Ten years ago today we invaded Iraq: 4,573 Iraqi citizens were killed in 2012
TEN years ago today, the US led the invasion of Iraq. The war lasted 21 days. The legacy continues:
Tuesday marks the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq War, and while that war officially ended for the United States in December of 2011, life for Iraqi civilians — while better than it was at the bloody height of the insurgency — is still something short of peace. 4,573 Iraqi citizens were killed in 2012, up from 4,147 in 2011.
Insurgents sent a bloody message on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, carrying out a wave of bombings across the country Tuesday that killed at least 65 people in the deadliest day in Iraq this year. The nearly 20 attacks, most of them in and around Baghdad, demonstrated in stark terms how dangerously divided Iraq remains more than a year after American troops withdrew. More than 240 people were reported wounded. It was Iraq’s bloodiest day since Sept. 9, when an onslaught of bombings and shootings killed 92.
Who controls Iraq?
It was the last major non-military project of the war of choice the U.S. launched 10 years ago: an ambitious, expensive post-withdrawal effort to strengthen the Iraqi police. But quietly, the Obama administration has pulled the plug on the much-criticized training program, leaving some 400,000 Iraqi cops without U.S. mentorship.
The State Department confirms to Danger Room that it pulled its final adviser out of the project, called the Police Development Program, on March 1. The move kills the training effort less than two years after the Pentagon handed it over, and after State spent at least $700 million on it.
Photo 1: Lance Coprporal Graeme Church 27 from Middlesborough celebrates the fall of Saddam Hussien as a 17 foot tall statue of Saddam Hussien which was toppeled and beheaded by Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers 25 Armourded Engineer squadron, 2 RTR (Royal Tank Regiment) battle group in Az Zubaya, Iraq. March 20 marks 10 years since British troops helped invade Iraq as part of a multi-national task force. At the peak of the operation, some 46,000 British servicemen and women are deployed.
Photo 2: People gather at the scene of a car bomb attack close to one of the main gates to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, which houses major government offices and the embassies of several countries, including the United States and Britain in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 19, 2013.
Photo 3: A photograph is attached to the back of the tombstone of Army 1st Lt. Thomas J. Brown in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery Tuesday, March 19, 2013, in Arlington, Va. Brown was a casualty of the Iraq war.
Posted: 20th, March 2013 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
