2003 invasion of Iraq

This article covers invasion specifics. For general information see: Iraq War, Post Invasion Iraq

2003 Invasion of Iraq
Part of the "War on Terrorism"
Black Hawk Helicopters from the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) move into Iraq during the opening stages of the 2003 Invasion
Date March 20, 2003–May 1, 2003 Location Iraq Result Saddam Hussein and Baath Party toppled; Occupation of Iraq; Emergence of Insurgency, and Sectarian violence, election of a new government.
Belligerents
Coalition Forces (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Poland)	Iraq
Commanders and leaders
Tommy Franks	Saddam Hussein
Strength
263,000	375,000

The 2003 invasion of Iraq, termed "Operation Iraqi Freedom" by the US administration, began on March 20. It was originally coined "Operation Iraqi Liberation". The United States and the United Kingdom supplied 98% of the invading forces. They cooperated with Kurdish forces in the north which numbered upwards of 50,000. Other nations also participated in part of a coalition force to help with the operation by providing equipment, services and security as well as special forces. The 2003 Iraq invasion marked the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the Iraq War. Prior to the invasion, the United States' official position was that Iraq illegally possessed weapons of mass destruction in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and had to be disarmed by force. President George W. Bush stated Saddam's weapons of mass destruction needed to be disarmed, and the Iraqi people were to have control of their own country restored to them. UN inspection teams were searching Iraq for these alleged weapons for nearly four months prior to the invasion and were willing to continue, but were forced out by the onset of war in spite of their requests for more time.

The Bush administration did not attempt to get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing military force, as it was obvious that France and Russia, and later joined by China, signalled that they would use their Security Council veto power against any proposal, let alone any resolution, that would include an ultimatum allowing the use of force against Iraq On March 20, 2003, the invasion of Iraq began. This was seen by many as a violation of international law, breaking the UN Charter (see Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq). The Iraqi military was defeated, and Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. On May 1, 2003, President Bush declared the end of major combat operations, terminating the Baath Party's rule and removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from office. Coalition forces ultimately captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003.

Numerous terrorist groups are active in the area, including one newly-formed called al-Qaeda in Iraq. Legislative elections were held in January 2005.

Political and diplomatic aspects

On October 11, 2002, the United States Congress passed the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002", giving U.S. President George W. Bush the authority, under US law, to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not give up his weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and abide by previous UN resolutions on human rights, POW's, and terrorism. On November 9, 2002, at the urging of the United States government, the UN Security Council passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, offering Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out in several previous resolutions (Resolutions 660, 661, 678, 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 986, and 1284), notably to provide "an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by Resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles". Resolution 1441 threatened "serious consequences" if these are not met and reasserted demands that UN weapons inspectors that were to report back to the UN Security Council after their inspection should have "immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access" to sites of their choosing, in order to ascertain compliance. Significantly, the Resolution stated that the UN Security Council shall "remain seized of the matter" (United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441).

On February 15, 2003, as a response to the imminent invasion, the largest ever world-wide protests took place with 6-10 million people in over 60 countries around the world.

In his March 17, 2003, address to the nation, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline. This demand was reportedly rejected. Iraq maintained that it had disarmed as required. The UN weapons inspectors (UNMOVIC) headed by Hans Blix, who were sent by the UN Security Council pursuant to Resolution 1441, requested more time to complete their report on whether Iraq had complied with its obligation to disarm (UN Security Council Resolution 1441; UNMOVIC). The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA reported a level of compliance by Iraq with the disarmament requirements (UN Security Council Resolution 1441; IAEA) Hans Blix went on to state the Iraqi government was "hoping to restart production once sanctions were lifted and inspectors left the country." The attempt of the United Kingdom and the United States to obtain a further Resolution authorizing force failed when France made it known they would veto further Resolutions on Iraq. Thus, the Coalition invasion began without the express approval of the United Nations Security Council, and most legal authorities regard it as a violation of the UN Charter. (cf. The UN Security Council and the Iraq war) Several countries protested. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004, "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it was illegal." Proponents of the war claim that the invasion had implicit approval of the Security Council and was therefore not in violation of the UN Charter. Nevertheless, this position taken by the Bush administration and its supporters, has been and still is being disputed by numerous legal experts. According to most members of the Security Council, it is up to the council itself, and not individual members, to determine how the body's resolutions are to be enforced. Despite the discovery of chemicals that are part of legitimate industrial use, but which could be possibly used as potential components of WMD manufacturing, no actual weapons of mass destruction were found.

See Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq for a more detailed analysis of these issues.

Prelude

Since the end of the Gulf War of 1991, Iraq's relations with the UN, the US, and the UK remained poor. In the absence of a Security Council consensus that Iraq had fully complied with the terms of the Persian Gulf War ceasefire, both the UN and the US enforced numerous economic sanctions against Iraq throughout the Clinton administration, and the U.S. and the U.K. patrolled Iraqi airspace to enforce Iraqi no-fly zones that they had declared to protect Kurds in northern Iraq and Shi'ites in the south. The no-fly zone was contested however by Iraqi military helicopters and planes on numerous occasions. The United States Congress also passed the "Iraq Liberation Act" in October 1998 after Iraq had terminated its cooperation with the U.N. in August, which provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" in order to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." This contrasted with the terms set out in U.N. Resolution 687, all of which related to weapons and weapons programs, and made no mention of regime change. Weapons inspectors had been used to gather information on Iraq's WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) program and to enforce the terms of the 1991 cease fire, which forbade Iraq from developing WMD. The information was used in targeting decisions during Operation Desert Fox, a US and UK bombardment of Iraq in December 1998 which was precipitated by lack of cooperation between Iraq and the UN weapon inspections team.

The United States Republican Party's campaign platform in the U.S. presidential election, 2000 called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act and removal of Saddam Hussein with a focus on rebuilding a coalition, tougher sanctions, reinstating inspections, and support for the pro-democracy, opposition exile group, Iraqi National Congress then headed by Ahmed Chalabi. Upon the election of George W. Bush as president, according to former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, an attack was planned since the inauguration, and the first security council meeting discussed plans on invasion of the country. O'Neill later clarified that these discussions were part of a continuation of foreign policy first put into place by the Clinton Administration.

Notes from aides who were with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center one year later, on the day of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, reflect that he wanted, "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden." The notes also quote him as saying, "Go massive," and "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." Shortly thereafter, the George W. Bush administration announced a War on Terrorism, accompanied by the doctrine of 'pre-emptive' military action, termed the Bush doctrine. From the 1990s, U.S. officials have constantly voiced concerns about ties between the government of Saddam Hussein and terrorist activities, notably in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through the Palestinian Arab Liberation Front (PALF), Saddam had offered $10,000 USD for families of "civilians killed during Israeli military operations" and, $25,000 USD for "families of suicide bombers."

In 2002 the Iraq disarmament crisis arose primarily as a diplomatic situation. In October 2002, with the "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq", the United States Congress granted President Bush the authority to "use any means necessary" against Iraq, based on repeated Bush Administration statements to Congress and the public, which turned out to be incorrect, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The joint resolution allowed the President of the United States to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."

In November 2002, United Nations actions regarding Iraq culminated in the unanimous passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and the resumption of weapons inspections. Force was not authorized by resolution 1441 itself, as the language of the resolution mentioned "serious consequences," which the majority of Security Council members argued did not include the use of force to overthrow the government; however the threat of force, as cultivated by the Bush administration, was prominent at the time of the vote. Both the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, and the UK ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, in promoting Resolution 1441, had given assurances that it provided no "automaticity," no "hidden triggers," no step to invasion without consultation of the Security Council. Such consultation was forestalled by the US and UK's abandonment of the Security Council procedure and their invasion of Iraq. The stated cause by the United Kingdom to forego further UN resolutions was notice supplied by France that they would block any further Security Council resolutions on Iraq. Negroponte was noted as saying "one way or another, Mr. President, Iraq will be disarmed. If the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of a further Iraqi violation, this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq, or to enforce relevant U.N. resolutions and protect world peace and security."

There is still considerable disagreement among international lawyers on whether prior resolutions, relating to the 1991 war and later inspections, permitted the invasion. Richard Perle, a senior member of the administration's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, argued in November 2003, that the invasion was against international law, but still justified. At the same time Tony Blair's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, while concluding that a reasonable case could be made that resolution 1441 required no further resolution of the UN, he could not guarantee that an invasion in the circumstances would not be challenged on legal grounds.

The United States also began preparations for an invasion of Iraq, with a host of diplomatic, public relations, and military preparations.

See Iraq War - Legitimacy, Failed Iraqi peace initiatives, Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Opposition to the 2003 Iraq War for more detailed discussion.

Rationale

Main article: [[:The UN Security Council and the Iraq war, Rationale for the Iraq War, and Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq]]

In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the seeming relative success of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration felt that it had sufficient military justification and public support in the United States for further operations against perceived threats in the Middle East. The relations between some coalition members and Iraq had never improved since 1991, and the nations remained in a state of low-level conflict marked by American and British air-strikes, sanctions, and threats against Iraq. Iraqi radar had also locked onto and anti-aircraft guns and missiles were fired upon coalition airplanes enforcing the northern and southern no-fly zones, which had been implemented after the Gulf War in 1991.

Throughout 2002, the U.S. administration made it clear that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a major goal, although it offered to accept major changes in Iraqi military and foreign policy in lieu of this. Specifically, the stated justification for the invasion included Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction, alleged links with terrorist organizations, and human rights violations in Iraq under the Saddam Hussein government. Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapon inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction and prove that Iraqi government had nothing to hide. Because Hussein reneged his promise to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors for a second time, the United States and Great Britain began planning airstrikes.

"The Iraq story boiled over last night when the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Richard Butler, said that Iraq had not fully cooperated with inspectors and--as they had promised to do. As a result, the U.N. ordered its inspectors to leave Iraq this morning"

--Katie Couric, NBC's Today, 12/16/98

"What Mr. Bush is being urged to do by many advisers is focus on the simple fact that Saddam Hussein signed a piece of paper at the end of the Persian Gulf War, promising that the United Nations could have unfettered weapons inspections in Iraq. It has now been several years since those inspectors were kicked out."

--John King, CNN, 8/18/02

Military aspects

Map of Iraq

Aircraft of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing and coalition counterparts stationed together at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in southwest Asia, fly over the desert. April 14, 2003. Aircraft include KC-135 Stratotanker, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-117 Nighthawk, F-16CJ Falcon, British GR-4 Tornado, and Australian F/A-18 Hornet.

United States military operations were conducted under the codename Operation Iraqi Freedom . The United Kingdom military operation was named Operation Telic, and Australia's Operation Falconer. U.S. Senator Jim Bunning wrote a March 2003 column supporting the invasion, titled "Operation Iraqi Liberation" .

Approximately 100,000 soldiers and marines from the United States, and 26,000 from British , as well as smaller forces from other nations, collectively called the "Coalition of the Willing," were deployed prior to the invasion primarily to several staging areas in Kuwait. (The numbers when naval, logistics, intelligence, and air force personnel are included were 214,000 Americans, 45,000 British, 2,000 Australians and 2,400 Polish.) Plans for opening a second front in the north were abandoned when Turkey officially refused the use of its territory for such purposes. Forces also supported Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 50,000. Despite the refusal of Turkey, the Coalition conducted parachute operations in the north and dropped the 173rd Airborne Brigade, thereby removing the necessity of any approval from Turkey. (Later on, during the invasion, it was rumored that Turkey itself had sent troops into the Kurdish part of Iraq.)

The number of Iraqi military personnel prior to the war was uncertain, but was believed to have been poorly-equipped. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the armed forces to number 389,000 (army 350,000, navy 2,000, air force 20,000 and air defence 17,000), the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam 44,000, and reserves 650,000 . Other estimates number the army and Republican Guard between 280,000 to 350,000 and 50,000 to 80,000, respectively , and the paramilitary between 20,000 and 40,000 . There were an estimated thirteen infantry divisions, ten mechanized and armored divisions, as well as some special forces units. The Iraqi Air Force and Navy played a negligible role in the conflict.

The controversy around the war in Iraq has caused two organizations to form: Vets For Freedom, a pro-war veterans group and Iraq Veterans Against the War, an anti-Iraq war veterans group.

