golfo (1990-91) a raíz de las investigaciones realizadas por la Comisión Especial de las Naciones Unidas (UNSCOM) que había sido encargada del desarme de posguerra del Irak de Saddam. La investigación concluyó que el programa no había continuado después de la guerra. Los EE. UU. y sus aliados mantuvieron entonces una política de " contención " hacia Irak. Esta política implicó numerosas sanciones económicas por parte del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU ; la aplicación de zonas de exclusión aérea iraquíes declaradas por los EE. UU. y el Reino Unido para proteger a los kurdos en el Kurdistán iraquí y a los chiítas en el sur de los ataques aéreos del gobierno iraquí; e inspecciones continuas. Helicópteros y aviones militares iraquíes impugnaron regularmente las zonas de exclusión aérea. [45] [46]
En octubre de 1998, la destitución del gobierno iraquí se convirtió en una política exterior oficial de Estados Unidos con la promulgación de la Ley de Liberación de Irak . Promulgada tras la expulsión de los inspectores de armas de la ONU el agosto anterior (después de que algunos habían sido acusados de espiar para Estados Unidos), la ley proporcionó 97 millones de dólares a las "organizaciones de oposición democrática" iraquíes para "establecer un programa de apoyo a la transición a la democracia en Irak". [47] Esta legislación contrastaba con los términos establecidos en la Resolución 687 del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas , que se centraba en las armas y los programas de armas y no hacía mención del cambio de régimen. [48] Un mes después de la aprobación de la Ley de Liberación de Irak, Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido lanzaron una campaña de bombardeo de Irak llamada Operación Zorro del Desierto . La lógica expresa de la campaña era obstaculizar la capacidad del gobierno de Saddam Hussein para producir armas químicas, biológicas y nucleares, pero el personal de inteligencia estadounidense también esperaba que ayudara a debilitar el control de Saddam sobre el poder. [49]
Con la elección de George W. Bush como presidente en 2000 , Estados Unidos adoptó una política más agresiva hacia Irak. La plataforma de campaña del Partido Republicano en las elecciones de 2000 exigía la "plena implementación" de la Ley de Liberación de Irak como "punto de partida" de un plan para "eliminar" a Saddam. [50] Después de dejar la administración de George W. Bush , el secretario del Tesoro Paul O'Neill dijo que se había planeado un ataque a Irak desde la investidura de Bush y que la primera reunión del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional de Estados Unidos incluyó una discusión sobre una invasión. O'Neill luego se retractó, diciendo que estas discusiones eran parte de una continuación de la política exterior puesta en marcha por primera vez por la administración Clinton . [51]
A pesar del interés declarado de la administración Bush en invadir Irak, no hubo muchos movimientos formales hacia una invasión hasta los ataques del 11 de septiembre . Por ejemplo, la administración preparó la Operación Desert Badger para responder agresivamente si algún piloto de la Fuerza Aérea era derribado mientras volaba sobre Irak, pero esto no sucedió. El Secretario de Defensa Donald Rumsfeld desestimó los datos de interceptación de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA) disponibles al mediodía del día 11 que apuntaban a la culpabilidad de Al Qaeda , y a media tarde ordenó al Pentágono que preparara planes para atacar Irak. [52] Según los asistentes que estaban con él en el Centro de Comando Militar Nacional ese día, Rumsfeld pidió: "la mejor información rápidamente. Juzguen si es lo suficientemente buena para atacar a Saddam Hussein al mismo tiempo. No sólo a Osama bin Laden ". [53] Un memorando escrito por Rumsfeld en noviembre de 2001 considera una guerra en Irak. [54] La lógica de la invasión de Irak como respuesta al 11 de septiembre ha sido ampliamente cuestionada, ya que no hubo cooperación entre Saddam Hussein y Al Qaeda . [55]
El 20 de septiembre de 2001, Bush se dirigió a una sesión conjunta del Congreso (transmitida en directo al mundo en forma simultánea) y anunció su nueva " Guerra contra el Terror ". Este anuncio fue acompañado por la doctrina de la acción militar "preventiva", posteriormente denominada Doctrina Bush . Algunos funcionarios del gobierno de los Estados Unidos hicieron acusaciones de una conexión entre Saddam Hussein y Al Qaeda, afirmando que existía una relación altamente secreta entre Saddam y la organización militante islamista radical Al Qaeda desde 1992 hasta 2003, específicamente a través de una serie de reuniones en las que supuestamente participaba el Servicio de Inteligencia Iraquí (IIS). Algunos asesores de Bush favorecían una invasión inmediata de Irak, mientras que otros abogaban por la creación de una coalición internacional y la obtención de la autorización de las Naciones Unidas. [56] Bush finalmente decidió buscar la autorización de la ONU, aunque todavía se reservaba la opción de invadir sin ella. [57]
El general David Petraeus recordó en una entrevista su experiencia durante el período anterior a la invasión, afirmando que "cuando nos estábamos preparando para lo que se convirtió en la invasión de Irak, la opinión predominante era que íbamos a tener una lucha larga y dura hasta Bagdad, y que realmente iba a ser difícil tomar Bagdad. El camino hacia el despliegue, que fue un camino muy comprimido para la 101 División Aerotransportada, comenzó con un seminario sobre operaciones militares en terreno urbano, porque se consideraba que ese era el evento decisivo para derribar el régimen en Irak y encontrar y destruir las armas de destrucción masiva". [58]
Aunque ya se había hablado de tomar medidas contra Irak, la administración Bush esperó hasta septiembre de 2002 para pedir que se tomaran medidas, y el jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, Andrew Card, dijo: "Desde un punto de vista de marketing, no se introducen nuevos productos en agosto". [59] Bush comenzó a exponer formalmente ante la comunidad internacional su argumento a favor de una invasión de Irak en su discurso del 12 de septiembre de 2002 ante la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas . [60]
El Reino Unido estuvo de acuerdo con las acciones estadounidenses, mientras que Francia y Alemania criticaron los planes de invadir Irak y abogaron por continuar con la diplomacia y las inspecciones de armas. Después de un debate considerable, el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU adoptó una resolución de compromiso, la Resolución 1441 del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU , que autorizó la reanudación de las inspecciones de armas y prometió "graves consecuencias" en caso de incumplimiento. Los miembros del Consejo de Seguridad, Francia y Rusia, dejaron en claro que no consideraban que estas consecuencias incluyeran el uso de la fuerza para derrocar al gobierno iraquí. [61] Tanto el embajador de los EE. UU. ante la ONU, John Negroponte , como el embajador del Reino Unido, Jeremy Greenstock , confirmaron públicamente esta interpretación de la resolución, asegurando que la Resolución 1441 no preveía "automaticidad" ni "desencadenantes ocultos" para una invasión sin una mayor consulta al Consejo de Seguridad. [62]
La Resolución 1441 dio a Iraq "una última oportunidad para cumplir con sus obligaciones de desarme" y estableció inspecciones por parte de la Comisión de las Naciones Unidas de Vigilancia, Verificación e Inspección (UNMOVIC) y el Organismo Internacional de Energía Atómica (OIEA). Saddam aceptó la resolución el 13 de noviembre y los inspectores regresaron a Iraq bajo la dirección del presidente de la UNMOVIC, Hans Blix, y el Director General del OIEA, Mohamed El Baradei . En febrero de 2003, el OIEA "no encontró pruebas ni indicios plausibles de la reanudación de un programa de armas nucleares en Iraq"; el OIEA concluyó que ciertos artículos que podrían haber sido utilizados en centrifugadoras de enriquecimiento nuclear, como tubos de aluminio, estaban de hecho destinados a otros usos. [63] La UNMOVIC "no encontró pruebas de la continuación o reanudación de programas de armas de destrucción masiva" ni cantidades significativas de artículos prohibidos. La UNMOVIC supervisó la destrucción de una pequeña cantidad de ojivas de cohetes químicos vacías, 50 litros de gas mostaza que habían sido declarados por el Iraq y sellados por la UNSCOM en 1998, y cantidades de laboratorio de un precursor del gas mostaza, junto con unos 50 misiles Al-Samoud de un diseño que el Iraq afirmó que no excedía el alcance permitido de 150 km, pero que habían recorrido hasta 183 km en pruebas. Poco antes de la invasión, la UNMOVIC declaró que se necesitarían "meses" para verificar el cumplimiento por parte del Iraq de la resolución 1441. [64] [65] [66]
En octubre de 2002, el Congreso de Estados Unidos aprobó la Resolución sobre Irak , que autorizaba al presidente a "utilizar todos los medios necesarios" contra Irak. En enero de 2003, los estadounidenses encuestados se mostraron ampliamente a favor de una mayor diplomacia en lugar de una invasión. Sin embargo, más tarde ese año, los estadounidenses comenzaron a estar de acuerdo con el plan de Bush. El gobierno de Estados Unidos emprendió una elaborada campaña de relaciones públicas internas para promocionar la guerra entre sus ciudadanos. La abrumadora mayoría de los estadounidenses creía que Saddam tenía armas de destrucción masiva: el 85% así lo afirmó, aunque los inspectores no habían descubierto esas armas. De los que pensaban que Irak tenía armas secuestradas en algún lugar, aproximadamente la mitad respondió que dichas armas no se encontrarían en combate. En febrero de 2003, el 64% de los estadounidenses apoyaba la adopción de medidas militares para derrocar a Saddam del poder. [33]
Los equipos de la División de Actividades Especiales (SAD) de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia , compuestos por oficiales de operaciones paramilitares y soldados del 10.º Grupo de Fuerzas Especiales , fueron las primeras fuerzas estadounidenses en entrar en Irak, en julio de 2002, antes de la invasión principal. Una vez en el terreno, se prepararon para la posterior llegada de las Fuerzas Especiales del Ejército de los EE. UU. para organizar a los Peshmerga kurdos . Este equipo conjunto (llamado Elemento de Enlace del Norte de Irak (NILE)) [67] se combinó para derrotar a Ansar al-Islam , un grupo con vínculos con Al Qaeda, en el Kurdistán iraquí. Esta batalla fue por el control del territorio que estaba ocupado por Ansar al-Islam. Fue llevada a cabo por Oficiales de Operaciones Paramilitares de SAD y el 10.º Grupo de Fuerzas Especiales del Ejército. Esta batalla resultó en la derrota de Ansar y la captura de una instalación de armas químicas en Sargat. [67] Sargat fue la única instalación de su tipo descubierta en la guerra de Irak. [68] [69]
Los equipos del SAD también llevaron a cabo misiones tras las líneas enemigas para identificar objetivos de liderazgo. Estas misiones condujeron a los ataques aéreos iniciales contra Saddam y sus generales. Aunque el ataque contra Saddam no logró matarlo, efectivamente terminó con su capacidad de comandar y controlar sus fuerzas. Los ataques contra los generales iraquíes tuvieron más éxito y degradaron significativamente la capacidad del comando iraquí para reaccionar y maniobrar contra la fuerza de invasión liderada por los EE. UU. [67] [70] Los oficiales de operaciones del SAD convencieron con éxito a oficiales clave del ejército iraquí para que entregaran sus unidades una vez que comenzaron los combates. [68]
Turquía, miembro de la OTAN, se negó a permitir que las fuerzas estadounidenses cruzaran su territorio hacia el norte de Irak . Por lo tanto, los equipos conjuntos de las fuerzas especiales del ejército y del SAD y los Peshmerga constituyeron toda la fuerza del norte contra el ejército iraquí. Se las arreglaron para mantener a las divisiones del norte en su lugar en lugar de permitirles ayudar a sus colegas contra la fuerza de la coalición liderada por los EE. UU. que venía del sur. [71] Cuatro de estos oficiales de la CIA fueron galardonados con la Estrella de Inteligencia por sus acciones. [68] [69]
En el discurso sobre el Estado de la Unión de 2003 , el presidente Bush dijo que "sabemos que Irak, a finales de los años 1990, tenía varios laboratorios móviles de armas biológicas". [72] El 5 de febrero de 2003, el Secretario de Estado de los Estados Unidos, Colin Powell, se dirigió a la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas , continuando los esfuerzos de Estados Unidos para obtener la autorización de la ONU para una invasión. Su presentación ante el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU contenía una imagen generada por computadora de un "laboratorio móvil de armas biológicas". Sin embargo, esta información se basaba en afirmaciones de Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, con el nombre en código "Curveball" , un emigrante iraquí que vivía en Alemania y que más tarde admitió que sus afirmaciones habían sido falsas.
Powell también presentó afirmaciones falsas en las que se afirmaba que Irak tenía vínculos con Al Qaeda . Como continuación de la presentación de Powell, Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Polonia, Italia, Australia, Dinamarca, Japón y España propusieron una resolución que autorizaba el uso de la fuerza en Irak, pero Canadá, Francia y Alemania, junto con Rusia, instaron firmemente a que se continuara con la diplomacia. Ante la posibilidad de perder la votación y de vetar a Francia y Rusia, Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Polonia, España, Dinamarca, Italia, Japón y Australia finalmente retiraron su resolución. [73] [74]
La oposición a la invasión se consolidó en la protesta mundial contra la guerra del 15 de febrero de 2003 , que atrajo entre seis y diez millones de personas en más de 800 ciudades, la mayor protesta de su tipo en la historia de la humanidad según el Libro Guinness de los Récords Mundiales . [ cita requerida ] [40]
El 16 de marzo de 2003, el primer ministro español José María Aznar , el primer ministro del Reino Unido Tony Blair , el presidente de los Estados Unidos George W. Bush y el primer ministro de Portugal José Manuel Durão Barroso como anfitrión se reunieron en las Azores para discutir la invasión de Irak y la posible participación de España en la guerra, así como el comienzo de la invasión. Este encuentro fue extremadamente controvertido en España, incluso ahora sigue siendo un punto muy sensible para el gobierno de Aznar. [75] Casi un año después, Madrid sufrió el peor ataque terrorista en Europa desde el atentado de Lockerbie , motivado por la decisión de España de participar en la guerra de Irak, lo que llevó a algunos españoles a acusar al primer ministro de ser responsable. [76]
En marzo de 2003, Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Polonia, Australia, España, Dinamarca e Italia comenzaron a prepararse para la invasión de Irak , con una serie de medidas militares y de relaciones públicas . En su discurso a la nación del 17 de marzo de 2003, Bush exigió que Saddam y sus dos hijos, Uday y Qusay , se rindieran y abandonaran Irak, dándoles un plazo de 48 horas. [77]
El 18 de marzo de 2003, la Cámara de los Comunes del Reino Unido celebró un debate sobre la posibilidad de ir a la guerra, en el que la moción del gobierno fue aprobada por 412 votos a favor y 149 en contra . [78] La votación fue un momento clave en la historia de la administración de Blair , ya que el número de parlamentarios del gobierno que se rebelaron contra la votación fue el mayor desde la derogación de las Leyes del Maíz en 1846. Tres ministros del gobierno dimitieron en protesta por la guerra: John Denham , Lord Hunt de Kings Heath y el entonces líder de la Cámara de los Comunes, Robin Cook . En un apasionado discurso ante la Cámara de los Comunes tras su dimisión, dijo: «Lo que me ha llegado a preocupar es la sospecha de que si los 'sicarios' de Florida hubieran ido en sentido contrario y Al Gore hubiera sido elegido, ahora no estaríamos a punto de enviar tropas británicas a la acción en Irak». Durante el debate, se afirmó que el Fiscal General había informado de que la guerra era legal en virtud de resoluciones anteriores de la ONU.
