American occupation of Iraq
After 11 September 2001, George W. Bush set his sights on the destruction of Saddam Hussein. The President of the United States, already in 2002, repeatedly stated that the official policy of the Washington government is aimed at regime change in Iraq and that the White House intends to use all the means at its disposal to realize this goal. At the same time, the American leader accused Saddam of incessant repression against the Shiites and Kurds. The White House then sounded the accusation that Iraq is hiding from UN inspectors weapon mass destruction. The main sin of Baghdad, according to 43 of the US President, was the support and organization of terrorist groups in Israel and other countries in the Middle East.PREPARING AMERICA FOR WAR
With the advent of George W. Bush, the time seemed to return to 15 years ago, in an era when his father was president of the country. All of the key ministerial posts were old pals of George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and even National Security Advisor Condi Rice. Prior to receiving a high public office, Cheney was President of the leading global company Haliburton Incorporated, which is related to research for the oil industry. Rice was on the board of Chevron Oil. Bush himself had extensive oil experience; Commerce Secretary Don Evans was also an oil industry worker. In short, the Bush administration, which came to the White House in January 2001, is like no other administration in the newest stories United States, was associated with the oil and energy business. Hydrocarbons and geopolitics are once again becoming Washington’s top priorities. And naturally, the interests of the administration of 43 US President were turned to the Persian Gulf with its largest oil reserves in the world. Iraq, which had almost 20% of these stocks, was a tasty morsel for Bush, and Saddam’s regime, which had no new weapons at its disposal, was an easy target for Washington. Refusing to become a winner in the fleeting war, Bush Jr. could not.
November 8 The UN Security Council Resolution No. XXUMX prepared by the United States and the United Kingdom was adopted on November 2002. It demanded that Iraq stop all its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, as well as create all the conditions for the work of UN inspectors from UNMOVIC and IAEA staff, followed by threats against Baghdad. A few days later, on November 1441 of 13, Iraq declared that it accepts without reservation all the provisions of this resolution. Since then, since 2002 in November 18, the activities of UN inspectors from UNMOVIC and IAEA staff in Iraq have continued, but despite this, the United States has increasingly begun to say that the military operation against Iraq is “actual inevitability”.
On October 17, the 2002 Senate of the United States sanctioned the largest increase in military allocations by 20 billion dollars over the past 37,5 years, a total of Pentagon spending was raised to 355,1 billion. Before that, Bush signed a Congress resolution authorizing the use of armed force against Hussein. The order to create a united group of troops was given by the Secretary of Defense through the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces 24 in December 2002. But the transfer of forces and means to the Persian Gulf was already in full swing by that time. By the outbreak of hostilities, the deployment of naval and air force groups was fully completed.
The naval armada was stationed in the Persian and Oman gulfs. In total, it included the 81 warship, including three aircraft carriers of the US Navy and one - the British Navy, 9 surface ships and 8 nuclear submarines; 13 pennants were concentrated in the northern part of the Red Sea; in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea - 7 warships, including two aircraft carriers and four carriers of sea-based cruise missiles (SLCM). A total of 6 aircraft carriers were concentrated in the region, carrying on board 278 attack aircraft and 36 carriers of SLCM with ammunition up to 1100 missiles. At the same time, about 900 missiles were located directly on ships and before 200 - on support vehicles.
The deployed Air Force group included more than 700 combat aircraft, of which about 550 were tactical strike aircraft aviation The US, UK, and Australian air forces deployed at the airbases of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia, Turkey, as well as 43 U.S. Air Force strategic bombers based in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Oman.
The total aviation composition of the forces and assets of the air force and navy of the coalition group was about 875 attack aircraft and more than 1000 sea-based and air-launched cruise missiles.
The land group of the invasion forces totaled up to 112 thousand people (total - 280 thousand people), up to 500 tanks, more than 1200 armored combat vehicles, about 900 guns, MLRS and mortars, over 900 helicopters and up to 200 anti-aircraft missile systems.
They were opposed by the Iraqi army of 389 thousand troops, 40 – 60 thousand paramilitary and police formations and 650 thousand reservists. The Iraqi Army had about 2,5 thousand tanks (most of them were outdated T-55 and T-62), about 1,5 thousand infantry fighting vehicles BMP-1 and BMP-2 and about 2 thousand artillery guns with a caliber over 100 mm. The Iraqi army had about 300 combat aircraft (mainly Mirage F-1EQ, MiG-29, MiG-25, MiG-23 and MiG-21), 100 combat and about 300 transport helicopters.
