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WASHINGTON -- Two decades after the Iraq invasion in March 2003, Congress is seriously considering repealing the 2002 and 1991 authorizations of force against Iraq, with a Senate vote expected this week. Bipartisan supporters say the repeal is years overdue, with Saddam Hussein's 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. Charles Schumer, now Senate majority leader. With the vote coming a year after the Sept. 11 attacks devastated his hometown, he says he believed then that the president deserved the benefit of the doubt.

"Of course, with the luxury of hindsight, it's 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, we're one step closer to putting the war powers back where they belong -- in the hands of Congress."

In 2002, the George W. Bush administration worked aggressively, in briefing after briefing, to drum up support for invading Iraq by promoting what turned out to be false intelligence claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

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 Bush's request.

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

Other senior Democrats urged opposition. The late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., 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."

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, now the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, recalled on the Senate floor earlier this month his vote against the resolution after the threat of weapons of mass destruction "was beaten into our heads day after day."

"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., who also voted against the resolution, said that at the time, "I remember thinking this is the most serious thing I can ever do."

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."

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."

Markey says that "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.

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Congress weighs repealing Iraq votes - Arkansas Online

I recently rose from a slumber to discover that many of the learned had risen up to declare the U.S. war in Iraq not only a failure but also a misbegotten undertaking that no person of minimal intellect would have undertaken. There are two dangers in this view. The first is that there is a class of warriors who went into harms way and now carry the bitterness of the dead. The second is the bitterness of those who didnt go into battle yet held fragments of knowledge, enough to mislead.

Obviously, all have a right to discourse, but judging anything as complex as wars mere decades after they were fought risks misunderstanding and rubbishing those who were there. The wars veterans can distort the facts too, but they are owed the benefit of the doubt that they were not fools and that their memory carries with it a measure of truth. I have children who fought in Iraq. They have the right to be bitter if they choose. Those who judge a war whose real truth will not be known for centuries and even then it will be debated are peering into the dark.

If these lines sound bitter, they are not meant to be. I wrote a book as the war was intensifying, fully aware that my children would carry the burden of casual thought. I want to begin by quoting from that book, something always in bad taste but important to understand the necessity of the war:

On the morning of September 11, 2001, special operations units of the international jihadist group Al Qaeda struck the United States. In a classic opening attack, they struck simultaneously at the political, military, and financial centers of the United States. The attack on the political centers failed entirely when the aircraft assigned to that mission crashed prematurely in Pennsylvania. The attack on the military center was only partially successful. The aircraft assigned to that target crashed into a section of the Pentagon that had been modernized with fire-resistant materials, which effectively contained the explosion. The planes assigned to attack the U.S. financial center succeeded completely, not only destroying the World Trade Center towers but closing down the financial markets for several days and disrupting the U.S. economy.

The nineteen men who carried out the mission were capable operatives. Their achievement was not taking control of four airliners simultaneously, although that was not a trivial accomplishment. Rather, it was planning, training, and deploying for the operation without ever being detected by American intelligence or, more precisely, acting in such a way that in spite of inevitable detection, the data never congealed into actionable intelligence. While their military capabilities were enormously inferior to those of the United States they had to steal an air force their skills at covert operations were superb.

A major asset of al-Qaida was that it possessed a highly dispersed force that enabled it to group and regroup. It had demonstrated the ability to operate globally while maintaining political relations in a fixed position. Al-Qaida had political operations in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and as far east as Southeast Asia. It operated throughout these areas, growing its regional influence and maintaining a capability to operate widely. The attack on the United States demonstrated the ability to operate in many environments. Most important, al-Qaida could disperse while maintaining offensive power.

Al-Qaida therefore posed multiple threats in multiple regions. It could strike covertly as in the United States while maintaining regional bonds in Afghanistan and exploring the Pacific. Its force was so highly dispersed that its ability to strike would outrun even U.S. intelligence, which was focused on operational threats. Al-Qaida was focused on maintaining a wide range of options without providing relations and resources that could be neutralized. It was precisely this capability that enabled al-Qaida to operate covertly in the United States and kill 3,000 people without putting the groups core at risk.