Invasion

Main article: [[:2003 - 2004 occupation of Iraq timeline and 2003 Iraq war timeline]]

Prior to invasion, US-led Coalition forces involved in the 1991 Persian Gulf War had been engaged in a low-level conflict with Iraq, enforcing Iraqi no-fly zones. Iraqi air-defense installations were engaged on a fairly regular basis after repeatedly targeting and firing upon US and UK air patrols. In mid-2002, the US began to change its response strategy, more carefully selecting targets in the southern part of the country in order to disrupt the military command structure in Iraq. A change in enforcement tactics was acknowledged at the time, but it was not made public that this was part of a plan known as Operation Southern Focus.

The tonnage of US bombs dropped increased from 0 in March 2002 and 0.3 in April 2002 to between 7 and 14 tons per month in May-August, reaching a pre-war peak of 54.6 tons in September - prior to Congress' 11 October authorisation of the invasion. The September attacks included a 5 September 100-aircraft attack on the main air defence site in western Iraq. According to an editorial in The New Statesman this was "Located at the furthest extreme of the southern no-fly zone, far away from the areas that needed to be patrolled to prevent attacks on the Shias, it was destroyed not because it was a threat to the patrols, but to allow allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected."

Opening attack

On March 20, 2003 at approximately 02:30 UTC or about 90 minutes after the lapse of the 48-hour deadline, at 05:30 local time, explosions were heard in Baghdad. There is now evidence that various special forces troops from the coalition crossed the border into Iraq well before the air war commenced. At 03:15 UTC, or 10:15 p.m. EST, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that he had ordered the coalition to launch an "attack of opportunity" against targets in Iraq.

Before the invasion, many observers had expected a lengthy campaign of aerial bombing in advance of any ground action, taking as examples the Persian Gulf War or the invasion of Afghanistan. In practice, US plans envisioned simultaneous air and ground assaults to decapitate the Iraqi forces as fast as possible (see Shock and Awe), attempting to bypass Iraqi military units and cities in most cases. The assumption was that superior Coalition mobility and coordination would allow the US-led Coalition to attack the heart of the Iraqi command structure and destroy it in a short time, and that this would minimize civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure. It was expected that the elimination of the leadership would lead to the collapse of the Iraqi Forces and the government, and that much of the population would support the invaders once the government had been weakened. Occupation of cities and attacks on peripheral military units were viewed as undesirable distractions.

Following Turkey's decision to deny any official use of its territory, the US-led Coalition was forced to abandon a planned simultaneous attack from north and south, so the primary bases for the invasion were in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf nations. One result of this was that one of the divisions intended for the invasion was forced to relocate and was unable to take part in the invasion until well into the war. Many observers felt that the Coalition devoted insufficient numbers of troops to the invasion, and that this (combined with the failure to occupy cities) put them at a major disadvantage in achieving security and order throughout the country when local support failed to meet expectations.

File:Bagdad 02Apr2003 L7 889px.jpg

NASA Landsat 7 image of Baghdad, April 2, 2003. The dark streaks are smoke from oil well fires set in an attempt to hinder attacking air forces.

The invasion was swift, with the collapse of the Iraq government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. The oil infrastructure of Iraq was rapidly secured with limited damage in that time. Securing the oil infrastructure was considered of great importance to funding the rebuilding of Iraq after the invasion ended. In the first Persian Gulf War, while retreating from Kuwait, the Iraqi army had set many oil wells on fire, in an attempt to disguise troop movements and to distract Coalition forces. Prior to the 2003 invasion, Iraqi forces had mined some 400 oil wells around Basra and the Al-Faw peninsula with explosives. The British Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade launched an air and amphibious assault on the Al-Faw peninsula during the closing hours of 20 March to secure the oil fields there; the amphibious assault was supported by frigates of the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. The 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, attached to 3 Commando Brigade, attacked the port of Umm Qasr. The British 16 Air Assault Brigade also secured the oilfields in southern Iraq in places like Rumaila. Despite the rapid advance of Coalition forces, some 44 oil wells were destroyed and set blaze by Iraqi explosives or by incidental fire. However, the wells were quickly capped and the fires put out, preventing the ecological damage and loss of oil that had occurred at the end of the Persian Gulf War.

In keeping with the rapid advance plan, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division moved westward and then northward through the western desert toward Baghdad, while the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved along Highway 1 through the center of the country, and 1 (UK) Armoured Division moved northward through the eastern marshland.

Initially, the U.S. 1st Marine Division fought through the Rumaila oil fields, and moved north to Nasariyah--a moderate-sized, Shi'ite dominated city with important strategic significance as a major road junction and its proximity to nearby Talil Airfield. The U.S Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and bypassed the city to the west. On 23 March, U.S Marines and Special Forces units pressed the attack in and around Nasiriyah. During the battle an Air Force A-10 was involved in a case of fratricide that resulted in the death of six Marines . Because of Nasiriyah's strategic position as a road junction, significant gridlock occurred as U.S forces moving north converged on the city's surrounding highways. With Nasiriyah and Tallil Airfield secured, U.S. forces gained an important logistical center in southern Iraq, establishing a base some 10 miles outside of Nasiriyah through which additional troops and supplies were brought. The 101st Airborne Division continued their attack north behind the 3rd Infantry Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division began to consolidate in and around Talil airfield for further operations. By 27-28 March, a severe sand storm slowed the U.S advance as the 3rd Infantry Division fought on the outskirts of Najaf and Kufa, with particularly heavy fighting in and around the bridge adjacent to the town of Kifl before moving north toward Karbala.

Farther south, the British 7 Armoured Brigade ('The Desert Rats') fought their way into Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, on 6 April, coming under constant attack by regulars and Fedayeen, while the 3rd Parachute Regiment cleared the 'old quarter' of the city that was inaccessible to vehicles. The entering of Basra had only been achieved after two weeks of conflict, which included the biggest tank battle by British forces since World War II when the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks on 27 March. Elements of 1 (UK) Armoured Division began to advance north towards U.S. positions around Al Amarah on 9 April. Pre-existing electrical and water shortages continued through the conflict and looting began as Iraqi forces collapsed. While British forces began working with local Iraqi Police to enforce order.REME (Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers) and Royal Engineers of the British Army rapidly set up and repaired dockyard facilities to allow humanitarian aid began to arrive from ships arriving in the port city of Umm Qasr.

After a rapid initial advance, the first major pause occurred in the vicinity of Karbala. There, U.S. Army elements met resistance from Iraqi troops defending cities and key bridges along the Euphrates River. These forces threatened to interdict coalition logistical supply routes as U.S. forces moved north. By the end of March, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division augmented with a mechanized infantry battalion task force of the U.S. 1st Armored Division began diversionary assaults in and around the city of Samawah in order to divert Iraqi forces that may have otherwise threatened the extended rear of the coalition's lead elements. Meanwhile, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and infantry elements of the U.S. 1st Marine Division, supported by an armored battalion task force of the 1st Armored division and U.S. Marine and Army air support, attacked and secured the cities of Najaf and Karbala in order to prevent any Iraqi counterattacks from the east. These attacks effectively protected the eastern flank and rear of the 3rd Infantry Division, which allowed the western flank of the invasion to resupply and continue its advance north through the Karbala Gap and on toward Baghdad, where U.S Marine and British forces had already begun a preliminary assault on the outskirts of the city.

Special Operations

The 2nd Battalion of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group (part of the Green Berets) conducted reconnaissance in the cities of Basra, Karbala and various other locations.

In the North 10th SFG had the mission of aiding the Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, de facto rulers of Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991. Turkey had officially forbidden any US troops from using their bases, so lead elements of the 10th had to make certain detours; their journey was supposed to take four hours but instead it took ten. However, Turkey did allow the use of its air space and so the rest of the 10th flew in. The mission was to destroy the bases of the Kurdish islamist group Ansar al-Islam, believed to be linked to Al Qaida.

The target was Sargat and after heavy fighting with both groups the Special Forces finally took Sargat and pushed the remaining units out of Northern Iraq. After Sargat was taken, Bravo Company along with their Kurdish allies pushed south towards Tikrit and the surrounding towns of Northern Iraq. During the Battle of the Green Line, Bravo Company with their Kurdish allies pushed back, destroyed, or routed 13th Iraqi Infantry Division. Bravo took Tikrit. Iraq was the largest deployment of Special Forces since Vietnam.

Fall of Baghdad (April 2003)

Three weeks into the invasion, U.S. forces moved into Baghdad. Initial plans were for armoured units to surround the city and gradually move in, forcing Iraqi armor and ground units to cluster into a central pocket in the city, and then attack with air and artillery forces. This plan soon became unnecessary, as an initial engagement of armor units south of the city saw most of the Republican Guard's armor assets destroyed and much of the southern outskirts of the city occupied. On 5 April a "Thunder Run" of US armored vehicles was launched to test remaining Iraqi defenses, with 29 tanks and 14 Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles rushing from a staging base to the Baghdad airport. They met heavy resistance, including many suicidal attacks, but were successful in reaching the airport. Two days later another thunder run was launched into the Palaces of Saddam Hussein, where they established a base. Within hours of the palace seizure, and television coverage of this spreading through Iraq, US forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on April 9 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by US forces and the power of Saddam Hussein was declared ended. Much of Baghdad remained unsecured however, and fighting continued within the city and its outskirts well into the period of occupation. Saddam had vanished, and his whereabouts were unknown. Many Iraqis celebrated the downfall of Saddam by vandalizing the many portraits and statues of him together with other pieces of his personality cult. One widely publicized event was the dramatic toppling of a large statue of Saddam in central Baghdad by a US M88 tank retriever, while a crowd of Iraqis cheered the Marines on. During this incident, the Marines briefly draped an American flag over the statue's face. The flag was replaced with an Iraqi flag and the demolition continued.

The fall of Baghdad saw the outbreak of regional violence throughout the country, as Iraqi tribes and cities began to fight each other over old grudges. The Iraqi cities of Al-Kut and Nasiriyah declared war upon each other immediately following the fall of Baghdad in order to establish dominance in the new country, and Coalition forces quickly found themselves embroiled in a potential civil-war. U.S. forces ordered the cities to cease hostilities immediately, and explained that Baghdad would remain the capital of the new Iraqi government. Nasiriyah responded favorably and quickly backed down, however Al-Kut placed snipers on the main roadways into town, with orders that Coalition forces were not to enter the city. After several minor skirmishes, the snipers were removed, but tensions and violence between regional, city, tribal, and familial groups contiued into the occupation period.

General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defense of Baghdad, rumors were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck (a "safqua") wherein the US had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite and/or the Ba'ath party itself to stand down. In May 2003, General Franks retired, and confirmed in an interview with Defense Week that the U.S. had paid Iraqi military leaders to defect. The extent of the defections and their effect on the war are unclear.

Coalition troops promptly began searching for the key members of Saddam Hussein's government. These individuals were identified by a variety of means, most famously through sets of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.

On 22 July 2003 during a raid by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and men from Task Force 20, Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, and one of his grandsons were killed.

Saddam Hussein was captured on December 13 2003 by the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121 during Operation Red Dawn.

Other areas

In the north, Kurdish forces opposed to Saddam Hussein had already occupied for years an autonomous area in northern Iraq. With the assistance of U.S. Special Forces and airstrikes, they were able to rout the Iraqi units near them and to occupy oil-rich Kirkuk on 10 April.

U.S. special forces had also been involved in the extreme west of Iraq, attempting to occupy key roads to Syria and airbases. In one case two armored platoons were used to convince Iraqi leadership that an entire armored battalion was entrenched in the west of Iraq.

On 15 April, U.S. forces took control of Tikrit, the last major outpost in central Iraq, with an attack led by the Marines' Task Force Tripoli. About a week later the Marines were relieved in place by the Army's 4th Infantry Division.

Summary of the invasion

Coalition forces managed to topple the government and capture the key cities of a large nation in only 21 days, taking minimal losses while also trying to avoid large civilian deaths and even high numbers of dead Iraqi military forces. The invasion did not require the huge army build-up like the 1991 Gulf War, which numbered half a million Allied troops. This did prove short-sighted, however, due to the requirement for a much larger force to combat the irregular Iraqi forces in the aftermath of the war.

