Our correspondent in New York has reported that the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has announced in the Security Council that the Americans were justified in going to war with Iraq as Iraq is now free of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). All members of the Council cheered the Ambassador on her surprised announcement.
On November 8, 2002 the UN Security Council passed resolution 1441, by a unanimous vote, which resolved to disarm Iraq of its WMDs. The USA claimed that Resolution 1441 was not dealing with an innocent party, but a regime that had repeatedly defied the UN Security Council. Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance to comply or to face serious consequences. To assist in its disarmament, the Security Council called on Iraq to cooperate with returning United Nations and IAEA inspectors.
The Security Council placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm and not on the inspectors to find WMDs which Iraq had gone out of its way to conceal for so long. Inspectors found that “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it.”
As a result, the United States invaded Iraq in 19 March 2003 when Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the invasion. Saddam Hussein and his regime were toppled within 21 days. The invasion involved some 200,000 troops that were primarily from the USA but the UK and Australia also contributed. Although Saddam Hussein was removed from power within three weeks of invasion, it took almost eight years before every corner of Iraq was searched for WMD. There have been more than 4000 military personnel killed in the war while some experts believe that close to one million Iraqi civilians have been killed during the conflict. The war has been estimated to have cost USA at least one trillion dollars.
These sacrifices have ensured that Iraq is free of WMDs.
