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They were a surreal sight black motorcycles with mounted rocket tubes parked on the edges of a column of idling Iraqi armored vehicles.

They were about the length of a football field from American troops positioned near date palm trees and vegetation so lush the area looked more like the jungles of Vietnam than the vast Iraqi desert the Americans had traversed over the previous 13 days.

The onset of explosions and gunfire ratcheted up the tension.

Air Force Capt. Shad Magann, commander of two teams providing close air support for a 3rd Infantry Division battalion, decided his truck, a Humvee with plastic doors and see-through jelly windows, would join an armored column as it crossed a bridge over the Euphrates River. The structure was wired with explosives and thick with enemy troops just how many no one knew. His Hummer cut in front of a Bradley armored personnel carrier and was 12 feet behind an M1 Abrams tank.

Making a mad dash across the Al Kaed Bridge 18 miles southwest of Baghdad looked so much like a suicide run that Maganns radio operator, Senior Airman Dan Housley, questioned the order. And then he said a prayer.

Unfazed, Magann explained that he wanted to be among the first to reach the T intersection at the end of the bridge. A counterattack was coming, and they had to repel it.

Did you make peace with your Lord, Captain? asked Housley, who grew up in the Huntsville area.

A long time ago, Magann shot back. He was usually laid back, but the question irritated him.

METRO - KUWAIT A soldier watches as 3-8 Cav troops leave a kabal for a patrol near the Iraq/Kuwait border Friday, November 23, 2001 in Kuwait. Kabals (small fortified encampments) set up throughout the desert region are receiving additional troops and artillery. HEARST NEWSPAPERS/BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS STAFF

An Iraqi soldier covers his face from the bugs as he awaits being taken to a POW camp in the town of Navit Al Ajil South of Baghdad Thursday, April 3, 2003 in Iraq. The soldier had fought U.S. soldiers as they crossed the Euphrates River, then hid in his foxhole overnight before surrendering. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

It took the 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force just three weeks to conquer Iraq. The United States along with the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland launched the Iraq War 20 years ago, on March 19, 2003.

The battle that Magann was muscling into was the turning point in the conflict, and one of its most perilous moments for both sides.

Close air support played a critical role in the 21-day offensive called Cobra II, with Joint Terminal Attack Controllers assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division calling in 925 sorties in defense of troops on the ground. The 70-plus Air Force and Marine JTACs, or Tactical Air Control Parties, helped destroy 656 enemy armored vehicles and other war machines, along with 89 Iraqi facilities.

They also played an outsize role in the divisions crossing of the 900-foot-long bridge April 2, 2003. It marked the first of two battles for Magann and Housley, who were among a handful of JTACs calling in airstrikes at the bridge to protect badly outnumbered American soldiers.

Its a very large force multiplier with a very small group, so with a few people you bring air power to bear, said retired Air Force Col. Bryon Risner, 63, of Richmond Hill, Ga.

Twenty years ago, San Antonio Express-News reporter Sig Christenson and photojournalist Bahram Mark Sobhani were embedded with two close air support teams attached to the 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment during the invasion of Iraq. They covered coalition forces three-week push to Baghdad, where they then chronicled the start of the occupation.

He commanded the Air Forces 15th Air Support Operations Squadron, which provided the JTACs to the division.

Objective Peach, as the bridge was called in the battle plan, was the coalitions key to taking Baghdad.

When the sun rose after an all-night battle that saw thousands of Republican Guard troops descend on the bridge and then retreat, the rout was complete and nothing stood between the 3rd ID and Iraqs capital. Two American soldiers were killed and as many as 60 were wounded. Thousands of Iraqis were killed, wounded or driven back to Baghdad.

The capital would fall six days later, on April 9.

Victory on the battlefield had been as fast and efficient as the subsequent occupation was drawn-out and chaotic.

In the years to come, GIs sent to Iraq for a gritty year of occupation duty would say embrace the suck in describing their predicament. They sometimes talked in wonder of the invasion they had missed as if it were an Arthurian legend.

