Ten Years after the Second Iraq War Began: Was it Just? What have we Learned?

By Deacon Keith A Fournier
3/21/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

We need to seriously examine the Second Iraq War in order to learn its lessons

Before the intervention on March 19, 2003, I disturbed some colleagues and friends by publicly opposing intervention in what came to be called Iraq II. I had supported the first intervention in Iraq, after the Kuwaitis requested our assistance against an unjust aggressor named Saddam Hussein. However, in light of the teaching of the Catholic Church, and based upon my own efforts to inform my conscience by it, I opposed the Second Iraq War. I even contributed a chapter to a book dedicated to such opposition.

Iraqi Christians face extraordinary dangers ten years after the intervention in Iraq

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WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 brought the joyous celebration of the installation of Pope Francis in Rome. Like many Christians who write on daily news events from a perspective of faith, I was delighted to have such a joyous occasion to write about.

However, March 19, 2013 brought another historic event to mind. An event which must be seriously reconsidered - and from which we must learn the lessons which desperately need to be learned. It marked the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the US intervention in Iraq referred to as the Second Iraq War. Fifty six people were killed in a series of deadly bombings in Baghdad and beyond. The violence and the consequences of the intervention ten years ago continue.

Reports filled the media commemorating the ten year Anniversary of the Second Iraqi conflict. One of them, entitled People turned on Christians': Persecuted Iraqi minority reflects on life after Saddam touched upon one of the underreported stories of the Iraq War, the dramatic increase in the persecution of Christians in Iraq since the US intervention ten years ago. I, along with others at Catholic Online have written numerous articles seeking to call attention to our persecuted Christian brethren in Iraq. Their plight has grown worse since the intervention on March 19, 2003.

I concluded back then that the decision to engage in what was called a pre-emptive war with Iraq failed to meet the conditions, commonly referred to as the Just War theory, summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (�2309):

"the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated."

"The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."

I also came to the conclusion that the very notion of a pre-emptive war was antithetical to this analysis. The determination as to whether any war can be justified is rooted in the broader understanding of self defense. The entry of the United States into Iraq on March 19, 2003 was not an act of self defense. Neither was it a legitimate response to the horror unleashed against our Nation on September 11, 2001.

In spite of what some sincere Catholics - whom I respected - sought to say back then, the leaders of the Catholic Church were overwhelming in their unified opposition to beginning the Second Iraq war. They were unanimous in their conviction that no attack was imminent, and, as a result, war was far from justifiable.

Deep reservations were raised by numerous Bishops' Councils; then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State; Cardinal Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; and most ardently by Blessed John Paul II, the Holy Father back then, who clearly stated that not only was war a human failure but that specific war was unjustified.

After the intervention, as time progressed, my opposition became moot. The War had become such a debacle and the brave men and women of our heroic Armed Forces deserved our unflagging support. Those who initially supported the second Iraq war and those who opposed it, agreed that we could not abandon the Iraqi people in their great hour of need. The Holy See expressed its continuing concern for the people of Iraq after the intervention.

However, looking back, ten years later, we need to seriously examine the Second Iraq War in order to learn its lessons. On the day of the tenth anniversary Brown University released the results of its Cost of War Project. As we pause and consider the anniversary, we need to be aware of some of these startling statistics:

$2.2 trillion - The cost of the Iraq War, including cost related to caring for veterans. Initial estimates were $50-60 billion.

$500 billion - The cost of caring for Iraq War veterans through 2053.

134,000 - The number of Iraqi civilians who died of direct war violence. That number is about 70 percent of total war deaths.

4,488 - The number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq.

3,400 - The number of U.S. contractors killed in Iraq.

231 - The number of journalists killed in Iraq. 62 humanitarian aid workers have also died.

$60 billion - The amount spent, so far, on reconstruction in Iraq.

2.8 million - People displaced from their homes by Iraq War.

13,500 - Contractors, most serving as security personnel, still in Iraq

2.5 million - The number of U.S. service people serving in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Most have served more than one tour.