En diciembre de 2002, un representante del jefe de la inteligencia iraquí, el general Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti , se puso en contacto con el ex jefe del Departamento Antiterrorista de la CIA, Vincent Cannistraro, y le dijo que Saddam "sabía que había una campaña para vincularlo con el 11 de septiembre y demostrar que tenía armas de destrucción masiva". Cannistraro añadió que "los iraquíes estaban dispuestos a satisfacer esas preocupaciones. Informé de la conversación a los altos niveles del Departamento de Estado y me dijeron que me hiciera a un lado y que ellos se encargarían del asunto". Cannistraro afirmó que la administración de George W. Bush "rechazó" todas las ofertas realizadas porque permitían a Saddam permanecer en el poder, un resultado considerado inaceptable. Se ha sugerido que Saddam Hussein estaba dispuesto a exiliarse si se le permitía quedarse con 1.000 millones de dólares. [79]
El asesor de seguridad nacional del presidente egipcio Hosni Mubarak , Osama El-Baz , envió un mensaje al Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos en el que afirmaba que los iraquíes querían discutir las acusaciones de que el país tenía armas de destrucción masiva y vínculos con Al Qaeda. Irak también intentó llegar a Estados Unidos a través de los servicios de inteligencia sirios, franceses, alemanes y rusos.
En enero de 2003, el libanés-estadounidense Imad Hage se reunió con Michael Maloof, de la Oficina de Planes Especiales del Departamento de Defensa de Estados Unidos . Hage, residente en Beirut , había sido reclutado por el departamento para ayudar en la guerra contra el terrorismo . Informó de que Mohammed Nassif, un colaborador cercano del presidente sirio Bashar al-Assad , había expresado su frustración por las dificultades de Siria para ponerse en contacto con los Estados Unidos y había intentado utilizarlo como intermediario. Maloof organizó una reunión de Hage con el civil Richard Perle , entonces jefe de la Junta de Política de Defensa . [80] [81]
En enero de 2003, Hage se reunió con el jefe de operaciones exteriores de la inteligencia iraquí, Hassan al-Obeidi. Obeidi le dijo a Hage que Bagdad no entendía por qué los habían atacado y que no tenían armas de destrucción masiva. Luego le hizo una oferta a Washington para que enviara 2.000 agentes del FBI para confirmarlo. Además, ofreció concesiones petroleras, pero no llegó a obligar a Saddam a renunciar al poder, sugiriendo en cambio que podrían celebrarse elecciones en dos años. Más tarde, Obeidi sugirió que Hage viajara a Bagdad para mantener conversaciones; él aceptó. [80]
Más tarde ese mes, Hage se reunió con el general Habbush y el viceprimer ministro iraquí Tariq Aziz . Se le ofreció máxima prioridad a las empresas estadounidenses en derechos petroleros y mineros, elecciones supervisadas por la ONU, inspecciones estadounidenses (con hasta 5.000 inspectores), para que se entregara al agente de Al Qaeda Abdul Rahman Yasin (en custodia iraquí desde 1994) como señal de buena fe, y para dar "pleno apoyo a cualquier plan estadounidense" en el proceso de paz israelí-palestino . También deseaban reunirse con funcionarios estadounidenses de alto rango. El 19 de febrero, Hage envió por fax a Maloof su informe del viaje. Maloof informa haber llevado la propuesta a Jaymie Duran. El Pentágono niega que Wolfowitz o Rumsfeld, los jefes de Duran, estuvieran al tanto del plan. [80]
El 21 de febrero, Maloof informó a Duran en un correo electrónico que Richard Perle deseaba reunirse con Hage y los iraquíes si el Pentágono lo autorizaba. Duran respondió: "Mike, estoy trabajando en esto. Mantén esto bajo control". El 7 de marzo, Perle se reunió con Hage en Knightsbridge y le manifestó que quería seguir investigando el asunto con gente de Washington (ambos reconocieron la reunión). Unos días después, le informó a Hage que Washington se negaba a permitirle reunirse con Habbush para discutir la oferta (Hage declaró que la respuesta de Perle fue "que el consenso en Washington era que no se podía hacer"). Perle le dijo a The Times : "El mensaje fue 'Dígales que los veremos en Bagdad'". [82]
Según el general Tommy Franks , los objetivos de la invasión eran: "Primero, acabar con el régimen de Saddam Hussein. Segundo, identificar, aislar y eliminar las armas de destrucción masiva de Irak. Tercero, buscar, capturar y expulsar a los terroristas de ese país. Cuarto, reunir toda la información que podamos sobre las redes terroristas. Quinto, reunir toda la información que podamos sobre la red mundial de armas ilícitas de destrucción masiva. Sexto, poner fin a las sanciones y prestar inmediatamente ayuda humanitaria a los desplazados y a muchos ciudadanos iraquíes necesitados. Séptimo, asegurar los yacimientos y recursos petrolíferos de Irak, que pertenecen al pueblo iraquí. Y por último, ayudar al pueblo iraquí a crear las condiciones para una transición hacia un autogobierno representativo". [83]
Durante todo el año 2002, la administración Bush insistió en que la eliminación de Saddam del poder para restablecer la paz y la seguridad internacionales era un objetivo primordial. Las principales justificaciones declaradas para esta política de "cambio de régimen" fueron que la continua producción de armas de destrucción masiva por parte de Iraq y sus conocidos vínculos con organizaciones terroristas , así como las continuas violaciones por parte de Iraq de las resoluciones del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas, constituían una amenaza para los Estados Unidos y la comunidad mundial.
En octubre de 2002, George W. Bush dijo que "la política declarada de los Estados Unidos es la de un cambio de régimen... Sin embargo, si Saddam cumpliera todas las condiciones de las Naciones Unidas, las condiciones que he descrito muy claramente en términos que todo el mundo pueda entender, eso en sí mismo indicaría que el régimen ha cambiado". [84] Citando informes de ciertas fuentes de inteligencia, Bush declaró el 6 de marzo de 2003 que creía que Saddam no estaba cumpliendo con la Resolución 1441 de la ONU . [85]
Las principales acusaciones fueron: que Saddam poseía o estaba intentando producir armas de destrucción masiva , que Saddam Hussein había utilizado en lugares como Halabja , [86] [87] poseía y hacía esfuerzos por adquirir, particularmente considerando dos ataques previos a las instalaciones de producción de armas nucleares de Bagdad por parte de Irán e Israel que supuestamente habían pospuesto el progreso del desarrollo de armas; y, además, que tenía vínculos con terroristas, específicamente al-Qaeda.
El 5 de febrero de 2003 , el Secretario de Estado norteamericano Colin Powell presentó en detalle ante el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas la justificación general de la administración Bush para la invasión de Irak . En resumen, afirmó:
Sabemos que Saddam Hussein está decidido a conservar sus armas de destrucción masiva; está decidido a fabricar más. Teniendo en cuenta la historia de agresión de Saddam Hussein... teniendo en cuenta lo que sabemos de sus vínculos terroristas y teniendo en cuenta su determinación de vengarse de quienes se le oponen, ¿deberíamos correr el riesgo de que algún día no utilice esas armas en el momento, el lugar y la forma que él elija, en un momento en que el mundo está en una posición mucho más débil para responder? Estados Unidos no quiere ni puede correr ese riesgo para el pueblo estadounidense. Dejar a Saddam Hussein en posesión de armas de destrucción masiva durante unos meses o años más no es una opción, no en un mundo posterior al 11 de septiembre. [88]
En septiembre de 2002, Tony Blair declaró, en respuesta a una pregunta parlamentaria, que "un cambio de régimen en Irak sería algo maravilloso. Ése no es el propósito de nuestra acción; nuestro propósito es desarmar a Irak de armas de destrucción masiva..." [89]. En noviembre de ese año, Blair añadió que "en lo que respecta a nuestro objetivo, es el desarme, no el cambio de régimen; ése es nuestro objetivo. Ahora bien, creo que el régimen de Saddam es un régimen muy brutal y represivo, creo que causa un daño enorme al pueblo iraquí... así que no tengo ninguna duda de que Saddam es muy malo para Irak, pero por otro lado tampoco tengo ninguna duda de que el propósito de nuestro desafío a las Naciones Unidas es el desarme de las armas de destrucción masiva, no es un cambio de régimen". [90]
En una conferencia de prensa celebrada el 31 de enero de 2003, Bush reiteró una vez más que el único detonante de la invasión sería el fracaso de Irak en desarmarse: "Saddam Hussein debe comprender que si no se desarma, por el bien de la paz, nosotros, junto con otros, iremos a desarmar a Saddam Hussein". [91] Hasta el 25 de febrero de 2003, la postura oficial seguía siendo que la única causa de la invasión sería el fracaso en desarmarse. Como Blair dejó claro en una declaración ante la Cámara de los Comunes: "Detesto su régimen. Pero incluso ahora puede salvarlo cumpliendo la exigencia de la ONU. Incluso ahora, estamos dispuestos a dar el paso adicional para lograr el desarme de forma pacífica". [92]
En septiembre de 2002, la administración Bush dijo que los intentos de Irak de adquirir miles de tubos de aluminio de alta resistencia apuntaban a un programa clandestino para producir uranio enriquecido para bombas nucleares. Powell, en su discurso ante el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU justo antes de la guerra, se refirió a los tubos de aluminio. Sin embargo, un informe publicado por el Instituto para la Ciencia y la Seguridad Internacional en 2002 informó que era muy improbable que los tubos pudieran usarse para enriquecer uranio. Powell admitió más tarde que había presentado un caso inexacto ante las Naciones Unidas sobre las armas iraquíes, basado en fuentes que eran erróneas y en algunos casos "deliberadamente engañosas". [93] [94] [95]
La administración Bush afirmó que el gobierno de Saddam había tratado de comprar uranio concentrado de Níger . [96] El 7 de marzo de 2003, los Estados Unidos presentaron documentos de inteligencia como prueba al Organismo Internacional de Energía Atómica . Estos documentos fueron desestimados por el OIEA como falsificaciones, con la coincidencia en esa opinión de expertos externos. En ese momento, un funcionario estadounidense declaró que la evidencia fue presentada al OIEA sin conocimiento de su procedencia y calificó los errores como "más probablemente debidos a la incompetencia que a la malicia".
Desde la invasión, las declaraciones del gobierno de los Estados Unidos sobre los programas de armas iraquíes y sus vínculos con Al Qaeda han sido desacreditadas, [97] aunque se encontraron armas químicas en Irak durante el período de ocupación. [98] Si bien el debate sobre si Irak tenía la intención de desarrollar armas químicas, biológicas y nucleares en el futuro sigue abierto, no se han encontrado armas de destrucción masiva en Irak desde la invasión a pesar de las inspecciones exhaustivas que duraron más de 18 meses. [99] En El Cairo, el 24 de febrero de 2001, Colin Powell había predicho lo mismo, diciendo: "[Saddam] no ha desarrollado ninguna capacidad significativa con respecto a las armas de destrucción masiva. Es incapaz de proyectar poder convencional contra sus vecinos". [100]
Otra justificación incluía la supuesta conexión entre el régimen de Saddam Hussein y el de organizaciones terroristas como Al-Qaeda que habían atacado a Estados Unidos durante los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001 .
Aunque nunca hizo una conexión explícita entre Irak y los ataques del 11 de septiembre, la administración de George W. Bush insinuó repetidamente un vínculo, creando así una falsa impresión para el público estadounidense. El testimonio del gran jurado en los juicios por el atentado del World Trade Center de 1993 citó numerosos vínculos directos de los atacantes con Bagdad y el Departamento 13 del Servicio de Inteligencia iraquí en ese ataque inicial que marcó el segundo aniversario para reivindicar la rendición de las fuerzas armadas iraquíes en la Operación Tormenta del Desierto . Por ejemplo, The Washington Post ha señalado que,
Aunque no declararon explícitamente la culpabilidad iraquí en los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001, funcionarios de la administración sí insinuaron en varias ocasiones la existencia de un vínculo. A fines de 2001, Cheney dijo que estaba "bastante bien confirmado" que el cerebro del ataque, Mohamed Atta, se había reunido con un alto funcionario de inteligencia iraquí. Más tarde, Cheney calificó a Irak como "la base geográfica de los terroristas que nos han estado atacando durante muchos años, pero sobre todo el 11 de septiembre". [101]
Steven Kull, director del Programa de Actitudes Políticas Internacionales (PIPA) de la Universidad de Maryland , observó en marzo de 2003 que "la administración ha logrado crear la sensación de que existe alguna conexión [entre el 11 de septiembre y Saddam Hussein]". Esto ocurrió después de que una encuesta del New York Times / CBS mostrara que el 45% de los estadounidenses creía que Saddam Hussein estaba "personalmente involucrado" en las atrocidades del 11 de septiembre. Como observó entonces The Christian Science Monitor , aunque "fuentes conocedoras de la inteligencia estadounidense dicen que no hay pruebas de que Saddam haya desempeñado un papel en los ataques del 11 de septiembre, ni de que haya estado o esté ayudando actualmente a Al Qaeda... la Casa Blanca parece estar alentando esta falsa impresión, ya que busca mantener el apoyo estadounidense a una posible guerra contra Irak y demostrar seriedad de propósitos al régimen de Saddam". El CSM continuó informando que, si bien los datos de las encuestas recogidas "inmediatamente después del 11 de septiembre de 2001" mostraban que sólo el 3 por ciento había mencionado a Irak o a Saddam Hussein, las actitudes "se habían transformado" en enero de 2003, y una encuesta de Knight Ridder mostraba que el 44 por ciento de los estadounidenses creía que "la mayoría" o "algunos" de los secuestradores del 11 de septiembre eran ciudadanos iraquíes. [102]
La BBC también ha señalado que, si bien el presidente Bush "nunca acusó directamente al ex líder iraquí de tener algo que ver con los ataques a Nueva York y Washington", "asoció repetidamente las dos cosas en los discursos pronunciados desde el 11 de septiembre", añadiendo que "miembros de alto rango de su administración han mezclado de manera similar las dos cosas". Por ejemplo, el informe de la BBC cita a Colin Powell en febrero de 2003, quien afirmó: "Hemos sabido que Irak ha entrenado a miembros de Al Qaeda en la fabricación de bombas, venenos y gases letales. Y sabemos que después del 11 de septiembre, el régimen de Saddam Hussein celebró con regocijo los ataques terroristas contra Estados Unidos". El mismo informe de la BBC también señaló los resultados de una encuesta de opinión reciente, que sugería que "el 70% de los estadounidenses creen que el líder iraquí estuvo personalmente involucrado en los ataques". [103]
También en septiembre de 2003, The Boston Globe informó que "el vicepresidente Dick Cheney, ansioso por defender la política exterior de la Casa Blanca en medio de la violencia en curso en Irak, sorprendió a los analistas de inteligencia e incluso a miembros de su propia administración esta semana al no desestimar una afirmación ampliamente desacreditada: que Saddam Hussein podría haber jugado un papel en los ataques del 11 de septiembre". [104] Un año después, el candidato presidencial John Kerry afirmó que Cheney seguía "engañando intencionalmente al público estadounidense al establecer un vínculo entre Saddam Hussein y el 11 de septiembre en un intento de hacer que la invasión de Irak sea parte de la guerra global contra el terrorismo". [105]
Desde la invasión, las afirmaciones de vínculos operativos entre el régimen iraquí y al Qaeda han sido en gran medida desacreditadas por la comunidad de inteligencia, y el propio Secretario Powell admitió más tarde que no tenía pruebas. [97]
En octubre de 2002, unos días antes de que el Senado de Estados Unidos votara la Resolución de Autorización para el Uso de la Fuerza Militar contra Irak , se informó a unos 75 senadores en una sesión a puertas cerradas de que el gobierno iraquí tenía los medios para lanzar armas biológicas y químicas de destrucción masiva mediante vehículos aéreos no tripulados (UAV) que podían ser lanzados desde barcos frente a la costa atlántica de Estados Unidos para atacar ciudades de la costa este de ese país . Colin Powell sugirió en su presentación ante las Naciones Unidas que los UAV eran transportados fuera de Irak y podían ser lanzados contra Estados Unidos.
