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Iraq then and now: Reflections from NBC's Richard Engel
As a young freelance journalist, Richard Engel was one of the only US TV journalists to broadcast from Baghdad throughout the US-led invasion of Iraq. On the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, shares the story of how he ended up reporting on the ground and what he saw after troops arrived.
Despite limited access for journalists, Engel was able to get into Iraq by applying "human shield" visa and entered the country under the guise of a peace activist. What he found upon arrival was a population beaten down by years of dictatorship, and a choatic, disorganized government. As the invasion began, more and more people came out of the shadows, and expressed their joy that “ Americans were coming in and getting rid of Saddam,” according to Engel.
However, the aftermath of Saddam's removal was a different story. "When Saddam was driven out of power, there was a wonderful reception for about a year. And then it got very, very ugly," Engel says. He attributes the increasing animosity to mistakes made by the American administration and lingering resentment by the Sunni Muslim community. This led to a dangerous and hostile environment that "changed the dynamic" of the region.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
On the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, US Senator Tammy Duckworth and NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel sit down with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to reflect on the legacy of a war that reshaped the Middle East and continues to reverberate around the world.
Senator Duckworth, a former helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in the Iraq War and now sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She emphasizes the importance of honoring the promises made to veterans and the impact it has military readiness. "The cost of going to war isn't just the tanks, the guns, the helicopters, and the ammunition during the period of actual conflict," Duckworth says, "The cost of war goes on for many decades."
Engel shares his experience as a journalist in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, including the initial reception from the Iraqi people and the increasing hostility as the war dragged on. He notes that while the people are now “freer,” the country is not yet "fully functioning" or "embraced by the larger Middle East."
Today, as the war in Ukraine drags into its second year, both Duckworth and Engel share their perspectives on what lessons we can learn from Iraq and its aftermath to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, featuring Senator Duckworth as well as NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel, on US public television. Check local listings
Thomas P. Susdorf from the film “Gunner Palace."
“In war, everything matters.” An interview with filmmaker Mike Tucker
Twenty years ago today, the US invaded Iraq. Just weeks later, the American filmmaker — and frequent GZERO contributor — Mike Tucker embedded with a group of fresh-faced US troops in Iraq, to make the film “Gunner Palace.”
It was the first great documentary about the war – a gripping, chaotic, and occasionally darkly humorous portrait of what was, basically, a group of kids sent to kill in a country that they knew little about. One of those soldiers, Specialist Thomas P. Susdorf, is pictured above.
“To be a combat veteran is awesome, it’ll be great to look back on,” says one of Susdorf's fellow gunners partway through the film, “I’m just trying to get to the point where I can look back on it.”
That point is now. During the pandemic, Mike and co-director Petra Epperlein crisscrossed the United States, tracking down the Gunner Palace kids to learn how the war has shaped their lives ever since.
The resulting short film, co-produced by the Eurasia Group Foundation and published last week by The New York Times, is called “The Army We Had.”
In it, Tucker and Epperlein cut footage of the idealistic, war-hungry recruits of “Gunner Palace” against interviews with the people they’ve become today: men slouching into middle age, still warped by the traumas and unanswered questions of the war. Who were they fighting? Why were they there? What good did it do?
Mike is currently in Ukraine, but we grabbed a few minutes of his time to ask him about the lessons of “The Army We Had,” the biggest differences between Ukraine and Iraq, and what he thinks most people don’t understand about the experience of war.
His answers have been lightly edited.
Alex Kliment: Mike, congratulations on the new film. Where are you right now and what are you up to?
I’m in Ukraine currently, where we’ve been shooting a project for the last seven months about how a ragtag army of volunteers is getting machines and material to the front lines.
What’s the main lesson that you want people to take away from “The Army We Had?”
It’s crucial that America rethinks how and when it authorizes force. After all the death, suffering, sacrifice, deployments and military spending in Iraq, it’s hard to point to any positive outcomes. Even if it’s difficult, we need to debate and exhaust all other options before we commit to war. You can see that in the faces of the soldiers in the film.
Twenty years after “Gunner Palace,” you’re in the middle of an equally era-defining war in Ukraine. How do the two experiences compare?
The war in Ukraine couldn’t be more different from Iraq. For one thing, rather than filming the aggressor, this time I’m filming people resisting Russian aggression, and I feel it’s essential for people in the West to understand that.
But also, technology has changed everything. The invasion of Iraq was before YouTube. Before social media. Now in Ukraine, combatants are flooding social media with content – with a raw immediacy that dwarfs anything we’ve ever seen — to the point that I think we risk becoming numb to the horror.
You’ve spent a lot of time in and around war, what do you think the general public understands least well about the experience?
Well as for Ukraine right now, what people aren’t seeing on the news is the psychological impact on Ukrainian civilians. Air alarms ring out around Kyiv 2-3 times a day. Worst of all, it all feels normal, when it’s anything but.
But to paraphrase [American journalist] Chris Hedges, “war gives us meaning.” I like to think of the “Gunner Palace” year as both the best and worst year of those soldiers’ lives, and I think many of them would agree. They’ll never feel that close to other people ever again. And for many of them, regardless of the problems with the mission itself, some will never feel such purpose again. In war — around war — everything matters.
