We take a look at scenes from the Iraq War in pictures. Today marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. carried out its first airstrikes in Iraq. Many still say: “Well at least we got rid of Saddam”, or “It’s all very well analysing what went wrong in retrospect – nobody knew that would happen.”īut back in 2001, after 9/11 amid the first whispers of an Iraq invasion, it seemed the whole world, from Westminster to Washington and Baghdad, was screaming: “Bad idea – this is what will happen.”īut the Bush and Blair administrations ignored them all. Marines prepare themselves after receiving orders to cross the Iraqi border at Camp Shoup, in northern Kuwait. IS still exists in pockets and constantly threatens to resurge. Now, after years of war, there is a semblance of stability in Iraq.īut it has taken years of sectarian violence, terror attacks, bombings and shootings. In 2016 we saw the opening shots of western-backed Kurdish and Iraqi forces attacking IS in Bashiqa, eight miles from the then-IS stronghold of Mosul.įrom a hilltop we saw hundreds of Kurdish soldiers advancing on foot on the town as waves of suicide bombers in “Mad Max” vehicles and on foot threw themselves at them.Ī US special forces team just 100 yards from us gunned IS teams down from our hilltop after a homemade grenade landed just feet from us. At one point it even threatened to enter Baghdad. Born to a peasant family near Tikrit, the teenage Saddam immersed himself in the anti-British, Arab nationalist ideology of the day. He ruled Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow and capture by a US-led coalition, in 2003. By 2014, IS was storming central and northern Iraq, torturing and murdering soldiers and police. Saddam Hussein has the dubious distinction of being the best-known Middle Eastern dictator.
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