invasion of iraq
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In spite of insufficient proof or reasons that went beyond the ideological, the U.K., U.S. and Australian forces proceeded to invade Iraq on March 20th 2003 without a formal declaration of war. (Cordesman, 2003, p. 61) President Bush expected the war to be widely supported internationally as was originally the case when invading Afghanistan, but many NATO allies turned down the offer to join the war and many citizens of participatory nations were critical or opposed to the war, especially considering there was not a clear enemy that was shown to be a terrorist or significant threat to them on the outset. The invasion first commenced with accurate and intense bombing of major cities and military outposts in a strategy often called “shock and awe”. Iraqi forces quickly surrendered or were defeated by Coalition and Kurdish forces in the north mostly because of an immensely
numerous and superior Coalition air force that controlled the skies and bombed
thousands of targets accurately (Cordesman, 2003, p.265)
and an overwhelming technological (and expensive) advantage like in Afghanistan.
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Saddam Hussein was found hiding near his hometown of Tikrit and captured on December 13th 2003. He would later be executed on December 30th at the start of a Sunni religious holiday by the American-supported Iraqi government after a controversial trial and method of execution.
Instead of destroying WMDs, undermining terrorism in the Middle-East, and bringing prosperity, political stability and peace to Iraq, the invasion of the country and overthrow of the secular Ba’athist regime created an insurgency that has ignited sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia communities, increased the influence of Iran on the political field, and led to the establishment of al-Qaeda groups or affiliates in the country, such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in 2006.
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While Coalition forces have not fully withdrawn from Iraq, there still remain many problems to surmount. Currently, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), a Salafist and anti-Shia group that is the direct successor of al-Qaeda in Iraq, controls huge swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria thanks to the chaos of the on-going Syrian Civil War, and is effectively an independent state now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),