As troops settled in for what would become an eight-year occupation, President George W. Bushs rationale for war that Iraq had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction vaporized like a desert mirage. None were ever located.

Meanwhile, signs of trouble ahead were as palpable as the odor of diesel exhaust and raw sewage that troops encountered across Baghdad.

During the invasion, the 3rd ID lost 46 soldiers and awarded 263 Purple Hearts. The death toll increased exponentially in the years ahead.

Iraq cost the lives of 4,910 coalition troops, 4,586 of them Americans, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. In all, 8,509 coalition troops died in Iraq and Afghanistan, 7,051 of them Americans. As many as 315,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the violence unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion, according to Brown Universitys Costs of War project.

The war and occupation of Iraq cost the U.S. an estimated $2 trillion.

On a recent Friday afternoon, nearly 20 years after the battle at the bridge, Magann and Housley met at Fort Stewart, Ga., for a reunion marking the start of the Iraq War. They recounted their moments of terror, adrenaline, uncertainty and triumph over the Euphrates.

Though subordinate to Magann, Housley was as given to asking questions as he was to playing songs by country singer George Strait on the way to Baghdad. Magann was a one-time enlisted jet engine mechanic from Jacksonville, Fla., who later graduated from the Air Force Academy and flew A-10s over Afghanistan. He usually didnt mind explaining things.

We had a couple of instances where he asked me why, and I said, Dude, theres going to be times when I say crash into that ditch and I need you to just do it without asking why, Magann recalled. And we were having that big conversation just before the road over Peach, and then just before we go, artillery starts coming in and Im like, Dude, put your helmet on.

Why? he recalled Housley asking.

Put your helmet on, Magann replied.

But why?

And Im like, Oh, my God, this is not good.

Housley said that wasnt how he remembered it. Nevertheless, they laughed about the exchange at the squadron reunion.

Magann, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, is now a Delta Air Lines pilot living with his wife, Kandice, in Tampa, Fla., while Housley flies for American Airlines and remains in Texas. Hes a major in the Texas Air National Guard flying C-130J Hercules cargo planes and lives with his wife, Carin, and two children in Houston.

Magann is 50 and Housley 42. They were 30 and 22, respectively, the morning of March 20, 2003, when the 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment rumbled across a tall, thick sand berm separating Kuwait from Iraq.

Iraqi troops hadnt fought well, but at Objective Peach, the stakes were too high to write them off.

A large Republican Guard force converged on the bridge for two battles, one the afternoon of April 2, and the other in the early morning hours of April 3. The Iraqis held a lopsided numerical advantage against Lt. Col. Ernest Rock Marcones Task Force 3-69.

Not that it mattered.

They had a great plan, I think, but so did Marcone. He had a wonderful setup, said retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Russell Carpenter, a JTAC assigned to Army Col. William Grimsley, a brigade commander who won the Silver Star during the war. The Iraqis just kept coming at the one or two companies that were at this specific position, and so youve got to think of the weight of 10,000-strong (enemy troops).

SSg. Travis Crosby (GA) sits atop his tracked vehicle after a night of fighting at Saddam International Airport Friday, April 4, 2003 in Iraq. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

U.S. forces take three enemy POWs after a battle near Ah Najaf as 3rd Infantry troops moved north through the central farmlands of Iraq Sunday, March 23, 2003. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

Alpha Company 11 Engineer Christopher Raeder, with 1st Brigade, sweeps aside spent shell casings from the side of Hwy. 8 Saturday, April 12, 2003 in western Baghdad. Members of 3rd Infantry Division spent the day clearing a stretch of the highway in preparation for it to be reopened to civilian traffic. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

Marcone saw the four-lane bridge as the linchpin of the battle plan.

Once it was taken, his battalion and other elements of the 1st Brigade and assorted Army units sped to Saddam International Airport. They also took the intersection of Highways 1 and 8. The Army and Marines then linked up in Baghdad and crushed the remnants of Saddam Husseins regime.