The US activity in preparation for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was conducted in a progressive manner with an increase in pace. The peak of activity came during the period when the preparation for the military operation was almost completed. 5 February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, spoke at a special meeting of the UN Security Council, presenting numerous evidence that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction from international inspectors. Then, after the invasion, the same Powell admitted that he used in his speech unverified and even unreliable information.
IRAQI WAR OF 2003 OF THE YEAR
19 March 2003 US-led coalition troops entered the demilitarized zone at the border between Kuwait and Iraq. On the same day, George Bush ordered the start of hostilities. Commanded the expeditionary forces, General Tommy Franks.
Two days earlier, 17 March 2003, President George W. Bush put forward an ultimatum in which Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Kusei were asked to voluntarily leave Iraq within 48 hours and if this condition was not met, the US and the coalition would begin military action.By 2002, the regime of Saddam Hussein was in isolation by the efforts of the US Department of State. In the Middle East, almost all countries in the region were in conflict with Baghdad. But despite this, the Arab League opposed the invasion of coalition troops in Iraq.
So, on the night of 19 on 20 in March of 2003, the US-British troops, without UN sanction, unilaterally and contrary to the opinion of most countries of the world, launched a military operation against Iraq. It was planned that the US forces would seize Baghdad within three to five days after the start of the movement of troops from their initial positions along routes ending north and west of the Iraqi capital. Initially, the operation was called “Shock and Awe”, then it was renamed “Iraqi Freedom” for propaganda purposes.
The fighting began in the morning of March 20 with a single strike of sea-based cruise missiles and high-precision aviation munitions at important military targets and a number of government facilities in Baghdad. On the border of Kuwait and Iraq, the invasion of the coalition forces was preceded by the most powerful artillery preparation, then the American marines launched an offensive.
Land forces of the coalition, with the support of aviation, quickly moved forward in two directions converging towards the capital of Iraq. The allies enjoyed full air supremacy and an advantage in the quality of weapons and organization of their forces. The war resembled a fantastic film, where high-tech aliens easily beat the earthlings armed with primitive weapons. By April 5, the Americans were already in Baghdad, and the British were completing the capture of Basra. On April 8 (18 days after the start of the operation), the organized resistance of the Iraqi forces ceased and assumed a focal character.
Baghdad fell 9 April, two days later the invasion forces captured Kirkuk and Mosul, April 14 Americans completed an assault on Tikrit, 1 on May 2003, President George W. Bush, on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, announced the end of hostilities and the beginning of the military occupation of Iraq.
There was an unexpected delay in the actions of the invading forces. First of all, because of Ankara. Turkish troops began the intervention late at least 10 days, but rather quickly coped with the situation and completed their task by taking Kirkuk and Mosul. The losses of the Western troops for this short period of the war amounted to the entire 172 man. Accurate Iraqi casualty data is not available. According to researcher Karl Konetta, 9200 of Iraqi soldiers and 7300 civilians died during the invasion.
A careful evaluation of the possibilities of the opponents suggests an unexpected conclusion - the first period of this war should not have ended so soon and with such meager losses in the ranks of the coalition. Now it is known for certain that along with the technical superiority of the coalition and the mistakes in planning and organizing hostilities on the part of Baghdad, there was also a massive betrayal in the ranks of the Iraqi generals. That is, it was not only American weapons that fought, but also American banknotes, which were used to bribe some of the highest command personnel of the Iraqi Armed Forces. The role played by the subversive work of the US intelligence in Iraq (how much money Washington spent on the work of the knights of the cloak and dagger, as well as on bribing the Baghdad military and state officials, is unknown).
America, using its intelligence assets — agents, ground-based technical complexes, a constellation of satellites, and special aviation — knew everything about the Iraqi army. On the contrary, Baghdad could only be content with the minimum of the intelligence it obtained. Before the invasion of Iraq, detachments of special operations forces of the United States and Great Britain were thrown into the territory of Iraq, which contributed to the victorious result.
