2003 Invasion of Iraq (Full Documentary) | Animated History

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youtube censorship demonetization and view suppression support me and the history community by using our code fight back for half off of your first month it is april 10th 2003 f-16 fighters scream to life on a nearby tarmac while c-130 cargo planes are loaded up with supplies a handful of soldiers play cards on a makeshift table trying to distract themselves from the anxiety in the air they are american british australian and polish all are exhausted by the long approach to the capital but they know that the fighting is not over yet as another plane departs for baghdad the australian announces royal flush and lays down his cards the others groan he's won but this is no ordinary game of poker on each card the face of a high-ranking iraqi official is printed they include generals ministers and on the ace of spades the president himself saddam hussein it is useful for the soldiers to familiarize themselves with these men soon enough they'll be hunting them hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian today we will be covering the 2003 invasion of iraq sometimes referred to as the second gulf war which saw hundreds of thousands of troops committed to an invasion that ended with the deposition of a dictator while we will cover some of the political background and context of this much discussed conflict this video will primarily focus on the combat maneuvers and objectives of the momentous invasion that sparked an eight-year occupation and insurgency but first if you haven't had the chance to check out our video on the first iraq war here is a quick recap after it ended with iraqi forces being expelled from kuwait the u.s soldiers sought to protect kurdish and shiite minorities in iraq by enforcing no-fly zones and launching airstrikes against strategic sites such as oil fields and military bases [Music] but following saddam hussein's repeated refusal to cooperate with un weapon inspectors the united states passed the iraqi liberation act which officially solidified the goal of regime change in the country at the time though this act simply consisted of providing millions of dollars to numerous opposition groups in the country with the hope of toppling saddam's government but as it turned out america's interventions in the middle east had already sown the seeds of a new conflict after the shocking events of president george w bush stood before a wounded nation and officially declared that a new war was about to commence a war on [Music] unlike previous conflicts america would now use preemptive force against any governments suspected of consorting with organizations especially in accordance with what would be remembered as the bush doctrine within weeks u.s forces had begun tearing apart afghanistan in pursuit of but when the infamous mastermind of the attacks slipped away the u.s turned its attention from afghanistan to iraq where for the past 12 years saddam hussein had increasingly been perceived as a threat to american geostrategic interests in the region this wasn't helped by his refusal to cooperate with the united nations in late 2002 the united states began building a case against the baathist government of iraq and sought the support of the u.n security council on top of the claimed ties to al-qaeda the bush administration had a laundry list of justifications for armed intervention including the mistreatment of civilians and the aforementioned expulsion of un weapons inspectors perhaps foreseeing how controversial these accusations would be in the future many in the un security council strenuously objected to the proposed invasion insisting that america pursue a diplomatic solution instead but even while the council debated cia teams were landing in iraq to lay the groundwork for a full-scale invasion the u.s had already made up its mind saddam's regime was doomed moving quickly members of the special activities division established contact with the kurdish peshmergas who opposed saddam then they began identifying key elements of iraqi leadership this intelligence would be used to devastating effect in the opening days of the conflict with surgical airstrikes killing many high-ranking officers additionally the special activities division captured a chemical weapons factory yet despite secretary of state colin powell's vivid descriptions of mobile weapons laboratories on the backs of trucks and train cars the facility was the only one of its kind found during the entire iraq war unsurprisingly these preemptive strikes did not help america's case to the u.n which continued to call for de-escalation key nato members such as france and canada were also highly vocal in condemning america's aggression opposition around the world mounted culminating with the largest recorded protest in human history when on february 2003 over 6 million people in 800 cities gathered to protest the war nevertheless in march of 2003 the united states and the coalition of the willing which included the united kingdom poland and australia among others began massing troops in the region unlike the war fought 12 years earlier they would be advancing without un approval the invasion began slowly the first phase consisted of numerous air strikes and covert raids on targets within the country with varying degrees of success one of the first of these was the battle of al-qaeda on march 17th when units of the british special air service attacked a suspected chemical weapons site housed in a water treatment facility near the syrian border but the iraqi defenders put up an unexpectedly spirited defense and the commando team was forced to withdraw under heavy fire frustrated they called in an airstrike leveling the entire facility and obliterating any potential evidence that chemical weapons were being held in the facility another strike occurred two days later at a community just outside baghdad called dura farms believing that saddam was visiting his sons in the area the united states saturated the area with 8 000 pounds of ordnance and 40 tomahawk cruise missiles in an attempt to wipe the iraqi dictator off the face of the earth however every single satellite-guided warhead missed its target and as a result over a dozen civilians were injured and one killed to complete the debacle it was later discovered that saddam's last visit to the area had been nearly a decade ago despite