Now that phase two of the ‘War on Terrorism’—the dubious invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime—is all but completed, it would seem opportune to determine what results have been attained. Generally, the U. S. Government appears to be jubilant over the fact that Saddam Hussein no longer holds the reins of power, but it persists in being purposefully evasive on the whole issue of whether Iraq ever possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the first place. In so doing, it has demonstrated to any free-thinking individual that it never had enough proof to fight the war against Iraq.

Bush himself announced in Qatar that the WMD were still being searched for. Troops apparently found containers that could be used for WMD, but an important point which the media and the good ‘President’ failed to mention was that these containers could be used for other military purposes too. Either way, the absence of WMD is the only conclusion to reach for the time being. So, just how much of a success was this war on Iraq? The ending of this war against Iraq resembles a similar pattern to the ending of the war in Afghanistan. Indeed, minus the whole WMD issue, the two wars seem close to identical in terms of the motivations and results thereto. Iraq was about regime change, with talk of trials against members of the Iraqi administration after the war ended. Afghanistan was similar. The results were less noble in both cases, all assuming the motives for war were ever bona fide. Regime changes happened in both countries, but without the safeguards of complete legal order over each country as a whole. Both states witnessed looting, murders, mindless revenge attacks, and general civil unrest—all whilst U. S. troops draped their flags arrogantly over deposed statues of Saddam as a sign of triumph. Even now, total control is far from close at hand. Proof of this is demonstrated by the almost daily attacks on U. S. ground troops stationed in Iraq, in the same manner in which similar attacks occurred in Afghanistan. The net result is that in fact, the Bush Administration, with the collusion of its allied states, has made Iraq as dangerous—if not more so—by its dubious initial intervention. Other results include the fact that the spectre of terrorism is in no way near to being eradicated, with terrorist attacks occurring in many areas lately throughout the Middle East, Asia and Russia. The issue of whether the
U. S. A. and the U. K. ever had any genuine proof of the existence of WMD remains as much of a political hot-potato for those concerned as ever. Nonetheless, Prime Minister Blair and President Bush remain as defiant as ever, that they had ‘intelligence’ to suggest that WMD was most definitely a genuine threat in Iraq. Yet with MI6 and related British intelligence agencies saying that there were major inaccuracies with the intelligence relied upon (and disseminated), the road looks far from smooth, particularly for Tony Blair, as well as Bush, perhaps. This issue must continue to be fully probed, though Bush recently announced that he was going to show proof of the existence of WMD very soon. It should prove to be entertaining to watch, however, and to listen to these two leaders over the next few weeks.