After the disastrous US led coalition onslaught on Iraq, supposedly to remove the ruler, Saddam Hussein and all his Sunni faith Baath Party, we saw terrible consequences in the Middle East:
The 2003 Iraq War began on March 20, 2003, when a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated Iraqi military forces, capturing Baghdad by April 9, 2003. The war followed a U.S. ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, which he refused, and was justified by claims of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism. Wikipedia Encyclopedia Britannica
The world learned later Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even though he may have aspired to have them.
Of course Halliburton became famous:
Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion no-bid contract during the Iraq War, which raised significant controversy due to its ties with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was CEO of the company prior to taking office. The company has been criticized for profiting from the war and for alleged misconduct related to its contracts. Wikipedia corpwatch.org
See today the extent of Halliburton locations globally:
https://www.halliburton.com/en/software/smartdigital
Over the next 12 years the exiled Baath Party emerged as ISIS and wreaked havoc across the region as they fought, and nearly succeeded, in creating a Sunni Islamic Caliphate, enemies of Iranian Shia. See:
https://shiarightswatch.org/untold-stories-the-suffering-of-shia-muslims/?amp=1
The Baathists
How Saddam’s men help Islamic State rule
From military forces to spying, former Baathists are a powerful factor in the rise and control of Islamic State. A look inside the group’s surveillance operation shows how
MALA QARA, Iraq – Mohannad is a spy for Islamic State. He eavesdrops on chatter in the street markets of Mosul and reports back to his handlers when someone breaks the militant group’s rules. One man he informed on this year – a street trader defying a ban on selling cigarettes – was fined and tortured by Islamic State fighters, according to a friend of Mohannad’s family. If the trader did not stop, his torturers told the man, they would kill him.
Mohannad is paid $20 for every offender he helps to catch.
He is 14.
The teenager is one cog in the intelligence network Islamic State has put in place since it seized vast stretches of Iraq and neighbouring Syria. Informers range from children to battle-hardened fighters. Overseeing the network are former army and intelligence officers, many of whom helped keep former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party in power for years.
Saddam-era officers have been a powerful factor in the rise of Islamic State, in particular in the Sunni militant group’s victories in Iraq last year. Islamic State then out-muscled the Sunni-dominated Baath Party and absorbed thousands of its followers. The new recruits joined Saddam-era officers who already held key posts in Islamic State.
The Baathists have strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and are instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate, according to interviews with dozens of people, including Baath leaders, former intelligence and military officers, Western diplomats and 35 Iraqis who recently fled Islamic State territory for Kurdistan.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-iraq-islamicstate/
Netanyahu advising Congess 2003, then 2022:
He says he told then-US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld ahead of the 2003 Iraq invasion that “you will finish this very quickly. But your primary goal is the Iranian regime. And the Iranian regime is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, even then.”
He says Israel had no evidence that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was trying to develop a nuclear weapon then, apparently contradicting congressional testimony he gave in 2022 in which he said there was “no question whatsoever that Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.
Netanyahu has been ridiculed by some in the American press over the past week, which has been airing footage of that congressional testimony during which he urged the US to invade Iraq, insisting that it would stabilize the region.
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