by Tim Kelly
Much ink (or bandwidth) has been expended writing about the tenth anniversary of the U.S. government’s invasion of Iraq. That is justified, for the Iraq war was an act of naked aggression and a crime against humanity.
While apologists for the Bush administration have cited “bad intelligence” or even incompetence as an excuse for what the late Major General William ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
The tenth anniversary of the start of America’s illegal and aggressive war against Iraq should not pass without recalling that the mainstream news media eagerly participated in the Bush administration’s dishonest campaign for public support. It is no exaggeration to say that most news operations were little more than extensions of the White House Office of Communications. Abandoning even ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
Americans have forgotten about the Iraq war, which began 10 years ago this week, and the Afghan war, the longest in American history, but the U.S. government is still throwing its weight around in both countries.
The Iraq war, the pretext for which was nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, officially ended in 2011 with the withdrawal of virtually all of ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
In his official remarks about the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, President Obama told an assembly of troops,
The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your ... [click for more]
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Jacob Hornberger, founder of the Future of Freedom Foundation, believes the US has imposed a dictatorship that just happens to be democratically elected on the Iraqi people.
You've got a regime that is dictatorial in every sense of the word, Hornberger told RT. And there are people there who are never going to accept a regime that came into existence ... [click for more]
by Laurence M. Vance
The recent revelation that the man most responsible for the myth that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, a.k.a “Curveball” — lied should forever put that falsehood to rest.
It was Curveball’s fabrications that formed the basis of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claims about Iraq’s alleged weapons programs in his speech before ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
We should take a small measure of satisfaction in former President George W. Bush’s cancellation of his trip to Switzerland after human-rights groups threatened to bring legal action against him for authorizing torture. Persons detained by the U.S. government after 9/11 were subjected to what the Bush administration euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation,” including waterboarding. In reality those methods constituted ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
As George W. Bush hawks his memoir, Decision Points, he seems especially driven to justify his decision to invade and occupy Iraq. He emphasizes how sickened he was at learning that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, though not too sick to kid about it at the White House correspondents’ dinner. While he refuses to say whether ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
More than 4,400 Americans have died during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nearly 32,000 Americans have been wounded. And despite what President Obama says, it’s not over yet. What did those men and women sacrifice for? Some war critics say it was in vain, but that’s not true. It was for Iran. Iran is the big winner in ... [click for more]
by Sheldon Richman
President Barack Obama was far from candid when he announced the end of combat operations in Iraq last month, but he did nothing to hide the fact that he is a neoconservative when it comes to the American empire.
That was not lost on leading neoconservatives, who tend to prefer Republicans. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, told a ... [click for more]
by Anthony Gregory
Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions by Joy Gordon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 359 pages.
Between the Gulf War and the Iraq War, the United States enforced a comprehensive sanctions policy against the Iraqi people, under the auspices of the United Nations. Whereas the hot conflict of 1990 and the one that has run ... [click for more]
by James Bovard
Part 1 | Part 2
From the first days of the torture scandal, the Bush administration followed a “deny everything and praise American values” strategy to defuse the controversy over Abu Ghraib.
In a May 28, 2004, interview, a French journalist mentioned Abu Ghraib and asked President Bush, “Do you feel responsible in any way for this moral failure in ... [click for more]