Iraq War Reflections Revisit Runup To Invasion 10 Years Ago

The Best Iraq War Reflections, Rounded Up

Ten years after the United States invaded Iraq, The Huffington Post has launched a series looking back at the war. David Wood reported on the human costs of the war, while Joshua Hersh and Chris Spurlock examined its dollar costs. Howard Fineman admitted he did not ask tough questions of the Bush administration in the runup to the war.

We're far from alone in highlighting this milestone and using it as a moment to reflect on the tragic misadventure. Below are some of the best articles from around the web.

"What it was like to oppose the Iraq War in 2003" by John Judis, The New Republic:

In the six months before the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the six weeks after the invasion (culminating in George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech), I often compared my situation in Washington to that of Jeannette Rankin, the Montana congresswoman and pacifist who voted against entry into both World War I and II.

"Iraq 10 Years Later: The Deadly Consequences of Spin" by David Corn, Mother Jones:

The Iraq War boosters have moved on to other enterprises and contentions, yet, 10 years later, they have had their assertions measured against reality, and they have been proven wrong and misguided. None of that, though, will bring back the Americans and Iraqis who lost their lives. For when it counted most, the spin worked.

"Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter" by Hans Blix, CNN.com:

Another important lesson is that today armed international interventions are likely to be condemned by much of the world unless they are clearly in self-defense or have been authorized by the Security Council.
Iraq was neither. Unless we remember this going forward, I fear there is nothing stopping this kind of tragedy from being repeated.

"The Speechwriter: David Frum on the Rhetoric of Iraq," by David Frum, The Daily Beast:

If the war achieved some positive gains, its unnecessary costs—in human life, in money, to the prestige and credibility of the U.S. government—are daunting and dismaying.

"David Frum, the Iraq War and oil" by Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian:

At exactly the time that virtually all of official Washington was mocking and scorning anyone who suggested that oil was a significant factor in Washington's designs on Iraq, Cheney and Chalabi were spending "long hours" together, "contemplating the possibilities of a Western-oriented Iraq" as "an additional source of oil, an alternative to U.S. dependency on an unstable-looking Saudi Arabia.

We thought the trauma of war would be over when Hussein was deposed in 2003, but it extends past the execution of a thug. Ten years ago, I called the Iraq war the right war, but now, I cannot say that I know that such a thing exists.

"Marches of Folly," by Paul Krugman, The New York Times:

Ten years ago, America invaded Iraq; somehow, our political class decided that we should respond to a terrorist attack by making war on a regime that, however vile, had nothing to do with that attack.

"I Tried to Make the Intelligence Behind the Iraq War Less Bogus," by Nada Bakos, Wired:

Ten years ago this week, the U.S. invaded Iraq, citing intelligence that turned out to be bogus. I had to work on some of it — and I also had to work on keeping the really, really terrible versions of it out of our analysis.

"As We Near the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War," by James Fallows, The Atlantic:

This month marks ten years since the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq. In my view this was the biggest strategic error by the United States since at least the end of World War II and perhaps over a much longer period.

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Troops Leave Iraq

Troops Leave Iraq, 2011

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