these issues the main invasion was finally getting underway based on the precedent set in the first gulf war and afghanistan most observers had expected a lengthy period of aerial bombardment before any ground offensive however the coalition instead opted to launch a rapid air and ground campaign that would avoid most urban areas and focus on decapitating the iraqi government this tactic later called shock and awe was chosen for two reasons first american leaders assumed that if the command structure was eliminated organized resistance would disintegrate second it was hoped that the civilian population would support the americans as liberators secretary of defense donald rumsfeld was particularly optimistic about this stating there will be iraqis who offer not only to help us but to help liberate the country and free the iraqi people as we will see this wasn't totally the case on the night of march 19th members of the 160th airborne known as the night stalkers destroyed more than 70 iraqi military outposts along the southern and western borders with the path cleared coalition forces advanced from kuwait in two prongs one directed north and one south a combined air and amphibious assault was also launched on the alpha peninsula on march 20th with the goal of securing the critical oil infrastructure located there american british and polish commandos all worked tirelessly to capture the offshore platforms before they could be sabotaged by the defenders despite significant resistance from entrenched iraqis supported by artillery fire the teams were able to secure the peninsula after a grueling three-day battle their efforts likely prevented a major ecological disaster and saved billions of dollars worth of equipment that saddam would otherwise have destroyed in a petty act of revenge unfortunately for the coalition this would be the last bit of good pr they would receive for quite some time as we'll see in the part 2 which is out right now the war for iraq was just beginning and even this initial taste of victory had been soured by the clumsy handling of al-qaeda and the disaster at dura farms while coalition casualties remained minimal intelligence failures would continue to plague future operations muddying the overall picture of the war in iraq to such an extent that many details remain unclear to this day the first major engagement began on march 23rd when a maintenance convoy of the third u.s infantry division took a wrong turn into nasseria right into the headquarters of the iraqi third corps caught in a hastily prepared ambush 15 of the 18 vehicles were destroyed by heavy weapons fire and 18 u.s soldiers were killed or captured but these strategic bridges over nisseria's modestly named saddam canal were secured later that day after men from the second marine division stormed the city suffering heavy casualties from the determined iraqi defenders as if the intense urban combat wasn't enough six marines were also killed in a friendly fire incident when an a-10 warthog mistakenly attacked their amphibious vehicle finally on the evening of march 24th the marines broke through and established a perimeter north of the city which held up despite multiple counter-attacks by iraqi forces and the fedaying saddam militia who were fanatical not only about saddam but apparently also about darth vader further north was the town of najaf which was situated close to highways leading to the important cities of karbala and baghdad due to its strategic location coalition forces decided not to bypass najaf and instead chose to isolate the town out of fears it could become a staging area for attacks against american supply lines to accomplish this the coalition needed to capture the bridges to the north and south of the town elements of the first brigade combat team attacked the northern bridge codenamed jenkins in the early hours of march 25th but made slow progress until they linked up with reinforcements before dawn the americans eventually fought their way across the bridge despite desperate attempts by iraqi engineers to destroy it around the same time u.s forces advanced on the southern bridge codenamed objective floyd resistance by both regular military and militia forces was intense at both sites on one occasion an iraqi drove a city bus at full speed into an m3 bradley cfv on march 26th najaf was successfully encircled and the attackers were relieved by the 101st airborne over the next several days the americans swept through the town with tanks and infantry the 101st deliberately left a single road out of the city open in the hope of using it as a kill zone for escaping troops on april 1st some weary iraqi soldiers took the bait and were ambushed by snipers and helicopter gunships and the city ultimately fell on april 4th to the south british forces had an unexpectedly difficult time taking basra and its nearby port starting on march 27th they whittled down the iraqi garrison defending the valuable port over the course of two weeks when they finally gained control of the vital waterway only 11 britons had died while the iraqis had lost some 40 to 50 times that number when british armor finally rolled into the city they were welcomed by jubilant locals as predicted by u.s secretary of defense donald rumsfeld unfortunately however the crowds quickly turned into mobs of looters the final major engagement before coalition forces arrived in baghdad was at the battle of karbala gap a roughly 25 mile or 40 kilometer long strip of land flanked by the euphrates and rezaza rivers iraqi commanders were well aware of the gap's strategic importance and had placed two divisions of the elite republican guard to block the americans advance however saddam hussein's son crusade severely weakened the defense by redirecting some of them to the north which proved to be a fatal mistake on april 1st american troops broke through the gap reaching the euphrates at the city of museeb though several iraqi armored divisions counter-attacked on the night of april 3rd they were driven back by aircraft and rocket fire and the coalition held on to the important bridgehead with the path to baghdad forced open and victory on the horizon a last bloody struggle for the capital began while the iraqi army had almost completely disintegrated at this point the baffist party militias holding the city did not hesitate to utilize underhanded tactics to slow the coalition advance after extended skirmishes with the