Preparations For 2003 Invasion Of Iraq
Timelines
- 2003
- 2004
- 2005
- 2006
- 2007
- 2008
- 2009
- 2010
- 2011
Phases
- Invasion
- Post-invasion insurgency
- Civil war
- Insurgency 2008-2011
- US withdrawal violence
|
Battles and operations of the Iraq War |
|
|---|---|
|
Invasion (2003)
Post-invasion insurgency
Civil War
Surge (2007)
Insurgency (2008-2011)
Drawdown
|
|
|
Insurgent attacks of the Iraq War |
|
|---|---|
|
‡ indicates attacks resulting in over 100 deaths
|
|
The 2003 invasion of Iraq began on March 20. On March 18, US President George W. Bush had set a deadline for the ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and his two sons, Uday and Qusay to leave the country, or face military action. By the time of the ultimatum, political and military preparations for the invasion were well advanced.
Plans for securing Iraqi cities following the invasion, infrastructure reconstruction, and transitioning the country into a post-war government – plans to "win the peace" — were either nonexistent or woefully inadequate. The lack of a post-invasion security plan allowed widespread looting and the violent insurgency that immediately followed the invasion. The looting "caused far more damage to Iraq's infrastructure than the bombing campaign" and suggested to the insurgents that the US military was vulnerable. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction wrote, "There was insufficient systematic planning for human capital management in Iraq before and during the U.S.-directed stabilization and reconstruction operations."
Former UK Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon commented on this issue in 2007 and said, "There was an enormous amount of post-war planning. It's one of the things that the newspapers have never troubled to look at. I accept, and I've said so publicly, that we perhaps did not anticipate quite the kinds of trouble that we would have. I think we thought that because the population of Iraq hated Saddam Hussein, they would simply come out on the streets and everything would be fine... I don't think we quite estimated the degree of control that Saddam's people had in Iraqi society... So the kind of things we were planning for, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps weren't quite the right things. But they were the right things in terms of the problems that we anticipated, which was the lack of food, water. We probably didn't quite appreciate, as I say, the ruthlessness of some of Saddam's ."
Read more about Preparations For 2003 Invasion Of Iraq: Political Preparations
Famous quotes containing the words preparations for, preparations and/or invasion:
“The most evident difference between man and animals is this: the beast, in as much as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. But man, because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships, sees the causes of things, understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect, makes analogies, easily surveys the whole course of his life, and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)