Iraq Facts After Saddam Hussein's Death: Iraqi President Sentenced to Death

 

The fact that Saddam Hussein was the former President of Iraq who was executed, the fact that after the fall of Saddam Hussein the Iraqi people regretted. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq, General Najm al-Jabouri would stand at the border with Turkey and look across the gates with longing.

 

"As an officer, I dreamed of traveling outside Iraq," he said, sitting in a park in Saddam Hussein's former palace complex in Mosul. "Sometimes I would go to the Ibrahim Khalil gate just to look outside Iraq, to ​​see if the land outside Iraq was different from inside Iraq."

 

For almost every Iraqi, the last 15 years have been full of unimaginable twists and turns. Jabouri is still an Iraqi general, but now he oversees security in Mosul and controls Saddam Hussein's former compound. His first trip abroad was not to neighboring Turkey, but to the United States.

 

In the era of Saddam Hussein, said Jabouri, Iraq was like a big prison. You must have a permit to travel abroad. You could be imprisoned or even executed for contacting people outside Iraq.

 

In 2003, he was a brigadier general working on national air defense when the US invaded, cutting off communications between Iraqi forces and the military command. Jabouri, like thousands of other officers, went home.

 

Here are some facts about the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people regret, as quoted from Npr.Org and TheConversation as follows:

 

1. The Fall of a Country

The fact that after Saddam Hussein's death, Iraq immediately sank into chaos. Lack of planning for post-invasion security allowed vandalism and looting. American troops protected the Ministry of Petroleum, but other government agencies and buildings were left unprotected. And they don't protect my university.

 

To this day, I remember the devastating scenes in the department where I studied. Once bustling with life, filled with ambition, hope, and the laughter of its students, the campus soon becomes a burnt-out and sabotaged wreck.

 

I couldn't hold back my tears when I saw the Interpretation Laboratory in my department destroyed, its precious equipment stolen.

 

I also remember the series of explosions in my neighborhood when two unidentified men set fire to a house full of ammunition, causing hundreds of casualties and destroying homes and property.

 

The screams of my family, neighbors and children, amid the sound of broken windows and flying shrapnel, still haunt my memory. This is the first time we have witnessed such an explosion as soon as suicide bombings became a part of everyday life.

 

We see the US not only failing to come up with the right strategy to maintain security, but also compounding that failure with various misguided actions. Among these was the decision to disband the 400,000 strong Iraqi army.

 

To operate the Coalition Provisional Authority on a sectarian basis, and to issue a massive decree for de-Beatification, which removed thousands of members of Saddam Hussein's party from the government and security forces.

 

The election and creation of the Provisional Governing Council, using sectarian and ethnic quotas, left its legacy in a flawed electoral system, designed to serve the interests of a divided and corrupt political elite.

 

The still controversial constitution, passed in 2005 with many vaguely articulated articles, only adds to the problem.

 

The security vacuum contributed to the rise of al-Qaeda and later the Islamic State, sectarian divisions, militias, a weak legal system, widespread disenfranchisement among Iraqis, and endemic corruption that is deeply entrenched in all institutions and sectors.

 

2. From Frustration of Despair 

The fact that after the death of Saddam Hussein, the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein is now remembered in a very different way than it was then. Both those who supported and opposed the war now remember that day as the beginning of an occupation for which the perpetrators must be held accountable for its development and subsequent consequences.

 

Meanwhile, Iraq's post-2003 political elite is equally responsible for state affairs. Despite many despicable failures, their patronage-based political system endured. No wonder many Iraqis are reluctant to participate in the upcoming elections.

 

 While Iraqis believe in democracy as a necessary tool for change, they have little hope for the fraudulent system they live in today, which allocates positions not according to the wishes of the people but on the basis of profitable trade.

 

They have little hope for post-election bargains that will be made to share the spoils of power and authority at the expense of their needs.

 

I myself feel the same pain. When the statue was torn down in 2003, I was a frustrated 21-year-old. 15 years later, like many other Iraqis, I am still frustrated but also disbelieving and hopeless.