You can (and should!) watch the film “The Army We Had” here.
From combat pilot to Senator: Tammy Duckworth's reflections on the Iraq War
Reflecting on the 20-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, Senator Tammy Duckworth on GZERO World shares her personal experience as a combat pilot and how losing both her legs during the war pushed her to keep serving her country through government. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she stresses the importance of keeping the promises made to veterans, saying that "breaking those promises impacts military readiness."
Senator Duckworth acknowledges the progress made in Iraq, noting that "people are significantly better off than they were under Saddam Hussein." However, she believes that Iraq "is somewhat unfinished business" due to the high unemployment rates faced by young people, and hopes it can become a "friend and ally" to the United States.
The Senator also expresses concerns about the influence of Iran and factions within Iraq, including within the government. She highlights the ongoing issues in the Kurdistan region, where the Kurds face negative oversight from the government in Baghdad while trying to run their autonomous area responsibly. According to Senator Duckworth, "there is still much work to be done in Iraq," even after two decades.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
Senator Tammy Duckworth discusses unfinished business in Iraq & the true cost of war
US Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a combat pilot who lost both her legs in Iraq, joins GZERO World to reflect on the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion. In her conversation with Ian Bremmer, Duckworth says that the first thing people need to understand is that the "cost of war" goes on far longer than the period of actual conflict. She emphasizes the importance of “fulfilling promises made to veterans,” and says it's "non-negotiable."
While acknowledging the progress made in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed from power, Duckworth believes that the country "is somewhat unfinished business," and worries about high unemployment rates for young people, concerns about Iranian influence, and negative oversight of the Kurdistan region. She hopes Iraq can become “a friend and ally to the United States.”
The work is quite done yet," Senator Duckworth says, "But the work of the military is certainly done."
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
From Iraq to Ukraine: Reflections on "wars of choice"
In their discussion on GZERO World, Ian Bremmer and NBC's chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, delve into the lessons that can be gleaned from the Iraq war in light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Engel's key takeaway is to avoid “a war of choice,” as resistance from the invaded people can make the situation worse.
Drawing parallels with Iraq, he notes that “Ukraine is also a war of choice for Russia,” despite the perception of an existential crisis. Unlike Iraq, the situation in Ukraine has a clear narrative of one country trying to occupy another.
When asked about how the Iraqi people are doing 20 years after the war, Engel notes that there is no easy answer. While the people are now "freer" and the "economy is connected to the world," the country has experienced ongoing instability and a civil war. Although Iraq has made strides since the days of Saddam's regime, they are not yet fully functioning or embraced by the larger Middle East. Engel cautions, "I don't think they've landed yet."
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
Podcast: The costs of invading Iraq: Sen. Tammy Duckworth & Richard Engel assess war's lasting effects, 20 years later
Listen: It's been 20 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq began. Can we say the world is any better off? Despite its official end over a decade ago, the war still casts a long shadow––the loss of countless Iraqi lives, the emergence of ISIS, and continued political turmoil and sectarian violence in the region. Moreover, the war significantly damaged the United States' credibility, making it difficult to gather global support against current threats such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
On the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer interviews US Senator Tammy Duckworth and NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel. Their firsthand experiences and perspectives offer a more profound comprehension of the intricate legacy of the Iraq War and its implications for international politics.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.A U.S. soldier watches as a statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein fall in central Baghdad, Iraq, in April 2003.
Was Iraq a success or failure?
On a visit to Iraq in the spring of 2021, I was chatting with a group of Iraqi and western friends – all current or former advisors to the Iraqi, US, or UK governments – when the conversation turned to whether the 2003 US-led war to depose Saddam Hussein’s regime had been worthwhile. The dogmatism, divisiveness, and emotion that characterized the debate in the run-up to the war were still evident. For some, ending the murderous brutality and atrocities of Saddam’s rule superseded any other concern. Others were more equivocal, pointing to the corruption, violence, and misrule of the US-bequeathed, post-2003 political order and the toll it has taken on the country.
On the 20th anniversary of the war, the question of whether Iraq is better or worse off and whether the cost in coalition lives and money was worth it is, almost inevitably, being revisited. But it is a feckless one. The reality of Iraq’s experience since 2003 cannot be captured by a simplistic dichotomy; the country is — as it always was — more complicated than that.
Some things are undoubtedly better. Representative politics has been entrenched. Elections — former President George Bush’s measure of democracy and freedom — are genuine contests that are seen as important to political legitimacy. Power has been transferred peacefully across seven successive governments.
The Iraqi media is one of the freest in the Middle East, with rival viewpoints on full display, and criticism of the political elite — unthinkable and deadly in Saddam’s era — is now common. And, after a disappointing first decade and a half, there are signs of economic stirrings underpinned by oil production that is now almost 50% above immediate pre-war highs.
Still, Iraq has fallen far short of the hopes and promises of the war’s proponents. While the country never became a failed state, it has flirted with it at times, especially during the 2005-2008 civil war and at the height of the Islamic State threat, when large swathes in the northwest of the country were beyond Baghdad’s control. Iraqi society still bears the scars of ethnosectarian violence and the divisions it bred.