The bridge was so important that an Iraqi general said Saddam had to repulse the 3rd ID there or lose the war. But the regime wasnt listening.

Iraqi Gen. Raad Majid Rashid al-Hamdani and other commanders met with Saddams son, Qusay Hussein, and were told that the armys high commander believed the American infantry divisions thrust from the southwest was a strategic deception.

Baghdad, the high commander insisted, would be attacked from the north.

I asked them to stand in front of the map, Hamdani said in an interview with the PBS documentary series Frontline. I briefed them, saying that American action stopped at the area of Karbala, which was the neck of the bottle. They intend to advance to Baghdad, moving towards Usfiyah, the airport, and then the presidential palaces.

That was exactly the American plan.

Hamdani sent Republican Guard troops to intercept them. They would attack the Americans holding the intersection east of the bridge and strike at their flank on the west side of the span.

Marcone had no notion of their strength. There was a dearth of information.

He thought a facility near the bridge, protected by a 12-foot-tall concrete wall, was a rocket motor plant, but it was more than that.

It was the Al Qa Qaa weapons storage facility, a massive bunker complex controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency prior to the invasion.

The Armys plan was to cross the bridge, capable of handling vehicles weighing 70 tons or less, with heavy armored vehicles while engaging a larger enemy force. The M1 tank weighed just under the 70-ton limit.

A Republican Guard reconnaissance battalion defended the bridge that afternoon but would be reinforced later by many more troops. They went up against 1,100 Americans and a handful of JTACs with Task Force 3-69.

Marcone later learned that the Iraqis brought three brigades to the fight essentially a division against his battalion. That represented a 9-to-1 superiority in soldiers. He not only didnt know that at the time but had no idea how many enemy tanks he was up against.

There is zero information getting to me, Marcone said. But he added: We were ready.

Marcone launched the bridge battle at 3 p.m. His battalion had boats in the river with soldiers defusing explosives intended to collapse the span. One charge blew up a 10-foot-by-10-foot section of a single lane of the bridge, but vehicles were able to drive around it. No one knew the severity of the damage.

Housley put the Hummer in gear once the column began to move, his M4 rifle resting atop the open drivers side window. A moment later, a courtyard full of overturned vehicles and foxholes came into view. The column moved slowly as mortar rounds exploded in the distance.

Magann, in the passenger seat, eyed smoke rising from the treeline as the Humvee closed on the bridge. Housley occasionally fired three-round bursts at revetments that provided cover for Republican Guard troops, steering the Humvee with one knee.

I was watching him kind of be the man, Magann said. Hot brass was falling in the Humvee as he was shooting.

U.S. warplanes dropped precision-guided bombs near the far corners of the bridge, far enough to spare it from damage. AH-64 Apache helicopters and fighter aircraft attacked Iraqis forces on the far bank of the river as engineers checked the southern edge of the bridge for demolition charges.

The Iraqis set off some of the charges at 4:15 p.m., just after the first coalition soldiers reached the east bank in rubber boats. But damage to the bridge was limited. By then, the first soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division were on the other side.

On either side of the Humvee lay the detritus of war wrecked and smoldering equipment, abandoned AK-47 rifles and the occasional dead combatant, one with a long black beard clothed in a brightly colored, blood-stained dishdasha.

The bridge shimmied with each artillery and mortar blast.

Magann found Staff Sgt. Travis Crosby, Senior Airman Nick Taylor and San Antonio Express-News photographer Bahram Mark Sobhani about 150 yards to the south, their M-113 surrounded by foliage.

The men were the other half of Maganns close air support team and had just driven past six Iraqi T-72 tanks and six armored personnel carriers that were hidden in camouflage, waiting for the Americans to become strung out so they would make easier targets to hit.

Heeeeyyyyy! Magann yelled.

Housley stopped shooting.