106,000 - The number of U.S. service members wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan

750,000 - Disability claims approved by the Veterans Administration related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

38 - The number per 100,000 of all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans using VA health care that have committed suicide, compared with 11.5 deaths per 100,000 for the general public.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Iraq War, shock and awe, Iraq II, Invasion of Iraq, George Bush, Barrack Obama, neoconservative, Iraqi conflict, Iraq anniversary, just war, Deacon Keith Fournier

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1 - 10 of 17 Comments

KarlVDH
1 month ago
So, the answer is, "no," no one can offer anything we got from Bush's disgraceful War in Iraq that was actually worth one single dead American soldier. NOTHING. Except that the shareholders of Halliburton and its subsidiaries- a huge number of whom serve in Congress and were the very people- in both parties- to vote us into that wasteful, murderous stupidity- all got fabulously wealthy. \
Brian D.
1 month ago
I tend to side with Bob Hugelmeyer's assessment. What disappoints me in the Deacon's article where numbers of dead Iraqis and American soldiers etc. were cited was the fact that there was no citation of the number of Islamists killed; weren't their forces decimated? And is it not the goal of the Islamists to destroy everything Western, everything Christian? For all that went wrong with this war, did it not substantially reduce the number of Islamic fighters determined to kill us and destroy our way of life? With all the death and destruction war brings, what war can be called good? However good can come out of horrible events and I would think the elimination of Saddam Hussein here and Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo in the past were good results
KarlVDH
1 month ago
Barbara, respectfully, the Nazis were demolishing European democracy in favor of fascism, and conquering neighboring countries while committing a genocide of unmatched proportions, and Hitler had the stated goal of unifying Europe and the British Isles under the Swastika with an eye toward global expansion. Saddam couldn't even manage a wart of aggression against Iran, which he lost after ten brutal years. His advance into Kuwait was an abject failure (though one that DID merit US involvement) and his economy was decimated. Of COURSE we know he had weapons of mass destruction... we still have the receipts! He GOT the bloody things from us, the Russians and the French. But he had NO means of delivering them on anything like long distance, and no means to develop it. Further, Al Qaeda was unwelcome in Iraq under Saddam's reign, because he wouldn't share his peoples' loyalties. Osama Bin laden was persona non grata in Saddam's Iraq, with a price on his head. It wasn't till WE invaded that the organization, "Al Qaeda in Iraq" was even formed, and that was done from Syria. Saddam's Iraq was a COMPLETELY secular country, which even had a small but present Jewish community, and he was SURE to keep religion out of the law because sectarian violence would threaten HIS power. NOW, however, Iraq is likely to be an Islamic state within the next ten years. And the cost to us, in the trillions and STILL climbing daily... ("Over?" Oh no, it's nothing like, "over.") not to mention the human toll of a butcher's bill we'll never really know and can never repay...
So, in all honesty, I ask you the same simple question I asked earlier... tell me, as a veteran of that futile and wasteful war, what, exactly we got from Operation Iraqi Freedom that was worth one single dead American soldier. I eagerly await a real answer.
Aime Casavant
1 month ago
I agree with the comments.
Barbara Koch
1 month ago
I'm curious, Deacon Fournier, should we have fought Hitler in WWII? After all, it was the Japanese who attacked us.
KarlVDH
1 month ago
AvantiBev.... with respect, your premise is entirely wrong. Just wrong. Except in the most basic and superficial ways, Iraq and Afghanistan are two completely different wars, with TOTALLY different enemies, who have/had entirely different goals, motivations, cultures, histories and reasons for fighting. In fact, the ONLY similarity between Iraq and Afghanistan is that both countries are in the Middle East. From there, there is no real way to compare the two at all.
AvantiBev
1 month ago
Sadly both our secular and religious leaders refuse to acknowledge WHOM we are fighting. Labeling Afghanistan and Iraq as two different wars rather than 2 different theaters of war shows a misunderstanding of the reality of jihad - total world war, indeed the FIRST world war -- which rages still across ethnic groups and national boundaries just as Communism has done.

