It was disgracefully dubbed “Operation Iraqi Freedom” by the invading United States forces, but for millions of Iraqis around the world, it was anything but.
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, better described as an “illegal” war against Iraq by the US and its allies.
What we did learn from the war is the abhorrent hypocrisy of labels in conflict seen through a Western lens. This war, as an Iraqi, has plagued my mind daily since March 2003. It has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, displaced millions more and ruined their lives.
Images of Baghdad’s night sky lit up by flames as bombs were dropped haphazardly on the City of Peace more times than a ticking clock are forever etched in our minds. For weeks, nights turned to days as Iraqis prayed to make it to the morning alive.
The years that followed were also hard to forget. From an oppressive occupation to sectarian rule, the war in Iraq continues to ruin the lives of millions. My own family is now scattered all over the world, from Canada to Australia, as a result of the brutal invasion.
Sadly, over the past 20 years we have seen no accountability for the plethora of lies and false arguments from both former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administrations that have led to an era-defining conflict.
In contrast, it took current US President Joe Biden just weeks to brand his Russian counterpart a “war criminal” following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Of course, Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is ruthless and illegal. But what about Biden’s own belligerence? Let me remind you: Biden advocated war in Iraq for years before Bush took office.
Within days of US military action in Iraq, more than 15,000 Iraqis lost their lives in violent conflict due to Washington’s “shock and awe” tactics to overwhelm the country with its military might. To put this in context, and while one innocent life lost is one too many, the total death toll in Ukraine of non-combatants since the start of the war a year ago, there are an estimated 8,000 civilians.
But while Russia has been hit by sanctions from multiple Western countries and their allies, and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, we have not seen this with the US, UK, Bush and Blair.
In fact, there is little difference between the language used by Bush and Putin before their respective wars. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Bush used terms such as “freedom”, “liberation” And “war on terror”. Putin similarly claimed that he was liberating Ukraine and curbing “terrorism” in the region.
Such are the parallels that in a moment of bizarre irony—while trying to denounce Putin’s invasion last year—Bush inadvertently berated his own actions, criticizing in a speech “one man’s decision to make a. to launch a completely unwarranted and ruthless invasion of Iraq”. .
The reality is that both leaders used false narratives to build public support for wars that redefined their respective regions. Like Bush’s claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Putin suggested that Ukraine has ambitions to use chemical weapons.
However, it was Bush who used incendiary weapons in Iraq in the form of white phosphorus in Fallujah, with children suffering from birth defects to this day due to the lasting effects of the chemical. But far from being held accountable, Bush has been allowed to redefine his own narrative as an immigrant-loving artist.
When he’s not living out his retirement days on his Texas ranch, he can be found dancing 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, have died without justice. Bush must be held accountable before it is too late.
Conveniently, Bush withdrew the US from the International Criminal Court in the year before the invasion of Iraq, making it nearly impossible to hold US leaders or military officials accountable for alleged war crimes. When the ICC’s top prosecutor wanted to investigate alleged war crimes committed by US soldiers in Afghanistan in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on her — just as Putin’s Russia has opened a case against the current ICC prosecutor.
Against this background, it seems hypocritical for the US to accuse Putin of war crimes. At least 800,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of Bush’s alleged divinely inspired invasion of Iraq.
Those who dared to oppose the eight-year US occupation of Iraq were labeled insurgents. Many were infamously tortured and sexually assaulted by US troops at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
However, similar resistance movements in Ukraine are branded as heroic for standing up against the Russian occupation. Ukrainians have been celebrated for making homemade Molotov cocktails as weapons of defense, but when similar acts of resistance took place in Iraq or Palestine, the label “terrorist” was used. This racist double standard has been evident over the past year.
The moving acts of global solidarity with Ukraine – from Premier League football matches where the Ukrainian flag was hoisted to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy giving a speech at this year’s Golden Globes – were never seen by the victims of Ukraine’s brutal war. Iraq.
As if the lack of support and empathy wasn’t bad enough, the war against Ukraine showed a disregard for the lives of people in the South suffering deadly conflicts often plotted in Western capitals. “This is not a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, where conflicts have raged for decades,” said Charlie D’Agata, a senior CBS News correspondent, reporting from Kiev, Ukraine. “You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully – city where you wouldn’t expect or hope that it’s going to happen.”
The reason why Iraq has experienced decades of war is directly related to Bush’s decision in 2003 to invade a country that has been plagued by brutal sanctions for years. The death of innocent Iraqis is just as important as the death of innocent Ukrainians. Just as Ukrainians deserve life and solidarity, so do Iraqis.
Just as we should want Putin to be tried for his crimes, we should demand that Bush be charged for his crimes. We can’t wait another 20 years.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.