De hecho, Irak no tenía una flota de vehículos aéreos no tripulados ofensivos ni capacidad para instalarlos en barcos. [106] La flota de vehículos aéreos no tripulados de Irak estaba formada por menos de un puñado de anticuados drones de entrenamiento checos. [107] En ese momento, había una vigorosa disputa dentro de la comunidad de inteligencia sobre si las conclusiones de la CIA sobre la flota de vehículos aéreos no tripulados de Irak eran exactas. La Fuerza Aérea de los Estados Unidos negó rotundamente que Irak poseyera alguna capacidad ofensiva de vehículos aéreos no tripulados. [108]
Otras justificaciones utilizadas en diversas ocasiones incluyeron la violación iraquí de las resoluciones de la ONU, la represión del gobierno iraquí a sus ciudadanos y las violaciones iraquíes del alto el fuego de 1991. [28]
A medida que se debilitaban las pruebas que respaldaban las acusaciones estadounidenses y británicas sobre las armas de destrucción masiva iraquíes y sus vínculos con el terrorismo, algunos partidarios de la invasión han ido cambiando cada vez más su justificación hacia las violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidas por el gobierno de Saddam . [109] Sin embargo, importantes grupos de derechos humanos como Human Rights Watch han argumentado que creen que las preocupaciones por los derechos humanos nunca fueron una justificación central para la invasión, ni creen que la intervención militar fuera justificable por razones humanitarias, sobre todo porque "las matanzas en Irak en ese momento no eran de la naturaleza excepcional que justificaría tal intervención". [110]
La Resolución de Autorización para el Uso de la Fuerza Militar contra Irak de 2002 fue aprobada por el Congreso con un 98% de votos a favor de los republicanos en el Senado y un 97% a favor en la Cámara de Representantes. Los demócratas apoyaron la resolución conjunta con un 58% y un 39% en el Senado y la Cámara de Representantes respectivamente. [111] [112] La resolución afirma la autorización de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos y del Congreso para que el Presidente luche contra el terrorismo antiestadounidense. Citando la Ley de Liberación de Irak de 1998 , la resolución reiteró que debería ser política de los Estados Unidos eliminar el régimen de Saddam Hussein y promover un reemplazo democrático.
La resolución "apoyó" y "alentó" los esfuerzos diplomáticos del Presidente George W. Bush para "hacer cumplir estrictamente, a través del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas, todas las resoluciones pertinentes del Consejo de Seguridad relativas a Irak" y "obtener una acción rápida y decisiva del Consejo de Seguridad para asegurar que Irak abandone su estrategia de demora, evasión e incumplimiento y cumpla rápida y estrictamente con todas las resoluciones pertinentes del Consejo de Seguridad relativas a Irak". La resolución autorizó al Presidente Bush a utilizar las Fuerzas Armadas de los Estados Unidos "como determine que sea necesario y apropiado" para "defender la seguridad nacional de los Estados Unidos contra la amenaza continua que plantea Irak; y hacer cumplir todas las resoluciones pertinentes del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas relativas a Irak".
La legalidad de la invasión de Irak según el derecho internacional ha sido cuestionada desde su inicio en varios frentes, y varios partidarios destacados de la invasión en todos los estados invasores han puesto en duda pública y privadamente su legalidad. Los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y Gran Bretaña han sostenido que la invasión fue completamente legal porque se dio a entender que contaba con la autorización del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas . [113] Expertos legales internacionales, incluida la Comisión Internacional de Juristas , un grupo de 31 destacados profesores de derecho canadienses, y el Comité de Abogados sobre Política Nuclear, con sede en Estados Unidos, han denunciado este razonamiento. [114] [115] [116]
El jueves 20 de noviembre de 2003, un artículo publicado en The Guardian afirmó que Richard Perle , un miembro de alto rango del Comité Asesor de Política de Defensa de la administración , admitió que la invasión era ilegal pero aún así justificada. [117] [118]
El Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas ha aprobado casi 60 resoluciones sobre el Iraq y Kuwait desde la invasión iraquí de Kuwait en 1990. La más pertinente a esta cuestión es la Resolución 678 , aprobada el 29 de noviembre de 1990. Autoriza a "los Estados miembros que cooperan con el Gobierno de Kuwait... a utilizar todos los medios necesarios" para (1) aplicar la Resolución 660 del Consejo de Seguridad y otras resoluciones que piden el fin de la ocupación iraquí de Kuwait y la retirada de las fuerzas iraquíes del territorio kuwaití y (2) "restaurar la paz y la seguridad internacionales en la zona". La Resolución 678 no ha sido rescindida ni anulada por resoluciones posteriores y, después de 1991, no se ha acusado al Iraq de invadir Kuwait ni de amenazar con hacerlo.
La Resolución 1441 fue la más destacada durante el período previo a la guerra y constituyó el principal telón de fondo del discurso del Secretario de Estado Colin Powell ante el Consejo de Seguridad un mes antes de la invasión. [119] Según una comisión de investigación independiente creada por el gobierno de los Países Bajos, la Resolución 1441 de la ONU "no puede interpretarse razonablemente (como hizo el gobierno holandés) como una autorización a los Estados miembros individuales para utilizar la fuerza militar para obligar a Irak a cumplir con las resoluciones del Consejo de Seguridad". En consecuencia, la comisión holandesa concluyó que la invasión de 2003 violó el derecho internacional. [120]
Al mismo tiempo, los funcionarios de la administración Bush presentaron un argumento jurídico paralelo utilizando las resoluciones anteriores, que autorizaban el uso de la fuerza en respuesta a la invasión de Kuwait por parte de Irak en 1990. Según ese razonamiento, al no desarmarse y someterse a inspecciones de armas, Irak estaba violando las Resoluciones 660 y 678 del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas , y Estados Unidos podía obligar legalmente a Irak a cumplir con esas resoluciones por medios militares.
Los críticos y defensores del fundamento jurídico basado en las resoluciones de la ONU argumentan que el derecho legal de determinar cómo hacer cumplir sus resoluciones corresponde únicamente al Consejo de Seguridad, no a las naciones individuales, y que, por lo tanto, la invasión de Irak no fue legal según el derecho internacional y violó directamente el Artículo 2(4) de la Carta de la ONU.
En febrero de 2006, Luis Moreno Ocampo , fiscal principal de la Corte Penal Internacional , informó que había recibido 240 comunicaciones separadas sobre la legalidad de la guerra, muchas de las cuales se referían a la participación británica en la invasión. [121] En una carta dirigida a los denunciantes, el Sr. Moreno Ocampo explicó que sólo podía considerar cuestiones relacionadas con la conducta durante la guerra y no con su legalidad subyacente como un posible crimen de agresión porque todavía no se había adoptado ninguna disposición que "definiera el crimen y estableciera las condiciones bajo las cuales la Corte puede ejercer jurisdicción con respecto a él". En una entrevista de marzo de 2007 con The Sunday Telegraph , Moreno Ocampo alentó a Irak a inscribirse en la corte para que pudiera presentar casos relacionados con presuntos crímenes de guerra. [122]
El congresista de Ohio, Dennis Kucinich, celebró una conferencia de prensa en la tarde del 24 de abril de 2007, en la que reveló la Resolución 333 de la Cámara de Representantes y los tres artículos de acusación contra el vicepresidente Dick Cheney . Acusó a Cheney de manipular las pruebas del programa de armas de Irak, engañar al público sobre la conexión de Irak con Al Qaeda y amenazar con una agresión contra Irán en violación de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas .
En noviembre de 2002, el presidente George W. Bush, que visitaba Europa para una cumbre de la OTAN , declaró que "si el presidente iraquí Saddam Hussein decide no desarmarse, Estados Unidos liderará una coalición de los dispuestos a desarmarlo". [123] A partir de entonces, la administración Bush utilizó brevemente el término coalición de los dispuestos para referirse a los países que apoyaron, militar o verbalmente, la acción militar en Irak y la posterior presencia militar en Irak después de la invasión desde 2003. La lista original preparada en marzo de 2003 incluía 49 miembros. [124] De esos 49, sólo seis además de los EE. UU. aportaron tropas a la fuerza de invasión (el Reino Unido, Australia, Polonia, España, Portugal y Dinamarca), y 33 proporcionaron una cierta cantidad de tropas para apoyar la ocupación después de que se completó la invasión. Seis miembros no tienen ejército, lo que significa que retuvieron tropas por completo.
Un informe del Comando Central de los Estados Unidos, del Comandante del Componente Aéreo de las Fuerzas Combinadas, indicó que, al 30 de abril de 2003, se habían desplegado 466.985 efectivos estadounidenses para la invasión de Irak. Entre ellos se encontraban: [8]
Elemento de fuerzas terrestres: 336.797 efectivos
Elemento de las fuerzas aéreas: 64.246 efectivos
Elemento de las fuerzas navales: 63.352 efectivos
Aproximadamente 148.000 soldados de los Estados Unidos, 50.000 soldados británicos, 2.000 soldados australianos y 194 soldados polacos de la unidad de fuerzas especiales GROM fueron enviados a Kuwait para la invasión. [9] La fuerza de invasión también fue apoyada por combatientes peshmerga kurdos iraquíes , cuyo número se estima en más de 70.000. [10] En las últimas etapas de la invasión, 620 tropas del grupo de oposición Congreso Nacional Iraquí fueron desplegadas en el sur de Irak. [2]
Canadá contribuyó discretamente con algunos recursos militares para la campaña, como personal de la Real Fuerza Aérea Canadiense que tripuló aviones estadounidenses en misiones en Irak para entrenar con las plataformas, y once tripulantes canadienses que tripularon aviones AWACS . [125] [126] Las Fuerzas Armadas Canadienses tenían barcos, aviones y 1.200 efectivos de la Marina Real Canadiense en la desembocadura del Golfo Pérsico para ayudar a apoyar la Operación Libertad Duradera , y un cable informativo secreto estadounidense señaló que a pesar de las promesas públicas de los funcionarios canadienses de que estos activos no se utilizarían en apoyo de la guerra en Irak, "también estarán disponibles para proporcionar servicios de escolta en el Estrecho y, de lo contrario, serán discretamente útiles para el esfuerzo militar". [127] Sin embargo, el Departamento de Defensa Nacional emitió una orden a los comandantes navales de no hacer nada en apoyo de la operación liderada por Estados Unidos, y no se sabe si esta orden alguna vez se rompió. [127] Eugene Lang , jefe de gabinete del entonces ministro de defensa John McCallum , declaró que es "bastante posible" que las fuerzas canadienses apoyaran indirectamente la operación estadounidense. [127] Según Lang, el ejército de Canadá abogó firmemente por involucrarse en la guerra de Irak en lugar de la guerra en Afganistán, y Canadá decidió principalmente mantener sus activos en el Golfo para mantener buenas relaciones con Estados Unidos. [127] Después de la invasión, el general de brigada Walter Natynczyk , del ejército canadiense , sirvió como comandante general adjunto del Cuerpo Multinacional - Irak , que comprendía 35.000 soldados estadounidenses en diez brigadas repartidas por Irak. [128]
Los planes para abrir un segundo frente en el norte se vieron gravemente obstaculizados cuando Turquía se negó a utilizar su territorio para tales fines. [129] En respuesta a la decisión de Turquía, Estados Unidos lanzó varios miles de paracaidistas de la 173.ª Brigada Aerotransportada al norte de Irak, un número significativamente menor que la 4.ª División de Infantería de 15.000 efectivos que Estados Unidos originalmente había planeado desplegar en el frente norte. [130]
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Los equipos paramilitares de la División de Actividades Especiales (SAD) de la CIA y del MI6 ( Escuadrón E ) entraron en Irak en julio de 2002 antes de la invasión de 2003. Una vez en el terreno, se prepararon para la posterior llegada de las fuerzas militares estadounidenses y británicas. Los equipos de la SAD se combinaron entonces con las Fuerzas Especiales del Ejército de los EE. UU. para organizar a los Peshmerga kurdos . Este equipo conjunto se combinó para derrotar a Ansar al-Islam , un aliado de Al Qaeda, en una batalla en la esquina noreste de Irak. El lado estadounidense fue llevado a cabo por oficiales paramilitares de la SAD y el 10º Grupo de Fuerzas Especiales del Ejército . [67] [68] [69]
Los equipos del SAD también llevaron a cabo misiones especiales de reconocimiento de alto riesgo tras las líneas iraquíes para identificar objetivos de alto nivel. Estas misiones condujeron a los ataques iniciales contra Saddam Hussein y sus generales clave. Aunque los ataques iniciales contra Saddam no lograron matar al dictador o a sus generales, sí lograron poner fin de manera efectiva a la capacidad de mando y control de las fuerzas iraquíes. Otros ataques contra generales clave tuvieron éxito y degradaron significativamente la capacidad del comando para reaccionar y maniobrar contra la fuerza de invasión liderada por Estados Unidos que venía del sur. [67] [69]
El MI6 llevó a cabo la Operación Llamamiento Masivo , una campaña para difundir en los medios de comunicación historias sobre las armas de destrucción masiva de Irak y aumentar el apoyo a la invasión. El MI6 también sobornó a muchos de los aliados más cercanos de Saddam para que le entregaran información y datos de inteligencia.
Los oficiales de operaciones del SAD también lograron convencer a oficiales clave del ejército iraquí de que entregaran sus unidades una vez que comenzaran los combates y/o de que no se opusieran a la fuerza de invasión. [68] Turquía , miembro de la OTAN, se negó a permitir que su territorio se utilizara para la invasión. Como resultado, los equipos conjuntos del SAD/SOG y las Fuerzas Especiales del Ejército de los EE. UU. y los Peshmerga kurdos constituyeron toda la fuerza del norte contra las fuerzas gubernamentales durante la invasión. Sus esfuerzos mantuvieron al 5.º Cuerpo del ejército iraquí en su lugar para defenderse de los kurdos en lugar de moverse para enfrentar a la fuerza de la coalición.
Según el general Tommy Franks , un agente de inteligencia iraquí se puso en contacto con April Fool , un oficial estadounidense que trabajaba de forma encubierta como diplomático . April Fool vendió a los iraquíes planes falsos de invasión "de alto secreto" proporcionados por el equipo de Franks. Este engaño llevó a los militares iraquíes a desplegar grandes fuerzas en el norte y el oeste de Irak en previsión de ataques por Turquía o Jordania , que nunca se produjeron. Esto redujo en gran medida la capacidad defensiva en el resto de Irak y facilitó los ataques reales a través de Kuwait y el Golfo Pérsico en el sureste.
El número de personal en el ejército iraquí antes de la guerra era incierto, pero se creía que estaba mal equipado. [131] [132] El Instituto Internacional de Estudios Estratégicos estimó que las fuerzas armadas iraquíes contaban con 389.000 ( ejército iraquí 350.000, marina iraquí 2.000, fuerza aérea iraquí 20.000 y defensa aérea 17.000), los fedayines paramilitares Saddam 44.000, la Guardia Republicana 80.000 y las reservas 650.000. [133]
Otra estimación cifra el número de efectivos del Ejército y la Guardia Republicana en entre 280.000 y 350.000 y de 50.000 a 80.000, respectivamente, [ cita requerida ] y los paramilitares en entre 20.000 y 40.000. [ cita requerida ] Se calcula que había trece divisiones de infantería , diez divisiones mecanizadas y blindadas , así como algunas unidades de fuerzas especiales . La Fuerza Aérea y la Armada iraquíes desempeñaron un papel insignificante en el conflicto.
Durante la invasión, voluntarios extranjeros viajaron a Irak desde Siria y participaron en los combates, generalmente dirigidos por los fedayines de Saddam. No se sabe con certeza cuántos combatientes extranjeros lucharon en Irak en 2003, sin embargo, oficiales de inteligencia de la Primera División de Marines de los Estados Unidos estimaron que el 50% de todos los combatientes iraquíes en el centro de Irak eran extranjeros. [134] [135]
Además, el grupo militante islamista kurdo Ansar al-Islam controlaba una pequeña sección del norte de Irak en un área fuera del control de Saddam Hussein. Ansar al-Islam había estado luchando contra las fuerzas kurdas seculares desde 2001. En el momento de la invasión desplegaban alrededor de 600 a 800 combatientes. [136] Ansar al-Islam estaba dirigido por el militante nacido en Jordania Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , quien más tarde se convertiría en un líder importante en la insurgencia iraquí . Ansar al-Islam fue expulsado de Irak a fines de marzo por una fuerza conjunta estadounidense-kurda durante la Operación Viking Hammer .