DICTATOR ON RUN
The search for Saddam Hussein by the American special operations forces began almost from the first minutes after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The last time the President of Iraq appeared on the air on the day of the fall of Baghdad 9 April 2003, after which, as they say, disappeared in an unknown direction. During the fighting, American military officials gave controversial information about the fate of the Iraqi President: they either reported his death, then they appointed a cash bonus in the amount of 200 thousand dollars for information about him.
24 July 2003, the TV channel Al Arabia received a recording of a message from Saddam Hussein in which he reported that he was alive and continues to struggle. The former dictator also confirmed the death of his sons Udei and Kusey, who were killed by the fighters of the special squad "Delta" 22 July. The informant who reported their location received 30 million from the Americans. By that time, a guerrilla war against the invaders had spread throughout the country, but the monuments to the former president continued to be demolished, and by the end of the year 2002 had been erected. The price for Saddam’s head has risen to $ 2350 million.
Western media discussed the question of who can become the heir of Saddam Hussein. In particular, in the Italian newspaper Korierre Della Serra it was stated that the ousted president has another, “secret” son, they say his name is Ali and he was until recently in Syria. He secretly moved to Iraq a few days before the outbreak of war. While on the run, Saddam Hussein telephoned one of his wives every week, the British newspaper The Sunday Times reported. In an interview with the newspaper, the second of four wounded former Iraqi dictator Samira Shahbandar stated that she and Aliyev’s 21-year-old Ali, living under false names in Lebanon, received weekly phone calls or letters from the former head of Iraq . The woman said that on the eve of the fall of the Baath regime in Iraq, Saddam provided her with cash in the amount of 5 million dollars, jewels and a suitcase with 10 kg of gold, and then sent to the Syrian border, from where she moved with a false passport to Beirut. Currently, Samira Shahbandar has a permanent residence permit in France, which expressed a desire to provide her with such an opportunity.
The search operations for Saddam were given the codename “Red Sunrise”, and at the same time, the US intelligence agencies were arresting associates of the former dictator. Only for the sake of detaining his main enemy, Washington formed a special team number 121, which included representatives of military intelligence, the CIA, the fighters of the elite special forces units "Delta" and "Seals". At the disposal of this team, all available technical means of the US special services were provided, helicopters and airplanes were allocated to them as surveillance and transportation equipment, reconnaissance satellites were used in their interests. There was also painstaking work on the detection of weapons of mass destruction, their means of production and delivery.
Washington hurried his specialists, but the process of apprehending Saddam was delayed for objective reasons. For information about weapons of mass destruction, the US military announced a reward of $ 2,2 thousand to 200 thousand dollars, depending on the value of the data. At first, the Americans managed to find some, some laboratories of uncertain purpose, containers in which toxic substances can be stored, documentation on the use of chemical and biological weapons, but no more.
An Iraqi research team looking for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) allegedly hiding by the Hussein regime ended its work in 2004, noting in the final report that by the beginning of the military operation of the coalition forces Iraq did not have the capabilities to produce WMD.
HE GOT
"Ladies and gentlemen, he got caught" - with these words, the head of the provisional American administration in Iraq, Paul Bremer, began his press conference, convened specifically to inform the world about the arrest of the former Iraqi leader.
His colleague, General Riccardo Sanchez, spoke of the former dictator: "He did not resist, did not refuse to talk, it was just a tired man who had long come to terms with his fate."
He was discovered by fighters of the 4 motorized infantry division in the native village of Al-Auja in 13 km from Tikrit. Striking lack of creativity among Americans in search of Saddam. If they knew the traditions of the East, they would have arrested him much earlier. And so it turns out that the operatives of the special services of the USA are simply profane and were engaged in empty work, and the soldiers who were not trained for the search found the former dictator, and quite by accident. In reality, Saddam had nowhere to go, he did not trust anyone, the only place he could go was his native village, and only relatives or people from his clan or tribe could help him. At the time of his arrest, 13 December, Saddam had a pistol, two AK assault rifles and 750 thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He did not resist the soldiers detaining him; this can be explained by the fact that he was ready to accept the martyr's death and use his own lawsuit as a tribune to become a legend of his people and the Arab world.