Probably the most vivid memory is the actual drive over the bridge where there was a woman covered with blood, he said. Remember, the Bradley had shot that truck that was across the bridge and she was a passenger in it. When we drove by, you know Im on the left side and she was on the left side of the bridge, and she was covered in blood and she had her hands on her face and shes shaking back and forth, and she was just piercing into my eyes. And she was sobbing, and she was maybe 6 feet from me, and Ill just never forget her face.

PFC Brandon Ellis, 422 Civil Affairs Battalion, heads for cover as the second day of sandstorms turn the sky red in the south central Iraqi desert near the town of Kifil Wednesday, March 26, 2003. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

A dead Iraqi soldier lies next to his Kia minivan as U.S. tanks roll by near a bridge in Southern Iraq Tuesday, March 25, 2003. Iraqi soldiers had tried to ambush U.S. troops, blowing up a bridge as their vehicles crossed, and attacking with AK-47s, but they were swiftly taken down by U.S. forces. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

An infantryman stands inside his Bradley Fighting Vehicle at the scene of the battle in Kifl as a sandstorm moves into Southern Iraq on Tuesday, March 25, 2003. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

A gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle is silhouetted against a large fire as Task Force 3-69 moves to take Saddam International Airport. This was a long night of fighting and by the time we got to a stopping point, we were on the tarmac. We stopped for about an hour of rest and at sunrise made the move across the runway and secured to entire airport.South of Baghdad Thursday, April 3, 2003 in Iraq. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

The Republican Guard, or Saddam fedayeen, a fanatical militia, had deployed black motorcycles with anti-tank missile tubes mounted on them.

Crosby and Taylor saw one of the motorcycles rounding a bend, the driver clinging to the bikes handlebar with one hand as he leaned into the sidecar. The Americans had never seen such a strange contraption before. Transfixed, they didnt fire at the Iraqi.

Well, he does something and this damned missile takes off, and if it had continued straight it probably would have missed anyway, but it shoots up in the air like a surface-to-air missile and we never see it again, said Crosby, 45, of Riddleville, Ga. What the hell was that?! And everybody opens up on the motorcycle and kills him. Five minutes later, here comes another one, does the same thing.

As the first battle at the bridge began, Crosby a gifted athlete who played football in high school directed A-10 fighters to attack Iraqis trying to detonate demolition charges on the bridge. The bombs found their mark, striking six trucks. He then directed A-10s to cover a team of engineers in the river.

Then the situation got dicier.

Crosbys team was ambushed by three Iraqi tanks, numerous other vehicles and soldiers on foot. The ensuing firefight was so close that American and Iraqi vehicles were intermingled, making it difficult to identify friend from foe. Fire fell like hail around the M-113 tank. It had its protective Kevlar removed so radios vital to calling in airstrikes could be installed, making it vulnerable to rockets and small-arms rounds.

Under fire, Crosby drained the ammunition belt of his.50-caliber machine gun, killing more than 20 Iraqi soldiers while simultaneously calling in another A-10 airstrike.

A few moments later, two Republican Guard soldiers got within 10 feet of the M-113.

Infantry in the ditch! someone cried on the radio.

I turned and looked and thats when they started shooting, and I said, Son of a said Crosby, who would serve five tours in Iraq and three others in Afghanistan.

The Iraqis ducked into a bunker and were quickly forgotten, but they came out again when one of them saw Crosby standing in the M-113s turret.

When he says, Dudes in the ditch! I turned and looked, and first thing I see is sparks, like the flash of a gun, and it came by pretty damn close, Crosby said. Im facing left in my turret and the dudes are on the right. Those turrets you turn by muscle theyre all slow and heavy and I got it turned about halfway around and I just spun the gun as far as I could, and we got that damn thing hot. We shot two rounds and it locked up.

The two rounds I shot kind of put them on the defensive a little bit, and then I reach for my M4, he said.

He struggled to pull the rifle because Army Sgt. Bryan Slick, the M-113s driver, was reaching for the weapon at the same time. Seeing the danger, both unwittingly had a tug of war over the rifle, thinking it was stuck.