Según la información proporcionada al Ministerio de Defensa holandés por las fuerzas estadounidenses, se estima que durante la invasión se dispararon más de 300.000 rondas de uranio empobrecido, muchas de ellas en o cerca de zonas pobladas de Irak, incluidas Samawah , Nasiriyah y Basora, la gran mayoría por fuerzas estadounidenses. En la información, las fuerzas estadounidenses proporcionaron al Ministerio de Defensa holandés las coordenadas GPS de las rondas de uranio empobrecido, junto con una lista de objetivos y números disparados. Luego, el Ministerio de Defensa holandés entregó los datos al grupo pacifista holandés Pax en virtud de la Ley de Libertad de Información . [137] [138]
Las fuerzas estadounidenses utilizaron fósforo blanco y napalm como armas incendiarias durante la batalla de Mosul y la segunda batalla de Faluya en 2004. En marzo de 2005, Field Artillery , una revista publicada por el ejército estadounidense, publicó informes sobre el uso de fósforo blanco en la batalla de Faluya. El Ministerio de Defensa británico confirmó el uso de la bomba Mark 77 por parte de las fuerzas estadounidenses durante la guerra. [139]
Las fuerzas de la coalición liderada por Estados Unidos utilizaron 61.000 municiones en racimo que contenían 20 millones de submuniciones durante la Guerra del Golfo de 1991, y 13.000 municiones en racimo que contenían dos millones de submuniciones durante la invasión de 2003 y la insurgencia posterior. [140] [141] Miles de municiones sin explotar de la invasión y guerras anteriores, incluidas municiones en racimo, minas y otras municiones sin explotar, todavía representaban una amenaza para los civiles en 2022. [142]
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Desde la Guerra del Golfo de 1991 , Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido habían sido atacados por las defensas aéreas iraquíes mientras aplicaban las zonas de exclusión aérea iraquíes . [45] [46] Estas zonas, y los ataques para aplicarlas, fueron descritos como ilegales por el ex secretario general de la ONU, Boutros Boutros-Ghali , y el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores francés Hubert Vedrine . Otros países, en particular Rusia y China, también condenaron las zonas como una violación de la soberanía iraquí. [143] [144] [145] A mediados de 2002, Estados Unidos comenzó a seleccionar con más cuidado los objetivos en la parte sur del país para perturbar la estructura de mando militar en Irak. En ese momento se reconoció un cambio en las tácticas de aplicación, pero no se hizo público que esto era parte de un plan conocido como Operación Enfoque Sur .
La cantidad de municiones lanzadas sobre posiciones iraquíes por aviones de la coalición en 2001 y 2002 fue menor que en 1999 y 2000, durante la administración Clinton. [146] Sin embargo, la información obtenida por los Demócratas Liberales del Reino Unido mostró que el Reino Unido lanzó el doble de bombas sobre Irak en la segunda mitad de 2002 que durante todo el año 2001. El tonelaje de bombas británicas lanzadas aumentó de 0 en marzo de 2002 y 0,3 en abril de 2002 a entre 7 y 14 toneladas por mes en mayo-agosto, alcanzando un pico de preguerra de 54,6 toneladas en septiembre, antes de que el Congreso de los EE. UU. autorizara la invasión el 11 de octubre .
Los ataques del 5 de septiembre incluyeron un ataque con más de 100 aviones contra el principal emplazamiento de defensa aérea en el oeste de Irak. Según un editorial del New Statesman, este emplazamiento estaba "situado en el extremo más alejado de la zona de exclusión aérea del sur, lejos de las zonas que había que patrullar para impedir ataques contra los chiítas. Fue destruido no porque fuera una amenaza para las patrullas, sino para permitir que las fuerzas especiales aliadas que operaban desde Jordania entraran en Irak sin ser detectadas". [147]
Tommy Franks , que comandó la invasión de Irak, admitió posteriormente que el bombardeo tenía como objetivo "degradar" las defensas aéreas iraquíes de la misma manera que los ataques aéreos que iniciaron la Guerra del Golfo en 1991. Estos "picos de actividad" tenían como objetivo, en palabras del entonces Secretario de Defensa británico, Geoff Hoon , "ejercer presión sobre el régimen iraquí" o, como informó The Times , "provocar a Saddam Hussein para que diera a los aliados una excusa para la guerra". A este respecto, como provocaciones diseñadas para iniciar una guerra, el asesoramiento jurídico filtrado del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores británico concluyó que tales ataques eran ilegales según el derecho internacional. [148] [149]
Otro intento de provocar la guerra fue mencionado en un memorando filtrado de una reunión entre George W. Bush y Tony Blair el 31 de enero de 2003, en la que Bush supuestamente le dijo a Blair que "Estados Unidos estaba pensando en hacer volar aviones de reconocimiento U2 con cobertura de combate sobre Irak, pintados con los colores de la ONU. Si Saddam les disparaba, estaría incumpliendo su obligación". [150] El 17 de marzo de 2003, el presidente estadounidense George W. Bush dio a Saddam Hussein 48 horas para abandonar el país, junto con sus hijos Uday y Qusay, o enfrentarse a la guerra. [151]
En la noche del 17 de marzo de 2003, la mayoría de los escuadrones B y D del 22º Regimiento SAS británico , designado como Task Force 14, cruzaron la frontera desde Jordania para llevar a cabo un asalto terrestre sobre un presunto emplazamiento de municiones químicas en una planta de tratamiento de agua en la ciudad de al-Qa'im . Se había informado de que el lugar podría haber sido un lugar de lanzamiento de misiles SCUD o un depósito; un oficial del SAS fue citado por el autor Mark Nicol diciendo que "era un lugar donde se habían disparado misiles contra Israel en el pasado, y un sitio de importancia estratégica para material de armas de destrucción masiva". Los 60 miembros del escuadrón D, junto con sus vehículos de patrulla del desierto "Pinkie" (la última vez que se utilizaron los vehículos antes de su retiro), volaron 120 km (75 millas) hacia Irak en 6 MH-47D en 3 oleadas. Tras su incorporación, el escuadrón D estableció un puesto de patrulla en un lugar remoto a las afueras de Al Qa'im y esperó la llegada del escuadrón B, que había viajado por tierra desde Jordania. Su aproximación a la planta se vio comprometida y se desató un tiroteo que terminó con un "pinkie" que tuvo que ser abandonado y destruido. Los repetidos intentos de asaltar la planta fueron detenidos, lo que llevó al SAS a solicitar un ataque aéreo que silenció a la oposición. [152]
En la madrugada del 19 de marzo de 2003, las fuerzas estadounidenses abandonaron el plan de realizar ataques iniciales de decapitación no nucleares contra 55 altos funcionarios iraquíes, a la luz de los informes de que Saddam Hussein estaba visitando a sus hijos, Uday y Qusay , en las granjas de Dora, dentro de la comunidad agrícola de al-Dora en las afueras de Bagdad . [153] Aproximadamente a las 04:42 hora de Bagdad, [154] dos cazas furtivos F-117 Nighthawk del 8º Escuadrón de Cazas Expedicionarios [155] lanzaron cuatro GBU-27 ' Bunker Busters ' mejorados y guiados por satélite de 2.000 libras sobre el complejo. Como complemento al bombardeo aéreo se dispararon casi 40 misiles de crucero Tomahawk desde varios barcos, incluido el crucero de clase Ticonderoga USS Cowpens , considerado el primero en atacar, [156] los destructores de clase Arleigh Burke USS Donald Cook y USS Porter , así como dos submarinos en el mar Rojo y el golfo Pérsico . [157]
Una bomba no impactó en el complejo y las otras tres no alcanzaron su objetivo, cayendo al otro lado del muro del recinto del palacio. [158] Saddam Hussein no estaba presente, ni tampoco ningún miembro de la dirigencia iraquí. [153] [159] El ataque mató a un civil e hirió a otros catorce, incluidos cuatro hombres, nueve mujeres y un niño. [160] Fuentes posteriores indicaron que Saddam Hussein no había visitado la granja desde 1995, [157] mientras que otros afirmaron que Saddam había estado en el complejo esa mañana, pero se había ido antes del ataque, que Bush había ordenado retrasar hasta que expirara el plazo de 48 horas. [154]
El 19 de marzo de 2003, a las 21:00 horas, los miembros del 160º SOAR llevaron a cabo el primer ataque de la operación : un vuelo de DAP (Direct Action Penetrators) MH-60L y cuatro vuelos de "Black Swarm" (cada uno de ellos formado por un par de Little Birds AH-6M y un MH-6M equipado con FLIR para identificar objetivos para los AH-6 (cada vuelo de Black Swarm tenía asignado un par de A-10A ) atacaron puestos de observación visual iraquíes a lo largo de las fronteras sur y oeste de Irak. En siete horas, más de 70 sitios fueron destruidos, privando de hecho al ejército iraquí de cualquier advertencia temprana de la invasión venidera. A medida que se eliminaban los sitios, los primeros equipos SOF helitransportados despegaron desde la base aérea H-5 en Jordania, incluidas patrullas montadas en vehículos de los componentes británico y australiano transportados por los MH-47D del 160º SOAR. Elementos terrestres de las Fuerzas de Tareas Dagger, 20, 14 y 64 atravesaron los diques de arena a lo largo de la frontera iraquí con Jordania, Arabia Saudita y Kuwait en las primeras horas de la mañana y entraron en Irak. Extraoficialmente, los británicos, los australianos y la Fuerza de Tareas 20 habían estado en Irak semanas antes. [161] [162]
El 20 de marzo de 2003, aproximadamente a las 02:30 UTC , a las 05:34 hora local, se oyeron explosiones en Bagdad. Los comandos de operaciones especiales de la División de Actividades Especiales de la CIA del Elemento de Enlace del Norte de Irak se infiltraron en todo Irak y solicitaron los primeros ataques aéreos. [67] A las 03:16 UTC, o 10:16 pm EST, George W. Bush anunció que había ordenado un ataque contra "objetivos seleccionados de importancia militar" en Irak. [163] [164] Cuando se dio esta orden, las tropas en espera cruzaron la frontera hacia Irak.
Before the invasion, many observers had expected a longer campaign of aerial bombing before any ground action, taking as examples the 1991 Persian Gulf War or the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. In practice, U.S. plans envisioned simultaneous air and ground assaults to incapacitate the Iraqi forces quickly which resulted in the shock and awe military campaign attempting to bypass Iraqi military units and cities in most cases. The assumption was that superior mobility and coordination of coalition forces would allow them to attack the heart of the Iraqi command structure and destroy it in a short time, and that this would minimize civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure. It was expected that the elimination of the leadership would lead to the collapse of the Iraqi Forces and the government, and that much of the population would support the invaders once the government had been weakened. Occupation of cities and attacks on peripheral military units were viewed as undesirable distractions.
Following Turkey's decision to deny any official use of its territory, the coalition was forced to modify the planned simultaneous attack from north and south.[165] Special Operations forces from the CIA and U.S. Army managed to build and lead the Kurdish Peshmerga into an effective force and assault for the North. The primary bases for the invasion were in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf states. One result of this was that one of the divisions intended for the invasion was forced to relocate and was unable to take part in the invasion until well into the war. Many observers felt that the coalition devoted sufficient numbers of troops to the invasion, but too many were withdrawn after it ended, and that the failure to occupy cities put them at a major disadvantage in achieving security and order throughout the country when local support failed to meet expectations.
The United States launched its invasion of Iraq as an effective operational continuation of the First Gulf War. Their main objectives were to destroy the Iraqi army, cripple their ability to fight, and dismantle the Iraqi government.[166] However, the Iraqis immediately adapted and began using unconventional tactics. Already on March 22, just two days into the war, the Americans encountered their first taste of the insurgency tactics that would later define the war. Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Broadhead, a platoon sergeant in the Crazy Horse troop of the 3rd Infantry Division's cavalry unit, was in a tank heading towards a bridge in Samawah on the invasion route. He waved at a group of Iraqis, but instead of waving back, they began attacking the American tanks with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars. Because these types of paramilitary forces were well-armed, but indistinguishable from civilians, they would come to pose a significant challenge for U.S. forces throughout Iraq War.[167]
The invasion itself was swift, leading to the collapse of the Iraqi government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. The oil infrastructure of Iraq was rapidly seized and secured with limited damage in that time. Securing the oil infrastructure was considered of great importance. In the first Gulf War, while retreating from Kuwait, the Iraqi army had set many oil wells on fire and had dumped oil into the Gulf waters; this was to disguise troop movements and to distract coalition forces. Before the 2003 invasion, Iraqi forces had mined some 400 oil wells around Basra and the Al-Faw peninsula with explosives.[168][169][170]Coalition troops launched an air and amphibious assault on the Al-Faw peninsula during the closing hours of 19 March to secure the oil fields there; the amphibious assault was supported by warships of the Royal Navy, Polish Navy, and Royal Australian Navy.
In the meantime, Royal Air Force Tornados from 9 and 617 Squadrons attacked the radar defence systems protecting Baghdad, but lost a Tornado on 22 March along with the pilot and navigator (Flight Lieutenant Kevin Main and Flight Lieutenant Dave Williams), shot down by an American Patriot missile as they returned to their air base in Kuwait.[171] On 1 April, an F-14 from USS Kitty Hawk crashed in southern Iraq reportedly due to engine failure,[172] and a S-3B Viking plunged off the deck of the USS Constellation after a malfunction and an AV-8B Harrier jump jet went into the Gulf while it was trying to land on the USS Nassau.[173]
The British 3 Commando Brigade, with the United States Navy's Special Boat Team 22, Task Unit Two,[174] as well as the United States Marine Corps' 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Polish Special Forces unit GROM attached, attacked the port of Umm Qasr. There they met with heavy resistance by Iraqi troops. A total of 14 coalition troops and 30–40 Iraqi troops were killed, and 450 Iraqis taken prisoner. The British Army's 16 Air Assault Brigade alongside elements of the Royal Air Force Regiment also secured the oil fields in southern Iraq in places like Rumaila while the Polish commandos captured offshore oil platforms near the port, preventing their destruction. Despite the rapid advance of the invasion forces, some 44 oil wells were destroyed and set ablaze by Iraqi explosives or by incidental fire. However, the wells were quickly capped and the fires put out, preventing the ecological damage and loss of oil production capacity that had occurred at the end of the Gulf War.
In keeping with the rapid advance plan, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division moved westward and then northward through the western desert toward Baghdad, while the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved along Highway 1 through the center of the country, and 1 (UK) Armoured Division moved northward through the eastern marshland.
During the first week of the war, Iraqi forces fired a Scud missile at the American Battlefield Update Assessment center in Camp Doha, Kuwait. The missile was intercepted and shot down by a Patriot missile seconds before hitting the complex. Subsequently, two A-10 Warthogs attacked the missile launcher.
Initially, the 1st Marine Division (United States) fought through the Rumaila oil fields, and moved north to Nasiriyah—a moderate-sized, Shi'ite-dominated city with important strategic significance as a major road junction and its proximity to nearby Tallil Airfield. It was also situated near a number of strategically important bridges over the Euphrates River. The city was defended by a mix of regular Iraqi army units, Ba'ath loyalists, and Fedayeen from both Iraq and abroad. The United States Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and bypassed the city to the west.
On 23 March, a convoy from the 3rd Infantry Division, including the female American soldiers Jessica Lynch, Shoshana Johnson, and Lori Piestewa, was ambushed after taking a wrong turn into the city. Eleven U.S. soldiers were killed, and seven, including Lynch and Johnson, were captured.[175] Piestewa died of wounds shortly after capture, while the remaining five prisoners of war were later rescued. Piestewa, who was from Tuba City, Arizona, and an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe, was believed to have been the first Native American woman killed in combat in a foreign war.[176] On the same day, U.S. Marines from the 2nd Marine Division entered Nasiriyah in force, facing heavy resistance as they moved to secure two major bridges in the city. Several marines were killed during a firefight with Fedayeen in the urban fighting. At the Saddam Canal, another 18 marines were killed in heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers. An Air Force A-10 was involved in a case of friendly fire that resulted in the death of six Marines when it accidentally attacked an American amphibious vehicle. Two other vehicles were destroyed when a barrage of RPG and small arms fire killed most of the Marines inside.[177] A Marine from Marine Air Control Group 28 was killed by enemy fire, and two Marine engineers drowned in the Saddam Canal. The bridges were secured and the Second Marine division set up a perimeter around the city.
