Iraq invasion anniversary: War, insurgency, IS two decades post US Operation Iraqi Freedom

"Saddam Hussein captured, arrested without shot being fired," ran headlines across newspapers as the dishevelled ousted President of Iraq was captured from an underground tunnel in the town of Ad- Dwara near his hometown Tikrit in America's most intense manhunt in history. Hussein was on the run for nine months to avoid being nabbed by the troops of the foreign military. On December 14, 2003, as the Fourth Infantry Division's First Brigade and US Special Forces captured him from his secret place of hiding underground, the United States concluded Operation Iraqi Freedom—an illegal invasion of the Mideast country that was ordered on March 19, 2003, by former President George W Bush with an aim to overthrow the regime of the Sunni dictator.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," Paul Bremer, the then civilian head of Iraq's US-led administration, told a news conference. "The tyrant [Iraqi President] is a prisoner."

In a televised address the following afternoon, US president George Bush, said that Saddam will face "the justice he denied to millions," adding that his arrest "marks the end of the road for him and all who he bullied and killed." United States Commander-in-Chief, in an actual justification for the Iraq war, said that a search was on by the US-led coalition forces for weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. The American-led offensive was marred with the deadliest battles on record, including the bloodiest engagements in Fallujah's outskirts during Operation al-Fajr and Operation Phantom Fury which lasted close to six weeks. An estimated 600 Iraqi civilians were killed; of those, 300 were women and children. 

US Marine watches a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in Firdaus Square in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003. Credit: AP

Shift in Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing system

Twenty years after the US-led coalition ousted Iraq’s President who gripped political power from the ruling Baath Party, Sunnis and the ethnic Kurdish minority witnessed a stumbling block in post-war fractious Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing system where the Shiite minority now dominate. The latter is backed and supported by the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran’s ruling Shiite clerics are archenemies with the United States since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

While Shiites comprised the majority during Saddam's regime, they remained in the minority with respect to power. Sheikh ‘Abd al-Majid al-Khoi, the prominent senior Shiite clergy, figure in Baghdad was murdered in the holy city of Najaf revered by Shiites globally. He had voiced support for the "American liberation of Iraq" and demanded establishing a new political system and reforms. he rejected theocratic rule like that of Saddam Hussein comparing it to Ayatollah Khomeini's in Iran. In post-war Iraq, after the fall of Saddam, the Shiites emerged as the winners in 2023. 

Iraqi security forces fire tear gas on the followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr inside the government Palace, Baghdad, Iraq. Credit: AP/Hadi Mizban

Iraq invasion's eroding support; WMD claims questioned

Despite nearly eight years of Iraqi occupation and the official withdrawal of its troops in 2011, no weapons of mass destruction [WMD] as claimed by the former Bush administration were recovered. As Iraq's invasion lost the majority of public and military support, many in 2023 dismiss Bush's WMD claims as an improvised sham. Controversy still lingers two decades later about the existence of the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq which military analysts believe Saddam Hussein dismantled post-1962 to 1991 Gulf war with Iran. 

Iraq Survey Group, formed by George W Bush consisting of hundreds of military and intelligence officials who were tasked with the job of locating WMD stockpiles in Iraq-chemical, biological and nuclear weapons- demanded evidence "to establish a better understanding of Iraqi WMD programs." In an official report published years later, ISG claimed it recovered a total of 53 munitions all of which appear from 1991 Gulf war stocks based on physical condition and residual components. The experts from the US, UK, and Australia in ISG also failed to document any existent biological or nuclear weapons in Iraq. "I thought they would have a heart attack right there at the table," Luis Rueda, head of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group told British Broadcasting Corp.  "If they weren't gentlemen, they would have reached across the table and slapped me," he continued, recalling the shock of the Britons about Iraq's invasion that got MI6, UK's foreign intelligence service deeply embroiled.

Insurgency, IS & instability: Stemming from former Baathists

Saddam's political party has remained a powerful factor in giving rise to the Islamic State [IS], a terrorist faction that has expanded across swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria as well as Central Asia. Many former Baathists, including the military and intelligence officers under ex-Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, are overseeing the ISIS network according to agencies' investigative findings owing to the sheer rivalry with America.

Iraqi security forces attack Islamic State in Tikrit. Credit: AP

Over the years, as the Islamic State [IS] out-muscled the Sunni-dominated Baath Party, many of the Saddam-era officers trickled into key positions in IS as new recruits. A 2015 agency investigation found that Baathists were instrumental in IS spy networks and combat operations on the battlefield. They also handle crucial tasks related to security, military and finance for the terrorist organization. Iraq’s then Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who was an opponent of Saddam’s regime, reportedly said once that the ex-Baathists provide assistance to IS on the explosives, strategy and planning. “They know who is who, family by family, name by name,” he was quoted as saying. 

A look at US invasion of Iraq in 2003 on 20th anniversary:

US justified 2003 war to establish 'democracy' in Iraq.

Iraqi civilians and US soldiers pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003

Death row prisoners in the Abu Ghraib jail 35 kilometers (21 miles) northwest of Baghdad shout from their cells. 

A bomb explodes behind the al-Nuri mosque complex.

A car bomb explodes next to Iraqi special forces armored vehicles.

Iraqi army soldiers bring in a blindfolded and handcuffed suspected al-Qaida member. 

GRAPHIC CONTENT: A woman takes her dead son into her arms, as she grieves for her six-year-old son, Dhiya Thamer in Iraq.

US soldiers check an armored vehicle moments after it was damaged by a car bomb in Abu Ghraib.

A portrait of Saddam Hussein still hangs as gov't building burns. 

[All Images Credit: Associated Press]