This was a force that could not be rapidly defeated. Nor could it be negotiated with or even located for negotiations. There was no political option or opportunity to divide the force. And the possibility to penetrate it was an illusion.

At the same time, the United States could not accept the status quo. Al-Qaida had demonstrated its capabilities, and there was no reason it would not strike again. Lacking political solutions, Washingtons only option was a military strike a broad and diffuse campaign designed to fragment al-Qaida. That meant U.S. operations on a nearly global basis, from Saudi Arabia to Myanmar.

This could not be a conventional war for three reasons. First, the enemy had no center of gravity. Second, the attacking force had to disperse. Third, the normal logic of intelligence did not apply. Following 9/11 with meticulously targeted attacks against al-Qaida was not an option, as the intelligence did not exist. Al-Qaida was hidden even within the United States, had no center, and was seen as relentless in its hostility and ability to strike.

Invading Afghanistan and Iraq was the only practical option if the goal was to cripple a very capable enemy. The U.S. launched broad attacks in multiple countries. This could provoke hostility, but there was no better option. It was an unconventional counteroffensive, and this is what its critics dislike, but they offer no clear alternative. After 9/11, the threat was simply too great. The strategy was worldwide disruption. It was not pretty, but it worked. There were no other large-scale attacks on the U.S. homeland.

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The Necessity of the Iraq War - Geopolitical Futures

Then-Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi (center) oversees TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyann (left) signing one of four deals with Iraq's Oil and Electricity ministries on Sept. 5, 2021. (Source: Prime Minister's Media Office)

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyann broke his silence about fraught negotiations with Iraq over a $27 billion set of energy deals, framing the issue as a test of the state's ability to respect contracts through changing governments and shifting political winds.

Speaking on March 21 during a presentation on the French energy majors sustainability and climate strategy, Pouyann said he had held several rounds of discussions with the Baghdad government and was now waiting for a political decision from the Iraqi government before he would proceed.

I will tell you the truth we have a debate about the contract we signed," Pouyann said. "Iraq is not the easiest place to invest. We know the risk. For me, as I said to the authorities, the continuity of the voice of the state of Iraq is fundamental. We signed the contract in September 2021 with one government. We knew there were elections after. It was a test: will this contract go through the change of government?

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TotalEnergies takes hard line with Iraq on GGIP - Iraq Oil Report

Rome -The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) released a study investigating obstacles to displaced farmers in Iraq returning to their work after conflict forced them to leave their homes.

"Are Iraqi Displaced Farmers Returning to Agriculture?" relies on data collected in 2020 from 774 households who were farming before 2014 but were subsequently displaced due to the conflict. It found that only around one in four agricultural households had returned to their areas of origin by 2020, six years after the country declared the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which wrought billions of damage in Iraq's breadbasket regions.

Even fewer had been able to resume their farming activities, due to safety concerns and lost assets but also to a number of obstacles linked to local agrifood markets and access to credit.

Based on recent government estimates, the scale and pace of return has improved notably in the past few years.

The study aims to adequately inform decision-makers on critical areas of policy and investment support, also identifying durable solutions for the displaced farming families, says Ahmad Sadiddin of FAO's Agrifood Economics Division lead author of the study.

The results, which may be salient in other post-conflict situations around the world, suggest that restoring security and reconstructing agricultural assets and infrastructure are pressing requirements for farmers to resume their agricultural activities. If local conditions are not improved in the areas from which people have fled, returns may not be sustainable.

Key findings

The joint FAO-IOM study focused on seven governorates - Anbar, Babel, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninevah and Salaheddin -- which cover almost two-thirds of the country's total cropped areas and a higher share of its wheat production. It used longitudinal data from a set of surveys of more than 3800 households conducted since 2016 and a focused survey of 774 households who were farming before 2014 but were subsequently displaced.