The Saddam-built army, armed mainly with Soviet-built equipment, was overall ill-equipped in comparison to Coalition forces. Missiles launched from Iraq were either interdicted by U.S. anti-air batteries, or made little to no strategic impact on their targets. Attacks on Coalition supply routes by Fedayeen militiamen were repulsed. The Iraqi's artillery proved largely ineffective, and they were unable to mobilize their air force to attempt a defense. The Iraqi T-72 tanks, the heaviest armored vehicles in the Iraqi Army, were both outdated and ill-maintained, and when they were mobilized they were rapidly destroyed, thanks in part due to the Coalition's air superiority. The U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Naval Aviation, and British Royal Air Force operated with impunity throughout the country, pinpointing heavily defended enemy targets and destroying them before ground troops arrived.

The main battle tanks (MBT) of the Coalition forces, the U.S. M1 Abrams and British Challenger 2, proved their worth in the rapid advance across the country. Even with the large number of RPG attacks by irregular Iraqi forces, few Coalition tanks were lost and no tank crewmen were killed by hostile fire. The only tank loss sustained by the British Army was a Challenger 2 of the Queen's Royal Lancers that was hit by another Challenger 2, killing two crewmen. All three British tank crew fatalities were a result of friendly fire.

The Iraqi Army suffered from poor morale, even amongst the elite Republican Guard. Entire units disbanded into the crowds upon the approach of Coalition troops, or actually sought Coalition forces out in order to surrender. In one case, a force of roughly 20-30 Iraqis attempted to surrender to a two-man vehicle repair and recovery team, invoking similar instances of Iraqis surrendering to news crews during the Persian Gulf War. Other Iraqi Army officers were bribed by the CIA or coerced into surrendering to Coalition forces. Worse, the Iraqi Army had incompetent leadership - reports state that Qusay Hussein, charged with the defense of Baghdad, dramatically shifted the positions of the two main divisions protecting Baghdad several times in the days before the arrival of U.S. forces, and as a result the units within were both confused and further demoralized when U.S. Marine and British forces attacked. By no means did the Coalition invasion force see the entire Iraqi military thrown against it; Coalition units had orders to move to and seize objective target-points, and could only fire upon regular Iraqi military units if first fired upon. This resulted in most regular Iraqi military units emerging from the war fully intact and without ever having been engaged by US forces, especially in southern Iraq. It is assumed that most units disintegrated to either join the growing Iraqi insurgency or returned to their homes.

According to the declassified Pentagon report, "The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq's military forces was the continued interference by Saddam." The report, designed to help U.S. officials understand in hindsight how Saddam and his military commanders prepared for and fought the war, paints a picture of an Iraqi government blind to the threat it faced, hampered by Saddam's inept military leadership and deceived by its own propaganda. According to BBC, the report portrays Saddam Hussein as "chronically out of touch with reality - preoccupied with the prevention of domestic unrest and with the threat posed by Iran."

Security, looting and war damage

Looting took place in the days following. It was reported that the National Museum of Iraq was among the looted sites. The assertion that US forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Interior is apparently true. According to U.S. officials the "reality of the situation on the ground" was that hospitals, water plants, and ministries with vital intelligence needed security more than other sites. There were only enough US troops on the ground to guard a certain number of the many sites that ideally needed protection, and so, apparently, some "hard choices" were made. Also, it was reported that many trucks of purported Iraqi gold and $1.6 billion of bricks of US cash were seized by US forces.

File:Saddamstatue.jpg

U.S. troops topple a giant statue of Saddam in Baghdad, following the capture of the city in April.

The FBI was soon called into Iraq to track down the stolen items. It was found that the initial claims of looting of substantial portions of the collection were heavily exaggerated. Initial reports claimed a near-total looting of the museum, estimated at upwards of 170,000 pieces. The most recent estimate places the number of looted pieces at around 15,000. Over 5,000 looted items have since been recovered.

There has been speculation that some objects still missing were not taken by looters after the war, but were taken by Saddam Hussein or his entourage before or during the fighting. There have also been reports that early looters had keys to vaults that held rarer pieces, and some have speculated as to the pre-meditated systematic removal of key artifacts.

The National Museum of Iraq was only one of many museums and sites of cultural significance that were affected by the war. Many in the arts and antiquities communities briefed policy makers in advance of the need to secure Iraqi museums. Despite the looting being lighter than initially feared, the cultural loss of items from ancient Sumeria is significant.

More serious for the post-war state of Iraq was the looting of cached weaponry and ordnance which fueled the subsequent insurgency. As many as 250,000 tons of explosives were unaccounted for by October 2004. Disputes within the US Defense Department led to delays in the post-invasion assessment and protection of Iraqi nuclear facilities. Tuwaitha, the Iraqi site most scrutinized by UN inspectors since 1991, was left unguarded and may have been looted.

Zainab Bahrani, professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, reported that a helicopter landing pad was constructed in the heart of the ancient city of Babylon, and "removed layers of archeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops."

Bahrani also reported that in the summer of 2004, "the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters." Electrical power is scarce in post-war Iraq, Bahrani reported, and some fragile artifacts, including the Ottoman Archive, would not survive the loss of refrigeration.

"End of major combat operations" (May 2003)

Main article: Mission Accomplished

The USS Abraham Lincoln returning to port carrying its Mission Accomplished banner

President George W. Bush on the Abraham Lincoln wearing a flight suit after landing on the aircraft carrier in a military jet.

On 1 May 2003 George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Bush's landing was criticized by opponents as an overly theatrical and expensive stunt. The ship was returning home off the coast of southern California near the San Diego harbor. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished." The banner, made by White House staff and supplied by request of the U.S. Navy, was criticized as premature - especially later as the guerrilla war dragged on. The White House subsequently released a statement alleging that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq and disputing the claim of theatrics. The speech itself noted: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous." ()

"Major combat" concluding did not mean that peace had returned to Iraq. Iraq was subsequently marked by violent conflict between U.S.-led occupation of Iraq soldiers and forces described by the occupiers as insurgents. The ongoing resistance in Iraq was concentrated in, but not limited to, an area referred to by Western media and the occupying forces as the Sunni triangle and Baghdad . Critics point out that the regions where violence is most common are also the most populated regions. This resistance may be described as guerrilla warfare. The tactics in use were to include mortars, suicide bombers, roadside bombs, small arms fire, improvised explosive device's (IED's), and rocket propelled grenade's (RPG's), as well as sabotage against the oil infrastructure. There are also accusations, questioned by some, about attacks toward the power and water infrastructure.

There is evidence that some of the resistance was organized, perhaps by the fedayeen and other Saddam Hussein or Ba'ath loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis angered by the occupation, and foreign fighters. . Additionally, as noted above, some (if not most) of the violence immediately following the end of "major combat operations" was due to internal conflicts between groups within Iraq, including but not limited to violence between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims within Iraq over long-standing cultural differences.

In June of 2005 a new service medal, known as the Iraq Campaign Medal, was authorized by the United States Department of Defense for service performed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The decoration replaced the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, which had previously been issued by Iraq service.

Deaths

Main article: Casualties in the conflict in Iraq

See also: Casualties of the Iraqi insurgency (2011–present)

White and red flags, representing Iraqi and American deaths, respectively, sit in the grass quadrangle of The Valley Library on the Corvallis, Oregon, campus of Oregon State University. As part of the traveling Iraq Body Count exhibit from 2008 to 2009 (not related to Iraq Body Count project), the flags aim to "raise awareness of the human cost of the Iraq War." (May 2008)

Estimates of the casualties from the Iraq War (beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the ensuing occupation and insurgency and civil war) have come in several forms, and those estimates of different types of Iraq War casualties vary greatly.

Estimating war-related deaths poses many challenges. Experts distinguish between population-based studies, which extrapolate from random samples of the population, and body counts, which tally reported deaths and likely significantly underestimate casualties. Population-based studies produce estimates of the number of Iraq War casualties ranging from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006 (per the Iraq Family Health Survey) to 1,033,000 excess deaths (per the 2007 Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey). Other survey-based studies covering different time-spans find 461,000 total deaths (over 60% of them violent) as of June 2011 (per PLOS Medicine 2013), and 655,000 total deaths (over 90% of them violent) as of June 2006 (per the 2006 Lancet study). Body counts counted at least 110,600 violent deaths as of April 2009 (Associated Press). The Iraq Body Count project documents 186,901 – 210,296 violent civilian deaths in their table. All estimates of Iraq War casualties are disputed.

Tables

The tables below summarize reports on Iraqi casualty figures.

Scientific surveys:

Source	Estimated violent deaths	Time period
Iraq Family Health Survey	151,000 violent deaths	March 2003 to June 2006
Lancet survey	601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths	March 2003 to June 2006
PLOS Medicine Survey	460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence.	March 2003 to June 2011

Body counts:

Source	Documented deaths from violence	Time period
Associated Press	110,600 violent deaths.	March 2003 to April 2009
Iraq Body Count project	186,901 – 210,296 civilian deaths from violence.	March 2003 onwards
Classified Iraq War Logs	109,032 deaths including 66,081 civilian deaths.	January 2004 to December 2009

Overview: Iraqi death estimates by source Summary of casualties of the Iraq War. Possible estimates on the number of people killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq vary widely, and are highly disputed. Estimates of casualties below include both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the following Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–present.

Iraq war logs	Classified US military documents released by WikiLeaks in October 2010, record Iraqi and Coalition military deaths between January 2004 and December 2009. The documents record 109,032 deaths broken down into "Civilian" (66,081 deaths), "Host Nation" (15,196 deaths),"Enemy" (23,984 deaths), and "Friendly" (3,771 deaths).
Iraqi Health Ministry	The Health Ministry of the Iraqi government recorded 87,215 Iraqi violent deaths between January 1, 2005, and February 28, 2009. The data was in the form of a list of yearly totals for death certificates issued for violent deaths by hospitals and morgues. The official who provided the data told the Associated Press said the ministry does not have figures for the first two years of the war, and estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.
The Associated Press	Associated Press stated that more than 110,600 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war to April 2009. This number is per the Health Ministry tally of 87,215 covering January 1, 2005, to February 28, 2009 combined with counts of casualties for 2003–2004, and after February 29, 2009, from hospital sources and media reports. For more info see farther down at The Associated Press and Health Ministry (2009).
Iraq Body Count	The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) figure of documented civilian deaths from violence is 183,535 – 206,107 through April 2019. This includes reported civilian deaths due to Coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and increased criminal violence. The IBC site states: "many deaths will probably go unreported or unrecorded by officials and media."
Iraq Family Health Survey	Iraq Family Health Survey for the World Health Organization. On January 9, 2008, the World Health Organization reported the results of the "Iraq Family Health Survey" published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study surveyed 9,345 households across Iraq and estimated 151,000 deaths due to violence (95% uncertainty range, 104,000 to 223,000) from March 2003 through June 2006. Employees of the Iraqi Health Ministry carried out the survey. See also farther down: Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS, 2008).
Opinion Research Business	Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll conducted August 12–19, 2007, estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to the Iraq War. The range given was 946,000 to 1,120,000 deaths. A nationally representative sample of approximately 2,000 Iraqi adults answered whether any members of their household (living under their roof) were killed due to the Iraq War. 22% of the respondents had lost one or more household members. ORB reported that "48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance."
United Nations	The United Nations reported that 34,452 violent deaths occurred in 2006, based on data from morgues, hospitals, and municipal authorities across Iraq.
Lancet studies	The Lancet study's figure of 654,965 excess deaths through the end of June 2006 is based on household survey data. The estimate is for all excess violent and nonviolent deaths. That also includes those due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. 601,027 deaths (range of 426,369 to 793,663 using a 95% confidence interval) were estimated to be due to violence. 31% of those were attributed to the Coalition, 24% to others, 46% unknown. The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56%), car bomb (13%), other explosion/ordnance (14%), airstrike (13%), accident (2%), unknown (2%). A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion of the reported deaths (92% of those households asked to produce one).
PLOS Medicine Study	The PLOS Medicine study's figure of approximately 460,000 excess deaths through the end of June 2011 is based on household survey data including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. The estimate is for all excess violent and nonviolent deaths. That also includes those due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. 405,000 deaths (range of 48,000 to 751,000 using a 95% confidence interval) were estimated as excess deaths attributable to the conflict. They estimated at least 55,000 additional deaths occurred that the survey missed, as the families had migrated out of Iraq. The survey found that more than 60% of excess deaths were caused by violence, with the rest caused indirectly by the war, through degradation of infrastructure and similar causes. The survey notes that although car bombs received more significant press internationally, gunshot wounds were responsible for the majority (63%) of violent deaths. The study also estimated that 35% of violent deaths were attributed to the Coalition, and 32% to militias. Cardiovascular conditions accounted for about half (47%) of nonviolent deaths, chronic illnesses 11%, infant or childhood deaths other than injuries 12.4%, non-war injuries 11%, and cancer 8%.
Ali al-Shemari (previous Iraqi Health Minister)	Concerning war-related deaths (civilian and non-civilian), and deaths from criminal gangs, Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said that since the March 2003 invasion between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraqis had been killed. "Al-Shemari said on Thursday [November 9, 2006] that he based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals – though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total." For more info see farther down at Iraq Health Minister estimate in November 2006.
Costs of War Project	268,000 - 295,000 people were killed in violence in the Iraq war from March 2003 - Oct. 2018, including 182,272 - 204,575 civilians (using Iraq Body Count's figures), according to the findings of the Costs of War Project, a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, assembled by Brown University and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, "about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the related violence in Pakistan and Syria." The civilian violent death numbers are "surely an underestimate."

