An Iraqi-American laments Iraq 20 years after America deposed Saddam
In March 2003, in my hometown of Basra, we watched U. S.- led coalition troops surging into Baghdad. We still couldn’t believe that longtime dictator Saddam Hussein was gone. A coalition-run TV channel called al-Hurriya, or “Freedom” in Arabic, broadcast the iconic scene of Hussein’s statue in Baghdad being demolished and the bronze face covered by an American flag. Only when we saw that on television did we accept the new reality.
Two decades on, we have learned that spectacle was mere propaganda, and that freedom cannot be imposed by an occupying force. All these years later, I’m still struck by this contrast: how vivid our memories are of the war, as we must deal with the repercussions in our daily lives, and the magnitude of what we lost and continue to lose, and how blurry the memory of the war has become for Americans.
On the day the statue fell, a widowed neighbor in his 60s sarcastically portrayed it this way: “This is what would happen if you dismantled a scary toy, which kids have tried desperately to dismantle by themselves for 30 years!” Hussein represented the shattered toy, and the crowds who previously would have been too afraid of him were now kicking his statute fearlessly.
Weeks later, the neighbor, who had been a prominent member of Hussein’s Baath Party, knew that civilian militias were out for revenge. Before they got to him, he shot himself in his bathroom.
By then, the entire city had sunk into chaos. Masses of people roamed Basra barefoot, with happiness and tears, while searching for their missing relatives who had been detained by the Baath Party for decades. I too became enthusiastic and curious. There were rumors of underground prisons. People believed voices were coming out from the concrete walls of the Baath party offices, where their loved ones may have been trapped for decades, like ancient fossils.
Myths and truths shuffled simultaneously. A real crowd of prisoners, their pale-yellow faces exposed to the sun after years of darkness, chased people who avoided them due to their stinky smell. They kept asking, “Where is the exit?” as though they were still inside.
Despite so many conflicting feelings those days, Iraqi souls were fueled by hope. It was a moment of great expectations. The decades of tyranny by Baath men in olive uniforms were over. We were reaching the end of the tunnel — but what was a bright light at the end turned out to be a flare of a forthcoming hell.
What followed were two decades of brutal civil wars, political turmoil, widespread corruption, sectarian tensions, looting of our history from museums and archaeological sites, interventions of adjacent countries and Islamic State’s extremist insurgency that seized a third of the country.
Iraqis became badly divided. Shrines and mosques started exploding, and sectarian checkpoints cropped up to examine your identity and figure out your sect. Hundreds of civilians were slaughtered just because their names pointed to the opposite sect. Each new Iraqi ministry was supplemented by a U.S. adviser, yet almost half a million people had been killed.
Then, in the second decade, Islamic State carried out a reign of terror in northern Iraq that included rape, abductions, executions, mass murder, extortion and seizure of state resources. In Iraq’s parliamentary system today, new mini-Saddams have emerged in national politics out of the country’s various religious and political factions, carrying on his regime’s brutal legacy.
Looking back 20 years, the invasion didn’t just change Iraq’s future, it altered the world’s memory about Iraq and its people. Once known as the home of Mesopotamia, one of the world’s early civilizations, Iraq became associated with terror.
I came to the U.S. seven years ago. It wasn’t easy to leave my home. When I tell Americans that I’m from Iraq, they typically have negative perceptions about my country and its people, and lack basic knowledge.
Often, I run into American soldiers who did a tour there. A few weeks ago, a woman told me she served in Mosul. “I helped people there,” she said, excitedly. It’s very hard for Iraqis to see the American military presence as having helped us, given what we’ve lived through.
Despite all the tragedy, our country is not broken forever. I know young activists, artists and journalists expressing themselves, even risking their lives. We’re still working on democracy, on our own terms, and we know democracy is a long process — after all, the U.S. is still working on its democracy, even after 200 years.