defenders colonel david perkins launched a surprise thunder run of nearly 30 tanks straight into the city on april 5th once behind enemy lines the column came under intense fire from militiamen disguised as civilians but perkins was able to identify their defensive positions and execute a fighting withdrawal u.s marines then stormed the diallo bridge on the eastern side of the city and advanced along the northern bank of the euphrates aware that this flank was almost entirely undefended the nervous troops fired on any car refusing to haul out of fear of suicide bombers amidst this carnage perkins led another thunder run into the heart of the capital on the seventh and rewarded himself by spending the night in one of saddam's opulent palaces after a final desperate defense by the militias the city was finally captured on april 9th there were some initial celebrations by iraqi civilians including widespread vandalism of statues and portraits depicting the now defeated saddam however as in basra massive waves of looting soon followed and continued until u.s forces cracked down on offenders but saddam himself proved elusive and would not be captured for many months coalition soldiers would spend their time securing the occupation and searching for other high-value government officials that had escaped the invasion but as the coalition searched for these officials violence between iraq's minority groups soon erupted and insurgents began to assemble nonetheless on may 1st 2003 off the coast of san diego president bush made a dramatic appearance landing on the aircraft carrier uss abraham lincoln the former air national guard aviator wore a flight suit for his televised address in front of a national audience standing in front of an enormous banner reading mission accomplished he announced the end of major combat operations in iraq at the time the proclamation seemed reasonable the iraqi military was in shambles and saddam hussein had been reduced from an autocrat to a fugitive but despite all appearances the troubles were just beginning for the next eight years the coalition was engaged in a protracted counter insurgency and suffered heavy casualties while many thousands of civilians lost their lives in 2003 the mission may have been accomplished and the brief conventional phase of fighting was indeed finished but much like in afghanistan the war in iraq had only just begun hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian and in today's episode we'll be taking our second look at the controversial subject of the 2003 iraq war this time however we will be covering the events from the iraqi perspective by exploring how the iraqi people reacted to the invasion and the subsequent occupation by western powers we'll also look at the rise of extremism and sectarianism that occurred after president saddam hussein's regime was toppled and how all this set the stage for the many years of insurrections civil war and international intervention it cannot be overemphasized how much of a shock the 2003 invasion was to the iraqi people even when president george bush gave iraq his famous 48-hour ultimatum iraqi leader saddam hussein remained convinced that u.s forces lacked the capacity to wage more than a limited military campaign against his country saddam and his generals were well aware of past american failures such as the infamous black hawk down incident during the somali civil war saddam had also studied the conflict in vietnam and hoped to replicate the success of the north vietnamese by bogging down any invasion with defensive attractional warfare with graphic scenes of destruction plastered across american tv screens saddam expected popular opinion to quickly turn against the conflict until coalition forces withdrew in disgrace yet as we will see many factors conspired to doom the iraqi war effort long before the first shots were fired chief amongst these factors were saddam's legendary paranoia which made men like joseph stalin seem completely sane by comparison his direct preparations for the war were greatly surpassed by his efforts to completely lock down the iraqi populace pouring huge resources into the state security apparatus and surveillance programs many of the intelligence organizations that saddam created were in fact tasked primarily with spying on each other being late to the blame game was fatal and so these various agencies spent months merrily chasing phantoms and inventing elaborate conspiracy theories naturally the sentence for being accused in this web of lies and intrigue was always the same death predictably this insanity had a profound effect on the military readiness of the country saddam valued loyalty above all other traits and divided his forces into three groups based on their perceived trustworthiness these were the regular army the republican guard and finally the special republican guard or srg visits between officers of different army groups were forbidden and joint operations were unthinkable one srg commander recalled after the war we never coordinated with the republican guard i had no relation with any other units or fighting forces no other units were ever allowed near our unit no visits between other officers ever allowed in saddam's mind the only possible reason two officers of differing units would ever want to talk to each other would be to discuss a coup yet despite their highly dysfunctional leadership the average iraqi soldier strode into battle with a surprising degree of misplaced confidence for years the army was blasted with religious rhetoric promising that the infidel americans would soon fall before the sword of islam the prevailing attitude among the military was that the u.s was a paper tiger able to emit a terrifying war but incapable of enduring any serious losses since his successful coup in the late 1960s saddam hussein had ruled iraq at the head of the arab socialist baathist party which functioned as the central government and controlled all aspects of state policy given his unusually long reign an entire generation of iraqis had grown up having experienced nothing but saddam's dictatorship so few could imagine a world without their tyrannical leader exercising absolute power over their daily lives however despite saddam's oppression it is surprising how outright hostile the average iraqi citizen was towards their supposed american liberators for 12 years america was only ever known as the distant oppressor raining