Iraq Mesapotamia was the cradle of early civilisation. Sumerians, who lived near Tigris and Euphrates Rivers at about 3000BC, introduced the writing, ploughing of land and growing crops, irrigation and development of cities. After Islamization, Iraqi Arabs or Abbasies made Baghdad as the center of Arabic culture and civilisation. The Baghdad Museum was created early in the 11th Century, and it contained an entire history of the region, as well as Arabic civilization until it was burned by Mongols in the 14th century. Although the books were burned by Mongols, artefacts were largely recovered until they were destroyed during the latest occupation of Baghdad.

After Saudi Arabia, Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. How did such a country with rich heritage and wealth become the present Iraq? We need to ask how such a disaster can be avoided again in the future. The people of Iraq have been suffering beyond endurance not since the US – UK occupation, but since the Great War. The British Empire captured Iraq from Ottoman Turks during the Great War, and randomly divided the region into small kingdoms for colonial control [Source: J. Russel, http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/middleEast.asp]. The British released Iraq by securing the control of oil. As soon as the Iraqi King nationalized the oil wells, the British prepared a military coup in 1958, which eventually turned into Arab Nationalist Baas Party in the 1960s. Saddam seized power in the 1970s with another violent coup, and established his regime. The oil wealth was used for arms, and the military power was used to attack its neighbours and destroy any dissent within Iraq. Saddam used chemical weapons, or “weapons of mass destruction”, against Iranians during war, and gassed an entire Kurdish town by the name of Halapja with all of its inhabitants. These atrocities took place before Saddam invaded Kuwait. My personal opinion was that his regime should have been isolated that time when he clearly violated all the international laws in the books. However, his war effort against Iran was unfortunately supported by the very same powers who eventually took him out after he threatened their oil and power interests in the region. The people of the region are not naïve to believe that the occupation happened to save them, or to discover extinguished “weapons of mass destruction”. It was clearly a war to control 40% of the oil reserves in the world.
The UN embargo on Iraq imposed by the US and the UK did not deter Saddam, but destroyed Iraqi people’s ability to survive and organize against Saddam. The civilian infrastructure of the country was totally destroyed since the 1991 embargo. Let us assess the humanitarian situation in Iraq just before the latest war. The following figures are taken from United Nations Statistics, which compared the situation between 1991 and 2002 [Source: “ The Impact of Iraqi War on Iraqi Children”, International Study Team report, January 2003. www.ippnw.org/ISTFinalReport.pdf ]

— GDP per capita dropped from $3181 US to $500 US

— Malnutrition increased from 5.1% to 15.9%

— Infant mortality increased from 61 to 105 deaths out of 1000 live births.

— Physiological and mental disorder increased from 200,000 to 510,000 (UNICEF).

— The average salary dropped from 7532 Dinnar (which was equivalent to US$ in the beginning) to about $5/month.

— Food rations dropped from 3319 kcal/person to 2215 kcal/person.
The above figures were valid for the regions controlled by Saddam, excluding Northern Iraq, which was protected by the Turkish Army on the land, and the US and UK warplanes flying from Turkey. After the Kurdish warlords stopped fighting over taxation and tribal rivalry in 1998, the North witnessed considerable economic growth by taxing the oil exported from Iraq to Turkey through oil for food program.

The question is how to build a new democratic and stable Iraq without creating another dictatorship.