Overview: Death estimates by group

Iraqi Security Forces (aligned with Coalition)	From June 2003, through December 31, 2010, there have been 16,623 Iraqi military and police killed based on several estimates. The Iraq Index of the Brookings Institution keeps a running total of ISF casualties. There is also a breakdown of ISF casualties at the iCasualties.org website.
Iraqi insurgents	From June 2003, through September 30, 2011, there have been 26,320-27,000+ Iraqi insurgents killed based on several estimates.
Media and aid workers	136 journalists and 51 media support workers were killed on duty according to the numbers listed on source pages on February 24, 2009. (See Category:Journalists killed while covering the Iraq War.) 94 aid workers have been killed according to a November 21, 2007, Reuters article.
U.S. armed forces	Graph of monthly deaths of U.S. military personnel in Iraq from beginning of war to June 24, 2008. As of July 19, 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Defense casualty website, there were 4,431 total deaths (including both killed in action and non-hostile) and 31,994 wounded in action (WIA) as a result of the Iraq War. As a part of Operation New Dawn, which was initiated on September 1, 2010, there were 74 total deaths (including KIA and non-hostile) and 298 WIA. See the references for a breakdown of the wounded, injured, ill, those returned to duty (RTD), those requiring medical air transport, non-hostile-related medical air transports, non-hostile injuries, diseases, or other medical reasons.
Coalition deaths by hostile fire	As of 23 October 2011, hostile-fire deaths accounted for 3,777 of the 4,799 total coalition military deaths.
Armed forces of other coalition countries	See Multinational force in Iraq. As of 24 February 2009, there were 318 deaths from the armed forces of other Coalition nations. 179 UK deaths and 139 deaths from other nations. Breakdown: Australia – 2 Azerbaijan – 1 Bulgaria – 13 Czech Republic – 1 Denmark – 7 El Salvador – 5 Estonia – 2 Fiji – 1 Georgia – 5 Hungary – 1 Italy – 33 Kazakhstan – 1 Latvia – 3 Netherlands – 2 Poland – 30 Portugal – 1 Romania – 4 Slovakia – 4 South Korea – 1 Spain – 11 Thailand – 2 Ukraine – 18 United Kingdom – 179
Contractors	Contractors. At least 1,487 deaths between March 2003 and June 2011 according to the list of private contractor deaths in Iraq. 245 of those are from the U.S. Contractors are "Americans, Iraqis and workers from more than three dozen other countries." 10,569 wounded or injured. Contractors "cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastructure, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings – often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops." A July 4, 2007, Los Angeles Times article reported 182,000 employees of U.S.-government-funded contractors and subcontractors (118,000 Iraqi, 43,000 other, 21,000 U.S.).

Overview: Iraqi injury estimates by source

Iraqi Human Rights Ministry	The Human Rights Ministry of the Iraqi government recorded 250,000 Iraqi injuries between 2003 and 2012. The ministry had earlier reported that 147,195 injuries were recorded for the period 2004–2008.
Iraqi Government	Iraqi Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh reported that 239,133 Iraqi injuries were recorded by the government between 2004 and 2011.
Iraq war logs	Classified US military documents released by WikiLeaks in October 2010, recorded 176,382 injuries, including 99,163 civilian injuries between January 2004 and December 2009.
Iraq Body Count	The Iraq Body Count project reported that there were at least 20,000 civilian injuries in the earliest months of the war between March and July 2003. A follow-up report noted that at least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded in the first two years of the war between March 2003 and March 2005.
UN Assistance Mission for Iraq	The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reported that there were 36,685 Iraqi injuries during the year 2006.
Iraqi Health Ministry	The Health Ministry of the Iraqi government reported that 38,609 Iraqi injuries had occurred during the year 2007, based on statistics derived from official Iraqi health departments' records. Baghdad had the highest number of injuries (18,335), followed by Nineveh (6,217), Basra (1,387) and Kirkuk (655).

Additional statistics for the Iraq War

Overview of casualties by type

(see the rest of the article below for more info)

Dead

• Iraqis:
• Deadliest single insurgent bombings:
  • August 14, 2007. Truck bombs – 2007 Yazidi communities bombings (in northwestern Iraq):
    • 796 killed.
• Other deadly days:
  • November 23, 2006, (281 killed) and April 18, 2007, (233 killed):
    • "4 bombings in Baghdad kill at least 183. ... Nationwide, the number of people killed or found dead on Wednesday [, April 18, 2007, ] was 233, which was the second deadliest day in Iraq since Associated Press began keeping records in May 2005. Five car bombings, mortar rounds and other attacks killed 281 people across Iraq on November 23, 2006, according to the AP count."

Graph of monthly wounded in action of U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

Wounded in action

• As of January 12, 2007, 500 U.S. troops have undergone amputations due to the Iraq War. Toes and fingers are not counted.
• As of September 30, 2006, 725 American troops have had limbs amputated from wounds received in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• A 2006 study by the Walter Reed Medical Center, which serves more critically injured soldiers than most VA hospitals, concluded that 62 percent of patients there had suffered a brain injury.
• In March 2003, U.S. military personnel were wounded in action at a rate averaging about 350 per month. As of September 2007, this rate has increased to about 675 per month.

Injured/fallen ill

• U.S. military: number unknown.
  • An October 18, 2005, USA Today article reports:
    • "More than one in four U.S. troops have come home from the Iraq war with health problems that require medical or mental health treatment, according to The Pentagon's first detailed screening of service members leaving a war zone."
• Iraqi combatants: number unknown

Refugees

• As of November 4, 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.

Iraqi invasion casualties

Franks reportedly estimated soon after the invasion that there had been 30,000 Iraqi casualties as of April 9, 2003. That number comes from the transcript of an October 2003 interview of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with journalist Bob Woodward. But neither could remember the number clearly, nor whether it was just for deaths, or both deaths and wounded.

A May 28, 2003, Guardian article reported that "Extrapolating from the death-rates of between 3% and 10% found in the units around Baghdad, one reaches a toll of between 13,500 and 45,000 dead among troops and paramilitaries."

An October 20, 2003, study by the Project on Defense Alternatives at Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, estimated that for March 19, 2003, to April 30, 2003, the "probable death of approximately 11,000 to 15,000 Iraqis, including approximately 3,200 to 4,300 civilian noncombatants."

The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) documented a higher number of civilian deaths up to the end of the major combat phase (May 1, 2003). In a 2005 report, using updated information, the IBC reported that 7,299 civilians are documented to have been killed, primarily by U.S. air and ground forces. There were 17,338 civilian injuries inflicted up to May 1, 2003. The IBC says its figures are probably underestimates because: "many deaths will probably go unreported or unrecorded by officials and media."

Iraqi civilian casualties

A soldier carries a wounded Iraqi child into the Charlie Medical Centre at Camp Ramadi, Iraq (March 20, 2007).

A disabled 28-year-old Iraqi woman lost both of her legs during combat operations (May 7, 2006)

Iraq Body Count project (IBC)

An independent British-American group, the Iraq Body Count project (IBC project) compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from war since the 2003 invasion and ensuing insurgency and civil war, including those caused directly by coalition military action, Iraqi military actions, the Iraqi insurgency, and those resulting from excess crime. The IBC maintains that the occupying authority has a responsibility to prevent these deaths under international law.

The IBC project has recorded a range of at least 185,194 – 208,167 total violent civilian deaths through June 2020 in their database. The Iraq Body Count (IBC) project records its numbers based on a "comprehensive survey of commercial media and NGO-based reports, along with official records that have been released into the public sphere. Reports range from specific, incident based accounts to figures from hospitals, morgues, and other documentary data-gathering agencies." The IBC was also given access to the WikiLeaks disclosures of the Iraq War Logs.

Iraq Body Count project data shows that the type of attack that resulted in the most civilian deaths was execution after abduction or capture. These accounted for 33% of civilian deaths and 29% of these deaths involved torture. The following most common causes of death were small arms gunfire at 20%, suicide bombs at 14%, vehicle bombs at 9%, roadside bombs at 5%, and air attacks at 5%.

The IBC project, reported that by the end of the major combat phase of the invasion period up to April 30, 2003, 7,419 civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces.

The IBC project released a report detailing the deaths it recorded between March 2003 and March 2005 in which it recorded 24,865 civilian deaths. The report says the U.S. and its allies were responsible for the largest share (37%) with 9,270 deaths. The remaining deaths were attributed to anti-occupation forces (9%), crime (36%) and unknown agents (11%). It also lists the primary sources used by the media – mortuaries, medics, Iraqi officials, eyewitnesses, police, relatives, U.S.-coalition, journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), friends/associates and other.

According to a 2010 assessment by John Sloboda, director of Iraq Body Count, 150,000 people including 122,000 civilians were killed in the Iraq War with U.S. and Coalition forces responsible for at least 22,668 insurgents as well as 13,807 civilians, with the rest of the civilians killed by insurgents, militias, or terrorists.

The IBC project has been criticized by some, including scholars, who believe it counts only a small percentage of the number of actual deaths because of its reliance on media sources. The IBC project's director, John Sloboda, has stated, "We've always said our work is an undercount, you can't possibly expect that a media-based analysis will get all the deaths." However, the IBC project rejects many of these criticisms as exaggerated or misinformed.

According to a 2013 Lancet article, the Iraq Body Count is "a non-peer-reviewed but innovative online and media-centred approach that passively counted non-combatant civilian deaths as they were recorded in the media and available morgue reports. In passive surveillance no special effort is made to find those deaths that go unreported. The volunteer staff collecting data for the IBC have risked criticism that their data are inherently biased because of scarcity or absence of independent verification, variation in original sources of information, and underestimation of mortality from violence... In research circles, random cross-sectional cluster sampling survey methods are deemed to be a more rigorous epidemiological method in conflict settings."

Civilian deaths by perpetrator

In 2011, the IBC published data in PLOS Medicine on 2003-2008 civilian deaths in Iraq by perpetrator and cause of death. The study broke down civilian deaths by perpetrator into the following categories:

• 74% unidentified perpetrator: defined as "those who target civilians (i.e., no identifiable military target is present), while appearing indistinguishable from civilians: for example, a suicide bomber disguised as a civilian in a market. Unknown (i.e., unidentified) perpetrators in Iraq include sectarian combatants and Anti-Coalition combatants who maintain a civilian appearance while targeting civilians."

• 11% anti-coalition forces: defined as "un-uniformed combatants identified by attacks on coalition targets" during the event. Anti-Coalition combatants in the event of targeting purely civilians would instead be classed under the "unidentified perpetrator" category.

• 12% coalition forces: identified by uniforms or use of air attacks.

IBC table of violent civilian deaths

Following are the yearly IBC Project violent civilian death totals, broken down by month from the beginning of 2003. Table below is copied irregularly from the source page, and is soon out-of-date as data is continually updated at the source. As of June 12, 2023 the top of the IBC database page with the table says 186,901 – 210,296 "Documented civilian deaths from violence". That page also says: "Gaps in recording and reporting suggest that even our highest totals to date may be missing many civilian deaths from violence."