According to the Americans, Saddam Hussein was hiding from his pursuers a total of 249 days near Tikrit, which is considered the top of the so-called Sunni triangle, which also includes the cities of Ramadi and Faluja. It was here that after the defeat of their army, the Iraqis, who had decided on partisan struggle, put up the strongest resistance to the interventionists. December 14 Saddam’s 2003 was taken to Baghdad and handed over to the United States-Iraqi Investigation Team. The operational survey during the inspection and identification was conducted exclusively by the Americans, so it was useless to make any statements to Saddam. He, being an elderly man, suffered forgetfulness, and when he fell into the dungeons, his forgetfulness could be enhanced by medication, so the Americans were not afraid of any exposing speeches on his part. To dispel the slightest doubt, the identification of Saddam was confirmed by a DNA test.
TRIAL
Initially, the former president and his 11 associates wanted to be judged more than by the 500 episodes, then the prosecution team decided on the recommendations of their American colleagues to dwell on those cases that can be undoubtedly proved. Thus, after evaluating the materials available to the prosecutor during the trial, the entire 12 episodes were selected.
Even before Saddam’s arrest, 10, December 2003, a special Iraqi tribunal was established by decree of the head of the occupying administration, P. Bremer, for the trial of Hussein, headed by Salem Chelyabi, nephew of A. Chelyabi. Tribunal members were selected by the Americans. 1 On July 2004, the trial of Saddam Hussein and a group of his associates began in the "green zone" area of Baghdad International Airport. Later, for some reason, the official date of his trial was announced 10 October 2005. The courtroom was kept secret, as was the whole process, which was surrounded by a dense veil of mystery. At the first meetings of the Hussein Tribunal, they were injected in shackles on their arms and legs, then the chains were removed.
Saddam Hussein's first wife, Sajid, hired a defense team of over 20 lawyers to honestly represent her husband in court. The trade union of lawyers in Jordan decided to convene a conference of the Committee in defense of Hussein from among the volunteer lawyers. Hussein’s first team of lawyers was disbanded even before the trial began. During the trial, they and the witnesses for the defense were abducted and killed. Western experts of international law came to the conclusion that the United States, represented by the administration of President George W. Bush, was tired of the need to adhere to international law and simply went ahead, pursuing its goals and only creating the appearance of justice.
The trial of Saddam Hussein took place with numerous violations. The defense was not shown the documents that the prosecution cited as evidence, the defendant was constantly expelled from the courtroom for his particularly witty statements about his accusers and judges. The main thing in the process was the case on charges of killing 148 Shiites in Ed Dujail in 1982. In the remaining episodes, the court gradually came to the conclusion that Saddam’s fault could not be proved.
At the beginning of July, 2005, the main lawyer of Saddam Hussein, Ziyad al-Khasawni, said that he was leaving the team of defenders of Hussein, because "some American lawyers want to lead her," who are also members of the defense group and are seeking to "isolate their Arab colleagues." Lawyers for Saddam Hussein of Arab origin intended, according to Al-Khasawni, to build protection on the illegality of the US invasion of Iraq, while American lawyers wanted to change this line. Later, the family of the former dictator significantly reduced the official defense group.
In October, 2005 had to suspend one of the meetings due to the non-appearance of two lawyers, Saddam Hussein, and later it turned out that they had been killed. There was a break in the trial, which resumed only 19 November. By that time, lawyer Khalil ad-Duleimi presented to the court new members of the Saddam defense team, they were three legal “heavyweights” - former US and Qatari Ministers of Justice Ramzi Clarke and Najib en-Nueimi and Jordanian lawyer Isam Gazzawi. After that, a break in the meetings of the tribunal was announced until December 5, which was necessary to keep up with the new members of the defense team.
As acknowledged by the chairman of the tribunal, Rizgar Amin, the court was purely political in nature, with constant pressure from the occupation and Iraqi authorities on him. The process was controlled by the American occupation administration in Iraq.
Doctor Shakir Jawad, who was assigned by the authorities to Saddam Hussein for the duration of the trial, also frankly said some time later that Saddam had been tortured by the US military at the first stage of the trial. But an examination for the detection of their traces on the body of the defendant was entrusted to a US military doctor, and he naturally concluded that there were none.
In mid-January 2006, Judge Rizgar Amin resigned. He explained his departure by not wanting to work under pressure from the authorities, demanding too cruel treatment of the defendants, and first of all Saddam Hussein. The Tribunal was headed by Judge Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman. He did not stand on ceremony with the defendants, nor with their defense, from the very beginning he did not hide his hatred and intolerance towards the former leader of Iraq, rudely broke off those witnesses and lawyers whose statements or questions he did not like.