Massive destruction of farm assets and lack of access to markets productive services and finance are major factors hindering household returns and the resumption of agricultural livelihoods, along security concerns. Farming households lost on average 83 percent of their farm assets. Yet the report found that, with affordable and available credit and capacity development, they would resume farming, and far more would do so if they had the resources to cover basic needs.

Other factors affecting the prospects for resuming farming activities include age and the market impact of the surge of imported foods that Iraq has relied on in the wake of the conflict. For example, younger farmers who did return to their lands are less likely to intensify their cropping efforts than older ones, due to less experience or lower interest in the activity. Bolstered extension services could help raise interest by younger farmers, as could restoration of rural services and non-farm employment opportunities.

A striking finding is that more returnee farmers cited the low prices offered for agricultural products as a greater challenge than lack of access to seeds, feed or equipment, and even to irrigation. Prices of subsidized imported food may be low but they are putting huge pressures on the national budget, and while they provide cheap -- but poorly targeted - food baskets to ensure food security they contribute to depress grain prices for local producers and hindered investment.

Currently, nonfarm informal jobs, business and public employment are covering more than 80 percent of the income of rural returnee households, and the share that depends on agriculture has plummeted. Meanwhile, unemployment in Iraq's urban areas has risen to above that in rural areas, highlighting broader benefits of restoring rural livelihoods.

"Investing in agriculture can create more stable sources of income and offer rural opportunities to remain in their rural areas rather than migrating to the cities," the report said.

Link:
Iraq: Safety, credit and opportunities are all key for displaced farmers ... - ReliefWeb

This week marked the 20th anniversary of the launch of the war in Iraq. But the U.S. governments involvement in the country tracks back decades prior. Jeremy Scahill retraces the U.S. governments long history of meddling, destabilizing, and bombing Iraq and how major players have faced no accountability for their crimes.

Jeremy Scahill: Im Jeremy Scahill, coming to you from The Intercept. And this is a special bonus episode of Intercepted: Legacy of Blood, the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Jim Miklaszewski:There are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between Baghdad and some of these terrorist organizations.

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld:There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we dont know we dont know.

JS:This week marks the 20th anniversary of the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, and its important that we examine what happened, how it happened: the lies, the crimes, the mass killings, the destruction all of it. And George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, and the neocons all should hold a special place in the hall of shame for mass killers for what they did to Iraq.

But they did it with the support of many in Congress, including some of the most prominent and elite Democrats, including the current President of the United States.

But I also believe that we need to understand how we got to where we are today in Iraq because this is a classic case study in U.S. imperial crimes.

And that means stepping back and examining a much broader history. Its a 60-year history that is filled with constant interventions and bombings and sanctions and covert CIA activity and regime change. And in this history, a history you never hear discussed on cable news, the main victims are, as theyve always been, ordinary Iraqis.

Newscaster:The latest Middle East crisis, perhaps the most menacing of all, has flared up in Iraq, a country that produces over 30 million tons of oil a year. In this picture, King Faisal is at Kirkuk with his uncle, Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah.

JS:July 14, 1958: Baghdad, Iraq. Army Brigadier General Abd al-Karim Qasim leads a military revolt against the British-backed Iraqi monarchy.

Newscaster:Without warning, revolution has swept away the young King Faisal of Iraq and his uncle Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah. Iraq becomes number one danger spot. Veteran premier Nuri al-Said is deposed. He has fled, and the Republic rebels have offered 10,000 pounds for his arrest. The tide of Arab nationalism is again in flight.

JS:Facing almost no resistance, the Iraqi rebels seize key military and government installations in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country and they declare an end to the era of the Hashemite royals who ruled Iraq backed by the iron fist of Western colonial powers.

Abd al-Karim Qasim:Our revolution is a real reaction against tyranny and corruption. We want to use our wealth to raise the standard of living of the people.

