As with everything else the United States has done in respect of Iraq since September 11, 2001, nothing about the claim to have withdrawn can be believed. The official line is that the last American combat troops moved from Iraq into Kuwait in the early hours of August 20. They departed not in a display causing shock and awe but in silence and darkness. They had arrived on a monstrous lie, the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and they have left on a whopper. Over 50,000 U.S. troops are to remain in Iraq, and their numbers could rise to 70,000. They will be called ‘Advise and Assist brigades'; they have warplanes and helicopters and will accompany Iraqi troops into combat. The U.S. also has several big, effectively permanent military bases in Iraq; and intends to maintain about 200,000 mercenaries as ‘protectors' of western business and other interests across the country. The troops who have left have done so seven years after President George W. Bush made his ‘Mission accomplished' proclamation.
The effects of the illegal U.S.-led invasion of 2003 and the subsequent occupation have been catastrophic. There is no accurate record of how many Iraqis have died or been wounded in the seven years: estimates range up to a million deaths. About five million Iraqis are refugees, with 2.7 million of them displaced internally. Unemployment is at 40 per cent. With temperatures around 50°C for several months a year, power supplies fail, which means water-treatment plants shut down, increasing the risk of epidemics. The administrative chaos was caused by Washington's assumption in 2003 that much of the population was fanatical in supporting Saddam Hussein; this led the occupying powers to disband the Iraqi army and much of the police and civic administration around the country. The effects of war include the poisoning of Iraq and beyond by an estimated 1,000 tonnes of depleted uranium used in U.S. munitions. As for the lives of ordinary Iraqis, the population of 30 million faces another descent into vicious sectarian violence. This is driven by extremist elements out to exploit the political vacuum as the country's elected politicians squabble interminably over forming a government, five months after the election. Indeed the invasion has been a gift to the al-Qaeda, which now has expanded influence in West Asia. Furthermore, Iran, which Washington openly hates and fears, has strong influence on Iraqi Shia leaders. The U.S. may have removed Saddam, who by 2003 was so weakened that even neighbouring states no longer feared him; but it has wrecked a whole country that represents one of the world's great ancient civilisations.
