[History offers countless examples of societies refashioned in the
wake of disorder. For the United States, a first step toward a just
new order requires naming the mistakes—the violations of law and
morality, the crimes against humanity.]
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IN BREAKING IRAQ, AMERICA BROKE ITSELF  
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Thanassis Cambanis
March 7, 2023
The Century Fund
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_ History offers countless examples of societies refashioned in the
wake of disorder. For the United States, a first step toward a just
new order requires naming the mistakes—the violations of law and
morality, the crimes against humanity. _

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On the eve of its invasion of Iraq in 2003, America seemed gripped by
a fever. The White House warned a nation still traumatized by 9/11
that Iraq was hatching terrorist plots involving chemicals, biological
weapons, and nuclear suitcase bombs.

U.S. infantry soldiers on the Iraqi border, where I was a news
reporter, ritualistically shaved their heads before battle. Their
commanders told them to expect Saddam to retaliate with chemical
weapons that could stop their hearts in an instant.

It turned out much of that panic was manufactured, so that President
George W. Bush could boast his invasion would protect the
“homeland” and the rest of the world.

U.S. military commanders parroted Bush’s language during the
mismanaged war and occupation that followed. Yet those bloody years
uncovered no weapons of mass destruction and instead unleashed legions
of new terrorists. The U.S. occupation of Iraq normalized torture,
impunity, manipulation of intelligence, and a new level of official
mendacity.

I have dedicated much of the last two decades to chronicling the
damage and suffering in Iraq; now, as we mark twenty years since the
invasion, I want to take stock of another victim of the United
States’ fateful war of choice—America itself.

Today, Iraq and its neighbors continue to suffer from the cascade of
violence and state failure triggered by America’s war. Perhaps less
conspicuous is the harm America caused itself, and not just in terms
of blood and treasure. The Iraq war inflicted deep damage on American
rule of law, democracy, and security. Until America takes inventory of
this caustic toll, it stands little chance of building an order that
can make America itself, along with the entire world, more hospitable.

The Costs

The most obvious damages to the United States from the Iraq war are
easily quantifiable.

Even today, the U.S. government doesn’t publish data on how many
military personnel and contractors were deployed to Iraq,
but Pentagon records suggest more than 1 million served in that
combat zone
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Many of these combat veterans carry deep scars. The Brown University
Costs of War project estimates that 1.8 million U.S. veterans today
have a recognized disability
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result of the post-9/11 wars, about double the disability rate from
wars in earlier eras. Of Americans who served in the military after
9/11, 40 percent have a service-connected disability; 36 percent have
been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder; and 20 percent
suffer traumatic brain injury. The U.S. government belatedly
acknowledged disease caused by burn pits.

At least 300,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the war. Nearly
5,000 U.S. military personnel and more than 3,500 contractors were
killed in Iraq. According to the Brown University project, the Iraq
war cost at least $2 trillion
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estimate
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the total cost at $3 trillion and rising.

A great many lives were cut short, while millions more—in America as
well as Iraq—have been forever shaped by their defining experience
in the war.

Then, there are the less tangible costs. Chief among them: America
inflicted profound harm on its credibility.

Lost Trust

After 9/11, the United States moved to a war footing and, for a time,
enjoyed widespread international support. Then, U.S. leaders decided
to invade Iraq, inventing justifications that exploited international
goodwill and fears at home.2
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this day, Americans are reluctant to confront the harm this headlong
rush to war caused to American interests and institutions.

American leaders reached new heights in dishonesty and impunity in
Iraq—first by falsifying intelligence and making up their case for
war, then by resorting to torture and indiscriminate detention while
conducting the war, and ultimately by learning they could lie at will
with no political consequence. Some politicians at the time didn’t
actively support the Iraq invasion, but most of them avoided active
criticism of the war’s mismanagement, leaving no one in the American
government to scrutinize systemic failures in the intelligence,
security, and foreign policy bureaucracies. These failures ushered in
the chaos in which first al-Qaeda and then ISIS thrived.

Our current season of brazen political dishonesty came into its full
during the Iraq war.

Our current season of brazen political dishonesty came into its full
during the Iraq war. On May 1, 2003, with the initial invasion still
underway, Bush gave a speech about Iraq on an aircraft carrier,
standing before a huge banner that declared “Mission
Accomplished.” And so it was: not the mission to secure Iraq, which
was hurtling toward abject failure, but the mission to establish a new
politics that was immune to facts. Today, a majority of Americans
still believe Bush’s lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
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false claim that Saddam Hussein played a role in 9/11
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Bush’s success at political dishonesty established the template for
Donald Trump’s Big Lie nineteen years later.

Meanwhile, the million or more who served on Iraq’s battlefields
were saddled with impossible tasks under dangerous conditions. Even
those who opposed official misconduct were immersed in a system that
rewarded liars at the highest levels. The United States repeatedly
declared victory in Iraq with distasteful and false metrics like Iraqi
forces trained, terrorists and “anti-Iraqi forces” killed, and the
nominal restoration of Iraqi sovereignty—no matter if sloppy
American occupation policies had eviscerated state institutions and
rendered Iraq almost ungovernable.

Long after American officials stopped thinking about Iraq, their
legacy lingered. In 2019, an Iraqi presidential adviser told me his
government was following the American example of Guantanamo Bay when
it decided how to collectively punish communities where ISIS thrived.