And thats when I reached down and grabbed my pistol, Crosby said.

Taylor exited the truck, aimed his rifle and fired three bursts at the Iraqis.

Distracted by Taylors entry into the fight, the Iraqis were exposed as Crosby trained the handgun on them.

The moment Crosby fired at the Iraqis, Sobhani captured an image of a single bullet casing floating over the handgun, frozen against a deep blue sky.

Even though they were hit by multiple rounds, the two mortally wounded Iraqis kept coming.

Both of them fell forward after they finally gave out of whatever, adrenaline, said Crosby, who was awarded the Silver Star, the nations third-highest award for battlefield gallantry.

More than 30 Iraqi POWs sit in the back of a U.S Army vehicle after they were captured Friday, April 4, 2003 near Saddam International Airport in Iraq. The POWs were brought to the airport to be processed and held temporarily until until they could be taken to a POW camp. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

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Remembering the battles that sealed the fate of Saddam and Iraq - San Antonio Express-News

WASHINGTON (AP) Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow was sitting in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfelds conference room at the Pentagon, listening to him make the case that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

At some point in the presentation one of many lawmaker briefings by President George W. Bushs administration ahead of the October 2002 votes to authorize force in Iraq military leaders showed an image of trucks in the country that they believed could be carrying weapons materials. But the case sounded thin, and Stabenow, then just a freshman senator, noticed the date on the photo was months old.

There was not enough information to persuade me that they in fact had any connection with what happened on Sept. 11, or that there was justification to attack, Stabenow said in a recent interview, referring to the 2001 attacks that were one part of the Bush administrations underlying argument for the Iraq invasion.

I really thought about the young men and women that we would be sending into battle, she said. I have a son and a daughter would I vote to send them to war based on this evidence? In the end the answer for me was no.

As with many of her colleagues, Stabenows nay vote in the early morning hours of Oct. 11, 2002, didnt come without political risk. The Bush administration and many of the Democrats swing-state constituents strongly believed that the United States should go to war in Iraq, and lawmakers knew that the House and Senate votes on whether to authorize force would be hugely consequential.

Indeed, the bipartisan votes in the House and Senate that month were a grave moment in American history that would reverberate for decades the Bush administrations central allegations of weapons programs eventually proved baseless, the Middle East was permanently altered and nearly 5,000 U.S. troops were killed in the war. Iraqi deaths are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

Only now, 20 years after the Iraq invasion in March 2003, is Congress seriously considering walking it back, with a Senate vote expected this week to repeal the 2002 and 1991 authorizations of force against Iraq. Bipartisan supporters say the repeal is years overdue, with Saddams regime long gone and Iraq now a strategic partner of the United States.

For senators who cast votes two decades ago, it is a full-circle moment that prompts a mixture of sadness, regret and reflection. Many consider it the hardest vote they ever took.

The vote was premised on the biggest lie ever told in American history, said Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, then a House member who voted in favor of the war authorization. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that all of us that voted for it probably are slow to admit that the weapons of mass destruction did not exist. But he defends the vote based on what they knew then. There was reason to be fearful of Saddam and what he could have done if he did have the weapons, Grassley said.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, then a House member who was running for the Senate, says the war will have been worth it if Iraq succeeds in becoming a democracy.

What can you say 20 years later? Graham said this past week, reflecting on his own vote in favor. Intelligence was faulty.

Another yes vote on the Senate floor that night was New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, now Senate majority leader. With the vote coming a year after Sept. 11 devastated his hometown, he says he believed then that the president deserved the benefit of the doubt when a nation is under attack.

Of course, with the luxury of hindsight, its clear that the president bungled the war from start to finish and should not have ever been given that benefit, Schumer said in a statement. Now, with the war firmly behind us, were one step closer to putting the war powers back where they belong in the hands of Congress.