When the transcripts of Saddam Hussein's interrogations conducted by the FBI agents from January to June 2004 were declassified, the dictator’s admissions to the public that he had never met with international number one terrorist Osama bin Laden, whom he considered a fanatic, and that the Iraqi government became known to the public never collaborated with al-qaida. He also said that after the 1980 – 1988 war, he was afraid of a rematch by Iran, so he deliberately misled the world community, forcing him to believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
The search for laboratories and factories for the development and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction was started by invaders even during the invasion. During the seven years of careful work by the US military, chemical munitions produced before the 1990 of the year were only discovered. No laboratories, factories, samples of new weapons of mass destruction were found. Later, in order to somehow explain his apparent failure, the Pentagon and the US Congress repeatedly stated unofficial unsubstantiated accusations against Yevgeny Primakov for organizing the export of OMP production lines from Iraq.
SECURITY AND PENALTY
5 November 2006 at a meeting that lasted just 45 minutes, Judge Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman, a Kurd by origin, announced in the presence of Iraqi Attorney General Shiite D. Mousavi the court’s decision to sentence Saddam Hussein to death by hanging. After the approval of this sentence by the so-called cassation court, nothing more was required to enforce it. The head of the international advocacy group for the defense of Saddam Hussein, former US Attorney General R. Clark expressed his opinion, saying that this is not a court, but a mockery of justice, and it is clearly political. Saddam Hussein was executed in the early morning of December 30, 2006, at the beginning of the Muslim holiday of sacrifice, in Arabic “Id al-Ahd”, which is very symbolic in itself. The former president appeared in the eyes of the people as a martyr and as a sacred sacrifice. He was hanged at the Iraqi military intelligence headquarters, located in the Shiite quarter of Baghdad Al-Khaderniyah. Saddam was recognized as an occupant of prisoners of war and was only subject to execution, death by hanging was shameful for Muslims, and this was an act of humiliation.
US President George W. Bush welcomed Saddam’s execution as a manifestation of justice and the will of the Iraqi people, noting that this is an important stage on Iraq’s road to democracy. But, apparently realizing the blasphemy of such a statement and its consequences, he later tried to soften his wording and even noted that this execution made an impression of “killing for revenge” and that the hasty actions of the Iraqi authorities damaged their image.
NEGATIVE TRUTH
The game of exporting democracy always had a purely ideological character for the USA and had nothing to do with reality, at that moment it was directed not at the Arabs, but at the inhabitants of the West. For example, America does not make claims to the monarchies of the Persian Gulf because of the lack of freedom and democracy in their countries. In his rhetoric, 42, the US president, relied on the messianic role of the American political elite, on the “black and white scheme” of the struggle between good and evil.
In his memoirs, he rather convincingly shows that at that time both his administration, the US Congress, and the US “intelligence community” were sure that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
But the essence of what was happening was reduced to the belief of most Americans that the United States is capable of creating a global empire (Pax Americana) and solving world problems alone. Under these conditions, in September 2002, a new national security strategy was announced, dubbed the “Bush Doctrine”.
17 March 2003, the president addressed the nation in which he informed that, since the UN Security Council is unable to cope with its duties, the United States will act on its own initiative. Two days later, the Iraq war began, and no one cared that it was being waged without UN sanction and was a direct aggression against a sovereign state. Bush started a new military campaign, anticipating the ease of achieving victory. He needed to justify himself to the Americans for September 11. The weakness of the enemy added to Bush determination. A quick victorious war promised him the popularity needed for a second term election. In many ways, the international policy of the American presidents is directed at the American voter.
The economic reasons for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein include the work of the American oil lobby: the war helped raise oil prices. Finally, and most importantly, Saddam encroached on the holy of holies - the American dollar. Along with Muammar Gaddafi, he supported the idea of transition in calculations on the world oil market from the US dollar to the golden Arabic dinar.
The consequences of exporting democracy were deplorable. Against the background of the American occupation of 15 in October, 2006, in Iraq, 11 of radical Islamist groups were united, in 2013, a new formation of Al-Daulya Al-Islamia (Islamic State, forbidden in Russia) . And finally, it should be added that during the occupation the Americans took out a huge number of artifacts from Iraq.
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