Route Irish is a code-name for the road from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone. ibid. Haynes
You stupid bastard. You’ve killed a fucking family. ibid. Frankie’s video
Check the incident reports. 1st September. Shooting on a taxi. ibid. Fergus to Tommy in Iraq
If they didn’t support Al Qaeda before, they did after. ibid. Fergus to Rachel
It struck me that such analyses had it backward. It’s the American public for whom the Iraq War is often no more real than a video game. Five years into this war, I am not always confident most Americans fully appreciate the caliber of the people fighting for them, the sacrifices they have made, and the sacrifices they continue to make. After the Vietnam War ended, the onus of shame largely fell on the veterans. This time around, if shame is to be had when the Iraq conflict ends – and all indications are there will be plenty of it – the veterans are the last people in America to deserve it. When it comes to apportioning shame my vote goes to the American people who sent them to war in a surge of emotion but quickly lost the will to either win it or end it. The young troops I profiled in Generation Kill, as well as the other men and women in uniform I’ve encountered in combat zones throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, are among the finest people of their generation. We misuse them at our own peril. Evan Wright, Generation Kill
Saddam’s politics was the politics of the thug, of violence from the outset of his reign. Realism suggests that some people are not going to be tractable in response to purely peaceable overtures. Indeed, it certainly appears that some individuals, including notably Saddam Hussein, will cheerfully help themselves to a yard for every inch offered by well-meaning peacemakers. When we are dealing with customers as tough as that, there is no alternative to being tough ourselves. Jan Narveson, A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq
The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance. Julian Assange
Bush’s war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties. George Soros
The war in Iraq was very clearly about oil as was the invasion of Afghanistan also. The oil pipeline that was planned – the best security for that was an occupation of Afghanistan. Vandana Shiva, physicist
With targeting aid provided by the CIA, 100,000 Iranians were killed by Iraqi chemical weapons during the war. Empire of Oil: The Hidden History of 9/11, 2008
Like Bush, Hitler also offered a New World Order of peace.
The Gulf War is being fought for a bright and shining Utopia.
People who back it as a necessary war believe victory for the US over Iraq would usher in a golden age called the New World Order ...
One of the worst things about the Utopian illusion is that it makes dreadful deeds seem permissible because the stakes are so high.
You can carpet-bomb an enemy back into the stone-age if you’re doing it in the name of a New World Order of permanent peace and happiness. Don McGillivray, The Vancouver Sun 21st January 1991
I’m going to fuck Iraq. Comic Strip: The Hunt for Tony Blair ***** George Bush to Tony Blair, Channel 4 2011
This is a proper war, with tanks and everything. ibid. Tony Blair to Robin Cook
In March 2003 American and British forces invaded Iraq. Iraq had some of the biggest oil fields in the world. With global oil reserves diminishing, many believe this war was an attempt to gain control over it. Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil 3/3, BBC 2009
The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil, and past disruptions of the global oil supply have hurt the American economy. Much of the world's oil lies beneath Iraq and its Gulf neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Some experts argue that, if Iraq had built a nuclear weapon, it would have been much harder to deter Saddam from trying to control the Gulf region and, with it, the world oil market. Council on Foreign Relations online article 2003, ‘Iraq: Oil’
I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression. Edward Snowden
Uruk – the mother of all cities. Richard Miles, Ancient Worlds I: Come Together, BBC 2010
The deadline for Saddam to get out of Kuwait passes. The 90s: The Decade That Connected Us, National Geographic 2014 s1e1
Smart bomb technology: Peter Arnett is still in the thick of the action. ibid.
Video Game War: 147 Americans and an estimated 22,000 Iraqis are killed in combat. ibid.
Hundreds of thousands of service personnel who served in the 1991 Gulf War claimed they returned from the battle-field with serious medical conditions. Conspiracy Test: Gulf War Illness
When Jim Hewitt of the Chronic Sickness Research Foundation asked questions he too was rebuffed. He was told that the Pentagon’s medical records had mysteriously disappeared. ibid.
Many Vets report the toxic exposure alarm sounded so often that some military commanders decided to ignore them as a matter of routine. At the same time the military was using vast quantities of insecticides, and soldiers were being inoculated with an Anthrax vaccine that was not in common use, the alarms, the vaccines, and medicines, the smoke from burning oil wells, jet and rocket fuel, the leaking of Iraqi chemical weapons after Coalition air strikes are all cited in what’s called the Toxic Soup Theory. Some US vets believe the US military’s own munitions posed the worst hazard of all. ibid.
The troops know they were exposed to toxic substances in the Gulf. Did those toxins include Saddam Hussein’s nerve gas? The US government’s statements on the matter of Sarin nerve gas have reinforced the veterans’ suspicions. For years after the first Gulf War the Pentagon claimed that no Sarin was ever released. As it turned out that wasn’t exactly true. After US troops blew up an Iraqi arms dump at Khamisiyah, United Nations inspectors found Sarin on the site. ibid.
Five Gulf War veterans have given blood samples. The vials have now arrived at the lab. All five veterans are convinced Gulf War Syndrome is real. And that they suffer from it ... The Sky Test results are impressive. All five of the veterans have considerable levels of chromosome damage. The damage levels are so high on average they exceed even those of cancer patients. ibid.
Not only is the level of damage to the veterans’ chromosomes severe but also much of the damage is consistent with that caused by alpha radiation. ibid.
We are dealing with the largest single isotope accident that occurred in the world since the discovery of radioactivity in 1896. Dr Asaf Durakovic, Uranium Medical Research Centre
I was exposed to the vaccines. I was exposed to the experimental tablets. I was exposed to oil well fires. I was exposed to unspent shells of A10 depleted uranium shells. I was exposed to dead bodies. Mark Pollard, aircraft mechanic US Air Force retired
Operation Desert Storm has been described as the definitive demonstration of air power and war. (Iraq & Operations) Secrets of War s1e15: The Gulf War: Steel Rain
Operation Desert Storm brought forth an [US] outpouring of affection and respect for the US military not seen since World War II. Secrets of War s1e16: Secrets in the Sand, 1998
But the legacy of that conflict is infinitely more complex. ibid.
The high casualty estimates reflected an exaggerated opinion of Iraqi’ capabilities. ibid.
The U2 is transformed into a high-flying modular intelligence truck. ibid.
In August of 1990 Iraq invaded the emirate of Kuwait, its tiny neighbour to the south. The world community watched in horror as Saddam Hussein’s army plundered the wealth of Kuwait City … 32 nations including the United States vowed to use military force to eject Iraq from Kuwait. Secrets of War s1e60: The Gulf War: The Architects of Desert Storm
Saddam Hussein’s misinterpretation of US’ reaction was his first and most damaging miscalculation of the Gulf War. But there would be misjudgments in the American camp as well. ibid.
Their mission was to convince the Saudis to allow a massive build-up of troops and war machines inside their country. ibid.
Over a quarter of a million troops were soon on their way. ibid.
The chemical attack never came. ibid.