There is no way to spin a benefit to America out of the Iraqi
invasion. It shattered global norms and what remained of the
international liberal order; that order had brought consistency to the
world and benefited America economically and strategically.

U.S. intentions in Ukraine, for example, are viewed with deep and
justified skepticism by countries in the Global South in general, and
the Middle East in particular. How can Washington convince the world
that it’s fighting for freedom against tyranny (which is true in
Ukraine), when it still pretends it was doing the same in Iraq in
2003?

War Mentality Comes Home

Most Americans deployed in Iraq did not take part in combat. And the
overwhelming majority did nothing illegal or dishonorable. Yet all the
Americans who fought in Iraq were party to a rotten mission, even if
they did not personally commit war crimes or torture detainees. And
they saw that peers and leaders who were guilty of offenses against
humanity and American law rarely suffered any consequence.

We see the impact of the Iraq war’s mores and tactics on the most
worrying trends in American public life, some of which predate 2003
but all of which worsened in the war’s wake. We see it in a
political culture in which liars no longer bother to pretend they’re
telling the truth. We see it in the militarized style of policing that
has worsened the epidemic of law enforcement violence against
civilians. We see it in the callous indifference to democracy by a
great many Americans, who subscribe to the argument that the United
States is a “republic, not a democracy,” with rights and freedoms
reserved for a select few.

It’s uncomfortable to discuss, but some of the soldiers deployed in
Iraq also developed a taste for impunity. During the pandemic I
visited a terrorism suspect being held in a federal detention facility
in Manhattan. The ponderous Federal Bureau of Prisons guard who
escorted me to the visiting rooms reminisced about his time as an
infantryman in Iraq in the mid-2000s.

“Over there, we were gods,” he sighed. “We could do whatever we
wanted. I miss it.”

I wasn’t surprised when I later read reports that in the summer of
2020 the Trump administration dispatched armed personnel from the
Bureau of Prisons
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in uniform but without identifying badges, to attack Black Lives
Matter protests in Portland, Oregon
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DC
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Some of the most dangerous ringleaders
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the January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol served in the
U.S. military
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the War on Terror; one in five of the indicted insurrectionists
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veterans. It’s difficult to know how their military experience might
have influenced them. But we do know that they had witnessed, from
within, many of their peers and commanders violate the Uniform Code of
Military Justice without repercussions.

Fixing What’s Broken

Fortunately, the United States can repair some of the great errors
that began with the invasion of Iraq. All is not lost.

Around the world, many leaders still seek American help. The United
States’ appeal and soft power rests on its image of being a City on
a Hill, a country ripe with opportunity and freedoms. Despite its
flaws, the United States still attracts talented migrants. Its moral
brand draws support from aspirational and like-minded individuals and
governments around the world.

Many Iraqis, despite the harm caused to their country, believe in a
productive role for America. Iraq’s foreign minister visited
Washington in February and praised the American role in Iraq. Even the
new prime minister, who is supposedly from the anti-American wing of
Iraqi politics, has pledged to work closely with the United States,
and has even risked some of his own political capital to support a
U.S. crackdown on the smuggling of dollars out of Iraq for
money-laundering, sanctions-busting, and other illegal schemes.

Many Iraqis, despite the harm caused to their country, still believe
in a productive role for America.

A similar faith persists across the world, evident in the coalition
that has, despite its reservations, coalesced under American
leadership to support Ukraine.

History offers countless examples of just societies and global
compacts fashioned in the wake of vast disorder. For the United
States, a first step toward a just new order requires naming the
mistakes—the violations of law and morality, the crimes against
humanity. A second step involves embracing the full implications of
Joe Biden’s correct position that American policy has to be
consistent at home and abroad.

Of late, there have been hopeful steps in the right direction. In
December, both houses of Congress passed a bill
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jurisdiction for some war crimes
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significant move in the right direction. The United States should get
much more serious about addressing the problem of violent extremists
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white supremacists in the ranks of the military and law enforcement
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America can begin to repair the damage from the Iraq invasion with
moral leadership: embracing the rule of law at home and abroad;
promoting democracy even when it carries a cost; and centering justice
and human well-being in policy. That formula illuminates the path
forward in every area, no different for international peace and
security than for rights and prosperity, in the United States or the
global commons, the worldwide homeland that we all share.

Notes

*  According to a 2018 RAND study, 2.77 million U.S. service members
have served on 5.4 million deployments since 9/11. See Jennie W.
Wenger, Caolionn O’Connell, and Linda Cottrell, “Examination of
Recent Deployment Experience Across the Services and Components,”
RAND Corporation, 2018,
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* For a detailed account of the still-puzzling process by which fake
intelligence was assembled to justify the war, see Robert Draper, _To
Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into
Iraq _(Penguin Press, 2020)_._

_Thanassis Cambanis [[link removed]] is
an author, journalist, and director of Century International. His work
focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Arab politics, and social movements in
the Middle East. @TCAMBANIS
[[link removed]] [email protected]
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_The Century Foundation [[link removed]] is a progressive,
independent think tank that conducts research, develops solutions, and
drives policy change to make people’s lives better. We pursue
economic, racial, gender, and disability equity in education, health
care, and work, and promote U.S. foreign policy that fosters
international cooperation, peace, and security._

 

* Iraq War
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* Iraq
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* War on Terrorism
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* George Bush
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