Twenty years later, support has flipped. Then, only 28 senators voted against the authorization. All but one were Democrats. Today, roughly the same number of senators are voting against nullifying the 2002 and 1991 measures, arguing that repeal could project weakness to U.S. enemies and hamper future operations. But all of the opponents are Republicans.

Among those Republicans voting in favor of repeal is Grassley. He said withdrawing the war authorization would prevent those powers from being misinterpreted and abused in the future.

In 2002, the Bush administration worked aggressively to drum up support for invading Iraq by promoting what turned out to be false intelligence claims about Saddams weapons of mass destruction. Lawmakers attended briefing after briefing with military leaders and White House officials, in groups and in one-on-one conversations, as the administration applied political pressure on Democrats, in particular.

In the end, the vote was strongly bipartisan, with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and others backing Bushs request.

Joe Biden also voted in favor as a senator from Delaware, and now supports repealing it as president.

Other senior Democrats urged opposition. In one of many speeches on the Senate floor that invoked the countrys history, the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., urged his colleagues to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, where nearly every day you will find someone at that wall weeping for a loved one, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, whose name is on that wall.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., issued a similar warning during the floor debate, saying he believed that anxiety and fear may be driving sentiment for an Iraq invasion. I caution and beg my colleagues to think twice about that, Durbin said, adding that America has faced periods of fear in its past.

Now the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Durbin recalled on the Senate floor earlier this month his vote against the resolution amid a fearsome national debate over whether the U.S. should invade Iraq. The threat of weapons of mass destruction was beaten into our heads day after day, Durbin said. But many of us were skeptical.

I look back on it, as I am sure others do, as one of the most important votes that I ever cast, Durbin said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., agrees that at the time, I remember thinking this is the most serious thing I can ever do.

She says the environment was charged with an emotional pressure in the public and in the media that the U.S. needed to show Iraq and the world that it was tough. She voted against the resolution after deciding there was not enough evidence to support the Bush administrations argument, and after talking to many of her constituents at home who opposed the idea of an Iraq invasion.

For many lawmakers, the political pressure was intense. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, then a House member and now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he was excoriated at home for his no vote, after the Sept. 11 attacks had killed so many from his state. He made the right decision, he says, but it was fraught with political challenges.

Similarly, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., recalls that the idea of invading Iraq was popular at home, and the states other senator, Republican Gordon Smith, was supporting it, as were Daschle and other influential Democrats. But he was a new member of the intelligence committee, with regular access to closed-door briefings by administration officials. He wasnt convinced by their arguments, and voted no.

It was really a dramatic moment in American history, Wyden says. You wish you could just unravel it and have another chance.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., then a freshman senator who also voted against the resolution, says the war made no sense strategically and took the countrys focus off the troops waging war in Afghanistan. Just absolutely bad strategy, he says, that also contributed to the buildup of other powerful countries like China and Russia.

For those who voted for the invasion, the reflection can be more difficult.

Hillary Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York at the time, was forced to defend her vote as she ran for president twice, and eventually called it a mistake and her greatest regret. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin solemnly told an Iowa PBS station several years ago that his vote in the Senate to authorize force in Iraq was the worst vote I ever cast in my life.

Markey says I regret relying upon Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, along with other administration officials. It was a mistake to rely upon the Bush administration for telling the truth, Markey said in a brief interview last week.

Graham says he spoke to Bush last week on an unrelated matter, but that they also discussed the wars anniversary.

I told him, Mr. President, Iraq has not retreated from democracy,' Graham said. It has been imperfect. But if at the end of the day, Saddam Hussein is eliminated and a democracy takes his place that can work with the United States, that is worth it. It turned out to be in Americas interest.'

Bushs reply was uncertain.

He said he believes that history will judge whether or not Iraq can maintain its path to democracy, Graham said.

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Twenty years on, reflection and regret on 2002 Iraq war vote - Escanaba Daily Press

Baghdad Iraqs parliament voted Monday to restore electoral laws that were scrapped after 2019 anti-government demonstrations, sparking anger from independent lawmakers who see it benefitting larger parties.

