Politics

The Iraq war, five years on

March 20, 2008
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To mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the April issue of Prospect, out next week, features an in-depth look at the issue of WMDs, whose shadowy existence played such a large role in the build-up to war. Our own Tom Chatfield meets the die-hards who continue to insist that there is evidence that at the time of invasion, Saddam had a significant stockpile of WMD which was surreptitiously removed to Syria when the US-led coalition attacked.

In the meantime, why not revisit some of Prospect's coverage of Iraq over the past five years? An exhaustive list of our Iraq articles can be found here. Pieces of particular interest—not all of which are available to non-subscribers—include:

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt—of Israel lobby fame—argue against war in March 2003 on the grounds that Saddam was "eminently deterrable."

Alex Renton, in June 2003, looking ahead to the long-term social breakdown that he predicted many parts of the country would face as a result of the invasion and occupation.

Hassan M Fattah on the difficulties of setting up an independent newspaper in post-Saddam Iraq.

Jo Tatchell on Saddam the romantic novelist and the unjustly neglected topic of "dic[tator]-lit".

Our foreign editor Bartle Bull's dispatches from Iraq. In October 2003, he prophesised the coming of Shia Iraq. In June 2005, after several weeks embedded with Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, he explained why this ragtag group of Shia militants were essential to the democratic future of Iraq. And last October, he argued that despite the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, the coalition's pre-war aims had largely been accomplished and that Iraq was well on the way to becoming a stable middle eastern democracy.

Rory Stewart spent ten months in 2004 as deputy governor of two provinces in southern Iraq. In November 2005 he explained how his vision of a tolerant, modern society disintegrated amid increasing violence and pressure from Shia militants.

Gareth Stansfield, in May 2006, said that the only way to resolve the chaos into which Iraq had descended was to introduce radical three-way federalism.

Kim Sengupta, in September 2007, related the tragic tale of one middle-class Baghdad family caught up in Iraq's descent into violent anomie.

Nibras Kazimi wrote a monthly Iraq column for Prospect throughout 2007. You can find them all here.