The Iraq Inquiry in the UK

On the 15th June 2009 the Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that there would be an inquiry to “identify lessons that can be learned from the Iraq conflict”. The inquiry was officially launched on 30th July 2009. At the launch, the chairman of the inquiry Sir John Chilcot said that the inquiry “will consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath. We will therefore be considering the UK's involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country."

This inquiry highlights the British public’s displeasure at the decision to go to war in Iraq and seems to be our chance to point the blame and dish out the punishments. In 2009, six out of ten people thought that UK troops shouldn’t have gone to Iraq. “This [inquiry] is our chance to get justice for all those poor soldiers that died in a war that shouldn’t have happened” said one member of the public. In 2003, 46,000 British army personnel were sent to Iraq. Iraqi Mohammed Nayyef, 19, said that many soldiers “were really trying to help and they are friendly but some were terrified in Iraq”. 179 British service personnel were killed between 2003 and 2009.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians also died over the same period. Nayyef, who lives in the capital city Baghdad, says that seeing all of the dead bodies “gives you more of a sense for life and flavours it with a bit of sadness”. The majority of deaths have been caused by a high number of suicide bombers in the cities. The most recent event at writing was five days ago; a car bomb that killed eleven and hurt twenty in the city of Ramadi. Fifteen days before that, at least twenty pilgrims were killed on their way to a religious festival in a suicide attack in the city of Karbala and two days before that a female suicide bomber killed at least 41 people and injured over 100. In the Iraqi population it would be difficult to find someone who hasn’t lost a friend or relative and near on impossible to find someone in the cities that hasn’t seen a dead body.

The justifications for the Iraq war began 11 months before, when then Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons that "Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also." Later that year, Blair made the infamous claim that “Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes." This 45 minute claim became controversial after months of searching for weapons in Iraq were unsuccessful and people began to question whether there were actually any WMD (weapons of mass destruction). Two years later during a different inquiry over the war, Blair said “it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy."

A few months later, Blair changed his position and gave the justification for the war being to end Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq: “The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power." Saddam Hussein was President of Iraq for over 20 years and was known for being “the most hated Arab leader”. According to an exiled Iraqi diplomat, "Saddam is a dictator who is ready to sacrifice his country, just so long as he can remain on his throne in Baghdad." When he came into power, Hussein started as he meant to go on by putting to death dozens of his rivals. In the years of his regime, Baghdad authorities tortured and killed opponents of the regime. When asked if this was true, Saddam responded “Of course. What do you expect if they oppose the regime?” Saddam imposed his authority through a terror which went far beyond the arrest and execution of opponents. He used chemical weapons on the Kurdish people of Iraq and put down a Shi’ia rebellion by flattening entire towns and draining the marshlands of water. After running away when the war began, Saddam Hussein was found in the cellar of a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit on 14th December 2003. On 5th November 2006 he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging, which took place on December 30th 2006. Nayyef says that “greater good was made” as although “[the war] needed lots of sacrifice, that war was needed. People were suffering more from Saddam.”

If it had been shown that there were no WMD in 2004 and Saddam Hussein was executed in 2006, why did the UK only end combat operations in Iraq on April 30th 2009? While there are many conspiracy theories related to ex- US President George Bush wanting to use Iraq’s rich oil resource, in 2006 Blair said that this war was part of a wider global struggle between “democracy and violence” and enhanced the ideas of making Iraq a democratic country. However it has come out in the Iraq inquiry that there was a serious lack of planning for what would happen in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. Thousands of Iraqis died in the months after the invasion as law and order broke down in many parts of the country. Although US officials listened to UK ideas about post-war planning, their input was largely ignored. A Foreign Office official said that “[US officials] had a touching faith that...everybody would be grateful and dancing in the streets and there would be really be no further difficulty. And then the Iraqis would somehow magically take over and restore their state to the democratic state it should be in.” Despite this, Nayyef says many positive things have come out of the war “like freedom and the Iraqis are starting to breathe again. Kids grow up without fears of the future like before” however he admits that there are still many problems with “war destruction, lack of security and terrorism. But Iraq is recovering now”.

It is clear that many mistakes were made with this war and “lessons” certainly do need to be learnt, but is this “shoulda, woulda, coulda” attitude really going to improve things? On a political level, it is important to make sure that no future Prime Minister can ever send the UK to war when so many people are against it. But what about on a social level? What about the people of Iraq? When asked about teenage life in Iraq Nayyef, who is a first year medical student at the medical school of Baghdad, said “being a teenager is a very hard thing in normal situations, so imagine how it is here. Teens can lose faith very easily and grow up in despair. It’s harder here to raise a child because the environment is altered in many ways but we can also say that it’s getting better. Everyday life is getting normal and that’s good!” Surely now our focus should be on the people of Iraq, in particular the youth who deserve, after years of terror and turmoil, an opportunity to grow up in a peaceful society. It’s time to give the Iraqi youths a world where their biggest worry is not whether they will live to see tomorrow, but whether their hair looks OK.

What do you think about the Iraq Inquiry? What do you think about the Iraq War? Are you living in Iraq? Do you know any soldiers in Iraq? Leave a comment and let us know!