Iraq War
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Criticisms and costs
Criticism of the Iraq War
A local memorial in North Carolina in December 2007; US casualty count can be seen in the background. The U.S. rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States. According to the Center for Public Integrity, President Bush's administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States. Both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticized the prosecution of the war effort along a number of other lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the U.S. and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating widespread human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs.

Criticisms include:
Legality of the invasion
Inadequate troop levels (a RAND study stated that 500,000 troops would be required for success)
Insufficient post-invasion plans
Human casualties
Financial costs with approximately $474 billion spent as of 12/07 the CBO has estimated the total cost of the war in Iraq to U.S. taxpayers will be around $1.9 trillion.
Adverse effect on global war on terror
Negative impact on Israel
Endangerment of religious minorities
Damage to America's traditional alliances and influence
Disruption of Iraqi oil production and related energy security concerns (the price of oil has quadrupled since 2002)
Further information: Opposition to the Iraq War, Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Protests against the Iraq War, American popular opinion on invasion of Iraq, Governments' positions pre-2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage, and Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq

Humanitarian crises

Iraqi public opinion
A March 2007 survey of more than 2,000 Iraqis commissioned by the BBC and three other news organizations found that 51% of the population consider attacks on coalition forces "acceptable," up from 17% in 2004 and 35% in 2006.
Also:
64% described their family's economic situation as being somewhat or very bad, up from 30% in 2005.
88% described the availability of electricity as being either somewhat or very bad, up from 65% in 2004.
69% described the availability of clean water as somewhat or very bad, up from 48% in 2004.
88% described the availability of fuel for cooking and driving as being somewhat or very bad.
58% described reconstruction efforts in the area in which they live as either somewhat or very ineffective, and 9% described them as being totally nonexistent.

A US soldier-paramedic tends to some injuries after two car bombs exploded November 18, 2005 near a residential area in Baghdad.In a report entitled "Civilians without Protection: The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq", produced well after the stepped-up American-led military operations in Baghdad began February 14, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement said that millions of Iraqis are in a disastrous situation that is getting worse, with medical professionals fleeing the country after their colleagues were killed or abducted. Mothers are appealing for someone to pick up the bodies on the street so their children will be spared the horror of looking at them on their way to school. Red Cross Director of Operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl said that hospitals and other key services are desperately short of staff, with more than half the doctors said to have already left the country.

A soldier carries a wounded Iraqi child into the Charlie Medical Centre at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, March 20, 2007According to an anonymous Iraqi government official, 1,944 civilians and at least 174 soldiers and policemen were killed in May, 2007, a 29% increase in civilian deaths over April. The Iraqi government's estimate of the number of civilian deaths has always been much lower than reports from independent researchers, such as the Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties. Mortar attacks in the capital are becoming deadlier.

Between June 18 and July 18, 2007, up to 592 unidentified bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. Most of the approximately 20 per day found by the police have been bound, blindfolded and shot execution style. The police attribute these deaths to Sunni and Shi’ite death squads. According to Baghdad medical sources, many have also shown signs of torture and mutilation. Despite official Iraqi and U.S. statements to the contrary, the reports indicated that the number of unidentified bodies in the capital rose to pre-surge levels in July. Media reports have indicated that the U.S. military has usually focused on areas where they have been attacked rather than districts witnessing such sectarian reprisal killings.

Iraqi health care deterioration
Iraq's health has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, said Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist. "They were at the forefront", he said, referring to health care just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "Now they're looking more and more like a country in sub-Saharan Africa."  Malnutrition rates have risen from 19% before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28% four years later.  Some 60-70% of Iraqi children are suffering from psychological problems.  68% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water. A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq is thought to be the result of poor water quality. As many as half of Iraqi doctors have left the country since 2003.

In December 2007 the Iraqi government announced plans to cut food rations and subsidies by almost 50 per cent as part of its overall 2008 budget because of insufficient funds and rising inflation. Apart from the cut in subsidies, Baghdad also wants to reduce the number of people dependent on the rationing system by five million. Rationing was first introduced in 1991 after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq but the country has seen an alarming rise in poverty since the 2003 invasion. Nearly 10 million Iraqi's living in poverty now depend heavily on the rationing system.

Orphans
On December 15, 2007 a conference dedicated to orphans in Iraq was held in Baghdad. Iraq's anti-corruption board reported that official government statistics revealed that five million (or 35%) of Iraqi children are orphans. Wijdan Salem Mikhail, the Iraqi minister of human rights, stated the phenomenon "is one of the most passive things that grew immensely during the past few years due to destructive wars and unbridled violence in the country." The Iraqi parliament's women and family committee have proposed a draft law to set up a fund for the orphans.  Abeer Chalabi head of the state orphanages section of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimates more than 4 million orphans and says the number may be exaggerated "but to have so many is a catastrophe." Iraqi orphanages have the capacity to look after no more than 26,000 children but the government says it has only 700 children in its institutions. This is due mainly to the Iraqi tradition that obligates relatives to take in orphaned or abandoned children but many of these families cannot afford to care for them and send them out during the day to beg or gather scrap metal.

Iraqi refugees
Iraqis fleeing to neighboring countries. There are more than 3.9 million refugees of Iraq, almost 16% of the population. Two million fled Iraq while approximately 1.9 million are internally displaced people.  The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated on June 21, 2007 that 2.2 million Iraqis had fled to neighboring countries and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.

Roughly 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the U.N. said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been murdered and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion.  Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan live in impoverished communities with little international attention to their plight and little legal protection.

Many of the Iraqi women fleeing the war in Iraq are turning to prostitution. In Syria alone an estimated 50,000 refugee girls and women, many of them widows, are forced into prostitution just to survive. Cheap Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make Syria a popular destination for sex tourists. The clients come from wealthier countries in the Middle East - many are Saudi men.

A May 25, 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in the United States.  In fiscal year 2006, just 202 refugees from Iraq were allowed to resettle in the United States.  As a result of growing international pressure, on June 1, 2007 the Bush administration said it was ready to admit 7,000 Iraqi refugees who had helped the coalition since the invasion. In 2006, 1.27 million immigrants were granted legal permanent residence in the U.S., including 70,000 refugees. According to Washington based Refugees International the U.S. has admitted fewer than 800 Iraqi refugees since the invasion, Sweden had accepted 18,000 and Australia almost 6,000.  As many as 110,000 Iraqis could be targeted as collaborators because of their work for coalition forces.

The Syrian government decided to implement a strict visa regime to limit the number of Iraqis pouring into the country at up to 5,000 per day, cutting the only accessible escape route for thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war in Iraq. A government decree that takes effect on Sept. 10 2007 bars Iraqi passport holders from entering Syria except for businessmen and academics. Until then, the Syria was the only country resisting strict entry regulations for Iraqis.

Although Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the refugees now living in nearby countries, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.  UNHCR estimates that Christians comprise 24% of Iraqis currently seeking asylum in Syria.  The census in 1987 counted 1.4 million Christians, however since the 2003 invasion radicalized Iraqi culture, the total number of Christians dropped to about 500,000, half of which live in Baghdad.  Between October 2003 and March 2005 alone, 36% of 700,000 Iraqis who fled to Syria were Assyrians and other Christians, judging from a sample of those registering for asylum on political or religious grounds. Furthermore, the small Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to ethnic cleansing by Islamic militants.