This month, 20 years ago, the US and its allies invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Although our original goal was achieved quickly, Operation Iraqi Freedom became the most controversial and divisive American military motion since Vietnam.
As with Vietnam, the shadows of Iraq proceed to forged over our foreign and military policy decisions, not at all times in a way that accurately reflects what we will learn from all the investigations, histories, and private memories of the last twenty years.
It is time to attempt to account truthfully for the successes and failures of the Iraq War, explain our impressions of how and why the war began, and choose what lessons we will draw from what happened in Iraq after Saddam’s overthrow for our future policy. .
Based on the information collected and published over the last 20 years, it will be concluded that many misconceptions about the starting of the war have perpetuated in our collective memory on this subject.
![President George W. Bush](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/Iraq_War_Anniversary_Timeline_45930-10afd.jpg?w=1024)
The evidence at our disposal makes it clear that the war in Iraq was not a partisan Republican initiative and a gratuitous overreaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which could only be sold to the American people by the Bush administration, deliberately deceiving us that Saddam’s weapons mass destruction.
The fact is that bipartisan support for Saddam’s removal escalated throughout the Nineties, culminating in 1998 when Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which stated: “It ought to be the policy of the United States to support efforts to oust the regime headed by Saddam Hussein.”
The act also authorized the president to offer military, humanitarian and broadcasting assistance to the Iraqi opposition.
The law was passed because a bipartisan majority in Congress and the White House felt that Saddam threatened our security and violated our values.
It brutally repressed its residents (especially Shia Muslims), broke most of the guarantees it made to finish the Gulf War, harbored and supported Islamic terrorists, and continued to have aggressive intentions towards neighboring nations.
![Two U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment walk past a concrete block with an Iraqi flag painted on it.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/AFP_33AP624.jpg?w=1024)
The preponderance of evidence also results in the conclusion that he didn’t have an energetic weapons of mass destruction program after we launched the 2003 invasion.
The Bush administration told us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction based on erroneous intelligence, which got here partially from Saddam himself, who deceived almost everyone into pondering that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because he thought it would protect it from invasion.
The evidence also shows that Saddam intended to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as soon as he could get out of the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War.
A very powerful inquiries to be asked today are the lessons the United States should learn from what happened in Iraq after Saddam was removed.
Democrats and Republicans now surrender the war they each authorized twenty years ago in a remarkable bipartisan consensus that contributes to the broader conclusion that America’s involvement in the world generally and the Middle East particularly is futile and wasteful.
It has also likely contributed to the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan and should result in more such mistakes in foreign policy.
The painful truth is that we made terrible mistakes in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam, which took a terrible toll on Americans and Iraqis.
No wonder so many Americans think of our intervention in Iraq with a mix of anger and shame, and due to this fact consider that we must always now curb our idealism and curtail the actions we take to guard our security beyond our borders.
![A man drags a girl to get to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/marine-afghan-withdraw-sprung-704-1.jpg?w=1024)
But these bad memories are incomplete.
If Iraq illustrated Washington’s capability for gross incompetence, it also revealed our great national capability for patriotic service, heroism, perseverance, and self-correction.
In the end, these great qualities not only saved Iraq and the world from Saddam, but in addition defeated two waves of Islamist extremism after the fall of Saddam in Iraq under President Barack Obama and stabilized the country.
Iraq has held six democratic elections since Saddam, and its parliament passed a structure ratified in a free national referendum.
In 2003, Iraq’s gross domestic product was $20.9 billion.
In 2021, it was $208 billion.
Literacy rates rose significantly to almost 90%, and the average life expectancy of Iraqis increased from 67 years before the war to 72 years before the pandemic.
Iraq lives peacefully in its region today and has recently shown a surprising independence from its large and aggressive neighbor, Iran.
Understandably, the progress in Iraq is not going to persuade people that it justifies the enormous cost of war in lives and treasures, but it does persuade us that the courageous and effective service of the Americans who fought, worked and died there should give us gratitude, pride and guidance as the United States they face a world full of challenges to our values and threats to our security in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and beyond.
Joe Lieberman was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut and the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000.