News / Iraq

Iraq urges full inquiry into 2003 US-led 'occupation'

Wednesday, 18 January 2017 4:49 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 18 January 2017 8:55 PM ]

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (Photos by AP)

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has called for a full investigation into the 2003 US-led invasion of his country that was assessed as unjust by the UK's Iraq War inquiry last year.

Reports on Wednesday quoted Abadi as saying at a press conference on Tuesday that he would like to see a "thorough investigation" of America's decision-making that led to its troops "occupying" Iraq.

The intervention caused instability and persistent “chaos” in the Arab country, he said, expressing hope that Iraq would be compensated for all the wrongs of Washington.

The Iraqi premier further stressed that the war on Iraq opened the doors for "all terrorist groups from all over the world to enter" the country, a development Iraqis "paid dearly" for.

“The US invasion of Iraq removed [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam [Hussein]'s regime, but on the other hand it led to… tragedies," he pointed out.

Earlier this week, US President-elect Donald Trump said the war on Iraq was “possibly the worst decision” ever made in American history.

In early 2003, the US, backed by the UK, invaded Iraq under the pretext that the regime of Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). No such weapons, however, were ever found in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as a result of the invasion, and the subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

A US Army soldier guards a position at Camp Swift, northern Iraq, on September 8, 2016.

The UK's Iraq War inquiry, known as the Chilcot Inquiry, concluded in its 6,000-page report that the policy on the Iraq invasion was based on "flawed" intelligence about the country's supposed WMD.

The case for war was presented with "a certainty which was not justified,” the report said.

The use of force to remove Saddam Hussein was undertaken at a time when the Iraqi dictator posed "no imminent threat" and in a way that undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council, it added.

Many have called for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and ex-US President George W. Bush to be put on trial for war crimes in Iraq.

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