Development and reconstruction have been slow and stunted. Corruption is endemic, and state services are shoddy at best. Islamist Shia militias act with impunity, answering to their own leaders and increasingly dominating government and state institutions. Meanwhile, the Kurdish region, beloved by its amply rewarded and vocal cheerleaders in the West, is increasingly divided between two warlord factions running what has long amounted to personal fiefdoms.
Washington (and London) bear a lot of responsibility for the outcome. The ignorance and hubris that guided pre-conflict planning and all that followed made for an occupation that was insufficiently resourced and lacked the most basic understanding of the country (or even its language). Hunkered down and detached in the heavily protected Green Zone, the US-led endeavor rested on feet of clay from the get-go, and Washington’s aversion to state building, combined with the disbanding of the Iraqi army and evisceration of the civil service, left Iraq without the tools for effective governance and administration.
Worse still, US post-war policy quickly fell prey to domestic political imperatives and the growing popular disaffection with the occupation at home, leaving the imperial timetable at odds with, and largely dismissive of, conditions on the ground in Iraq.
But the most corrosive aspect of US policy was the ethnosectarian political system it enshrined, dominated by a narrow coterie of identity-based parties that have ruled ever since. Bereft of any real understanding of Iraq or its society, and impatient for signs of “progress,” Washington officials took their cue from their nominal allies in the pre-war Iraqi opposition, turning a blind eye to their failings, and never quite realizing — or at least acknowledging — that, beyond ousting Saddam, their agendas were not the same.
Occupation on the cheap and on the run was never going to establish the foundations for the stable, prosperous Iraq that proponents of the war envisaged, but the kleptocratic, militia-dominated state that has emerged 20 years later is not wholly Washington’s fault.
The zenith of US imperial power, when its ambassadors chose governments, dictated laws, and forced through constitutions, is a distant memory. If the US built the exclusive political fortress that was and remains the Green Zone, the factions that it empowered have manned the ramparts to ensure their exclusive access and control would never be challenged. Power and privilege are what matters to this parasitic elite, not freedom and democracy, and they have taken full advantage of what they inherited to that end.
Iraq’s ethnosectarian factions have fractured over time, and newer faces and groups have come to the fore, but the underlying players and the political equation have remained largely unaltered. The current prime minister, Mohammed Shi’a Sudani, is the first since 2003 not to have been in exile, but most major party leaders such as Nouri al-Maliki, Hadi al-Amiri, Masoud Barzani, or Ammar Hakim are either remnants of the former opposition or their offspring.
Elections determine the relative balance of power among the main players, but successive Iraqi coalition governments have been broad affairs, no matter who leads them, allowing the oligarchy to protect their exclusive power while feeding from the trough. Political opposition, even within the protected confines of the elite, is still regarded as an existential threat. Meanwhile, the real opposition to the corrupt system is brutally repressed, as the government’s deadly response to the 2019-2020 demonstrations starkly illustrated.
Change in the near term is unlikely. Every new Iraqi government talks about reform, but the preservation of the system will remain the number one priority for Iraq’s leaders and their various regional and international benefactors. After over 40 years of war, sanctions, deprivation, and domestic violence, the majority of the population is exhausted, increasingly detached from politics, and largely resigned to the state of affairs.
There are pockets of opposition activism on the “Iraqi street,” especially in the Shia-majority center and south, the heartland of real power in Iraq. But it is disorganized, unfunded, and largely powerless relative to the leviathan that is the US-bequeathed Iraqi state. Good men do not last long in Iraq, either neutralized or co-opted, and the seeds of systemic change are few and far between.
Maybe this was always the most likely outcome. The flourishing liberal democracy that US neo-conservatives imagined would catalyze regional change was never in the cards. A poor vegetable vendor in Tunisia did more to bring about a democratic revolution in the Middle East than the US adventure in Iraq ever did, and the eventual outcome was greater authoritarianism across the region.
Thus, Iraq will likely remain a mismanaged, kleptocratic, violent, and underdeveloped state governed by a political elite that is consumed with self-interest and sustained by oil revenue, the force of arms, and regional and international powers that see the country through the narrow focus of their national security priorities.
Not the worst outcome that could have been imagined in 2003 or since, but certainly less than the Iraqi people deserve.
Raad Alkadiri is the managing director of Energy, Climate & Resources for Eurasia Group. He served as assistant private secretary to the UK Special Representative in Iraq from 2003-2004.
- Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil - GZERO Media ›
- 20 years since the Iraq War: Lessons learned, questions raised | Ian Bremmer explains - GZERO Media ›
- Iraq then and now: Reflections from NBC's Richard Engel - GZERO Media ›
- From combat pilot to Senator: Tammy Duckworth's reflections on the Iraq War - GZERO Media ›
- From Iraq to Ukraine: Reflections on "wars of choice" - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: The costs of invading Iraq: Sen. Tammy Duckworth & Richard Engel assess war's lasting effects, 20 years later - GZERO Media ›