The law, which parliament said in a statement was adopted without detailing the votes, revives the electoral law of 2018 and sweeps away one of the gains of the mass protest movement which shook Iraq.

After the protests, a new system favoured the emergence of independent candidates, with some 70 independents winning seats in the 329-member parliament in the last legislative elections in 2021.

Parliament is dominated by the Coordination Framework, an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shiite factions, from whose ranks Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani emerged.

The new law removes 83 electoral districts and creates 18 seats, one for each of Iraqs provinces.

This makes it easier for top party politicians to win seats, analyst Sajad Jiyad said on Twitter.

Conversely, it will make it harder for candidates in smaller parties and independents to compete because they will be running at a provincial rather than a local level, he added.

During the debate, which ran from Sunday into the early hours of Monday, several angry independent lawmakers were expelled from the debating chamber, according to videos they filmed themselves.

The law also replaces a first past the post system with proportional representation.

Overall, the changes will benefit the larger parties and make it possible for their candidates who didnt get enough votes initially to win seats, Jiyad added.

Independent candidates will no longer have any hope of obtaining representation in parliament, said Alaa Al Rikabi, an independent lawmaker. They will be crushed.

But Coordination Framework lawmaker Bahaa Al-Dine Nouri welcomed the change, arguing that it will distribute the seats according to the size of the parties.

Nouri said this will lead to the formation of a government within the time limits set by the constitution to avoid the endless stand-offs that followed the 2021 election.

The new law will apply to the next legislative elections, the date of which has not yet been set.

It will also apply to provincial elections slated for November 6, to be held in 15 of the 18 Iraqi provinces, excluding the three provinces in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, regional elections will take place on November 18 under a separate electoral system.

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Iraq amends its electoral legislation, alarming the opposition - Iraqi News

Oil steadied after its biggest rally of the year as a disagreement between Iraq and its Kurdish region curtailed exports, while fears over a fallout from the banking crisis receded.

West Texas Intermediate futures traded near US$73 a barrel after jumping more than 5 per cent on Monday in the steepest surge since October. Alegal disputebetween Iraq, its semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and Turkey has halted around 400,000 barrels a day of flows from Ceyhan port.

The Iraq dispute has given support to prices, but its ultimately helped push a ball that was already rolling, said Ole Sloth Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank. Sentiment in the market has been improving as the banking crisis fades.

Oil nonetheless remains on track for a fifth monthly decline amid concerns over a potential US recession and resilient Russian energy flows. Most market watchers are still betting that Chinas recovery will accelerate and boost prices later this year as demand rebounds.

Investors will be watching comments from several US Federal Reserve officials, as well as a key measure of US inflation due this week, for clues on the path forward for monetary policy. Interest-rate hikes have added to bearish sentiment.

The OPEC+ coalition is showing no signs of adjusting oil productionwhen it meets next week, staying the course amid turbulence in financial markets, delegates said. The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which has the power to call an emergency meeting, convenes Monday.

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Oil steady after years biggest rally as Iraq spat curbs exports - BNN Bloomberg

It was disgracefully dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom by the invading United States military forces, but for millions of Iraqis around the world, it was anything but.

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the start of what then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan described more appropriately as an illegal war on Iraq by the US and its allies.

What we did learn from the war is the abhorrent hypocrisy of labels in conflicts when viewed through a Western lens. This war has, as an Iraqi, plagued my thoughts daily since March 2003. It has left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, with millions of others displaced and their lives ruined.

Images of Baghdads night sky lit up by flames, as bombs were indiscriminately dropped more regularly than a ticking clock on the City of Peace, are forever etched in our memories. For weeks, nights turned to day, as Iraqis would pray to make it to the morning alive.

The years that followed could hardly be forgotten, either. From an oppressive occupation to sectarian governance, the Iraq war has continued to ruin the lives of millions. My own family is now scattered around the world, from Canada to Australia, as a result of the brutal invasion.

Sadly, over the last 20 years, we have failed to see any accountability for the plethora of lies and false arguments by both former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blairs governments that led to an era-defining conflict.