On the evening of 24 March, the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which was attached to Regimental Combat Team One (RCT-1), pushed through Nasiriyah and established a perimeter 15 km (9.3 miles) north of the city. Iraqi reinforcements from Kut launched several counterattacks. The Marines managed to repel them using indirect fire and close air support. The last Iraqi attack was beaten off at dawn. The battalion estimated that 200–300 Iraqi soldiers were killed, without a single U.S. casualty. Nasiriyah was declared secure, but attacks by Iraqi Fedayeen continued. These attacks were uncoordinated, and resulted in firefights that killed many Fedayeen. Because of Nasiriyah's strategic position as a road junction, significant gridlock occurred as U.S. forces moving north converged on the city's surrounding highways.
With the Nasiriyah and Tallil Airfields secured, coalition forces gained an important logistical center in southern Iraq and established FOB/EAF Jalibah, some 10 miles (16 km) outside Nasiriyah. Additional troops and supplies were soon brought through this forward operating base. The 101st Airborne Division continued its attack north in support of the 3rd Infantry Division.
By 28 March, a severe sandstorm slowed the coalition advance as the 3rd Infantry Division halted its northward drive halfway between Najaf and Karbala. Air operations by helicopters, poised to bring reinforcements from the 101st Airborne, were blocked for three days. There was particularly heavy fighting in and around the bridge near the town of Kufl.
Another fierce battle was at Najaf, where U.S. airborne and armored units with British air support fought an intense battle with Iraqi Regulars, Republican Guard units, and paramilitary forces. It started with U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships setting out on a mission to attack Republican Guard armored units; while flying low the Apaches came under heavy anti-aircraft, small arms, and RPG fire which heavily damaged many helicopters and shot one down, frustrating the attack.[178] They attacked again successfully on 26 March, this time after a pre-mission artillery barrage and with support from F/A-18 Hornet jets, with no gunships lost.[179]
The 1st Brigade Combat Team's air defense battery supported by a COLT (combat observation lasing team) and the Brigade Recon Troop moved in to secure the bridge at Al Kifl late on 24 March 03. When the ADA company was unable to secure the western bank of the bridge the commander called for reinforcements. Col. Grimsley order LTC Marcone Task Force 3-69 Armor to send a quick reaction force to support the ADA company. LTC Marcone sent B 3-7 Infantry to clear and secure the bridge. Bravo Company was made up of two infantry platoons with M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and one platoon of M1A2 Abrams tanks. Bravo 3-7 Infantry secured the bridge and fought for 36 hours through a sandstorm. During that time the soldiers fought against Iraqi Military and Fedayeen forces. After 36 hours B co 3-7 Infantry was relieved on 26 March. [citation needed]
The 101st Airborne Division on 29 March, supported by a battalion from the 1st Armored Division, attacked Iraqi forces in the southern part of the city, near the Imam Ali Mosque and captured Najaf's airfield.[180] Four Americans were killed by a suicide bomber. On 31 March the 101st made a reconnaissance-in-force into Najaf. On 1 April elements of the 70th Armored Regiment launched a "Thunder Run", an armored thrust through Najaf's city center, and, with air support, defeated the Iraqi forces after several days of heavy fighting. The city was secured by 4 April.[citation needed]
The Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr was the first British obstacle. A joint Polish-British-American force ran into unexpectedly stiff resistance, and it took several days to clear the Iraqi forces out. Farther north, the British 7 Armoured Brigade ("The Desert Rats"), fought their way into Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, on 6 April, coming under constant attack by regulars and Fedayeen, while 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment cleared the 'old quarter' of the city that was inaccessible to vehicles. Entering Basra was achieved after two weeks of fierce fighting, including a tank battle when the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks on 27 March. A few members of D Squadron, British SAS, were deployed to southern Iraq to support the coalition advance on Basra. The team conducted forward route reconnaissance and infiltrated the city and brought in strikes on the Ba'athist loyalist leadership.[181][182]
Elements of 1 (UK) Armoured Division began to advance north towards U.S. positions around Al Amarah on 9 April. Pre-existing electrical and water shortages continued throughout the conflict and looting began as Iraqi forces collapsed. While coalition forces began working with local Iraqi Police to enforce order, a joint team composed of Royal Engineers and the Royal Logistic Corps of the British Army rapidly set up and repaired dockyard facilities to allow humanitarian aid to begin to arrive from ships arriving in the port city of Umm Qasr.
After a rapid initial advance, the first major pause occurred near Karbala. There, U.S. Army elements met resistance from Iraqi troops defending cities and key bridges along the Euphrates River. These forces threatened to interdict supply routes as American forces moved north. Eventually, troops from the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army secured the cities of Najaf and Karbala to prevent any Iraqi counterattacks on the 3rd Infantry Division's lines of communication as the division pressed its advance toward Baghdad.
Eleven British soldiers were killed, while 395–515 Iraqi soldiers, irregulars, and Fedayeen were killed.
The efforts of the British Army facilitated the re-establishment of the rail lines from the port to Baghdad.
The Karbala Gap was a 20–25-mile wide strip of land with the Euphrates River to the east and Lake Razazah to the west. This strip of land was recognized by Iraqi commanders as a key approach to Baghdad, and was defended by some of the best units of the Iraqi Republican Guard. The Iraqi high command had originally positioned two Republican Guard divisions blocking the Karbala Gap.[183] Here these forces suffered heavy coalition air attacks. However, the coalition had since the beginning of March been conducting a strategic deception operation to convince the Iraqis that the U.S. 4th Infantry Division would be mounting a major assault into northern Iraq from Turkey.[184]
B Squadron, Delta Force (known as "Wolverines"), accompanied by several Air Force Special Tactics teams, a Delta intelligence and Target Acquisition[clarification needed], several military working dog teams and two Iraqi-American interpreters, was the first US SOF unit to enter western Iraq, crossing the border from Arar, Saudi Arabia in 15 customized Pinzgauer 6x6 Special Operations Vehicles and several armed Toyota Hilux pick up trucks. As part of Task Force 20, their formal role was to conduct selected high-priority site exploitation on suspected chemical weapon facilities before heading for the Haditha Dam complex. Along the way, Delta supported the seizure of H-3 Air Base and also conducted numerous deception operations to confuse the Iraqis as to the disposition of coalition forces in the west. From the south, a week before the invasion began, two members of Special Boat Team 22's Delta Detachment and the Commanding Officer of the 539th Assault Squadron Royal Marine Commandos, were infiltrated into southern Iraq by Kuwait intelligence operatives to gather critical intelligence for the upcoming assault on the port of Um Qasr.[185][186]
On 18 March 2003, B and D Squadrons of the British 22nd SAS Regiment had now infiltrated Iraq in full strength (D Squadron by air and B Squadron by ground) along with 1 Squadron Australian SASR and headed for H-2 and H-3 Air Base. They set up observation posts and called in airstrikes that defeated the Iraqi defenders. The combined British and Australian Squadrons took H-2 virtually unopposed. H-3 was secured on 25 March with the assistance of members of Delta Force and by Green Beret ODAs from Bravo company, 1st Battalion 5th SFG; a company of Rangers and Royal Marines from 45 Commando flew from Jordan to the bases and the base was handed over to them. The SAS teams moved to the next objective – the intersection of the two main highways linking Baghdad with Syria and Jordan,[187][188] where both squadrons were involved in conducting interdictions of fleeing Iraqi leadership targets heading for Syria.[182]
Previously, 16 (Air) Troop of D squadron conducted mounted reconnaissance of an Iraqi army facility near the Syrian border, followed by a harassing attack on the site, two other troops had conducted mobile ambushes on Iraqi units in the area, although they themselves were being hunted by a large Fedayeen Saddam unit mounted in technicals.[182]
In northern Iraq in early March, a small reconnaissance team from M Squadron of the British Special Boat Service mounted on Honda ATVs inserted into Iraq from Jordan. Its first mission was to conduct reconnaissance of an Iraqi air base at al-Sahara. The team was compromised by an anti-special forces Fedayeen unit and barely escaped thanks to a U.S. F-15E that flew air cover for the team and an RAF Chinook that extracted the team from out under the Fedayeen's "noses". A second larger SBS operation was launched by M Squadron in full strength in a mix of land rovers and ATVs into northern Iraq from H-2 air base, the objective was to locate, make contact and take the surrender of the Iraqi 5th Army Corps somewhere past Tikrit and to survey and mark viable temporary landing zones for follow-on forces. However the Squadron was compromised by a goat herder; the SBS drove for several days while unknown to them anti-special forces Fedayeen units followed them. At an overnight position near Mosul, the Fedayeen ambushed the Squadron with DShK heavy machine guns and RPGs, the SBS returned fire and began taking fire from a T-72, the Squadron scattered and escaped the well-constructed trap. A number of Land Rovers became bogged down in a nearby wadi, so they mined the vehicles and abandoned them – though several did not detonate and were captured and exhibited on Iraqi television. The SBS was now in three distinct groups: one with several operational Land Rovers was being pursued by the Iraqi hunter force, a second mainly equipped with ATVs was hunkered down and trying to arrange extraction, the third with just 2 operators on an ATV raced for the Syrian border. The first group tried to call in coalition strike aircraft but the aircraft could not identify friendly forces because the SBS were not equipped with infra-red strobes – although their vehicles did have Blue Force Tracker units, they eventually made it to an emergency rendezvous point and were extracted by an RAF Chinook. The second group was also extracted by an RAF Chinook and the third group made it to Syria and was held there until their release was negotiated, there were no SBS casualties.[189]
In the early hours of 21 March 2003, as part of Operation Viking Hammer, 64 Tomahawk cruise missiles struck the Ansar al-Islam camp and the surrounding sites, the terrorist group – numbering around 700 – had inhabited a valley near Halabja Iraqi Kurdistan, along with a small Kurdish splinter faction; they had prepared a number of defensive positions including anti-aircraft machine guns and maintained a facility, that US intelligence suspected, at which chemical and biological agents may have been developed and stored for future terrorist attacks. Viking Hammer was set to begin on 21 March, however, the ground component of the operation was set back several days owing to the issues around infiltrating most of the 3rd Battalion 10th SFG into Iraq.[190] The Islamic Group of Kurdistan surrendered after having suffered 100 men killed in the 21 March strikes.[191]
On 28 March 2003, the ground element of Operation Viking Hammer was finally launched with a six-pronged advance, each prong was composed of several ODAs from 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG and upwards of 1,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. The main advance set off towards Sargat – the location of the suspected chemical and biological weapons site; the force was soon pinned down by DShK heavy machine-gun fire from the surrounding hills. A pair of US Navy F/A-18s responded to an urgent CAS request from the force and dropped two 500lb JDAMs on the Ansar al-Islam machine gun nests and strafed the positions with 20 mm cannon before departing due to being low on fuel. The advance began again only to be halted once more by fire from prepared DShK and PKM machine gun nests, Green Berets from ODA 081 deployed a Mk 19 grenade launcher from the back of a Toyota Tacoma and suppressed the gun positions allowing the Peshmerga to assault and wipe out the terrorists. After capturing the town of Gulp, the force continued onto the village of Sargat; the village was heavily defended by fortified fighting positions mounting DShKs and mortars along with several BM-21 Grad. Unable to call in airstrikes due to the close proximity of the Peshmerga, a Green Beret sergeant used a dismounted M2 HMG to suppress the entrenched terrorists, his actions allowed the Peshmerga to bring forward their own 82 mm Mortars and Grads which forced the Ansar al-Islam fighters to retreat. Task Force Viking advanced to secure the Daramar Gorge – which was surrounded by caves in the rock walls – the Peshmerga were again engaged by small arms fire and RPGs which it and the ODAs returned fire with heavy weapons, however, it became obvious that they could not advance any further without air support. To dislodge the terrorists, the Combat Controllers attached to the ODAs vectored in US Navy F/A-18s which dropped six 500 lb JDAMs that shut down any further resistance. During the night, four AC-130 gunships maintained the pressure on the retreating Ansar al-Islam terrorists as they pulled back toward the Iranian border; the next day, Task Force Viking seized the high ground and pushed down through the valley – surrounding and killing small pockets of remnants from Ansar al-Islam. With their objectives completed, the 3rd Battalion and their Peshmerga returned to the green line to assist the push on Kirkuk and Mosul. A specialist SSE team was brought in to document the find at Sargat, the team recovered traces of several chemicals including Ricin along with stocks of NBC protective suits, atropine injectors and Arabic manuals on chemical weapons and IED construction. Estimates of Ansar al-Islam dead number over 300, many of them foreign fighters, while only 22 Peshmerga fighters were killed.[192]
Also in the North, the 10th Special Forces Group (10th SFG) and CIA paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division had the mission of aiding the Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, de facto rulers of Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, and employing them against the 13 Iraqi Divisions located near Kirkuk and Mosul.[193][194] Turkey had officially prohibited any coalition troops from using their bases or airspace, so lead elements of the 10th SFG had to make a detour infiltration; their flight was supposed to take four hours but instead took ten.[194] On 22 March 2003, the majority of 2nd and 3rd Battalions 10th SFG, from Task Force Viking flew from their forward staging area in Constanta, Romania to a location near Irbil aboard six MC-130H Combat Talons. Several were engaged by Iraqi air defences on the flight into northern Iraq (one was sufficiently damaged enough that it was forced to make an emergency landing at Incirlik Air Base). The initial lift had deployed 19 Green Beret ODAs and four ODBs into Northern Iraq.[195] Hours after the first of such flights, Turkey did allow the use of its air space and the rest of the 10th SFG infiltrated in. The preliminary mission was to destroy the base of the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, believed to be linked to al-Qaeda. Concurrent and follow-on missions involved attacking and fixing Iraqi forces in the north, thus preventing their deployment to the southern front and the main effort of the invasion.[194] Eventually Task Force Viking would number 51 ODAs and ODBs alongside some 60,000 Kurdish Peshmerga militia of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).[196]
On 26 March 2003, the 173rd Airborne Brigade augmented the invasion's northern front by parachuting into northern Iraq onto Bashur Airfield, controlled at the time by elements of 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga. The fall of Kirkuk on 10 April 2003 to the 10th SFG, CIA Paramilitary Teams and Kurdish peshmerga precipitated the 173rd's planned assault, preventing the unit's involvement in combat against Iraqi forces during the invasion.[197]
Following the Battle of Haditha Dam, Delta Force handed the dam over to the Rangers and headed north to conduct ambushes along the highway above Tikrit, tying up Iraqi forces in the region and attempting to capture fleeing high-value targets trying to escape to Syria.[198]
On 2 April, Delta was engaged by half a dozen armed technicals from the same anti-special forces Fedayeen that had previously fought the SBS. Two Delta operators were wounded (one serious); the squadron requested an urgent aeromedical evacuation and immediate close-air support as a company of truck-borne Iraqi reinforcements arrived. Two MH-60K Blackhawks carrying a para jumper medical team and two MH-60L DAPs of the 160th SOAR responded and engaged the Iraqis, which allowed the Delta operators to move their casualties to an emergency HLZ and they were medevaced to H-1 escorted by a pair of A-10As, however Master Sergeant George Fernandez died. The DAPs stayed on station and continued to engage the Iraqis, destroying a truck carrying a mortar and several infantry squads, while Delta snipers killed Iraqi infantryman firing on the DAPs, another pair of A-10As arrived and dropped airburst 500 lb bombs within 20m of Delta positions and killed a large number of Iraqi infantry gathering in a wadi. The DAPs spotted several Iraqi units and engaged them until they were dangerously low on fuel.[199]
Task Force Viking launched an operation to seize the town of Ain Sifni. The town was strategically important because it straddles the main highway into Mosul. Once the town fell, it would be clear for the coalition to advance on Mosul. ODAs from the 3rd and 10th SFG called in airstrikes on the Iraqi garrisons in and around the town, causing many of the Iraqi conscripts to flee. By 5 April 2003, there appeared to be only two Iraqi platoons left in the town. On 6 April, ODAs 051, 055, and 056 assaulted the town – ODAs 055 and 056 provided fire support along with Peshmerga heavy weapons teams, while ODA 51 made the actual assault on the town. As ODA 51 cautiously advanced on the village, it came under intense fire – the two platoons of Iraqis turned out to be closer to battalion strength and equipped with heavy weapons like 82 mm mortars, anti-aircraft guns, and an artillery piece. After 4 hours of F/A-18 airstrikes and constant heavy weapons fire from ODA 055 and 056, the assault force entered Ain Sifni; soon afterward, Iraqi infantry counterattacked, supported by several mortars, attempting to retake the town, but it was beaten back by ODA 51 and the Kurds.[200]
