Iraq 10 Years On: The Benefit of Hindsight

The attempts by President George W. Bush to justify the American-led invasion of Iraq followed so many wildly different reasons with no coherent link that the liveliest of conspiracy theories have flourished. This has been fuelled by the obvious political failure that has caused no pain to Bush and his neo-conservative allies who launched the war, while the companies with links to those same neo-conservatives have taken a significant share in the billions spent in reconstructing Iraq.

In the aftermath of the terrible attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11, the first reason given was that Saddam Hussain supported Al Qaida, although Saddam had been ruthless in suppressing Islamists. Then Bush and Blair used Saddam’s alleged plan to manufacture and prepare to use weapons of mass destruction. When eventually this reason […]