JS:Abd al-Karim Qasim declares Iraq a republic, and he consolidates power through a revolutionary council. Qasim and his allies created a structure for the Iraqi presidency where power will be shared by representatives of the three largest groups in Iraq: the Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds. Qasim becomes prime minister and the new government begins to implement sweeping economic and political reforms.

This new government seized nearly all of the land in Iraq that was controlled by the British-owned Iraq Petroleum Company and redistributed that land to Iraqi farmers. And Qasim pulled out of the U.S.- and British-run Baghdad Pact, which was aimed at keeping the Soviets away from Middle Eastern oil.

Newscaster:At Lancaster House in London, representatives of five nations meet to discuss a crisis. Mr. Macmillan, who presided, opened the meeting with a tribute to King Faisal.

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan:We meet today under the shadow of the recent, tragic events in Iraq.

JS:While the British and Americans began plotting to isolate and possibly remove Qasim, the new revolutionary government in Baghdad gained rapid, widespread support in the country. Laws on womens rights were passed and amnesty was granted to Kurds who had engaged in uprisings in Iraq in the 1940s. Qasim also ended a ban on the Iraqi Communist Party. He pulled Iraq out of the security and military partnerships with the United States and other Western countries, and he normalized relations with the Soviet Union.

Qasim openly backed Palestinian liberation causes and the Algerian resistance against the French. He also stated clearly that oil-rich Kuwait was part of Iraq and that its independence was a project of Western oil corporations. Qasim nationalized many of Britains oil fields and formed a new Iraqi national oil company.

Newscaster:The story in the capital city of Baghdad is the scene of the latest bloody coup dtat, a demonstration of violent, 20th-century Arab tensions, set against a way of life that has changed little since the Dark Ages.

JS:The United States and Britain wanted Qasim gone, and the CIA, under John F. Kennedy, began working with Iraqi factions that the U.S. believed could help overthrow Qasim namely the Baath Party, and one of its most vicious henchmen, a man who had actually tried to assassinate Qasim in 1959. His name? Saddam Hussein.

That assassination attempt failed. But a few years later, on February 9, 1963, Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown and he was executed after a bizarre show trial on Iraqi radio.

Newscaster:In the storied city of Baghdad, capital of Iraq, has been the scene once more of bloody revolt, that has ceded a new government. For five years, General Abd al-Karim Qasim, right, ruled the country by armed might, after he seized power by assassinating King Faisal and the prime minister. Now, like many before him, he has fallen as he rose: Violently. A pro-communist, Qasim died before a firing squad in the wreckage of the Defense Ministry building.

JS:As Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party consolidated power, they massacred thousands of people, including a substantial number of communists.

Newscaster:Army and militiamen carry on the search for communist infiltrators, over 100,000 of whom entered Baghdad during Qasims regime. When they are found, the communists from other countries are deported. Native reds, known for crimes perpetrated on behalf of Qasim, are sent before firing squads, as the Arabs show they are more concerned about the dangers of communism that is realized by some Western leaders.

JS:The interior minister of the new regime would later say that the Baath Party came to power on a CIA train. Yes, a decade after overthrowing the democratically elected leader, Mossadegh, in Iran, the CIA played a similar role in toppling the Iraqi government, which like Mossadegh was unfriendly to colonial Western oil corporations.

The CIA provided lists of people for Saddam and his men to exterminate. Those lists were compiled at CIA stations across the Middle East. Suspected communists, leftists or supporters of Qasim, were tortured and summarily executed.

Newscaster:The streets of ancient Baghdad become the scene of a short but decisive revolution that topples the pro-communist government of Premier Abd al-Karim Qasim, shown here on the right. A six-man military junta seizes power on a holy day, and within hours, the premier, who reportedly had executed 10,000 people, is himself shot.

JS:The U.S. and other Western powers characterize the overthrow of Qasim as a victory against Soviet incursions into the Middle East, and Washington responded enthusiastically to Qasims downfall. The characterization that it was a massive blow to the Soviet Union became the dominant narrative, and the United States started to resume military aid to the new Baathist regime.