In contrast, it took current US President Joe Biden mere weeks to decry his Russian counterpart as a war criminal after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Of course, Vladimir Putins war on Ukraine is brutal and illegal. But what about Bidens own warmongering? Let me remind you: Bidenchampioned a war in Iraq yearsbefore Bush even took office.

Within a mere few days of US military action in Iraq,more than 15,000 Iraqis losttheir lives in violent conflict as a result of Washingtons shock and awe tactic to overwhelm the country with its military might. To put this into context, and although one innocent life lost is one too many, the total death toll in Ukraine of non-combatantssince the war began a year ago is an estimated 8,000 civilians.

Yet while Russia has been hit by sanctions by multiple Western nations and their allies, and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, we saw none of this with the US, United Kingdom, Bush and Blair.

Theres little difference even between the language used by Bush and Putin before their respective wars. Ahead of the Iraq invasion, Bush used terms like freedom, liberation and war on terror. Putin similarly claimed he wasliberatingUkraine andcurbing terrorismin the region.

Such are the parallels that in a moment of bizarre irony, Bush while attempting to denounce Putins invasion last year accidentally scoldedhis own actions, criticising in a speech the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.

The reality is that both leaders used false narratives to build public support for wars that have redefined their respective regions. Much like Bushs claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Putin suggested Ukraine has ambitions to usechemical weapons.

It was Bush, however, who did use incendiary weapons in Iraq in the form ofwhite phosphorus in Fallujah, with children to this day sufferingbirth defectsas a consequence of the lasting effects of the chemical.Yet far from facing accountability, Bush has been allowed to redefine his own narrative asan immigrant-loving artist.

If he is not seeing out his days of retirement at his ranch in Texas, he can be founddancing with Ellen DeGeneres on prime-time television. Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, both architects of the Iraq war, passed away without facing justice. Bush must be held to account before it is too late.

Conveniently, Bush withdrew the US from the International Criminal Court inthe year before the Iraq invasion, making it near to impossible to hold US leaders or military officials to account for alleged war crimes. When the ICCs top prosecutor wanted to investigate alleged war crimes by US soldiers in Afghanistan in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on her much like Putins Russia has opened a case against the current ICC prosecutor.

Against this backdrop, the US making allegations of war crimes against Putin seems hypocritical.At least800,000 Iraqis were killedas a consequence of Bushsalleged divinely inspiredinvasion of Iraq.

Those who dared oppose the eight-year US occupation in Iraq were labelled as insurgents. Many were infamously tortured and sexually abused by US troops at the now notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Similar resistance movements in Ukraine, however, arebranded as heroic for standing up to Russian occupation. Ukrainians have been celebrated for making homemade Molotov cocktails as defence weapons, but when similar acts of resistance happened in Iraq or Palestine, the label terrorist was used. This racist double standard has been evident throughout the past year.

The touching acts of global solidarity with Ukraine from Premier League football matches raising Ukrainian flags to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy giving a speech at the Golden Globes this year were never on display for the victims of the brutal Iraq war.

If the absence of support and empathy was not bad enough, the war on Ukraine unsheathed a disregard for the lives of people in the Global South suffering from deadly conflicts often plotted in Western capitals. This isnt a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades, said Charlie DAgata, a senior CBS News correspondent, reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.You know, this is a relatively civilised, relatively European I have to choose those words carefully, too city where you wouldnt expect that or hope that its going to happen.

The reason Iraq has witnessed decades worth of war is directly linked to Bushs 2003 decision to invade a country that had already been ravaged by years of brutal sanctions.The death of innocent Iraqis matters just as much as the deaths of innocent Ukrainians. Just as Ukrainians deserve life and solidarity, so too do Iraqis.

Just as we should want Putin to be tried for his crimes, we should be demanding that Bush be charged for his. We cannot wait another 20 years.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Bush did what Putins doing so why is he getting away? - Al Jazeera English