The Iraq Debacle: The Legacy of Seven Years of War We, the undersigned organizations and individuals,
mark the August 31st partial withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Iraq with the following evaluation and recommendations:
- The U.S. occupation of Iraq continues and the
reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq can at best be called
only a rebranded occupation. While the number
of U.S. troops in Iraq will be reduced from a high
of 165,000, there will still be 50,000 troops left
behind, some 75,000 contractors,
five huge “enduring bases” and an Embassy the size
of Vatican City.
- The U.S. military's overthrow of the brutal
dictatorship of Saddam Hussein did not lead to a better
life for Iraqis—just the opposite. It resulted
in the further destruction of basic infrastructure—electricity,
water, sewage—that continues to this
day. The U.S. dropped more tons of bombs on Iraq than
in all of WWII, destroying Iraq's electrical,
water and sewage systems. Iraq's health care
and higher education systems, once the best in the
entire region, have been decimated. The U.S. war on
Iraq unleashed a wave of violence that has left over
one million Iraqis dead and four million displaced,
as well as ethnic rivalries that continue to plague
the nation. We have seriously wounded millions of
Iraqis, creating a lifetime of suffering and economic
hardship for them, their communities and the entire
nation as it struggles to rebuild.
Life expectancy for Iraqis fell from 71 years in 1996
to 67 years in 2007 due to the war and destruction
of the healthcare system. The U.S. use of weapons
such as depleted uranium and white phosphorous has
taken a severe toll, with the cancer
rate in Fallujah, for example, now worse than that
of Hiroshima.
- The majority of the refugees and internally
displaced persons created by the US intervention have
been abandoned. Of the nearly 4 million refugees,
many are now living in increasingly desperate circumstances
in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and around the world. As
undocumented refugees, most are not allowed to work
and are forced to take extremely low paying, illegal
jobs ($3/day) or rely on the UN and charity to survive.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has documented
a spike in the sex
trafficking of Iraqi women.
- Iraq still does not have a functioning government.
Many months after the March 7 elections,
there is still a political vacuum and violence that
is killing roughly 300 civilians a month. There is
no functioning democracy in place and little sign
there will be one in the near future.
- The Iraq War has left a terrible toll on
the U.S. troops. More than one million American
service members have deployed in the Iraq War effort.
Over 4,400 U.S. troops have been killed and tens of
thousands severely injured. 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. PTSD
rates in the military have skyrocketed. In 2009,
a record number of 245 soldiers committed suicide.
- The war has drained our treasury.
As of August 2010, U.S. taxpayers have spent over
$750 billion on the Iraq War effort. Counting the
cost of lifetime care of wounded vets and the interest
payments on the money we borrowed to pay for this
war, the real cost will be in the trillions. This
misappropriation of funds has contributed to the economic
crises we are experiencing, including the lack of
funds for our schools, healthcare, infrastructure
and investments in clean, green jobs.
- The U.S. officials who got us into this
disastrous war on the basis of lies have not been
held accountable. Not George Bush, Dick Cheney,
Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Karl Rove, Donald
Rumsfeld. No one. Neither have the Bush administration
lawyers who authorized torture, including Jay Bybee
and John Yoo. The “think tanks,” journalists and pundits
who perpetuated the lies have not been fired—most
are today cheerleading for the war in Afghanistan.
- The war has led to the pillaging of Iraqi resources
and institutionalization of corruption. The
U.S. Department of Defense has been unable to account
for $8.7 billion of Iraqi oil and gas money meant
for humanitarian needs and reconstruction after the
2003 invasion. The invasion has also led to the erosion
of Iraqi government control over the nation's
oil. In 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney's energy
task force, which included executives of America's
largest energy companies, recommended opening up areas
of their energy sectors to foreign investment. The
resulting draft Iraq
Oil Law threatens global grab for Iraq's
resources as the international oil cartel seeks to
reestablish its control. Adoption of the oil law,
however, has been stymied by stiff popular resistance,
foremost by the oil workers and their union.
- The war has not made us more secure.
The US policy of torture, extraordinary rendition,
indefinite detention, violent and deadly raids on
civilian homes, gunning down innocent civilians in
the streets and absence of habeas corpus has fueled
the fires of hatred and extremism toward Americans.
The very presence of our troops in Iraq and other
Muslim nations has become a recruiting tool.
Given the above, we, the undersigned individuals and
organizations, mark the occasion of this troop withdrawal
by calling on the Administration and Congress to take
the following actions:
- Withdrawal of all U.S. troops and military contractors
from Iraq and the closing of all U.S. bases;
- Reparations to help the Iraqis repair their basic
infrastructure and increased funds for the millions
of internally and externally displaced Iraqis;
- Full support for the U.S. troops who suffer from
the internal and external wounds of war;
- Prosecution of those officials responsible for dragging
our country into this disaster;
- Transfer of funds from war into resources to rebuild
America, with a focus on green jobs.
- The lessons of this disastrous intervention should
also be an impetus for Congress and the administration
to end the war in Afghanistan. It's time to focus
on creating real security here at home and rebuilding
America.
To be listed as an Individual
Signatory to above statement please
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To have your organization
listed below email
us:
- Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice
- CODEPINK: Women for Peace
- Community Organizing Center
- Courage to Resist
- Fellowship of Reconciliation
- Global Exchange
- Institute for Policy Studies' New Internationalism
Project
- Iraq Veterans Against the War
- Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
- Just Foreign Policy
- Military Families Speak Out
- Nicholas (Nick) Dibs, Independent candidate for Congress
- Pax Christi - USA
- Progressive Democrats of America
- Under the Hood
- United for Peace and Justice
- US Labor Against the War
- Veterans for Peace
- Voices for Creative Nonviolence
- Voters for Peace
- War Is a Crime
- War Resisters League
- Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF) Los Angeles Branch
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