[Baath Party Anthem plays.]

By the time Saddam Hussein officially took over as the president of Iraq in 1979, the country was considered by the U.S. to be one of its most strategically important regimes in the Middle East, particularly after the U.S. backed-shah was overthrown in neighboring Iran.

Newscaster:Khomeini, almost unknown outside of Iran just a few months ago, returned a hero: The man who, from long distance, had led the revolution to topple the shah. Inside the airport terminal, Khomeini was greeted by scores of Muslim religious leaders and political allies. He called on Iranian Prime Minister Bakhtiar to resign and said all foreigners should leave the country.

In an obvious reference to the United States, he said, Foreign advisers have ruined our culture and have taken our oil.

JS:When the Islamic Revolution in Iran happened in 1979, the Iran-Iraq War soon followed, and would kill hundreds of thousands of people some estimates say as many as a million dead. The United States supported both sides in that war, but no doubt wanted Iraq to win.

Saddam was known as a brutal mass murderer, but that was preferable to Washington over an Islamist government. U.S. war planners gave Saddam Hussein targets to bomb throughout Iran, they poured weapons into the effort and the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrorism so that the weapons could flow unimpeded.

President Ronald Reagan:Well, the Ayatollah is in a war, and if hes going to go on with provocative acts against us or anyone else, then hes running a great risk because were going to respond.

JS:After Reagan removed Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the U.S. began increasing its military aid to Iraq, including selling Iraq attack helicopters helicopters that were used in the most famous incident of the Iran-Iraq War involving chemical weapons, and that was when Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of Kurds in Halabja.

Donald Rumsfeld, who was a private citizen at the time, was tapped by the Reagan administration as a special envoy and he traveled to Iraq in 1983 to deliver a gift to Saddam Hussein from Ronald Reagan. It was a pair of golden cowboy spurs.

Jamie McIntyre:Tell me what was going on during this, this period?

Donald Rumsfeld:Where did you get his video, from the Iraqi television ?

JM:This is from Iraqi television.

DR:When did they give it to you? Recently, or back then?

JM:No, we dug this out of the CNN library.

DR:I see. Isnt that interesting. There I am.

JM:So, so what was going on here? What were you thinking at the time?

DR:Well, Iraq was in a battle, a war with Iran and the United States had just had 241 Marines killed, and president Reagan asked me to take a leave of absence from my company

JS:In that meeting, Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein discussed solidifying U.S.-Iraqi relations, and it was during this period when the U.S. was at its most cozy with Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi dictator was at his most brutal. He was a mass murderer, but he was Washingtons mass murderer.

It was only when Saddam Hussein decided to invade oil-rich Kuwait, a country that many Iraqis characterized as an oil field with a flag, that the U.S. posture changed.

Suddenly, overnight, Saddam was being compared to Hitler, and George H.W. Bush launched a massive air attack on Iraq in 1991.

President George H.W. Bush:Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq, in Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak. Ground forces are not engaged. This conflict started August 2, when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor: Kuwait, a member of the Arab League and a member of the United Nations, was crushed. Its people brutalized.

JS:Despite Bushs claim that the U.S. led attack was aimed at the Iraqi military and Saddam Hussein, the Gulf War saw the United States bomb Iraq back centuries. Its civilian infrastructure was obliterated; its water treatment and sewage facilities destroyed. The U.S. also heavily used depleted uranium munitions that would later cause a skyrocket in cancer and birth defects.

But George H.W. Bush decided to keep Saddam Hussein in power. Why? Because he was considered preferable to an Islamic government, particularly one that would have aligned itself with Iran. And so, Saddam remained.

GHWB:As commander-in-chief, I can report to you, our armed forces fought with honor and valor. And as president, I can report to the nation, aggression is defeated. The war is over. [Cheers and applause.]

JS:Under Bill Clinton, the U.S. imposed the most sweeping economic sanctions in modern history. It was tantamount to economic warfare. Not on Saddam or his government or his henchmen, but on the Iraqi people.

