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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Fri Jul 11, 2014, 07:37 AM Jul 2014

The Iraqi Disaster and US Responsibility

http://watchingamerica.com/News/241835/the-iraqi-disaster-and-us-responsibility/



Eleven years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, who will return the half a million lives lost, directly or indirectly, from this war? Who will give back the billions of wasted dollars?

The Iraqi Disaster and US Responsibility
Los Tiempos, Bolivia
By Raúl Peñaranda
Translated By Courtney Cadenhead
3 July 2014
Edited by Lau­rence Bouvard

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was ordered in 2003, under the government of George Bush, with the pretext that Saddam Hussein, its then president-dictator, had weapons of mass destruction under his control. Whether he had them or not was unclear, as all the world — except the U.S. government — knew.

~snip~

The real reasons for the invasion, confirmed almost immediately afterward, were to get rid of an inconvenient Arabic leader at the head of an oil country, as Hussein was, and to control a part of those million-dollar resources.

First, the United States utilized air raids to destroy highways, schools, refineries, bridges and factories; then, with the resources that came from Iraqi oil, the U.S. hired North American companies with ties to their military complex in order to … rebuild those highways, schools, refineries, bridges and factories — all under allegations of price inflation. And inefficiency. Many works remain half-done despite the fact that they have been in progress for years.

A little more than a decade after the U.S. invasion, Iraq is in danger of having its unified state dissolved. The Kurds, savagely hounded by Saddam, seek their independence — something they in fact already have to a high degree. The Kurds control Kirkuk in the north of the country, along with its enormous oil reserves.
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