Monthly civilian deaths from violence, 2003 onwards

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Yearly totals
2003	3	2	3986	3448	545	597	646	833	566	515	487	524	12,152
2004	610	663	1004	1303	655	910	834	878	1042	1033	1676	1129	11,737
2005	1222	1297	905	1145	1396	1347	1536	2352	1444	1311	1487	1141	16,583
2006	1546	1579	1957	1805	2279	2594	3298	2865	2567	3041	3095	2900	29,526
2007	3035	2680	2728	2573	2854	2219	2702	2483	1391	1326	1124	997	26,112
2008	861	1093	1669	1317	915	755	640	704	612	594	540	586	10,286
2009	372	409	438	590	428	564	431	653	352	441	226	478	5,382
2010	267	305	336	385	387	385	488	520	254	315	307	218	4,167
2011	389	254	311	289	381	386	308	401	397	366	288	392	4,162
2012	531	356	377	392	304	529	469	422	400	290	253	299	4,622
2013	357	360	403	545	888	659	1145	1013	1306	1180	870	1126	9,852
2014	1097	972	1029	1037	1100	4088	1580	3340	1474	1738	1436	1327	20,218
2015	1490	1625	1105	2013	1295	1355	1845	1991	1445	1297	1021	1096	17,578
2016	1374	1258	1459	1192	1276	1405	1280	1375	935	1970	1738	1131	16,393
2017	1119	982	1918	1816	1871	1858	1498	597	490	397	346	291	13,183
2018	474	410	402	303	229	209	230	201	241	305	160	155	3,319
2019	323	271	123	140	167	130	145	93	151	361	274	215	2,393
2020	114	148	73	52	74	64	49	82	54	70	74	54	908
2021	64	56	49	66	49	46	87	60	41	65	23	63	669
2022	62	46	42	31	82	44	67	80	68	63	65	90	740
2023	56	52	76	85	45								314

People's Kifah

The Iraqi political party People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony (PK) said that its survey conducted between March and June 2003 throughout the non-Kurdish areas of Iraq tallied 36,533 civilians killed in those areas by June 2003. While detailed town-by-town totals were given by the PK spokesperson, details of methodology are very thin and raw data is not in the public domain. A still-less-detailed report on this study appeared some months later on Al Jazeera's website, and covered casualties up to October 2003.

Iraqi refugees crisis

Main article: Refugees of Iraq

Roughly 40 percent of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the U.N. reported in 2007. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, Iraqi insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Coalition military casualties

Coalition deaths by country USA: 4,492 UK: 179 Italy: 33 Poland: 23 Ukraine: 18 Bulgaria: 13 Spain: 11 Denmark: 7 El Salvador: 5 Georgia: 5 Slovakia: 4 Latvia: 3 Romania: 3 Australia: 2 Estonia: 2 Netherlands: 2 Thailand: 2 Azerbaijan: 1 Czech Republic: 1 Fiji: 1 Hungary: 1 Kazakhstan: 1 South Korea: 1 TOTAL: 4,810

Most U.S. casualties, like these in a C-17 military transport aircraft, return to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware. (unknown date)

For the latest casualty numbers see the overview chart at the top of the page.

Since the official handover of power to the Iraqi Interim Government on June 28, 2004, coalition soldiers have continued to come under attack in towns across Iraq.

National Public Radio, iCasualties.org, and GlobalSecurity.org have month-by-month charts of American troop deaths in the Iraq War.

A U.S. Marine killed in April 2003 is carried away after receiving his Last Rites.

The combined total of coalition and contractor casualties in the conflict is now over ten times that of the 1990–1991 Gulf War. In the Gulf War, coalition forces suffered around 378 deaths, and among the Iraqi military, tens of thousands were killed, along with thousands of civilians.

Troops fallen ill, injured, or wounded

See the overview chart at the top of the page for recent numbers.

On August 29, 2006, The Christian Science Monitor reported: "Because of new body armor and advances in military medicine, for example, the ratio of combat-zone deaths to those wounded has dropped from 24 percent in Vietnam to 13 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, the numbers of those killed as a percentage of overall casualties is lower."

Wounded U.S. personnel flown from Iraq to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, for medical treatment. (February 2007)

Many U.S. veterans of the Iraq War have reported a range of serious health issues, including tumors, daily blood in urine and stool, sexual dysfunction, migraines, frequent muscle spasms, and other symptoms similar to the debilitating symptoms of "Gulf War syndrome" reported by many veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, which some believe is related to the U.S.'s use of radioactive depleted uranium.

A study of U.S. veterans published in July 2004 in The New England Journal of Medicine on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental disorders in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that 5 percent to 9.4 percent (depending on the strictness of the PTSD definition used) suffered from PTSD before deployment. After deployment, 6.2 percent to 19.9 percent suffered from PTSD. For the broad definition of PTSD that represents an increase of 10.5 percent (19.9 percent – 9.4 percent = 10.5 percent). That is 10,500 additional cases of PTSD for every 100,000 U.S. troops after they have served in Iraq. ePluribus Media, an independent citizen journalism collective, is tracking and cataloging press-reported possible, probable, or confirmed incidents of post-deployment or combat-zone cases in its PTSD Timeline.

Information on injuries suffered by troops of other coalition countries is less readily available, but a statement in Hansard indicated that 2,703 U.K. soldiers had been medically evacuated from Iraq for wounds or injuries as of October 4, 2004, and that 155 U.K. troops were wounded in combat in the initial invasion.

Leishmaniasis has been reported by U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, including visceral leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis, spread by biting sand fleas, was diagnosed in hundreds of U.S. troops compared to just 32 during the first Gulf War.

Accidents and negligence

As of August 2008, sixteen American troops have died from accidental electrocutions in Iraq according to the Defense Department. One soldier had been electrocuted in a shower, while another had been electrocuted in a swimming pool. KBR, the contractor responsible, had been warned by employees of unsafe practices, and was criticised following the revelations.

Nightline controversy

Ted Koppel, host of ABC's Nightline, devoted his entire show on April 30, 2004, to reading the names of 721 of the 737 U.S. troops who had died thus far in Iraq. (The show had not been able to confirm the remaining sixteen names.) Claiming that the broadcast was "motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq", the Sinclair Broadcast Group took the action of barring the seven ABC network-affiliated stations it controls from airing the show. The decision to censor the broadcast drew criticism from both sides, including members of the armed forces, opponents of the war, MoveOn.org, and most notably Republican U.S. Senator John McCain, who denounced the move as "unpatriotic" and "a gross disservice to the public".

Amputees

Amputee U.S. soldier (February 2007)

As of January 18, 2007, there were at least 500 American amputees due to the Iraq War. In 2016, the number was estimated to be 1,650 U.S. troops. The 2007 estimate suggests amputees represent 2.2% of the 22,700 U.S. troops wounded in action (5% for soldiers whose wounds prevented them returning to duty).

Traumatic brain injuries

By March 2009, the Pentagon estimated as many as 360,000 U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts may have suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI), including 45,000 to 90,000 veterans with persistent symptoms requiring specialized care.

In February 2007, one expert from the VA estimated that the number of undiagnosed TBIs were higher than 7,500.

According to USA Today, by November 2007 there were more than an estimated 20,000 US troops who had signs of brain injuries without being classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mental illness and suicide

A top U.S. Army psychiatrist, Colonel Charles Hoge, said in March 2008 that nearly 30% of troops on their third deployment suffered from serious mental-health problems, and that one year was not enough time between combat tours.

A March 12, 2007, Time article reported on a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. About one third of the 103,788 veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seen at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities between September 30, 2001, and September 30, 2005, were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder, such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. More than half of those diagnosed, 56 percent, were suffering from more than one disorder. The most common combination was post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

In January 2008, the U.S. Army reported that the rate of suicide among soldiers in 2007 was the highest since the Army started counting in 1980. There were 121 suicides in 2007, a 20-percent jump over the prior year. Also, there were around 2100 attempted suicides and self-injuries in 2007. Other sources reveal higher estimates.

Time magazine reported on June 5, 2008:

Data contained in the Army's fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report indicate that, according to an anonymous survey of U.S. troops taken last fall, about 12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope. ... About a third of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq say they can't see a mental-health professional when they need to. When the number of troops in Iraq surged by 30,000 last year, the number of Army mental-health workers remained the same – about 200 – making counseling and care even tougher to get.

In the same article Time also reported on some of the reasons for the prescription drug use:

That imbalance between seeing the price of war up close and yet not feeling able to do much about it, the survey suggests, contributes to feelings of "intense fear, helplessness or horror" that plant the seeds of mental distress. "A friend was liquefied in the driver's position on a tank, and I saw everything", was a typical comment. Another: "A huge f______ bomb blew my friend's head off like 50 meters from me." Such indelible scenes – and wondering when and where the next one will happen – are driving thousands of soldiers to take antidepressants, military psychiatrists say. It's not hard to imagine why.

Concern has been expressed by mental health professionals about the effects on the emotional health and development of returning veterans' infants and children, due to the increased rates of interpersonal violence, posttraumatic stress, depression, and substance abuse that have been reported among these veterans. Moreover, the stressful effects of physical casualties and loss pose enormous stress for the primary caregiver that can adversely affect her or his parenting, as well as the couple's children directly. The mental health needs of military families in the aftermath of combat exposure and other war-related trauma have been thought likely to be inadequately addressed by the military health system that separates mental health care of the returning soldier from his or her family's care, the latter of whom is generally covered under a contracted, civilian managed-care system.

Iraqi insurgent casualties

Total insurgent deaths are hard to estimate. In 2003, 597 insurgents were killed, according to the U.S. military. From January 2004 through December 2009 (not including May 2004 and March 2009), 23,984 insurgents were estimated to have been killed based on reports from Coalition soldiers on the frontlines. In the two missing months from the estimate, 652 were killed in May 2004, and 45 were killed in March 2009. In 2010, another 676 insurgents were killed. In January and March through October 2011, 451 insurgents were killed. Based on all of these estimates some 26,405 insurgents/militia were killed from 2003, up until late 2011.

However, this number could be low compared to reality as it only counts combat deaths against US-led forces; insurgents also frequently clashed between each other and those killed by noncombat causes are not counted. There have been contradictions between the figures released by the U.S. military and those released by the Iraqi government. For example, the U.S. military's number of insurgents killed in 2005, is 3,247, which is in contrast to the Iraqi government's figure of 1,734, however, fear of civilians fatalities, numbers were lowered. In 2007, 4,544 militants were killed according to the Iraqi ministries, while the U.S. military claimed 6,747 died. Also, in 2008, 2,028 insurgents were reported killed and in 2009, with the exception of the month of June, 488 were killed according to the Iraqi Defence Ministry. These numbers are also not in line with the U.S. military estimate of some 3,984 killed in 2008 and 2009.

U.S. military- and Iraqi Defence Ministry-provided numbers, including suicide bombers

• 2011 – 451 (not including February & August)
• 2010 – 676
• 2009 – 488 (not including June)
• 2008 – 2,028
• 2007 – 6,747 (U.S. military), 4,544 (Iraqi Defence Ministry)
• 2006 – 3,902
• 2005 – 3,247 (U.S. military), 1,734 (Iraqi Defence Ministry)
• 2004 – 6,801
• 2003 – 603

In addition as of August 22, 2009, approximately 1,719 suicide-bombers had also been reported killed.

Main article: List of bombings during the Iraq War

• 2009–73
• 2008 – 257
• 2007 – 442
• 2006 – 297
• 2005 – 478
• 2004 – 140
• 2003 (from August to December) – 32

Grand total – 21,221–26,405 insurgents dead

On September 28, 2006, an Al Qaeda leader claimed that 4,000 foreign insurgents had been killed in the war.

On June 6, 2008, an Iraqi Army official revealed that about 6,000 Al Qaeda fighters were among the insurgents killed since the start of the war up until April 2008.

The US military also reported on the number of suspected insurgents who were detained, arrested, or captured. From June 2003 through August 2007 the US military reported that 119,752 were detained, compared to 18,832 that had been killed.

Contractor casualties

By July 2007, the Department of Labor recorded 933 deaths of contractors in Iraq. By April 2007, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction stated that the number of civilian contractor deaths on US-funded projects in Iraq was 916. In January 2007, the Houston Chronicle reported that the Pentagon did not track contractor deaths in Iraq. In January 2017, an estimated 7,761 contractors had been injured in Iraq, but their nationality was not known. By the end 2006, civilian contractors suffered "3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job." The Labor Department had these numbers because it tracked workers' compensation claims by injured workers or families of slain contractors under the federal Defense Base Act.

