On Friday Harper's Magazine published an "overview" of the Iraq war, "emphasizing significant events, themes, and eccentricities."[1] -- For those who have forgotten that in 2002 "[f]ormer vice-president Al Gore said that Iraq was a 'virulent threat' that called for a 'final reckoning,' that in 2003 George W. Bush "landed on an aircraft carrier in an S-3B Viking airplane and, clad in a military flight suit with the words 'Commander in Chief' printed on the back, informed the assembled sailors that the war on Iraq had been won," that in 2004 "photographs exhibited in private to members of Congress showed Private Lynndie England having sex with other soldiers in front of prisoners," that in 2005 "[a] report on American intelligence failures concluded that the Bush Administration’s evidence of biological weapons in Iraq was almost entirely derived from reports made by an Iraqi defector code-named 'Curveball,' who was described by those who knew him as 'crazy' and 'a congenital liar,'" that in 2006 "[t]he war was costing the United States $100,000 a minute," that in 2007 "Iraqi refugees were flooding Syria and Jordan, newly accounting for at least 5 percent of the countries’ total populations," that in 2008 "[a]t a press conference in Baghdad a month later, President George W. Bush dodged two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi television reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi [shouting] 'This is a farewell kiss, you dog,'" that in 2009 "[f]ormer U.S. vice president Dick Cheney said he was worried the withdrawal would 'waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point,'" that in 2010 "WikiLeaks released 391,832 Army field reports from the Iraq War, which revealed rampant burning, lashing, and execution of detainees by Iraqi army and police officers; an increasing reliance on private contractors to augment the dwindling ranks of soldiers; and approximately 15,000 previously unreported civilian casualties," and that in 2011 "[a]t a 45-minute ceremony in a fortified compound at Baghdad International Airport, U.S. military officials declared the end of the Iraq war . . . and local reporters were not invited," the review is worth reading....
1.
THE IRAQ WAR REVIEW
Edited by James Sligh
Harper's Magazine
December 23, 2011
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/12/hbc-90008370
[Text removed at the request of Harpers's Magazine.]
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