Our enemy is encouraged by the somnulent nature of Western Christianity and Western cultural institutions. Why the main stream press can barely give a 2 paragraph column to the burning of 100 Christian Pakistani homes nor a 20 second mention on the nightly news to another 60 Christians dead thanks to Boko Haram in Nigeria. Again, most Americans think there is a significant ideological difference between a Boko haram jihadi and Al Queda or Indonesia's Jamaat Islamyah. Thank God - the TRUE one - that my parents and grandparents didn't think it was enough to fight one panzer division or just the Luftwaft during WWII; they knew they fought an ideology of many divisions, fronts and platoons.

Yes, we are wasting our blood and treasure in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. But an understanding of Islam and Jihad with no rose colored glasses obscuring your vision is necessary as we cannot come home from Jihad. Indeed as Fort Hood and countless other attacks and thwarted attempts SHOULD prove, jihad has already come home to us.

It was unwise though I think certainly not "unjust" to follow the snake into the high grass it calls home. But it would be an even bigger waste if we do not face up to the fact that the snake is now in our homes and he is not a garter snake but rather a Black Mamba.
KarlVDH
1 month ago
As a disabled Veteran of President Bush's disgraceful war in Iraq, I have just one question: what did we get from Iraq that was worth the life of ONE SINGLE dead American soldier?
...anyone? Anyone at all?
starzec
1 month ago
Thanks for the article Deacon. Huff Post has an article with the republicans who voted against the war and brief interviews with each. Fascinating.

To Spiritus I present a situation. You live in house B. The neighbor in house A knocks down your door and damages your living room. Do you go to neighbor C and punch him in the nose? If so, welcome to the George Bush School on how to wage war. Your actions are no more justified than neighbor A's actions.

To Mr Hugelmeyer, I ask: First Iraq war not over? Hmmm. Let's see. We pulled out of Iraq and Kuwait in 92 and total ops over by 95. Typically when troops pull back, that signifies the war is over or they are surrendering. As a veteran of that conflict, I do not recall us putting up any white flags. Since we were able to enforce a no fly zone throughout the 90's, I would say we did not surrender. So without surrendering, a withdrawal of troops meant it was over.

The attack on the Kurds happened in March of 88 and 3 years prior to Operation Desert Storm. Not sure what your angle is on this but if you are referring to him as dangerous to the US because he gassed a Kurdish village I am not sure you fully understand what happened there. Hussein was having a border war with Iran and gassed the Kurds to garner support for his side (similar to Hitler dressing SS in Polish uniforms and having them shoot up a town to garner support to invade Poland in 1939).

What we had was opportunism. The mostly Saudi and Kuwaiti attack on the WTC (9-11) was all Bush and Cheney needed to go to Iraq. Do you find it just a little unsettling that with all the unsolved murders in this country, they were able to identify the hijackers the by the evening? Do you find it a little questionable that we did not attack Saudi Arabia since 19 of the hijackers were in fact Saudi? Not a single Iraqi but we attack Iraq instead? This makes no sense. That is how we lost the world's support. Even the muslim world was with us until we attacked Iraq. The war was a failure all the way around.

Someone will say "But we rid the world of Saddam Hussein." To what end? Give democracy to a people who have no idea how to operate in a democracy. As with cloning, we Americans believe we can clone our form of democracy where ever we want. We cannot do that anymore than we can clone another Einstein or Ghandi or Christ. Sure, we could get the DNA right but we cannot recreate the environment in which these people grew and were molded and without the precise experiences these men had, we would not get the same person. Likewise, our democracy grew out of an agrarian/ merchantilism into an industrialized nation that is now moving toward a society like no-one has ever seen. It cannot be thrust upon a people just because it works for us. At least Hussein in power gave the Europeans and Japanese cheap oil.
John Mainhart
1 month ago
I think a preemptive war is morally wrong, but in this case the greatest evil was the decision not to let General Patraeus finish the job of touching the souls of the Iraquis ,by sending our troops into communities to convince them they could create a new country on trust. After the slaughter that followed the ,initial replacement of Saddam Hussein we finally decided on the right man and the right strategy for helping ,these people and then we went another way and left. Sad.

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