When the United Nations estimated that upwards of half a million Iraqis were killed as a result of the sanctions, Bill Clintons Secretary of State Madeleine Albright defended it on 60 Minutes.

Lesley Stahl:We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, thats more children than died in Hiroshima. And, and, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.

JS:In addition to the sanctions that Madeline Albright was defending, Clinton initiated the longest sustained U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam, at some points bombing Iraq an average of once every three days throughout the 1990s.

President William Bill Jefferson Clinton:My fellow Americans, this evening I want to speak with you about an attack by the government of Iraq against the United States and the actions we have just taken to respond. This past April, the Kuwaiti government uncovered what they suspected was a car bombing plot to assassinate former president George Bush while he was visiting Kuwait City. The Kuwaiti authorities arrested 16 suspects, including two Iraqi nationals.

JS:In response to an alleged plot to kill former President George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton ordered an airstrike in Baghdad that killed several Iraqi civilians, including the famed painter Layla Al-Attar.

Kris Kristofferson:(singing The Circle): Who killed this woman, this artist, this mother? Who broke the candle and snuffed out her light?

JS:I can say from having spent extensive time in Iraq in the 1990s, that its hospitals were like death rows for infants. There were no medical supplies. Birth defects that werent found in modern medical journals were appearing. Syringes were being reused and hospital floors were being cleaned with gasoline.

A once secular society with advanced schools and modern positions on womens rights, relative to its neighbors, Iraq started to become much more religious. Saddam Hussein himself also began projecting himself as the defender of the Islamic world.

In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act which was authored by the neoconservatives of the Project For A New American Century.

That legislation made regime change the law of the land.

Bill Clinton:The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power he threatens the well being of his people, the peace of this region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat, once and for all, is with a new Iraqi government.

JS: When Bill Clinton codified regime change as the official policy of the United States, it was widely supported in Congress. Even Bernie Sanderswho opposed the 1991 Gulf Warvoted in favor of the bill, though Sanders did oppose Clintons 1998 four day bombing campaign known as Desert Fox.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Mr. Speaker, Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who should be overthrown, and his ability to make weapons of destruction must be eliminated, I have serious doubts however, whether the action we are taking today will take us one step forward in that direction, and I fear that innocent civilians, that women and children, in that country will be killed.

JS:George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld came into power with a mission to overthrow Saddam Hussein. 9/11 was not even hours old when Rumsfeld started pushing to invade and attack Iraq, a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

Donald Rumsfeld: We know they have weapons of mass destruction, we know they have active programs. There isnt any debate about it. So the idea that if you had an appropriate inspection regime, that they come back and say you were wrong, is so far beyond anyones imagination, its not even something I think about.

JS: This push to war was aided by powerful media organizations that breathlessly reported on Iraqs weapons of mass destruction. Prominent Democrats and Republicans pushed this myth.

Senator Hillary Clinton: In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapon stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, andsanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and willkeep trying to develop nuclear weapons.

JS: Then-F.B.I. director Robert Mueller also pushed those lies in front of Congress. President Joe Biden, who at the time was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, refused to call a single antiwar witness to the hearings that he conducted on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.

Senator Joseph R. Biden: We cannot be complacent about those who espouse hatred for us. We must confront clear dangers with a new sense of urgency and resolve. Saddam Husseins pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, in my view, is one of those clear dangers. Even if the right response to his pursuit is not so crystal clear. One thing is clear: these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.

JS: Neoconservative officials like Paul Wolfowitz promised America that the occupation would pay for itself and go swimmingly.

Paul Wolfowitz:These are Arabs, 23 million of the most educated people in the Arab world, who are going to welcome us as liberators. And when that message gets out to the whole Arab world it is going to be a powerful counter to Osama bin Laden. The notion that were going to earn more enemies by going in and getting rid of what every Arab knows is one of the worst tyrants, and they have many governing them, is just nonsense.

