A decade after US-led forces took control of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, sealing the ouster of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, Iraq remains plagued by deadly attacks and never-ending political crises.
Remembered the world over for the iconic images of Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam in central Baghdad’s Firdos Square — helped in no small part by a US military unit — the fall of the capital is a far more emotive day in Iraq than the anniversary of the invasion itself two weeks earlier.
At the time the statue fell, Saddam’s vaunted army had largely melted away, and was seen as defeated and demoralized.
However, the sense of elation felt by many Iraqis that day, at seeing a dictator who had ruled Iraq for more than two decades fall, was matched by a feeling of bitterness among others.
“At that point, I realized that the Iraqi government had been overthrown, and we had fallen into the hands of American occupiers,” said Dhafer Betti, public relations director for the Palestine Hotel, which overlooks Firdos Square and was a haven for foreign journalists covering the war.
Though the war itself was relatively brief — six weeks after foreign troops invaded, then-US president George W. Bush infamously declared the mission accomplished — its aftermath was bloody and fractious.
Caught between Shiite militia groups and Sunni insurgents, US and coalition forces paid a heavy price — about 4,800 foreign troops died in Iraq, more than 90 percent of them American.
However, Iraqis suffered even more. Britain-based nongovernmental organization Iraq Body Count recently estimated that at least 112,000 Iraqi civilians died in the decade after the invasion, while thousands of soldiers and policemen were also killed.
However, sharp divisions in how April 9 is seen within Iraq — between those who remember it as the day the country was liberated, and others who see it as the day it was occupied — have spurred the government to eschew any formal commemorations.
The anniversary does come at a significant juncture in Iraq, barely 10 days ahead of provincial elections, the country’s first polls since US troops withdrew at the end of 2011.
The credibility of the vote has been drawn into question as a result of still-high bloodshed — a dozen candidates have been killed — and a Cabinet decision for a partial postponement that means only 12 of the country’s 18 provinces are to go to the polls.
Along with attacks on election hopefuls, violence remains a menace nationwide, with 271 people killed last month, the highest figure since August last year, according to an Agency France Presse tally.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of