Health outcomes

By November 2006, there were reports of a significant deterioration of the Iraq health care system as a result of the war.

In 2007, an Iraqi Society of Psychiatrists and WHO study found that 70% of 10,000 primary school students in the Sha'ab section of north Baghdad are suffering from trauma-related symptoms.

Subsequent articles in The Lancet and Al Jazeera have suggested that the number of cases of birth defects, cancer, miscarriages, illnesses and premature births may have increased dramatically after the first and second Iraq wars, due to the presences of depleted uranium and chemicals introduced during American attacks, especially around Fallujah, Basra and Southern Iraq.

Total Iraqi casualties

Estimates of the total number of Iraqi war-related deaths for certain periods of time are highly disputed.

Iraq Living Conditions Survey (2004)

A study commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), called the Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), sampled almost 22,000 households across all Iraqi provinces. It estimated 24,000 war-related violent deaths by May 2004 (with a 95 percent confidence interval from 18,000 to 29,000). This study did not attempt to measure what portion of its estimate was made up of civilians or combatants. It would include Iraqi military killed during the invasion, as well as "insurgents" or other fighters thereafter. This study has been criticized for various reasons. For more info see the section in Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties that compares the Lancet and UNDP ILCS studies.

Lancet (2004)

Main article: Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties

The October 2004 Lancet study done by public health experts from Johns Hopkins University and published on October 29, 2004, in The Lancet medical journal, estimated that 100,000 "excess" Iraqi deaths from all causes had occurred since the U.S. invasion began. The study did not attempt to measure how many of these were civilian, but the study's authors have said they believe that the "vast majority" were non-combatants, based on 7% of the casualties being women and 46% being children under the age of 15 (including Falluja data). To arrive at these excess death figures, a survey was taken from 988 Iraqi households in 33 clusters throughout Iraq, in which the residents were asked how many people lived there and how many births and deaths there had been since the war began. They then compared the death rate with the average from the 15 months before the war. Iraqis were found to be 1.5 times more likely to die from all causes after the invasion (rising from 0.5% to 0.79% per year) than in the 15 months preceding the war, producing an estimate of 98,000 excess deaths. This figure excluded data from one cluster in Falluja, which was deemed too much of an outlier for inclusion in the national estimate. If it included data from Falluja, which showed a higher rate of violent deaths than the other 32 clusters combined, the increased death rate would be raised from 1.5 to 2.5-fold, violent deaths would be 58 times more likely with most of them due to air-strikes by coalition forces, and an additional 200,000 fatalities would be estimated.

Iraqiyun estimate (2005)

The Iraqi non-governmental organisation, Iraqiyun, estimated 128,000 deaths from the invasion until July 2005. A July 2005 United Press International (UPI) article said the number came from the chairman of the Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani. He said 55 percent of those killed were women, and children aged 12 and under. The UPI article reported: "Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared." A 2010 book by Nicolas Davies reported the Iraqiyun estimate, and that Iraqiyun was affiliated with the political party of Interim President Ghazi Al-Yawer. Davies wrote: "The report specified that it included only confirmed deaths reported to relatives, omitting significant numbers of people who had simply disappeared without trace amid the violence and chaos."

Lancet (2006)

Main article: Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties

The October 2006 Lancet study by Gilbert Burnham (of Johns Hopkins University) and co-authors estimated total excess deaths (civilian and non-civilian) related to the war of 654,965 excess deaths up to July 2006. The 2006 study was based on surveys conducted between May 20 and July 10, 2006. More households were surveyed than during the 2004 study, allowing for a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths. Those estimates were far higher than other available tallies at the time.

The Burnham et al. study has been described as the most controversial study in survey research on armed conflict, and its findings have been widely disputed in the academic literature. Shortly after publication, the study's estimate and methodology came under criticism from a number of sources, including the United States government, academics, and the Iraq Body Count. At the time, other experts praised the methodology of the study. John Tirman, who commissioned and directed the funding for the study defended the study. A 2008 systematic review of casualty estimates in the Iraq War in the journal Conflict and Health concluded that the highest quality studies have used "population-based methods" that have "yielded the highest estimates. A 2016 study described the Lancet study as seen "widely viewed among peers as the most rigorous investigations of Iraq War–related mortality among Iraqi civilians," and argued that part of the criticism "may have been politically motivated."

A number of peer-reviewed studies criticized the Lancet study on the basis of its methodology and exaggerated casualty numbers. The authors of the Lancet study were also accused of ethical breaches in terms of how the survey was conducted and in how the authors responded to requests for data and information. In 2009, the lead author of the Lancet study was censured by American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for refusing to provide "several basic facts about" the study. AAPOR had over a 12-year period only formally censured two other individuals. In 2012, Michael Spagat noted that six peer-reviewed studies had identified shortcomings in the Lancet study, and that the Lancet authors had yet to make a substantive response to the critiques. According to Spagat, there is "ample reason" to discard Lancet study estimate. Columbia University statistician Andrew Gelman said in 2014 that "serious flaws have been demonstrated" in the Lancet study, and in 2015 that his impression was that the Lancet study "had pretty much been discredited". Joshua Goldstein, professor emeritus of International Relations at American University, wrote that critics of the study "have argued convincingly that the sample method was biased." According to University of Delaware sociologist Joel Best in his book Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data, "it seems likely that [the Lancet estimate] was too large". Conflict scholars Nils Petter Gleditsch, Erik Melander and Henrik Urdal said there were "major biases" in the study, leading to oversampling of households affected by violence.

A 2008 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that the 2006 Lancet study may have considerably overestimated Iraq War casualties, that the study made "unusual" methodological choices, and called on the 2006 Lancet study authors to make all of their data available. The 2008 study was awarded "Article of the Year – 2008" by the Journal of Peace Research, with the jury of Lars-Erik Cederman (ETH Zürich), Jon Hovi (University of Oslo) and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell (University of Iowa) writing that the "authors show convincingly that previous studies which are based on a cross-street cluster-sampling algorithm (CSSA) have significantly overestimated the number of casualties in Iraq." American University political scientist Thomas Zeitzoff said the Journal of Peace Research study showed the Lancet study to be "wildly inaccurate" due to its reliance on information from biased samples.

Michael Spagat criticized the 2006 Lancet study in a 2010 article for the journal Defence and Peace Economics. Spagat wrote that he found "some evidence relating to data fabrication and falsification" and "this evidence suggests that this survey cannot be considered a reliable or valid contribution towards knowledge about the extent of mortality in Iraq since 2003". Spagat also chided the Lancet study for "ethical violations to the survey's respondents including endangerment, privacy breaches and violations in obtaining informed consent". In a letter to the journal Science, Spagat said that the Lancet study had failed replication in a study by the WHO (the Iraq Family Health Survey). Spagat noted that the lead author of the 2006 study had been censured by the American Association for Public Opinion Research for "repeatedly refusing to disclose the corresponding information for his survey".

The Iraq Family Health Survey published by WHO researchers in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the 2006 Lancet study results "considerably overestimated the number of violent deaths" and that the results are highly improbable. In comparing the two studies, peace researcher Kristine Eck of Uppsala University notes that the IFHS study which covered the same period as the Lancet survey "was based on a much larger sample (9,345 households compared to Burnham et al's 1,849) in far more clusters (1,086 clusters compared to Burnham et al's 47)." In comparing the two studies, Joachim Kreutz of Stockholm University and Nicholas Marsh of PRIO said the IFHS study produced "a more reliable estimate." Oxford University political scientist Adam Roberts wrote that the IFHS study was "more rigorous."

Burnham, Edward J. Mills, and Frederick M. Burkle noted that the IFHS's data indicated that Iraqi mortality increased by a factor of 1.9 following the invasion, compared to the factor of 2.4 found by Burnham et al., which translates to some 433,000 excess Iraqi deaths (violent and non-violent). Timothy R. Gulden considered it implausible that fewer than one-third of these excess deaths would have been violent in nature. Francisco J. Luquero and Rebecca F. Grais argued that the IFHS's lengthy survey and use of IBC data as a proxy for particularly dangerous areas likely resulted in an underestimate of violent mortality, while Gulden hypothesized that respondents may have been reluctant to report violent deaths to researchers working with the Iraqi government. In a similar vein, Tirman observed that the Iraqi Health Ministry was affiliated with Shi'ite sectarians at the time, remarking that there was evidence that many violent deaths may have been recategorized as "non-violent" to avoid government retribution: "For example, the number of deaths by auto accidents rose by four times the pre-invasion rate; had this single figure been included in the violent deaths category, the overall estimate would have risen to 196,000." Gulden even commented that "the IFHS results are easily in line with the finding of more than 600,000 violent deaths in the study by Burnham et al." However, the authors of the IFHS rejected such claims: "Because the level of underreporting is almost certainly higher for deaths in earlier time periods, we did not attempt to estimate excess deaths. The excess deaths reported by Burnham et al. included only 8.2% of deaths from nonviolent causes, so inclusion of these deaths will not increase the agreement between the estimates from the IFHS and Burnham et al."

A graph in the Lancet article purportedly demonstrating that its conclusions are in line with violence trends measured by the IBC and Defense Department used cherry-picked data and had two Y-axes; the authors conceded that the graph was flawed, but the Lancet never retracted it.

Iraq Health Minister estimate (2006)

In early November 2006 Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said that he estimated between 100,000 and 150,000 people had been killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The Taipei Times reported on his methodology: "Al-Shemari said on Thursday [, November 9, 2006,] that he based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals – though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total." The Washington Post reported: "As al-Shemari issued the startling new estimate, the head of the Baghdad central morgue said Thursday he was receiving as many as 60 violent death victims each day at his facility alone. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaidi said those deaths did not include victims of violence whose bodies were taken to the city's many hospital morgues or those who were removed from attack scenes by relatives and quickly buried according to Muslim custom."

From a November 9, 2006, International Herald Tribune article:

Each day we lost 100 persons, that means per month 3,000, per year it's 36,000, plus or minus 10 percent", al-Shemari said. "So by three years, 120,000, half-year 20,000, that means 140,000, plus or minus 10 percent", he said, explaining how he came to the figures. "This includes all Iraqis killed – police, ordinary people, children", he said, adding that people who were kidnapped and later found dead were also included in his estimate. He said the figures were compiled by counting bodies brought to "forensic institutes" or hospitals.

From a November 11, 2006, Taipei Times article:

An official with the ministry also confirmed the figure yesterday [November 10, 2006], but later said that the estimated deaths ranged between 100,000 and 150,000. "The minister was misquoted. He said between 100,000–150,000 people were killed in three-and-a-half years", the official said.

United Nations (2006)

The United Nations reported that 34,452 violent deaths occurred in 2006, based on data from morgues, hospitals, and municipal authorities across Iraq.

D3 Systems poll (2007)

From February 25 to March 5, 2007, D3 Systems [17] conducted a poll for the BBC, ABC News, ARD and USA Today.

ABC News reported: "One in six says someone in their own household has been harmed. ... 53 percent of Iraqis say a close friend or immediate family member has been hurt in the current violence. That ranges from three in 10 in the Kurdish provinces to, in Baghdad, nearly eight in 10."

The methodology was described thus: "This poll... was conducted February 25 – March 5, 2007, through in-person interviews with a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqi adults, including oversamples in Anbar province, Basra city, Kirkuk and the Sadr City section of Baghdad. The results have a 2.5-point error margin."

There was a field staff of 150 Iraqis in all. That included 103 interviewers, interviewing selected respondents at 458 locales across the country. "This poll asked about nine kinds of violence (car bombs, snipers or crossfire, kidnappings, fighting among opposing groups or abuse of civilians by various armed forces)."

Question 35 asked: "Have you or an immediate family member – by which I mean someone living in this household – been physically harmed by the violence that is occurring in the country at this time?" Here are the results in percentages:

Groups	Yes	No	No opinion
All	17	83	0
Sunni	21	79	0
Shiite	17	83	0
Kurdish	7	93	0

17% of respondents reported that at least one member of the household had been "physically harmed by the violence that is occurring in the country at this time." The survey did not ask whether multiple household members had been harmed.

Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey (2007, 2008)

A September 14, 2007, estimate by Opinion Research Business (ORB), an independent British polling agency, suggested that the total Iraqi violent death toll due to the Iraq War since the U.S.-led invasion was in excess of 1.2 million (1,220,580). These results were based on a survey of 1,499 adults in Iraq from August 12–19, 2007. ORB published an update in January 2008 based on additional work carried out in rural areas of Iraq. Some 600 additional interviews were undertaken and as a result of this the death estimate was revised to 1,033,000 with a given range of 946,000 to 1,120,000.

Participants of the ORB survey were asked the following question: "How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof."

This ORB estimate has been strongly criticised as exaggerated and ill-founded in peer reviewed literature. According to Carnegie Mellon University historian Jay D. Aronson, "Because this was a number that few people could take seriously (given the incredible magnitude of violence that would have had to take place daily for such a number to be even remotely possible), the ORB study has largely been ignored."

Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS, 2008)

The Iraq Family Health Survey published in 2008 in The New England Journal of Medicine surveyed 9,345 households across Iraq and was carried out in 2006 and 2007. It estimated 151,000 deaths due to violence (95% uncertainty range, 104,000 to 223,000) from March 2003 through June 2006.

The study was done by the "Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group", a collaborative effort of six organizations: the Federal Ministry of Health, Baghdad; Kurdistan Ministry of Planning, Erbil; Kurdistan Ministry of Health, Erbil; Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology, Baghdad; World Health Organization Iraq office, Amman, Jordan; World Health Organization, Geneva.

The Associated Press and Health Ministry (2009)

In April 2009, the Associated Press reported that Iraq Health Ministry had recorded (via death certificates issued by hospitals and morgues) a total of 87,215 violent deaths of Iraqi citizens between January 1, 2005, and February 28, 2009. The number excludes thousands of missing persons and civilians whose deaths were unrecorded; the government official who provided the data told the AP that if included, the number of dead for that period would be 10 to 20 percent higher.

The Associated Press used the Health Ministry tally and other data (including counts of casualties for 2003–2004, and after March 1, 2009, from hospital sources and media reports, in major part the Iraq Body Count) to estimate that more than 110,600 Iraqis were killed from the start of the war to April 2009. Experts interviewed by the AP found this estimate to be credible and an "important baseline" although necessarily an estimate because of unrecorded deaths, especially in inaccessible areas. While mass graves discovered over time shed more light on deaths in the Iraq War, the AP noted that "how many remain will never be known."

PLOS Medicine (2013)

A 2013 study by Hagopian et al. in PLOS Medicine estimated that 461,000 Iraqis died as a result of the Iraq War. The study used a similar methodology as the 2006 Lancet study and had the lead author of the 2006 study as one of the 12 authors. According to one of the authors, Amy Hagopian, half of the casualties not resulting from violence were due to inadequate treatment of cardiovascular disease. Upon the study's publication, Michael Spagat, a critic of the 2006 Lancet study, said that the 2013 study seemed "to fix most of the methodological flaws of the 2006 paper". Spagat however noted that he found the large confidence interval of the 2013 study disconcerting. Other critics of the 2006 Lancet study mirrored Spagat's views, noting that the 2013 study was an improvement but that the large confidence interval was concerning.

A 2017 study by Spagat and Van Weezel replicated the 2013 study by Hagopian et al. and found that the 500,000 casualty estimate by Hagopian et al. was not supported by data. Spagat and Van Weezel said that Hagopian et al. made many methodological errors. Hagopian et al. defended their original study, arguing that Van Weezel and Spagat misunderstood their method. Van Weezel and Spagat answered, saying that the response by Hagopian et al. "avoids the central points, addresses only secondary issues and makes ad hominem attacks."

Some media estimates

In December 2005 President Bush said there were 30,000 Iraqi dead. White House spokesman Scott McClellan later said it was "not an official government estimate", and was based on media reports.

For 2006, a January 2, 2007, Associated Press article reports: "The tabulation by the Iraqi ministries of Health, Defence and Interior, showed that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers had been killed in the violence that raged across the country last year. The Associated Press figure, gleaned from daily news reports from Baghdad, arrived at a total of 13,738 deaths." The Australian reports in a January 2, 2007, article: "A figure of 3700 civilian deaths in October '[2006]', the latest tally given by the UN based on data from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, was branded exaggerated by the Iraqi Government." Iraqi government estimates include "people killed in bombings and shootings but not deaths classed as 'criminal'." Also, they "include no deaths among the many civilians wounded in attacks who may die later from wounds. Nor do they include many people kidnapped whose fate remains unknown."

A June 25, 2006, Los Angeles Times article, "War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000", reported that their estimate of violent deaths consisted "mostly of civilians" but probably also included security forces and insurgents. It added that, "Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since." Here is how the Times got its number: "The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while the Health Ministry said it had documented 18,933 deaths from 'military clashes' and 'terrorist attacks' from April 5, 2004, to June 1, 2006. Together, the toll reaches 49,137. However, samples obtained from local health departments in other provinces show an undercount that brings the total well beyond 50,000. The figure also does not include deaths outside Baghdad in the first year of the invasion."

Reviews

A 2008 review of Iraqi death estimates concluded that 600,000 deaths between 2003 and 2006 likely undercounted total mortality:

Studies assessed as the highest quality, those using population-based methods, yielded the highest estimates... Our review indicates that, despite varying estimates, the mortality burden of the war and its sequelae on Iraq is large... Of the population-based studies, the Roberts and Burnham studies provided the most rigorous methodology as their primary outcome was mortality... not surprisingly their studies have been roundly criticized given the political consequences of their findings and the inherent security and political problems of conducting this type of research.

A 2016 review came to similar conclusions, stating that estimates of very high Iraqi casualties published in the journal Lancet are

"...widely viewed among peers as the most rigorous investigations of Iraq War–related mortality among Iraqi civilians; we agree with this assessment and believe that the [PLOS] study is also scientifically rigorous... [Iraqi civilian deaths] in fact, may have been underestimated by these scientifically conservative studies."

According to a 2017 review by Keith Krause of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, "the consensus seems to be that around 150,000 people died violently as a result of the fighting between 2003 and 2006."

Undercounting

Some studies estimating the casualties due to the war in Iraq say there are various reasons why the estimates and counts may be low.

Morgue workers have alleged that official numbers underestimate the death toll. The bodies of some casualties do not end up in morgue and thus may go unrecorded. In 2006, The Washington Post reported: "Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency."

A January 31, 2008 Perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine contains the following discussion of undercounting Iraqi civilian casualties in household surveys:

... sometimes it was problematic or too dangerous to enter a cluster of households, which might well result in an undercount; data from the Iraq Body Count on the distribution of deaths among provinces were used to calculate estimates in these instances. If the clustering of violent deaths wasn't accurately captured, that could also increase uncertainty. The sampling frame was based on a 2004 count, but the population has been changing rapidly and dramatically because of sectarian violence, the flight of refugees, and overall population migration. Another source of bias in household surveys is underreporting due to the dissolution of some households after a death, so that no one remains to tell the former inhabitants' story.

The Washington Post noted in 2008 that

research has shown that household surveys typically miss 30 to 50 percent of deaths. One reason is that some families that have suffered violent deaths leave the survey area. ... Some people are kidnapped and disappear, and others turn up months or years later in mass graves. Some are buried or otherwise disposed of without being recorded. In particularly violent areas, local governments have effectively ceased to function, and there are ineffective channels for collecting and passing information between hospitals, morgues and the central government.

The October 2006 Lancet study states:

Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance [used by the IBC] recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods [used in the Lancet studies]. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with population-based estimates. Between 1960 and 1990, newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years of highest violence.

The report describes no other specific examples except for this study of Guatemala.

Juan Cole wrote in October 2006 that even though heavy fighting could be observed, none of the Iraqi casualties in the skirmishes were reported on, which suggests undercounting.

A July 28, 2004, opinion piece by Robert Fisk published by The Independent reports that "some families bury their dead without notifying the authorities."

Stephen Soldz, who runs the website "Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report", wrote in a February 5, 2006, article:

Of course, in conditions of active rebellion, the safer areas accessible to Western reporters are likely to be those under US/Coalition control, where deaths are, in turn, likely to be due to insurgent attacks. Areas of insurgent control, which are likely to be subject to US and Iraqi government attack, for example most of Anbar province, are simply off-limits to these reporters. Thus, the realities of reporting imply that reporters will be witness to a larger fraction of deaths due to insurgents and a lesser proportion of deaths due to US and Iraqi government forces.

An October 19, 2006, The Washington Post article reports:

The deaths reported by officials and published in the news media represent only a fraction of the thousands of mutilated bodies winding up in Baghdad's overcrowded morgue each month. ... Bodies are increasingly being dumped in and around Baghdad in fields staked out by individual Shiite militias and Sunni insurgent groups. Iraqi security forces often refuse to go to the dumping grounds, leaving the precise number of bodies in those sites unknown. Civilian deaths, unlike those of American troops, often go unrecorded.

The Australian reported in January 2007 that Iraqi government casualty estimates do not count deaths classed as 'criminal', deaths of civilians who get wounded and die later from the wounds, or kidnap victims who have not been found.

The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) stated in November 2004 that "we have always been quite explicit that our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording".

Underreporting by U.S. authorities

An April 2005 article by The Independent reports:

A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces. ... in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant. She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between February 28 and April 5 [2005], and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed.

The December 2006 report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) found that the United States has filtered out reports of violence in order to disguise its perceived policy failings in Iraq. A December 7, 2006, McClatchy Newspapers article reports that the ISG found that U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence on one day in July 2006, yet "a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light more than 1,100 acts of violence." The article further reports:

The finding confirmed a September 8 McClatchy Newspapers report that U.S. officials excluded scores of people killed in car bombings and mortar attacks from tabulations measuring the results of a drive to reduce violence in Baghdad. By excluding that data, U.S. officials were able to boast that deaths from sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital had declined by more than 52 percent between July and August, McClatchy newspapers reported.

From the ISG report itself:

A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count.

Casualties caused by criminal and political violence

U.S. Army medics lift a wounded Iraqi police officer into an ambulance (March 2007)

In May 2004, Associated Press completed a survey of the morgues in Baghdad and surrounding provinces. The survey tallied violent deaths from May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations, through April 30, 2004.

From the AP article:

In Baghdad, a city of about 5.6 million, 4,279 people were recorded killed in the 12 months through April 30, [2004], according to figures provided by Kais Hassan, director of statistics at Baghdad's Medicolegal Institute, which administers the city's morgues. "Before the war, there was a strong government, strong security. There were a lot of police on the streets and there were no illegal weapons", he said during an AP reporter's visit to the morgue. "Now there are few controls. There is crime, revenge killings, so much violence." The figure does not include most people killed in big terrorist bombings, Hassan said. The cause of death in such cases is obvious so bodies are usually not taken to the morgue, but given directly to victims' families. Also, the bodies of killed fighters from groups like the al-Mahdi Army are rarely taken to morgues.

Accidental trauma deaths from car accidents, falls, etc. are not included in the numbers. The article reports that the numbers translate to 76 killings per 100,000 people in Baghdad, compared to 39 in Bogotá, Colombia, 7.5 in New York City, and 2.4 in neighboring Jordan. The article states that there were 3.0 killings per 100,000 people in Baghdad in 2002 (the year before the war). Morgues surveyed in other parts of Iraq also reported large increases in the number of homicides. Karbala, south of Baghdad, increased from an average of one homicide per month in 2002 to an average of 55 per month in the year following the invasion; in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, where there were no homicides in 2002, the rate had grown to an average of 17 per month; in the northern province of Kirkuk, the rate had increased from 3 per month in 2002 to 34 per month in the survey period.