JS:This was an elite bipartisan beating of the war drum that culminated with Secretary of State Colin Powells infamous speech at the United Nations Security Council.

Secretary of State Colin Powell:We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

JS:None of that, of course, was true. In a last ditch effort to avoid war, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave an interview to 60 Minutes and denied that his country possessed any weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam Hussein:And I believethe mobilization thats been done was,in fact, done partly to cover the huge lie that was being waged against Iraq about chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. That is why, when you talk about such missiles,these missiles have been destroyed. There are no missiles that are contrary to the prescription of the United Nations in Iraq. They are no longer there.

JS: But it wasnt just Saddam. Countless experts on Iraq, including former senior UN officials with long history in the country pleaded with the White House to back off its drive to war based on lies.

Wolf Blitzer, CNN:Scott Ritter, a formerUnited NationsWeapons Inspector, today, addressed the Iraqi National Assembly and basically made the point that there are no problems as far as Iraq is concerned. Listen specifically to what he said:

Scott Ritter: The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not, to date, been backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is, today, in possession of weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United States.

JS: But it was not to be. And 20 years ago this week, the U.S. began its invasion and occupation of Iraq with massive air strikes across the country in an operation called Shock and Awe.

[Bombs falling on Baghdad.]

JS: Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed throughout the course of the U.S. occupation; millions were forced to flee their homes and the country. The U.S.-backed death squads and paramilitary militias conducted massacres in cities like Fallujah and encouraged sectarian battles. Mercenaries, including those from Blackwater, poured into the country: war profiteers. And Iraq became a massive killing field.

But the image of Saddams statue being pulled down in Firdos Square helped the myth that victory was as simple as the neocons promised.

And just months into the occupation, George W. Bush declared victory.

President George W. Bush:Thank you very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans. Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. [Cheers and shouts.]

JS:Despite this idiotic and sick display by George W. Bush, where he dressed up as a military pilot and stood in front of that Mission Accomplished banner on the warship, the war in Iraq was just starting. The viceroy that was sent to Iraq to run the Green Zone and the occupation, L. Paul Bremmer, he was a neocon who profited off of risk insurance and he made a series of disastrous and stupid decisions. His de-Baathification edict resulted in 250,000 Iraqi soldiers losing their jobs. It wasnt long before they joined the resistance. And by the end of 2004, here were both Shiite and Sunni uprisings against the United States.

It was at this point that large numbers of U.S. soldiers began to die. And in D.C., Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld were whistling past the graveyard and minimizing the anti-U.S. uprisings.

Vice President Dick Cheney:The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint I think will clearly decline. I think theyre in the, in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

JS:The highest price for this invasion and occupation was of course paid by ordinary Iraqis. And it didnt take long after Saddam Hussein was executed before his trials were even complete for Saddam Husseins popularity to rise. Many Iraqis hated Saddam, despised him but they hated what the U.S. had done to their country even more and that phenomenon continues to this day.

President Barack Obama:We are in full agreement about how to move forward. So, today, I can report that as promised the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, Americas war in Iraq will be over.

JS:Barack Obama, who campaigned as an anti-Iraq War candidate, did pull most U.S. troops out of Iraq. But then he quickly changed course and sent thousands back as fighting intensified along the Iraq-Syria border.

What the U.S. started in Iraq ultimately spilled over into Syria, and out of the ashes of a disastrous U.S. policy, ISIS rose. And some of their most sophisticated military operatives and strategists had been Iraqi soldiers fired by Paul Bremmer in 2003 and 2004.

At least one Iraqi general, a famous one, he was on the deck of cards that the U.S. military created for the kill/capture campaign of high-value targets. He had worked with the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war; he ended up joining ISIS. And when Obama left office, there were more than 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and an expanding U.S. Air War.

President Donald J. Trump:I had numerous conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox and Sean Hannity said, he said, You were totally against war, because he was for the war.

Lester Holt:Why is your judgment better?

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The Bloody U.S. Legacy in Iraq - The Intercept