(Baghdad) Iraq marks Monday in the greatest discretion the 20 years of the American invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein, having triggered a succession of bloody conflicts. Today, despite a semblance of normalcy, Iraqis fear for their future.
Neither the federal government in Baghdad nor the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq have scheduled ceremonies for Monday.
And Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, backed by a pro-Iran coalition, these days speaks publicly not of the US invasion, but of the resulting “fall of the dictatorial regime” of Saddam Hussein.
“We remember the suffering of our people during those years dominated by senseless wars,” he said at the conference “Iraq, 20 years…and after?” in Baghdad on Sunday.
On Monday, Baghdad lived to the rhythm of its usual monster traffic jams. Iraqis seemed to be more focused on preparations for the fasting month of Ramadan which begins this week than on the 20th anniversary of their country’s invasion.
“These are painful memories,” said 23-year-old student Fadhel Hassan, sitting in a cafe. “There has been a lot of destruction and too many deaths. Civilians, Iraqi and American soldiers”.
It all started on March 20, 2003. As part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, some 150,000 Americans and 40,000 British were deployed for a lightning intervention in the early morning.
Three weeks are enough to seal the fate of Saddam Hussein’s regime and take control of Baghdad on April 9.
The stated goal of the George W. Bush administration was to get hold of the dictator’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. But none of these weapons have ever been found.
And this invasion marked the beginning of one of the bloodiest periods in the history of Iraq, the scene first of a terrible civil war (2006-2008), then of the occupation of part of its territory by the jihadists of the Islamic State group, responsible for multiple abuses.
From 2003 to 2011, the year of the withdrawal of the American army, more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to the organization Iraq Body Count. The United States mourned nearly 4,500 deaths.
But in practice, the talks to form a government resulting from the October 2021 legislative elections lasted a year and were marred by episodes of unprecedented violence in the middle of Baghdad.
The UN mission in Iraq lamented last year an “environment of fear and intimidation” that curbs freedom of expression.
Among the evils that plague the country, Iraqis also denounce corruption (Iraq is 157th out of 180 countries in the ranking of the NGO Transparency International), the negligence of leaders, their fratricidal struggles for power and the influence of the great Iranian neighbour.
Successive governments since 2003 “have failed to fight corruption in health and public services,” laments Abbas Mohamed, a 30-year-old engineer in Baghdad. “We’re going from bad to worse. No government has given anything to the people.”
In this immensely oil-rich country, a third of the population lives in poverty and public services are absent.
Daily load shedding can last up to 12 hours and only the wealthiest can afford the luxury of generators.
On Sunday, the prime minister again pledged to “fight the pandemic of corruption.”
But for Mohamed al-Askari, a day laborer in Baghdad, Iraq is still a long way off. “We rejoiced when [Saddam Hussein’s] regime fell, because we thought Iraq would improve, but so far we have only suffered,” he breathes.