See also

• Casualty recording
• Center for Civilians in Conflict
• Civilian casualty ratio
• Health in Iraq
• International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• Iraq Body Count project
• Iraq Family Health Survey
• Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties
• List of aviation shootdowns and accidents during the Iraq War
• ORB survey of Iraq War casualties
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• United States military casualties of war
• Violence against academics in post-invasion Iraq

External links

• "Likely Humanitarian Scenarios", UN internal memo predicting 100,000 direct and 400,000 indirect casualties as a result of the invasion.
• "iraqimemorial.org", online database and traveling exhibition of proposals and projects to memorialize the civilian casualties in Iraq.
• "Eyes Wide Open" Archived February 3, 2005, at the Wayback Machine, a traveling exhibition on the human cost of war

Related phrases

This campaign featured a variety of new terminology, much of it initially coined by the U.S. government or military; many of the phrases carried an implicit bias. The name "Operation Iraqi Freedom," for example, expresses one viewpoint of the purpose of the invasion, and is almost never used outside the United States. Also notable was the usage "death squads" to refer to fedayeen paramilitary forces. Members of the Saddam Hussein government were called by disparaging nicknames - e.g., "Chemical Ali" (Ali Hassan al-Majid), "Baghdad Bob" or "Comical Ali" (Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf), and "Mrs. Anthrax" or "Chemical Sally" (Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash). Saddam Hussein was systematically referred to as "Saddam," which some Westerners mistakenly believed to be disparaging. (Although there is no consensus about how to refer to him in English, "Saddam" is acceptable usage, and is how people in Iraq and the Middle East generally refer to him. )

Terminology introduced or popularized during the war include:

• "Axis of Evil," originally used by President Bush during a State of the Union address on January 29, 2002 to describe the countries of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
• "Coalition of the willing," a term that originated in the Clinton era (e.g., interview, President Clinton, ABC, June 8, 1994), and used by the Bush Administration to describe the countries contributing troops in the invasion, of which the U.S. and U.K. were the primary members.
• "Decapitating the regime," a euphemism for either overthrowing the government or killing Saddam Hussein.
• "Embedding," United States practice of assigning civilian journalists to U.S. military units.
• "Minder," an Iraqi government official assigned to watch over a foreign correspondent
• "Old Europe," Rumsfeld's term used to describe the divisions between European governments: "You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe."
• "Regime change," a euphemism for overthrowing a government.
• "Shock and Awe," the strategy of reducing an enemy's will to fight through displays of overwhelming force.

Many slogans and terms coined came to be used by President Bush's political opponents, or those opposed to the war. For example, in April of 2003 John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in the presidential election, said at a campaign rally: "What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States."

Media coverage

Main article: 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage

Media coverage of this war was different in certain ways from that of the Persian Gulf War. Victoria Clarke, the Assistant Defense Secretary, devised the Pentagon's policy of "embedding" reporters with military units. Around 600 journalists were "embedded" with military units, 80% being British or American. This allowed viewers of several channels to see U.S. tanks rolling into Baghdad live on television, with a split screen image of the Iraqi Minister of Information claiming that U.S. forces were not in the city. Many foreign observers of the media and especially the television coverage in the USA felt that it was excessively partisan and in some cases "gung-ho."

Critics of the war, especially those on the political left argued that media organizations should attempt to be objective or neutral in presenting the facts of the invasion, and should not be deferential to claims made by the politicians or the military leaders of their country. In Europe in particular such critics have long argued that the American press and news media are generally uncritical of US government claims and "spin". The fact that American news programs accepted the administration's war terminology like "Operation Iraqi Freedom" uncritically, and that many American reporters were "embedded" with American military units and wore US flags in their lapels, were seen as inappropriate behavior.

European coverage was more critical of the invasion, and tended to put a greater emphasis on coalition setbacks and losses and civilian deaths than the US media. Supporters of the war, especially American conservatives often characterized European media coverage as anti-American and "left-wing." For example, the footage shot of an Iraqi being shot while lying defenceless on the ground, was not fully shown in the USA, with only still images or the part inside the mosque with the actual shooting left out, but was shown in its entirety in the rest of the world.

Another difference was the wide and independent coverage on the World Wide Web, demonstrating that for web-surfers in rich countries and the elites in poorer countries, the Internet had become mature as a medium, giving about half a billion people access to different versions of events.

First-hand reports by Iraqis, however, were spotty during the war itself, since internet penetration in Iraq was already very weak (with an estimate of 12,000 users in Iraq in 2002). The deliberate destruction of Iraqi telecommunication facilities by US forces made Internet communication even more difficult. The web did offer some first-hand reports from bloggers such as Salam Pax, and additional information was available on soldier blogs.

Military leaders shut off the BBC connection to HMS Ark Royal after grumbling among sailors that it was biased in favor of Iraqi reports. By contrast, a study by Justin Lewis at Cardiff University found that the BBC reports had been somewhat sanitized, and did not question pro-war assumptions.

Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news network, which was formed in 1996, gained worldwide attention for its coverage of the war. Their broadcasts were popular in much of the Arab world, but also to some degree in Western nations, with major American networks such as CNN and MSNBC re-broadcasting some of their coverage. Al-Jazeera was well-known for its graphic footage of civilian deaths and direct broadcasts of individuals threatening the citizenry if they cooperated in establishing a new government, which American politicians, including Defense Sec. Rumsfeld, and U.S. news media branded as overly sensationalistic. The English website of Al-Jazeera was brought down during the middle of the Iraq war by Internet vandals.

On April 8, 2003, U.S. aircraft bombed the Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera killing a journalist, Tareq Ayoub, and wounding another despite the US being informed of the office's precise coordinates prior to the incident. An Al Jazeera correspondent said that very clear signs in yellow reading “Press” covered the building from all sides and on the roof. US spokesmen claimed that the bombing had been inadvertent. Later it was reported by writer Robert Fisk that while standing on the roof of the building days before that he noticed "Anti-aircraft guns in a public park close to the bureau were pumping shells into the sky," he went as far as telling Tareq Ayoud, three days before his death, "you have the most dangerous television office in the history of the world." The attack had drawn particular criticism as the Kabul office of the same network had been bombed in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. On the same day as the destruction of the Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera, a U.S. tank fired a HEAT round at what the U.S. military later claimed was a suspected Iraqi forward artillery observer at the Palestine Hotel, where approximately 100 international reporters in Baghdad were based, killing two journalists, Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Cousa of the Spanish network Telecinco and wounding four other correspondents. After interviewing "about a dozen reporters who were at the scene, including two embedded journalists who monitored the military radio traffic before and after the shelling occurred" the Committee to Protect Journalists said the facts suggested "that attack on the journalists, while not deliberate, was avoidable". The Committee to Protect Journalists went on to say that "Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it". The troops on the ground had not been informed by their superiors about the hotel with journalists. The U.S. government had repeatedly criticized Al Jazeera as "endangering the lives of American troops". A top secret memo leaked by a British civil servant and a parliamentary researcher detailed a lengthy conversation on April 16, 2004 between Prime Minister Blair and President Bush, in which Bush according to British media allegedly proposed bombing the Qatar central office of Al Jazeera. House press secretary, Scott McClellan, describing it as "outlandish" said, "Any such notion that we would engage in that kind of activity is just absurd." A UK government official suggested that the Bush threat had been "humorous, not serious". Another source said Bush was "deadly serious". The U.K. government refuses to publish the memo and two civil servants have been charged with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly disclosing the document. For a fuller discussion, see: Al Jazeera bombing memo.

Journalist Peter Arnett was fired by MSNBC and National Geographic after he declared in an interview with the Iraqi information ministry that he believed the U.S. strategy of "shock and awe" had failed. He also went on to tell Iraqi State TV that he had told "Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country," and that reports from Baghdad about civilian deaths had helped antiwar protesters undermine the Bush administration's strategy. The interview was given 10 days before the fall of Baghdad. On 2 April 2003, in a speech given in New York City, British Home Secretary David Blunkett commented on what he believed to be sympathetic and corrupt reporting of Iraq by Arab news sources. He told the audience that "It's hard to get the true facts if the reporters of Al Jazeera are actually linked into, and are only there because they are provided with facilities and support from, the régime." Ironically, his speech came only hours before Al Jazeera was ejected from Baghdad by the Iraqi government. U.S. media coverage during the Vietnam War included photographs of the flag-draped coffins of American military personnel killed in action. During the invasion and occupation of Iraq, however, as in most other US wars, the Bush administration prohibited release of such photographs and, according to Senator Patrick Leahy, scheduled the return of wounded soldiers for after midnight so that the press would not see them. A number of Dover photographs were eventually released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by blogger Russ Kick. The practice of transporting wounded soldiers to the US at night was documented by both the Drudge Report and Salon.com. This ban was instituted in 2000 by the Clinton administration, and mirrors a similar ban put in place during the Gulf War , though it appears not to have been enforced as tightly during previous military operations.

International initiatives have protested against U.S. media for downplaying and misinterpreting protests as anti-Americanism, and have accused them of foul language. There was a personal, insulting tone to some of the pro-war commentary in the U.S. and Britain; examples include commentator Christopher Hitchens calling Jacques Chirac "A balding Joan of Arc in drag" , the New York Post referring to France, Germany and Russia as the "Axis of weasels" , and New York Times columnist William Safire stating that "Chirac and his poodle Putin have severely damaged the United Nations" . The New York Times as well as many other US media later expressed deep concern about their uncritical reporting about the war. (cf. The New York Times#Times self-examination of bias) Questions have also been raised about U.S. media coverage, given that in the U.S. a pre-war Washington Post poll showed that 69% of the population thought it "likely" or "very likely" that Iraq was involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks, although no evidence of an Iraqi connection to the attack has ever been found.

See also

• American government position on invasion of Iraq
• American popular opinion of invasion of Iraq
• Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• British Mandate of Iraq
• Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003
• Foreign hostages in Iraq
• Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq
• Human rights in post-Saddam Iraq
• Iraq disarmament crisis
• Iraqi insurgency
• List of Coalition aircraft crashes in Iraq
• List of killed, threatened or kidnapped Iraqi academics
• List of people associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• 2003 - 2004 occupation of Iraq timeline
• Polish involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• Popular opposition to the 2003 Iraq War
• Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–2006
• Protests against the 2003 Iraq war
• Reconstruction of Iraq
• Sectarian violence in Iraq
• The UN Security Council and the Iraq war
• Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• War on Terrorism

Additional Refrences

• Donnelly, Thomas. Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century. Report of the Project for the New American Century, September 2000. Available online.

• McCain, John. Finishing the Job in Iraq Air Force Magazine, July 2004. [18]

• ^ CNN.com/Inside Politics (2002). Senate approves Iraq war resolution. Accessed on June 06 2005.

• ^ Paul, U.S. Representative Ron, Office of (2002). Paul Calls for Congressional Declaration of War with Iraq. Accessed on June 06 2005.

• ^ Washington Post (2002). Bush Aides Say Iraq War Needs No Hill Vote. Accessed on June 06 2005.

Further reading

• Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces by Linda Robinson
• Heavy Metal a Tank Company's Battle to Baghdad by Captain Jason Conroy and Ron Martz
• Dan Thompson (2005). American, Interrupted: 14 Months in Iraq. First Armored Division Museum. Written by 1st Armored Division Corporal while stationed in Iraq from Spring 2003 until July 2004.[19]

External links

• The War In Context News aggregator
• Informed Comment. Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion by Professor Juan Cole
• by Professor Dr. Sedat Laciner, "Ten Impasses of the Resistance in Iraq"
• Civilian Death Toll
• Amnesty International Report on Iraq
• Borgen Project: Cost of the Iraq War
• Iraq: Amnesty International seeks clarification on house demolitions by US troops in Iraq
• Iraq: full texts of speeches and key documents archived by The Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2005.
• Iraq: Forcible return of refugees and asylum-seekers is contrary to international law
• Iraq: Tribunal established without consultation
• Memorandum on concerns related to legislation introduced by the Coalition Provisional Authority
• National Priorities Project Cost of the Iraqi War Estimate
• Reconstruction must ensure the human rights of Iraqis
• Video Seminar on Iraq Coalition Politics: 20 April 2005, sponsored by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security at the University of Illinois.
• by Prof. Dr. Ihsan Bal, JTW, "US Fury on ‘Anti Americanism’ in Turkey"
• War in Iraq: Day by Day Guide
• Iraq War NEWS DIGEST-Iraq and the U.S.A.
• Iraq Special Weapons News
• Attacks on journalists in Iraq - IFEX
• Archaeologists Review Loss of Valuables in Museum Looting
• by Emre Ozkan and Murat Sogangoz, "Do Talabani and Barzani prefer Civil-War in Iraq?"
• Iraqi Perspectives Report, Joint Center for Operational Analysis at United States Department of Defense, March 2006
• "Bush Jr.'s War on Iraq" HIR
• "Frontline: The Dark Side" PBS documentary on Vice President Dick Cheney's remaking of the Executive and infighting leading up to the war in Iraq
• [20], Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq, June 2006
• [21], Hundreds of chemical weapons found in Iraq: US intelligence, June 2006

Video

• Video archive of everyday U.S. soldier life in Iraq weeks after invasion.