 

3. Iraq Becomes the Most Dangerous Country. 

The fact that after the death of Saddam Hussein, Iraq turned into one of the most dangerous and corrupt countries in the world. With an estimated 500,000 killed in war and violence since 2003, some families are left untouched. Although security has improved tremendously, corruption remains entrenched.

 

"The majority of the people were previously Sunni and Shia who didn't like the regime," Jabouri said. "But many people, when they compare the situation under Saddam Hussein and now, find that maybe their lives under Saddam Hussein were better."

 

Jabouri was brought back into the new Iraqi army created by the US after 2003. He worked closely with American forces when his troops fought in Tel Afar with Colonel H.R. McMaster, who later served as national security adviser to President Trump. Jabouri went to the US and studied at the Army War College. Four years ago, he returned to Iraq to help lead the battle in Mosul.

 

He said he was heartened: He believes Iraqis have learned the painful lesson that sectarianism is tearing the country apart. "I am optimistic about Iraq's future," he said. "Maybe after 15 or 20 years, Iraq will change."

 

4. US Invasion and Expelling Saddam Hussein's Troops.

 

In 1991, after the US drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Iraq, which had invaded Iraq, Iraqi Kurds broke away from central government control with the help of a US-led no-fly zone.

 

The Kurdistan region developed after 2003 as the most stable and prosperous region in Iraq. Some of them have collapsed after the Kurdish independence referendum. Iraq and its Kurdistan region are once again redefining their relationship.

 

In the mountains near the Kurdish capital, Irbil, former Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari sits by a campfire in the filtered light of early spring. Zebari, a Kurdish, served as Iraq's top diplomat for 11 years, starting in 2003.

 

He remembers having to convince the young American soldiers guarding the gates of Baghdad's Green Zone, the seat of government and the headquarters of the US military, that he was secretary of state and needed to be let in.

 

Zebari described today's Iraq as "broken." But he believes there is still room to fulfill the promises and possibilities that many envisioned for post-war Iraq.

 

"We have high hopes of having a new state based on the principles of democracy, federalism, human rights, citizenship, equality," he said. "The dreams are still there but it will take longer to make them come true. The only achievement is the constitution making those dreams come true."

 

The country's post-war constitution, approved by Iraqi voters in 2005, lays the groundwork for a modern state, promising to create a state "free from sectarianism, racism, discrimination and exclusion." Zebari and others say the problem is that constitutional measures are not being implemented.

 

After 15 years, the Green Zone and the politicians within it have become almost irrelevant to most Iraqis. They have learned to live with the country's political turmoil and government dysfunction.

 

5. Almost Overpowered by ISIS.

 

At the Jabouri base, a US reconnaissance blimp hovers in the sky, watching the city liberated from ISIS last year. American soldiers wearing Army shorts and T-shirts running down the street.

 

It's Wednesday, Jabouri opens its doors to Mosul residents. In 2018, as in 2003, many Iraqis are still using their military to solve their problems. Nearly a year after ISIS was driven out of Mosul, the problem is huge and multi-layered.

 

One woman said her husband and 17 other relatives had been missing since they were captured three years ago by militias working with Iraqi security forces.

 

"They arrested 18 men," he said tearfully at the commander. "Now in my family there are only women. We have no men."

 

Others were unable to return to their homes because their relatives joined ISIS and tribal leaders or local security authorities would not allow them to return, or they were destitute and looking for work.

 

For an elderly woman who said she and her husband were barred from returning because a grandson had joined ISIS, Jabouri picked up the phone and asked the local commander to allow them to return.

 

For others with missing relatives, he promised to check their names when the Interior Ministry provided a list of detainees he had been looking for for months. The poorest leave with a lunch box.

 

Jabouri said in 2003 he first thought that with Saddam gone and America in charge, the new Iraq would be orderly, liberal and secular. "We thought we were going to breathe freedom, we were going to be like Europe," he said.

 

Instead, he said, "We're back in the Dark Ages. It's hard to imagine that the United States would allow religious people to control Iraq."

 

Iraqi American administrators, working with expatriate Iraqi leaders, allocate power along religious and ethnic lines. Iraq became the first Shia-led government in the Arab world in centuries. Many prominent Shia political figures are supported by Iran. Some of the country's Sunni figures have links to al-Qaida.