SIX YEARS AGO TODAY- March 20, 2003 UNITED STATES ILLEGALLY INVADES IRAQ

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Six years of Washington’s war in Iraq

20 March 2009

Today marks six years since Washington launched its "shock and awe" campaign against Iraq, raining bombs and missiles on Baghdad. Despite the massive opposition of the American people to this war and the change from the Bush to the Obama administration, the US war in Iraq continues, with no end in sight.

This anniversary is both tragic and infamous. It marks the beginning of a war of aggression based upon lies. Launched in the name of "liberating" the Iraqi people, it has inflicted a catastrophe of world historic proportions upon their country and constitutes the greatest crime against humanity of the 21st century.

In six years, the Iraq war has, by the most credible estimates, claimed the lives of over 1 million Iraqis, while leaving countless others wounded and maimed. Nearly 5 million people have been driven from their homes, either forced into exile or displaced in Iraq by US repression and sectarian violence.



http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/pers-m20.shtml

A recent survey conducted among Iraqi women by the aid group Oxfam provides a glimpse of how the US war has driven an entire society brutally backwards.

• More than 55 percent of the women said that they had been victims of violence since 2003, and 30 percent said that family members had suffered violent deaths. Also, 55 percent said they had been forced from their homes at least once since 2003.