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After a long day writing about George W. Bush speech in the fifth anniversary of Iraq’s invasion, and can’t avoid make a balance of these war and the consequences for the country and the world.
Bush said his decision was fair and justified, that removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision and, despite the human and financial cost, the US and Iraq soldiers are winning the war and the country made remarkable progresses in the last year.
We can agree that Saddam was one oh the world’s scariest dictators and that he killed thousands of civilians during decades. But the price paid for his fall was too high and the decision wasn’t taken by Iraqi people.
Human Rights Groups and UN figures are impressive. Tens of thousands of civilians (maybe 600 thousand, according to one study) died since the invasion in result of the bombings and the terrorist attacks. A fifth of Iraqi population was forced to leave their houses (many are now abroad). The new government and political institutions are blocked, and hate grows between different communities. A year ago Iraq was on the verge of a civil war and last year progresses were only possible due to walls and road blocks built all over the country.
Despite the military hunt, terrorist are still operating in the country (in the past there were no networks present there) and suicide bombers kill security forces and civilians almost every day (a recent report counted at least 1400 suicide bomber who blew themselves up in these five years). And the gap between West countries and the Arab world is growing, the mistrust poisons international relations.
I believe better days will come, but I’m afraid they are still too far away…