On 6 April 2003, ODA 391 and ODA 392 from the 3rd SFG and ODA 044 from 10th SFG with about 150 Kurdish fighters were the main force involved in the Battle of Debecka Pass.[201]
On 9 April, nine ODAs from FOB 103 encircled Kirkuk after fierce fighting to capture the ridges overlooking the approaches to the city. The earlier capture of the nearby city of Tuz had largely broken the will of the Iraqi Army and only the Fedayeen remained in Kirkuk. The first ODA units entered the city the next day; a week later the 173rd Airborne took over responsibility for the city. After some minor skirmishes the Fedayeen fled.[202] Staging out of MSS Grizzly, Delta mounted operations to interdict Ba'ath Party HVTs on Highway 1 (Highway 2 and 4 in western Iraq had been secured by British SAS and Australian SAS teams), on 9 April, the combined team seized an airfield near Tikrit.[203]
The successful occupation of Kirkuk came after approximately two weeks of fighting that included the Battle of the Green Line (the unofficial border of the Kurdish autonomous zone) and the subsequent Battle of Kani Domlan Ridge (the ridgeline running northwest to southeast of Kirkuk), the latter fought exclusively by 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga against the Iraqi 1st Corps. The 173rd Brigade would eventually take responsibility for Kirkuk days later, becoming involved in the counterinsurgency fight and remain there until redeploying a year later.[197]
On 11 April an advanced element from FOB 102 numbering no more than 30 Green Berets advanced into Mosul. The advance had followed several days of heavy airstrikes on three Iraqi divisions defending Mosul. On 13 April, 3rd Battalion 3rd SFG and a battalion from the 10th Mountain Division were ordered to Mosul to relieve the 10th SFG and their Peshmerga allies.[204] Further reinforcing operations in Northern Iraq, the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), serving as Landing Force Sixth Fleet, deployed in April to Erbil and subsequently Mosul via Marine KC-130 flights.[205] The 26 MEU (SOC) maintained security of the Mosul airfield and surrounding area until relief by the 101st Airborne Division.[206]
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On 21 March, ODA 554 of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion 5th SFG crossed the border with the United States Marines to support the seizure of the Rumaylah oil fields which was later secured by UK forces; half the team later drove to the outskirts of Basra and successfully picked up four Iraqi oil industry technicians who had been recruited by the CIA to assist in safeguarding the oil fields from destruction. They later rejoined the other half of the team and fought roving bands of Fedayeen. The ODAs next mission was to work with a CIA-recruited Sheikh and assist British forces in identifying targets around Basra. The ODA soon established an informant network, they eventually assisted the British in rounding up some 170 Fedayeen in the city; they were eventually replaced by members of G Squadron 22nd SAS Regiment.[207]
The Battle of Haditha Dam occurred on 24 March 2003, Rangers from 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, conducted a combat parachute drop onto H-1 Air Base, securing the site as a staging area for operations in the west. Delta Force recce operators drove through Iraqi lines around the Haditha Dam on customised ATVs, marking targets for coalition airstrikes resulting in the eventual destruction of a large number of Iraqi armoured vehicles and anti aircraft systems. Delta's reconnaissance of the dam indicated that a larger force would be needed to seize it, so a request was made and approved for a second Delta squadron from Fort Bragg to be dispatched with a further Ranger battalion, along with M1A1 Abrams tanks from C Company, 2nd Battalion 70th Armor. C-17 flew the company from Tallil to H-1 and then to MSS (Mission Support Site) Grizzly – a desert strip established by Delta Force located between Haditha and Tikrit; C Squadron, Delta Force was flown directly to MSS Grizzly.[185]
On 1 April, C squadron, Delta Force and 3/75th Ranger Regiment conducted a night-time ground assault in their Pinzgauers and GMVs against the Haditha Dam complex. Three platoons of Rangers seized the dams' administrative buildings with little initial opposition, while a pair of AH-6M Six Guns orbited overhead. After daybreak, a Ranger sniper shot and killed 3 Iraqis carrying RPGs on the western side of the dam and Rangers on the eastern side engaged a truck carrying infantry, which led to an hour-long contract. South of the dam, another Ranger platoon was securing the dam's power station and electricity transformer against sabotage, another platoon was occupied establishing blocking positions on the main road into the dam complex. The blocking positions came under the sporadic mortar fire, resulting in the AH-6Ms flying multiple gun runs to silence the mortar positions, another mortar team, firing from a small island was engaged and silenced by a Ranger Javelin team. For five days, Iraqi forces continued to harass the Rangers at the dam, principally with episodic artillery and mortar fire along with several infantry counterattacks against the blocking positions; the HIMARS rocket system saw its first combat deployment at the dam – firing counter-battery missions, 3 Rangers were killed on 3 April by a VBIED at the blocking positions, the car was driven by a pregnant Iraqi woman acting distressed and asking for water. Rangers captured an Iraqi forward observer dressed as a civilian after sinking his kayak with .50cal fire, the observer had maps of the Rangers positions.[208]
Intelligence indicated that chemical and biological weapons stocks may have been located at a complex known as al Qadisiyah Research Centre along the shore of the al Qadisiyah reservoir among government and residential buildings, on the evening of 26 March, a DEVGRU assault element supported by B Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment assaulted the complex (codenamed Objective Beaver). While the first of four MH-60Ks inserted the Rangers into their blocking positions, it was engaged by small arms fire from a nearby building, an AH-6M spotted the muzzle flashes and fired a 2.75inch rocket into the location silencing the small arms fire, the second MH-60K was also struck by small arms fire but its door gunner suppressed it. A-10As engaged nearby electricity transformers successfully blacking out the area, but it resulted in a series of explosions and a resulting fire at the stations that dramatically lit the sky – pinpointing the orbiting helicopters for enemy gunmen. Small arms fire increased as the final two MH-60Ks inserted their blocking teams, one Ranger was wounded, the two pairs of AH-6Ms and MH-60L DAPs supporting the mission continued to suppress targets as the four MH-47Es carrying the DEVGRU main assault force inserted under heavy enemy small arms fire while DEVGRU sniper teams aboard a pair of MH-6Ms engaged numerous gunmen and vehicles, one Nightstalker crew was wounded as the MH-47Es lifted off. The SEALs conducted a hasty SSE while the Ranger blocking positions received and returned fire, the AH-6Ms and the aerial snipers continued to engage enemy gunmen while the DAPs pushed further out to ensure no reinforcements approached – engaging and destroying numerous Fedayeen armed technicals. The SSE took longer than expected owing to the size and maze-like structure of the building, the mission completed after 45 minutes, later tests of the material recovered by DEVGRU showed no evidence of chemical or biological weapons at the Objective Beaver.[209]
Bravo and Charlie companies of 1st Battalion 5th SFG crossed the Kuwait border at H-Hour with ODA 531 using breaching demolition charges to clear a path through the sand berms. Charlie company's seven ODAs in 35 vehicles took the southeastern operation box of the western desert heading towards the towns of Nukyab, Habbariya and Mudyasis, ODA's 534 and 532 split off to head for the area surrounding Nukyab searching for mobile Scud-B TEL launch sites. ODA 532 also inserted a mobile weather station that provided planners with vital real time weather updates of the battle space. Bravo company set out for the central town of Ar Rutba and H-3 Air Base with six ODAs and a support ODB (Operational Detachment Bravo). ODAs 523 and 524 searched a suspected Scud-B storage facility while ODAs 521 and 525 were tasked with clearing several abandoned airfields, with no sign of Scud launchers, ODA 525 deployed a Special Reconnaissance team to conduct pattern of life surveillance on the town of Ar Rutba. A two-man team called in a pair of nearby F-16C Fighting Falcons to destroy an Iraqi Army radio direction-finding facility they had identified. A second reconnaissance team from ODA 525 deployed to cover the two highways leading to Ar Rutbah, however as the team was compromised by roving Bedouins who informed the Iraqi Army garrison at Ar Rutbah of the teams presence and location, armed Iraqi technicals crewed by the Fedayeen drove out to search for them, so the Green Berets mounted their GMVs, left their hide and found a position to ambush the Fedayeen, under the weight of fire the Fedayeen retreated. ODA 525 attempted to link up with the two-man reconnaissance team and extract it to safety but large numbers of Iraqi vehicles began driving out of the town to them, the ODAs called in immediate air support. While waiting, the reconnaissance team and Target Acquisition Marines fired on the Fedayeen leaders with their suppressed MK12 sniper rifle and contacted ODA 521 (who were clearing suspects east of the town) and they reinforced ODA 525. Within minutes, F-16Cs arrived and engaged the Fedayeen vehicles, another Fedayeen convoy attempted to outflank ODA 525 but ran into the guns of ODA 524, after 4 hours of constant and punishing airstrikes on the encircling Fedayeen, eight GMVs of ODA 521 and 525 managed to extract the exposed reconnaissance team under the cover of a B-1B strategic bomber, the vehicles withdrew to ODB 520s staging area south of Ar Rutbah. Over 100 Fedayeen fighters were killed and four armed technicals were destroyed. To the west ODA 523 reinforced ODA 524, but ran into a pair of armed technicals on the highway, both were destroyed by the GMVs, the Green Berets ceased fire when a civilian station wagon full of Iraqi children drove into the middle of the firefight. ODA 522 also identified two Fedayeen armed technicals proceeding down the highway toward ODA 523, they set an ambush for them, destroying the vehicles and killing 15 Fedayeen.[210]
The strategic intent of the US Army Special Forces ODAs had been to shut down the main supply routes and deny access around Ar Rutbah and the strategically important H-3 air base, which was defended by a battalion of Iraqi troops and significant numbers of mobile and static anti aircraft guns. On 24 March 2003, the surrounding ODAs supported by Task Force 7 (British Special Air Service) and Task Force 64 (Australian Special Air Service Regiment) called in constant 24 hours of precision airstrikes on H-3 using SOFLAM target designators, the aerial bombardment forced the Iraqi military vehicles to leave the base and headed towards Baghdad. ODA 521 over watching the highway they were travelling on ambushed the convoy destroying a truck mounted ZU-23, the convoy was thrown into disarray, a sandstorm prevented the ODA calling in airstrikes and the convoy scattered into the desert. Bravo company 5th SFG and the coalition SOF secured the airfield, finding a Roland surface-to-air missile system, around 80 assorted anti aircraft cannon guns including ZSU-23-4 Shilka, SA-7 grail handheld SAMs and an enormous amount of ammunition. H-3 was established as an Advanced Operating Base for Bravo company, with supplies delivered by C-130s and MH-47Es; ODA 581 vehicle checkpoint managed to capture the Iraqi general in command of H-3 as he was trying to escape in civilian attire, he was secured and flown by an unmarked CIA SAD Air Branch Little Bird on 28 March for further interrogation. Additionally, ODA 523 discovered what may have been chemical weapons samples in a laboratory on the grounds of H-3.[211]
Bravo company turned its attention to Ar Rutbah, signals intercepts by SOT-A (Support Operations Team – Alpha) and an informer network among the Bedouins as well as inhabitants of the town indicated that around 800 Fedayeen remained in the town; Fedayeen patrols from the town were engaged by surrounding Green Berets and captured. ODAs guided precision airstrikes on Fedayeen anti aircraft guns on the outskirts of the town and on top of the airstrikes, they also struck large groups of Fedayeen militia with Javelin missiles. On 9 April, nine ODAs secured the main roads into the town and commenced a day of near continuous final airstrikes from fix-wing aircraft and Apache helicopters. Civilians from the town approached the Green Berets asking them to stop the bombing, the Green Berets struck a deal with the civilians and they entered the town the next day. A B-52 and 2 F-16Cs flew show of force flights over the town as the Green Berets entered, the Fedayeen blended in with the population. Within days, the Green Berets helped the town to elect a mayor and set up markets, get sixty percent of the electricity grid working and repair water supplies. ODA 521 and 525 continued to operate in the region, stopping several trucks carrying foreign fighters, they disarmed them, took their details and warned them not to come back before sending them to Syria; in late May, the teams were replaced by the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment.[212]
The 2nd Battalion of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group, United States Army Special Forces (Green Berets) conducted reconnaissance in the cities of Basra, Karbala and various other locations.[213]
After Sargat was taken, Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG and CIA paramilitary officers along with their Kurdish allies pushed south towards Tikrit and the surrounding towns of Northern Iraq.[214] Previously, during the Battle of the Green Line, Bravo Company, 3/10 with their Kurdish allies pushed back, destroyed, or routed the 13th Iraqi Infantry Division.[215] The same company took Tikrit. Iraq was the largest deployment of the U.S. Special Forces since Vietnam.[216]
ODA 563 worked in support of the US Marines around Al Diwaniyah with local Sheikhs and their militias supported by AV-8Bs and F/A-18s; managing to capture the city of Qwam al Hamza. The following day ODA 563, their local Sheikh and his militia and a small Force Recon team captured the bridge leading to Diwaniyah and the militia attacked Iraqi positions over the bridge, forcing the Iraqi army and Fedayeen to flee toward Baghdad while being harassed by Marine Corps aircraft.[217]
Private first class Jessica Lynch of the 507th Maintenance Company was seriously injured and captured after her convoy was ambushed by Iraqi forces during the Battle of Nasiriyah. Initial intelligence that led to her rescue was provided by an informant who approached ODA 553 when it was working in Nasiriyah, the intelligence was passed on and Task Force 20 planned a rescue mission. Launching from the recently captured airfield at Tallil, the rescue force consisted of 290 Rangers from 1st and 2nd battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, around 60 SEALs from DEVGRU along with Pararescue Jumpers and Combat Controllers from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron conventional Marines from Task Force Tarawa then currently fighting through the city and aviators from the Army, Marines and Air Force. The plan called for Task Force Tarawa to conduct a deception mission by seizing the bridges across the Euphrates to draw attention away from the hospital Lynch was held at, an airstrike by US Marine AV-8 Harriers would be conducted against one of the bridges to confuse the opposition further and US Marine AH-1W Cobras were tasked to fly over the area to conceal the sound of incoming SOF helicopters. Air cover as provided by an AC-130 Spectre and a Marine EA-6 Prowler to jam any enemy SAM systems that might be present. With the deception mission underway, the SEAL and select Ranger elements would be inserted by MH-60K Blackhawks and four MH-6 Little Birds, supported by four AH-6 attack helicopters and two MH-60L DAPs, the other Rangers would be flown in by Marine CH-46s and CH-53 transport helicopters to establish a cordon around the hospital grounds. The main assault force of SEALs would arrive by a ground convoy of AGMS Pandur forearmed vehicles and GMV trucks while the hostage rescue element landed directly on the objective in MH-6 Little Birds.[218]
At 0100 on 1 April 2003, the Marines commenced their deception mission, CIA elements cut the city's power as the helicopters approached their objective, the AH-6s led the way, behind them the MH-6s dropped off Task Force 20 sniper teams at strategic locations around and on the hospital. The DAPs and the AH-6s covered the MH-60Ks as they dropped off assault teams on the hospital roof and another by the front door, the ground assault convoy arrived and the assaulters raced inside and onto the second floor where Lynch was located. 13 minutes later, a MH-60K touched down near the hospital entrance with a team of PJs and SOAR medics on board and transported Lynch to Tallil where it rendezvoused with a standby medical flight and then onto Kuwait and finally the United States. The hospital was devoid of any Fedayeen, although evidence suggested they were using it as a base; the Ranger blocking teams experienced some sporadic direct fire, the SEALs and the Rangers eventually recovered the remains of eight members of Lynch's unit that had been killed or died of their wounds. Task Force 20 carried out the first successful U.S. prisoner of war rescue mission since World War II.[219]
Three weeks into the invasion, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, with the 1st Marine Division also present, moved into Baghdad.[220] Units of the Iraqi Special Republican Guard led the defence of the city. The rest of the defenders were a mixture of Republican Guard units, regular army units, Fedayeen Saddam, and non-Iraqi Arab volunteers. Initial plans were for coalition units to surround the city and gradually move in, forcing Iraqi armor and ground units to cluster into a central pocket in the city, and then attack with air and artillery forces.
