Operation Iraqi Freedom

2003 Iraq War (3/20/2003-) started when the United States and allies including the United Kingdom launched a combat operation against Iraq, with the stated goal of deposing dictator Saddam Hussein and bring Iraq into compliance with United Nations resolutions regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. The war is currently ongoing, and there exists a large debate over topics such as withdrawal of American forces and the role of nations in the region. The administration argues that the war is is crucial to the larger U.S. led War on Terrorism. Some Democrats have criticised the administration for percieved blunders in the war on terror, and have themselves been criticized for doing so.

Iraqi Liberation

Iraqis welcomed the American invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and in the preceding months, showed optimism about their country's future. An 'American Enterprise'-'Wall Street Journal'-'Zogby' poll in September 2003 found that "Seven out of 10 say they expect their country and their personal lives will be better five years from now. On both fronts, 32% say things will become much better." Furthermore, in a March 2004 poll of Iraqis, the BBC found that Iraqis have great hope in a stable, unified government for their country, with 80% of respondents favoring a centralized state ruled from Baghdad. Just a month later a USA Today poll found that only a third of Iraqis thought the US invasion had done more good than harm meaning a solid 66% of Iraqis thought their country was in a better condition under Saddam Hussein than under American military rule

Since 2004, the unceasing violence by the insurgents has caused some people to view the ongoing strife as a 'civil war'.

2007 - Four years into the war, the biggest poll since coalition troops entered Iraq on March 20, 2003 shows that by a majority of two to one, Iraqis prefer the current leadership to Saddam Hussein’s regime, regardless of the security crisis and a lack of public services. It also found a striking resilience and optimism among the inhabitants. The survey, published March 19, 2007, also claims most Iraqis do not believe they are embroiled in a civil war; indeed, only 27% believed they were caught up in a civil war and 64% of the Iraqis still want to see a united Iraq under a central national government. In the same poll however over 60% of Iraqis revealed that their lives had become "significantly worse" with over 70% expecting things to only get worse within the next year.

ABC News (and USA Today) conducted a poll and found that 56 percent of Iraqis don't believe there is a “civil war,” and a British poll determined 61 percent don't believe they're in a civil war. The Times of London's summary of the poll: “Iraqis: life is getting better." A version of the combined articles as posted by The Australian: “It's better than Saddam, say hopeful Iraqis.”

Insurgency

Since the removal of Saddam, the United States has been caught in the middle of sectarian violence between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. The Shia majority, notably the Jaysh Al-Madhi, have began to attack coalition troops even while the coalition has been protecting the Shia from Sunni attacks. Other Shia groups that have not attacked coalition forces have pursued their own factional aims while relying on the coalition to ensure Shia majority rule. To many if not most Sunnis, the occupying forces are viewed as the enemy because they are seen to support Shia majority rule. As the Sunni interpret Muslim law, only Muslims may rule a Muslim state, and the Shia are considered heretics and thus not fit to lead the nation. Though a minority, the Sunni have traditionally ruled Iraq and view themselves entitled to continue the privilege of doing so.

Opinion polls

Iraqi opposition to the coalition presence, both politically and militarily, has gradually increased since 2003. A secret British Ministry of Defence poll conducted in late 2005 found that 82 percent of Iraqis were "strongly opposed" to the presence of Coalition soldiers in Iraq. The same poll found support for Iraqi rebels at 45%, rising to 65% in Maysan province, although a poll by the IRI in March 2006 found 78% of respondents answered that "violence is never acceptable".

Many discount these secret polls because they may be biased in how the questions are asked and there is no neutrality as to whether they taken in areas which have large numbers of insurgent sympathizers in the population or not. The polling numbers are not included nor references as to how this secret poll was conducted . The lack of open disclosure and the fact that it was used to discount the intelligence to the point which was quoted in the same article as the secret poll as, "The secret poll appears to contradict claims made by Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, who only days ago congratulated British soldiers for "supporting the Iraqi people in building a new and better Iraq"".. leads critics to infer that this is not a fair or accurate assessment of Iraqi opinion. Citing safety concerns and saying the following survey was done by "An Iraqi public opinion research firm with a proven record of conducting scientifically valid surveys" was all the clue that was given as to the origin of the secret report.

A poll commissioned by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes in the autumn of 2006 found that Iraqi support for anti-Coalition violence had risen to 61%. Similarly, a U.S. State Department poll conducted in 2006 found that "two-thirds of Iraqis in Baghdad favor an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops". Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled to neighboring Jordan and Syria since the 2003 invasion.

The Surge

Since the new Coalition-Iraqi offensive was launched in February 2007, anti-government forces have been put on the defensive in their former insurgent strong­hold of Anbar, Britain’s top general in Iraq said (March 2007). The insurgency “didn’t do too well in Anbar . . . Their claims have failed to come to fruition,” he said, referring to the declaration by Islamist radicals that they had established a “caliphate”, or successorship, encompassing much of western Iraq. Lt Gen Lamb said that US and Iraqi forces were recruiting hundreds of police for the first time in towns in the Anbar region and that the forces were working together in shared combat outposts. While conceding that car bomb attacks In Baghdad and a surge of violence in neighbouring Diyala had to be addressed, he said that US and Iraqi planners were learning to reduce the threat, establishing an outer cordon around the city as well as barriers, or “point defence” protection around key targets inside. The US military has reported cases in which car bombs have been stopped at checkpoints. In some cases the bombs detonated killing Iraqi security forces, but the casualties would arguably have been much greater had the blasts hit crowded commercial districts. General Lamb, who commanded British ground forces in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 said that multinational forces now had the benefit of four years of experience in fighting the insurgents.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

No physical large stock piles of weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, the search is not over, but further searching is expected to produce little in the way of WMD caches. This said there is still some optimism as only about one-third of 36 million captured pages have been examined by a linguist and a summary gist of the document prepared. Some conveniently believe the physical WMDs that had been produced prior to the invasion were smuggled out of the country, possibly to Syria, before the onset of the war.

Regarding stockpiles of WMD which were destroyed after the First Gulf War, some critics have alleged Saddam was perhaps a decade away from being able to produce more WMD unfettered with his given knowhow and personal in place and a lack of willpower among the Western powers or the International community to confront such flagrant violations of International conventions. They reference the Duelfer Report of the Iraq Survey Group headed by Charles Duelfer. A former Survey Group chairman, David Kay, once said regarding manufacturing facilities and staockpiles, "I don't think they existed... What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties" after the end of the First Gulf War. The report did conclude Saddam was beginning production again using his personal and knowhow when the sanctions against Iraq were lifted. The Bush Administration took preventative action in accordance with the reports conclusions that WMD capabilty then was "not of a militarily significant capability."

Costs

(Needs more statistics) Since the war is not yet over, the total cost has yet to be tallied. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the war has, as of 3/12/2007, cost less than $400 Billion. The numbers are however, highly debated.

External links

• Iraq Weekly Status Report U.S. Department of State.