As the Iraq war approaches its fifth anniversary on March 20th, it is important to remember why the war was started. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 the US has looked to find new ways to justify its military interventions in order to increase economic prosperity and further expand its empire.
The "communist threat" has been replaced by a new global "threat" of terrorism. The so-called "war on terror" gave the Bush administration an opportunity to wage an illegal pre-emptive war on the sovereign nation of Iraq.
But even the idea that the US can wage a "war on terror" is ridiculous: the US has arguably been the biggest perpetrator of state terrorism since the end of World War II. It would be like Adolf Hitler declaring a war on anti-Semitism. According to John Pilger, since 1945 the US has launched 72 interventions into other countries. However, it is not called terrorism when the US attacks other countries: it is disguised as "humanitarian intervention" or "liberation".
The claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was used as a pretext for the invasion. In February 2001, Colin Powell claimed that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction". However, the Bush administration changed its tune after September 11, in the lead up to the war.
Why the change of attitude? US defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, and vice president Dick Cheney are members of a right-wing think-tank called the "Project for a New American Century" which has been very influential in US foreign policy. Since Clinton's presidency, the PNAC had wanted to assert US global domination by invading countries such as Iraq. The September 11 attacks gave them the perfect excuse: the "threat" of terrorism could help them garner support for their illegal invasion of Iraq. The significant oil reserves in Iraq, and the massive revenue that could be reaped by establishing contracts for US corporations, were conveniently never mentioned within the rhetoric of "protecting our way of life" and "spreading democracy".
The US has the largest "defence" budget spending in the world, with a total of approximately US$700 billion being spent each year. $343 million is spent each day on the war in Iraq, according to the US House of Representatives defence appropriations subcommittee. Last year, the Sydney Morning Herald claimed the war has cost Australian taxpayers approximately A$2.94 billion — almost double the commonly quoted figure of $1.56 billion.
There have been approximately 4000 US soldier casualties compared to the estimated 1 million Iraqis who have been killed. The so-called "war on terror" has resulted in the devastation of a country which has roughly half of its population under the age of 15.
The US military has used legally prohibited cluster bombs among other "weapons of mass destruction". As a result, Iraqi hospitals are filled with civilians who have major injuries including shrapnel wounds, severe burns and missing limbs. The use of weaponry made with depleted uranium has led leukaemia rates and birth malformations to increase by 600%. This is reminiscent of the damage caused by "agent orange" during the Vietnam War. The chemical agent caused severe health problems for both US soldiers and Vietnamese civilians. The effects of agent orange are still evident today.
Just as the Monsanto corporation benefited from the sale of agent orange in Vietnam, corporations such as Halliburton are making huge profits off taxpayer dollars. Even before the bombs started falling down on Iraq, contracts were handed out to corporations in charge of Iraq's reconstruction: corporations which happen to have close connections with the Bush administration.
The Iraq war is another example of blatant war profiteering which is typical of the US foreign policy in the late the 20th century. Military interventions are employed by the US in order to exploit developing countries by taking their resources. Is this significant loss of human life a price we really want to pay so that powerful countries like the US can continue to increase their economic prosperity and further expand their global empire?