This plan soon became unnecessary, as an initial engagement of armored units south of the city saw most of the Republican Guard's assets destroyed and routes in the southern outskirts of the city occupied. On 5 April, Task Force 1–64 Armor of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division executed a raid, later called the "Thunder Run", to test remaining Iraqi defenses, with 29 tanks and 14 Bradley armored fighting vehicles advancing to the Baghdad airport. They met significant resistance, but were successful in reaching the airport, and eventually secured it after heavy fighting.
The next day, another brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division attacked downtown Baghdad and occupied one of the palaces of Saddam Hussein in fierce fighting. U.S. Marines also faced heavy shelling from Iraqi artillery as they attempted to cross a river bridge, but the river crossing was successful. The Iraqis managed to inflict some casualties on the U.S. forces near the airport from defensive positions but suffered severe casualties from air bombardment. Within hours of the palace seizure and with television coverage of this spreading through Iraq, U.S. forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on 9 April 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by coalition forces. Much of Baghdad remained unsecured however, and fighting continued within the city and its outskirts well into the period of occupation. Saddam had vanished, and his whereabouts were unknown.
On 10 April, a rumor emerged that Saddam Hussein and his top aides were in a mosque complex in the Al Az'Amiyah District of Baghdad. Three companies of Marines were sent to capture him and came under heavy fire from rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and assault rifles. One Marine was killed and 20 were wounded, but neither Saddam or any of his top aides were found. U.S. forces supported by mortars, artillery, and aircraft continued to attack Iraqi forces still loyal to Saddam Hussein and non-Iraqi Arab volunteers. U.S. aircraft flying in support were met with Iraqi anti-aircraft fire. On 12 April, by late afternoon, all fighting had ceased. A total of 34 American soldiers and 2,320 Iraqi fighters were killed.
Many Iraqis celebrated the downfall of Saddam by vandalizing the many portraits and statues of him together with other pieces of his cult of personality. One widely publicized event was the dramatic toppling of a large statue of Saddam in Baghdad's Firdos Square. This attracted considerable media coverage at the time. As the British Daily Mirror reported,
For an oppressed people this final act in the fading daylight, the wrenching down of this ghastly symbol of the regime, is their Berlin Wall moment. Big Moustache has had his day."[221]
As Staff Sergeant Brian Plesich reported in On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
The Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down. Since we were right there, we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do... Somehow along the way, somebody had gotten the idea to put a bunch of Iraqi kids onto the wrecker that was to pull the statue down. While the wrecker was pulling the statue down, there were Iraqi children crawling all over it. Finally they brought the statue down.[222]
The fall of Baghdad saw the outbreak of regional, sectarian violence throughout the country, as Iraqi tribes and cities began to fight each other over old grudges. The Iraqi cities of Al-Kut and Nasiriyah launched attacks on each other immediately following the fall of Baghdad to establish dominance in the new country, and the U.S.-led coalition quickly found themselves embroiled in a potential civil war. U.S.-led coalition forces ordered the cities to cease hostilities immediately, explaining that Baghdad would remain the capital of the new Iraqi government. Nasiriyah responded favorably and quickly backed down; however, Al-Kut placed snipers on the main roadways into town, with orders that invading forces were not to enter the city. After several minor skirmishes, the snipers were removed, but tensions and violence between regional, city, tribal, and familial groups continued.
U.S. General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of the coalition occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defense of Baghdad, rumors were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck (a "safqua") wherein the U.S.-led coalition had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite and/or the Ba'ath party itself to stand down. In May 2003, General Franks retired, and confirmed in an interview with Defense Week that the U.S.-led coalition had paid Iraqi military leaders to defect. The extent of the defections and their effect on the war are unclear.
U.S.-led coalition troops promptly began searching for the key members of Saddam Hussein's government. These individuals were identified by a variety of means, most famously through sets of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards. Later during the military occupation period after the invasion, on 22 July 2003 during a raid by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and men from Task Force 20, Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, and one of his grandsons were killed in a massive fire-fight. Saddam Hussein himself was captured on 13 December 2003 by the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121 during Operation Red Dawn.
U.S. special forces had also been involved in the extreme south of Iraq, attempting to occupy key roads to Syria and air bases. In one case two armored platoons were used to convince Iraqi leadership that an entire armored battalion was entrenched in the west of Iraq.[citation needed]
On 15 April, U.S. forces took control of Tikrit, the last major outpost in central Iraq, with an attack led by the Marines' Task Force Tripoli. About a week later the Marines were relieved in place by the Army's 4th Infantry Division.
Coalition aircraft flew over 41,000 sorties,[223] of which over 9,000 were tanker sorties.[224]
After the invasion, several factors contributed to the destabilization of Iraq. On 23 May, L. Paul Bremer issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2, dissolving the Iraqi Army and other entities of the former Ba'athist state. Ba'athists were excluded from the newly formed Iraqi government.[225] The first postwar election was won by the United Iraqi Alliance, an electoral coalition composed of mainly Shi’ite groups, which proceeded to ostracize Sunnis. Shia militia groups pushed Sunnis out of several areas, even emptying entire Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad during the 2007 troop surge.[226][227][228][229] The US military established prison camps where disgruntled Iraqis, former Ba'athists and Jihadist met. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, future leader of the Islamic State, joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq while detained at Camp Bucca in 2004. Future leader of al-Nusra Front in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who was a member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was also held there and released in 2008. All these factors contributed to Iraq's sectarian violence and the formation and spread of terrorist organizations.[230][231][232][233][234][235]
_Mission_Accomplished.jpg/1280px-USS_Abraham_Lincoln_(CVN-72)_Mission_Accomplished.jpg)
On 1 May 2003, Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Bush's landing was criticized by opponents as an unnecessarily theatrical and expensive stunt. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished." The banner, made by White House staff and supplied by request of the United States Navy,[236] was criticized as premature. The White House subsequently released a statement that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq and disputing the charge of theatrics. The speech itself noted: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."[237] Post-invasion Iraq was marked by a long and violent conflict between U.S.-led forces and Iraqi insurgents that entailed a very high number of casualties.
Members of the coalition included Australia: 2,000 invasion, Poland: 200 invasion—2,500 peak, Spain: 1,300 invasion, United Kingdom: 46,000 invasion, United States: 150,000 to 250,000 invasion. Other members of the coalition were Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, the Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Tonga, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.[238] BBC News said 15 other countries were "providing assistance, such as over-flight rights, but which do not want to declare support."[239]
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Australia contributed approximately 2,000 Australian Defence Force personnel, including a special forces task group, three warships and 14 F/A-18 Hornet aircraft.[240] On 16 April 2003, Australian special operations forces captured the undefended Al Asad air base west of Baghdad. The base would later become the second largest coalition facility post-invasion.
The Battle of Umm Qasr was the first military confrontation in the Iraq War, with its objective the capture of the port. Polish GROM troops supported the amphibious assault on Umm Qasr with the British 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines, and the US 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.[241] After the waterway was de-mined by a Detachment from HM-14 and Naval Special Clearance Team ONE of the U.S. Navy and reopened, Umm Qasr played an important role in the shipment of humanitarian supplies to Iraqi civilians.[242]
British troops, in what was codenamed Operation (or Op) TELIC participated in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The 1st Armoured Division was deployed to the Persian Gulf and commanded British forces in the area, securing areas in southern Iraq, including the city of Basra during the invasion. A total of 46,000 troops of all the British services were committed to the operation at its start, including some 5,000 Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary sailors and 4,000 Royal Marines, 26,000 British Army soldiers, and 8,100 Royal Air Force airmen. The British special forces deployment was codenamed Operation Row and were known as Task Force 7 under Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-West (Task Force Dagger).[243]
The U.S.-led coalition forces toppled the government and captured the key cities of a large nation in only 26 days. The invasion did require a large army build-up like the 1991 Gulf War, but many did not see combat and many were withdrawn after the invasion ended. This proved to be short-sighted, however, due to the requirement for a much larger force to combat the irregular Iraqi forces in the Iraqi insurgency. General Eric Shinseki, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, recommended "several hundred thousand"[244] troops be used to maintain post-war order, but then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—and especially his deputy, civilian Paul Wolfowitz—strongly disagreed. General Abizaid later said General Shinseki had been right.[245]
The Iraqi army, armed mainly with older Soviet and Eastern European built equipment,[246] was overall ill-equipped in comparison to the American and British forces. Attacks on U.S. supply routes by Fedayeen militiamen were repulsed. The Iraqis' artillery proved largely ineffective, and they were unable to mobilize their air force to attempt a defense. The Iraqi T-72 tanks, the most powerful armored vehicles in the Iraqi army, were both outdated and ill-maintained, and when they were mobilized they were rapidly destroyed, thanks in part to the coalition air supremacy. The U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Naval Aviation, and British Royal Air Force operated with impunity throughout the country, pinpointing heavily defended resistance targets and destroying them before ground troops arrived. The main battle tanks of the U.S. and UK forces, the U.S. M1 Abrams and British Challenger 2, functioned well in the rapid advance across the country. Despite the many RPG attacks by irregular Iraqi forces, few U.S. and UK tanks were lost, and no tank crew-members were killed by hostile fire, although nearly 40 M1 Abrams were damaged in the attacks.[247] The only tank loss sustained by the British Army was a Challenger 2 of the Queen's Royal Lancers that was hit by another Challenger 2, killing two crew members.
The Iraqi army suffered from poor morale, even among the elite Republican Guard. Entire units disbanded into the crowds upon the approach of invading troops, or actually sought out U.S. and UK forces to surrender to. Many Iraqi commanding officers were bribed by the CIA or coerced into surrendering. The leadership of the Iraqi army was incompetent – reports state that Qusay Hussein, charged with the defense of Baghdad, dramatically shifted the positions of the two main divisions protecting Baghdad several times in the days before the arrival of U.S. forces, and as a result the units were confused, and further demoralized when U.S. forces attacked. The invasion force did not see the entire Iraqi military thrown against it; U.S. and UK units had orders to move to and seize objective target points rather than seek to engage Iraqi units. This resulted in most regular Iraqi military units emerging from the war without having been engaged, and fully intact, especially in southern Iraq. It is assumed that most units disintegrated to return to their homes.
According to a declassified Pentagon report, "The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq's military forces was the continued interference by Saddam." The report, designed to help U.S. officials understand in hindsight how Saddam and his military commanders prepared for and fought the invasion, paints a picture of an Iraqi government blind to the threat it faced, hampered by Saddam's inept military leadership and deceived by its own propaganda and inability to believe an invasion was imminent without further Iraqi provocation. According to the BBC, the report portrays Saddam Hussein as "chronically out of touch with reality – preoccupied with the prevention of domestic unrest and with the threat posed by Iran."[248]
Estimates on the number of casualties during the invasion in Iraq vary widely. Estimates on civilian casualties are more variable than those for military personnel. According to Iraq Body Count, a group that relies on press reports, NGO-based reports and official figures to measure civilian casualties, approximately 7,500 civilians were killed during the invasion phase.[249] The Project on Defense Alternatives study estimated that 3,200–4,300 civilians died during the invasion.[19]
Fedayeen Saddam militia, Republican Guard and Iraqi security forces were reported to have executed Iraqi soldiers who tried to surrender on multiple occasions, as well as threatening the families of those who refused to fight.[250][251][252] One such incident was directly observed during the Battle of Debecka Pass.[253]
Many incidents of Fedayeen fighters using human shields were reported from various towns in Iraq.[254] Iraqi Republican Guard units were also reported to be using human shields.[255] Some reports indicate that the Fedayeen used ambulances to deliver messages and transport fighters into combat. On 31 March, Fedayeen in a Red Crescent-marked ambulance attacked American soldiers outside Nasiriyah, wounding three.[255][256] During the Battle of Basra, British forces of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) reported that on 28 March, Fedayeen forces opened fire on thousands of civilian refugees fleeing the city.[257][258]
After the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company during the Battle of Nasiriyah on 23 March, the bodies of several U.S. soldiers who had been killed in the ambush were shown on Iraqi television. Some of these soldiers had visible gunshot wounds to the head, leading to speculation that they had been executed. Except for Sgt. Donald Walters, no evidence has since surfaced to support this scenario and it is generally accepted that the soldiers were killed in action. Five live prisoners of war were also interviewed on the air, a violation of the Third Geneva Convention.[259][260] Sergeant Walters was initially reported to have been killed in the ambush after killing several Fedayeen before running out of ammunition. However, an eyewitness later reported that he had seen Walters being guarded by several Fedayeen in front of a building. Forensics work later found Walters' blood in front of the building and blood spatter suggesting he died from two gunshot wounds to the back at close range. This led the Army to conclude that Walters had been executed after being captured, and he was posthumously awarded the Prisoner of War Medal in 2004.[261][262] It was alleged in the authorized biography of Pfc. Jessica Lynch that she was raped by her captors after her capture, based on medical reports and the pattern of her injuries, though this is not supported by Ms Lynch.[263] Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, who later helped American forces rescue Lynch, stated that he saw an Iraqi Colonel slap Lynch while she was in her hospital bed.[264] The staff at the hospital where Lynch was held later denied both stories, saying that Lynch was well cared for.[265] While Lynch suffers from amnesia due to her injuries, Lynch herself has denied any mistreatment while in captivity.
Also on 23 March, a British Army engineering unit made a wrong turn near the town of Az Zubayr, which was still held by Iraqi forces. The unit was ambushed and Sapper Luke Allsopp and Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth became separated from the rest. Both were captured and executed by Iraqi irregular forces. In 2006, a video of Allsopp lying on the ground surrounded by Iraqi irregular forces was discovered.[266]
During the Battle of Nasiriyah, Iraqi irregulars feigned surrender to approach an American unit securing a bridge. After getting close to the soldiers, the Iraqis suddenly opened fire, killing 10 soldiers and wounding 40.[255] In response, American forces reinforced security procedures for dealing with prisoners of war.[267]
Marine Sergeant Fernando Padilla-Ramirez was reported missing from his supply unit after an ambush north of Nasiriyah on 28 March. His body was later dragged through the streets of Ash-Shatrah and hung in the town square, and later taken down and buried by sympathetic locals. The corpse was discovered by U.S. forces on 10 April.[268][269][270]
On 20 March 2023, on the 20th anniversary of the invasion, Amnesty International released a report calling for accountability and reparations for human rights violations perpetrated by the US-led coalition during the invasion and subsequent occupation between 2003 and 2011. They cited violations of international humanitarian law including secret prisons, torture and other cruel treatment of detainees, indiscriminate attacks that killed and injured civilians, and forced disappearances.[271] The report stated that both President Bush[272] and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld[273] had publicly confessed to involvement in secret detentions and faced no criminal accountability. The report also noted that despite the conclusions of the International Criminal Court in 2020 that British forces had committed war crimes in Iraq, including deliberate killings, rape and torture, no senior British officials have been held criminal accountable.[271]
Massive looting took place in the days following the 2003 invasion.[274] According to U.S. officials, the "reality of the situation on the ground" was that hospitals, water plants, and ministries with vital intelligence needed security more than other sites. There were only enough U.S. troops on the ground to guard a certain number of the many sites that ideally needed protection, and so, apparently, some "hard choices" were made.
It was reported that The Iraq Museum was among the looted sites. The FBI was soon called into Iraq to track down the stolen items. It was found that the initial allegations of looting of substantial portions of the collection were heavily exaggerated. Initial reports asserted a near-total looting of the museum, estimated at upwards of 170,000 inventory lots, or about 501,000 pieces. The more recent estimate places the number of stolen pieces at around 15,000, and about 10,000 of them probably were taken in an "inside job" before U.S. troops arrived, according to Bogdanos. Over 5,000 looted items have since been recovered.[275] An assertion that U.S. forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Interior is disputed by investigator Colonel Matthew Bogdanos in his 2005 book Thieves of Baghdad. Bogdanos notes that the Ministry of Oil building was bombed, but the museum complex, which took some fire, was not bombed. He also writes that Saddam Hussein's troops set up sniper's nests inside and on top of the museum, and nevertheless U.S. Marines and soldiers stayed close enough to prevent wholesale looting.
"Two great libraries, with priceless ancient collections"—the Awqaf Library (Library of the Ministry of Religious Endowments) and the National Library of Iraq and National Centre for Archives (the House of Wisdom)—"have been burned," The Boston Globe reported in 2003, adding that the libraries at the University of Mosul and University of Basra had been looted. András Riedlmayer, a specialist in Islamic architecture at Harvard University,[276] said the U.S. State Department had asked him for advice before the invasion, and that "everybody warned them that the greatest danger was not from Tomahawk missiles but from looting." Noting that Iraq had been unified only in 1922 and that relatively little attention had been paid to this local history, Keith D. Waterpaugh, a specialist in Ottoman history, said, "Imagine if we could not go back and read The New York Times from 1922 on. If we are going to help the Iraqi people build a new nation, we don't do it by letting their past be destroyed."[277]
More serious for the post-war state of Iraq was the looting of cached weaponry and ordnance which fueled the subsequent insurgency. As many as 250,000 tons of explosives were unaccounted for by October 2004.[278] Disputes within the US Defense Department led to delays in the post-invasion assessment and protection of Iraqi nuclear facilities. Tuwaitha, the Iraqi site most scrutinized by UN inspectors since 1991, was left unguarded and was looted.[279][280]
Zainab Bahrani, professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, reported that a helicopter landing pad was constructed in the heart of the ancient city of Babylon, and "removed layers of archeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops."[281] Bahrani also reported that in the summer of 2004, "the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters."[281] Electrical power is scarce in post-war Iraq, Bahrani reported, and some fragile artifacts, including the Ottoman Archive, would not survive the loss of refrigeration.[281]
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was the most widely and closely reported war in military history.[282] Television network coverage was largely pro-war and viewers were six times more likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war.[283] The New York Times ran a number of articles describing Saddam Hussein's attempts to build weapons of mass destruction. The 8 September 2002 article titled "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts" would be discredited, leading The New York Times to issue a public statement admitting it was not as rigorous as it should have been.[284]
At the start of the war in March 2003, as many as 775 reporters and photographers were traveling as embedded journalists.[285] These reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on.[286] When asked why the military decided to embed journalists with the troops, Lt. Col. Rick Long of the U.S. Marine Corps replied, "Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment."[287]
In 2003, a study released by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting stated the network news disproportionately focused on pro-war sources and left out many anti-war sources. According to the study, 64% of total sources supported the Iraq War while total anti-war sources made up 10% of the media (only 3% of US sources were anti-war). The study looked only at 6 American news networks after 20 March for three weeks. The study stated that "viewers were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1."[288]
A September 2003 poll revealed that seventy percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks of 9/11.[289] 80% of Fox News viewers were found to hold at least one such belief about the invasion, compared to 23% of PBS viewers.[290] Ted Turner, founder of CNN, charged that Rupert Murdoch was using Fox News to advocate an invasion.[291] Critics have argued that this statistic is indicative of misleading coverage by the U.S. media since viewers in other countries were less likely to have these beliefs.[292] A post-2008 election poll by FactCheck.org found that 48% of Americans believe Saddam played a role in the 9/11 attacks, the group concluded that "voters, once deceived, tend to stay that way despite all evidence."[293]
Independent media also played a prominent role in covering the invasion. The Indymedia network, among many other independent networks including many journalists from the invading countries, provided reports on the Iraq war. In the United States Democracy Now, hosted by Amy Goodman has been critical of the reasons for the 2003 invasion and the alleged crimes committed by the U.S. authorities in Iraq.
The Israeli Military Censor have released gag orders to Fresh and Rotter news platforms preventing them releasing any information about events and action related to the invasion.[294]
On the other side, among media not opposing to the invasion, The Economist stated in an article on the matter that "the normal diplomatic tools—sanctions, persuasion, pressure, UN resolutions—have all been tried, during 12 deadly but failed years" then giving a mild conditional support to the war stating that "if Mr Hussein refuses to disarm, it would be right to go to war".[295]
Australian war artist George Gittoes collected independent interviews with soldiers while producing his documentary Soundtrack To War. The war in Iraq provided the first time in history that military on the front lines were able to provide direct, uncensored reportage themselves, thanks to blogging software and the reach of the internet. Dozens of such reporting sites, known as soldier blogs or milblogs, were started during the war. These blogs were more often than not largely pro-war and stated various reasons why the soldiers and Marines felt they were doing the right thing.[296]
International coverage of the war differed from coverage in the U.S. in a number of ways. The Arab-language news channel Al Jazeera and the German satellite channel Deutsche Welle featured almost twice as much information on the political background of the war.[297] Al Jazeera also showed scenes of civilian casualties rarely seen in the U.S. media.
Opponents of the military intervention in Iraq have attacked the decision to invade Iraq along a number of lines, including the human cost of war,[298] calling into question the evidence used to justify the war, arguing for continued diplomacy, challenging the war's legality, suggesting that the U.S. had other more pressing security priorities, (i.e., Afghanistan and North Korea) and predicting that the war would destabilize the Middle East region. In 2010, an independent commission of inquiry set up by the government of the Netherlands, maintained that UN resolution 1441 "cannot reasonably be interpreted (as the Dutch government did) as authorising individual member states to use military force to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council's resolutions." Accordingly, the Dutch commission concluded that the invasion violated international law.[120]
The central U.S. justification for launching the war was that Saddam Hussein's alleged development of nuclear and biological weapons and purported ties to al-Qaeda made his regime a "grave and growing"[299] threat to the United States and the world community.[300] During the lead-up to the war and the aftermath of the invasion, critics cast doubt on the evidence supporting this rationale. Concerning Iraq's weapons programs, prominent critics included Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector who argued in 2002 that inspections had eliminated the nuclear and chemical weapons programs, and that evidence of their reconstitution would "have been eminently detectable by intelligence services ..." Although it is popularly believed[citation needed] that Saddam Hussein had forced the IAEA weapons inspectors to leave Iraq, they were withdrawn at the request of the US before Operation Desert Fox, the 1998 American bombing campaign. After the build-up of U.S. troops in neighboring states, Saddam welcomed them back and promised complete cooperation with their demands. Experienced IAEA inspection teams were already back in Iraq and had made some interim reports on its search for various forms of WMD.[301][302][303][304][305] American diplomat Joseph C. Wilson investigated the contention that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons in Niger and reported that the contention had no substance.[306][307]
Similarly, alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda were called into question during the lead-up to the war, and were discredited by a 21 October 2004 report from U.S. Senator Carl Levin, which was later corroborated by an April 2006 report from the Defense Department's inspector general.[308] These reports further alleged that Bush Administration officials, particularly former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, manipulated evidence to support links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.[309]
During his 2003–2004 interrogation, Saddam asserted that the majority of Iraq's WMD stockpiles had been destroyed in the 1990s by UN inspectors, and the remainder were destroyed unilaterally by Iraq; the illusion of maintaining a WMD program and WMDs was maintained as a deterrent against possible Iranian invasion.[310] An FBI agent who interrogated Saddam during this time also believes that while Iraq may not have possessed WMDs after the 1990s, Saddam likely intended to restart the WMD program if given the opportunity to do so.[310]
One of the main questions in the lead-up to the war was whether the United Nations Security Council would authorize military intervention in Iraq. It became increasingly clear that U.N. authorization would require significant further weapons inspections. Many criticized their effort as unwise, immoral, and illegal. Robin Cook, then the leader of the United Kingdom House of Commons and a former foreign secretary, resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet in protest over the UK's decision to invade without the authorization of a U.N. resolution. Cook said at the time that: "In principle I believe it is wrong to embark on military action without broad international support. In practice I believe it is against Britain's interests to create a precedent for unilateral military action."[311]In addition, senior government legal advisor Elizabeth Wilmshurst resigned, stating her legal opinion that an invasion would be illegal.[citation needed]
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in an interview with the BBC in September 2004, "[F]rom our point of view and from the Charter point of view [the war] was illegal."[312] This drew immediate criticism from the United States and was immediately played down.[313] His annual report to the General Assembly for 2003 included no more than the statement: "Following the end of major hostilities which resulted in the occupation of Iraq..."[314] A similar report from the Security Council was similarly terse in its reference to the event: "Following the cessation of hostilities in Iraq in April 2003 ..."[315] The United Nations Security Council has passed nearly 60 resolutions on Iraq and Kuwait since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The most relevant to this issue is Resolution 678, passed on 29 November 1990. It authorizes "member states co-operating with the Government of Kuwait... to use all necessary means" to (1) implement Security Council Resolution 660 and other resolutions calling for the end of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait and withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwaiti territory and (2) "restore international peace and security in the area."
Criticisms about the evidence used to justify the war notwithstanding, many opponents of military intervention objected, saying that a diplomatic solution would be preferable, and that war should be reserved as a truly last resort. This position was exemplified by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who responded to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's 5 February 2003 presentation to the U.N Security Council by saying that: "Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections."[316] In response to Donald Rumsfeld's reference to European countries that did not support the invasion of Iraq as 'Old Europe',[317] Dominique de Villepin ended his speech with words that would later come to embody the French-German political, economic, and military alliance throughout the beginning of the 21st century: "This message comes to you today from an old country, France, from a continent like mine, Europe, that has known wars, occupation and barbarity. (...) Faithful to its values, it wishes resolutely to act with all the members of the international community. It believes in our ability to build together a better world."[318] The direct opposition between diplomatic solution and military intervention involving France and the United States which was personified by Chirac versus Bush and later Powell versus de Villepin, became a milestone in the Franco-American relations. Anti-French propaganda exploiting the classic Francophobic clichés immediately ensued in the United States and the United Kingdom. A call for a boycott on French wine was launched in the United States and the New York Post covered on the 1944 "Sacrifice" of the GIs that France had forgotten. It was followed a week later, on 20 February, by the British newspaper The Sun publishing a special issue entitled "Chirac is a worm" and including ad hominem attacks such as "Jacques Chirac has become the shame of Europe".[319] Actually both newspapers expressed the opinion of their owner, U.S. billionaire Rupert Murdoch, a military intervention supporter and a George W. Bush partisan as argued by Roy Greenslade in The Guardian published on 17 February.[319][320]
Both supporters and opponents of the Iraq War widely viewed it within the context of a post–11 September world, where the U.S. has sought to make terrorism the defining international security paradigm. Bush often described the Iraq War as a "central front in the war on terror".[321] Some critics of the war, particularly within the U.S. military community, argued pointedly against the conflation of Iraq and the war on terror, and criticized Bush for losing focus on the more important objective of fighting al-Qaeda. As Marine Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, the Pentagon's former top operations officer, wrote in a 2006 Time article, "I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda."[322]
Critics within this vein have further argued that containment would have been an effective strategy for the Saddam government, and that the top U.S. priorities in the Middle East should be encouraging a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, working for the moderation of Iran, and solidifying gains made in Afghanistan and Central Asia. In an October 2002 speech, Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command for U.S. forces in the Middle East and State Department's envoy to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, called Iraq "maybe six or seven," in terms of U.S. Middle East priorities, adding that "the affordability line may be drawn around five."[323] However, while commander of CENTCOM, Zinni held a very different opinion concerning the threat posed by Iraq. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2000, Zinni said: "Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf region. This is primarily due to its large conventional military force, pursuit of WMD, oppressive treatment of Iraqi citizens, refusal to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR), persistent threats to enforcement of the No Fly Zones (NFZ), and continued efforts to violate UN Security Council sanctions through oil smuggling."[324] However, it is important to note that Zinni specifically referred to "the Persian Gulf region" in his Senate testimony, which is a significantly smaller region of the world than the "Middle East", which he referred to in 2007.
Besides arguing that Iraq was not the top strategic priority in the war on terrorism or in the Middle East, critics of the war also suggested that it could potentially destabilize the surrounding region. Prominent among such critics was Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Advisor to George H. W. Bush. In a 15 August 2002 The Wall Street Journal editorial entitled "Don't attack Saddam", Scowcroft wrote that, "Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region ... there would be an explosion of outrage against us ... the results could well destabilize Arab regimes", and, "could even swell the ranks of the terrorists."[325] In an October 2015 CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized for his 'mistakes' over Iraq War and admitted there were 'elements of truth' to the view that the invasion helped promote the rise of ISIS.[326] In the opinion of Hayder al-Khoei, Iraq was already "destined for chaos" before 2003.[327]
In a March 2003 Gallup poll, the day after the invasion, 76 percent of Americans supported the military action against Iraq.[328] In a March 2003 YouGov poll, 54 percent of Britons had approved of military action against Iraq.[329]
By July 2007, opposition to the Iraq war had increased to 62 percent among Americans in a USA Today\Gallup poll.[330] On the tenth anniversary of the invasion, in March 2013, a Gallup poll found that 53 percent of Americans surveyed believed the Iraq War was a mistake.[331]
On the 20th anniversary of the invasion, in March 2023, an Axios/Ipsos poll found that 61 percent of Americans surveyed stated that the U.S did not make the right decision by invading Iraq.[332]
This campaign featured a variety of new terminology, much of it initially coined by the U.S. government or military. The military official name for the invasion was Operation Iraqi Freedom. Also notable was the usage "death squads" to refer to Fedayeen paramilitary forces. Members of the Saddam Hussein government were called by disparaging nicknames – e.g., "Chemical Ali" (Ali Hassan al-Majid), "Baghdad Bob" or "Comical Ali" (Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf), and "Mrs. Anthrax" or "Chemical Sally" (Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash).
Terminology introduced or popularized during the war include:
Many slogans and terms coined came to be used by Bush's political opponents, or those opposed to the war. For example, in April 2003 John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in the presidential election, said at a campaign rally: "What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States."[335]
George W. Bush's press secretary Ari Fleischer talked about "Operation Iraqi liberation" in a 2003 press briefing,[336] and "Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL)" was also used by David Rovics, a popular folk protest singer.
Intrigues:
Lists:
General:
n the first six weeks, coalition air forces flew more than 41,000 sorties and the USAF accounted for more than 24,000 of the total.
The alliance between members of AQI and ex-Ba'athist was also strengthened by many of them finding themselves thrown together in United States detention centers in Iraq such as Camp Bucca.
We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else," he told me. "It would have been impossibly dangerous. Here, we were not only safe, but we were only a few hundred metres away from the entire al-Qaida leadership
The Awqaf Library (Library of the Ministry of Religious En- dowments), which contained 8,500 Islamic manuscript codices (an ancient type of book) in Ara-bic, as well as hundreds of manu-scripts in Persian and Ottoman Turkish. It also contained ancient illuminated Korans. Its oldest work was a scriptural commen-tary by the ninth-century scholar Ibn Qutayba, copied in 1079. The National Library of Iraq and National Centre for Archives, known as the House of Wisdom, comparable to the US Library of Congress. It held 417,000 books, 2,618 periodicals from the late Ottoman era and modern times, and a collection of 4,412 rare books and manuscripts.