terror from the skies via airstrikes and subverting iraqi culture by funding insurrectionist movements meanwhile the few natives who benefited from western education experienced decades of villainization and dehumanization at the hands of the baathist party who painted them as traitors who sold out their own country for american petrodollars many iraqis were further distrustful of america after its behavior during the iran-iraq war when it had cheered saddam on as an indispensable ally in the middle east only to turn on his regime as soon as he threatened american interests in kuwait saddam's regime also possessed a natural heir of legitimacy thanks to his close ties to islam this was due to his extensive program of mosque building throughout iraq and decades spent manipulating his citizens into a state of unquestioning religious devotion even those muslims that hated their dictator still viewed his regime as inherently preferable to a democratic state especially one subject to degenerate western influences this was a concept that the u.s was simply unaccustomed to dealing with and led to many problems further down the line a second and arguably far more important factor that the u.s failed to consider was the ideological divide between the two major branches of islam the sunni and the shia the reigning baathist party consisted primarily of sunni muslims while the neighboring iran had undergone a revolution in 1979 that resulted in the creation of a shia controlled islamic republic fearful of a similar revolution in iraq saddam brutally oppressed his shia subjects excluding them from positions of authority and conducting mass executions whenever there was any hint of rebellion but such tyrannical measures while effective in the short term served only to stoke the fires of sectarian violence that would blaze out of control almost from the moment that u.s forces stepped across the border much of the chaos following the invasion could have been avoided had the invading coalition forces drafted a feasible plan for bringing stability in the wake of a regime change sadly this was not the case and civil disorder quickly became the order of the day with shia militant groups seeking vengeance on their former sunni oppressors troubles peaked in the capital city of baghdad which fell into a state of virtual anarchy following its capture shopkeeper muhammad abbas who had fled the city as the americans approached said when i got back to baghdad it was not the city i had left just a week before you saw people walking everywhere carrying looted goods nowhere could you see any sign of law and order no police no military no government nothing everything had collapsed the feelings of betrayal amongst the civilian population perhaps reached their peak after the al tabor raid in early 2004 when u.s forces entered and ransacked a mosque whose imam had recently begun preaching anti-american rhetoric and providing bomb-making lessons to would-be insurgents although a large cache of weapons and explosives were uncovered during the raid muslims across iraq were horrified by the images of the desecrated holy place with furniture smashed and copies of the sacred quran scattered across the floor to add insult to injury the americans offered no apology instead merely publishing a list of the seized items and brushing off the affair as just another routine operation against saddam's forces extremist clerics were quick to jump at this golden opportunity decrying the occupiers as devils whose sole purpose was to wage a war against the faithful of islam to aid this narrative terrorists and militia groups attacked coalition bases dressed as civilians forcing american soldiers to treat everyone as a potential threat this created a vicious cycle of mutual distrust each act of bad faith on one side triggering retaliation by the other which only led to further escalation given how volatile the situation was coalition forces quickly announced a provisional government to provide a peaceful transition to democracy but when the members of the new iraqi governing council were revealed the public was shocked to discover that it consisted of 13 shias and only 10 sunnis five of whom were kurdish minorities to the americans this was simply a matter of proportional representation after all the shias were the majority however to the sunni loyalists of iraq the site of the coalition raising up a government led by shiites and kurds was proof that saddam's anti-western rhetoric had been right all along the situation was not helped by the behavior of some opportunistic shia who quickly stepped in to fill the void left by their sunni counterparts to quote sunni government employee abu mustafa all of these senior officials had simply vanished and soon we began to see a new sectarian order people claiming to be doing the bidding of the shiite religious authorities began to fill the posts left open by the vanished bothists they began verbally abusing and firing sunnis or anyone they distrusted fortunately for america there was still one organization that had a solid plan for dealing with the rising tensions in iraq the cia in the aftermath of the invasion the cia was in charge of tracking down and capturing as many members of the former iraqi intelligence agencies as possible their efforts eventually succeeded when they rounded up a huge cabal of both party loyalists many of whom openly admitted to torture murder and various criminal activities having listened carefully to the various testimonies made against these men the cia quickly concluded that there was only one reasonable course of action to immediately offer them their jobs back and rebuild the core of saddam's police state from the ground up the cia rationalized this decision with the logic that under saddam terrorist activity in the region had been kept to a minimum and therefore there was nothing intrinsically wrong with his methods only his goals with all the worst aspects of the old regime now being restored by the very people claiming to be their liberators the iraqi people were finally pushed over the edge an explosion of violence rocked the nation and the capital city was divided up into warring sunni and shia suburbs the occupiers could do little but watch as chaos engulfed the nation their efforts to help constantly roadblocked by radicalism of their own inability to understand iraqi culture this bitterness and mistrust created an atmosphere where coalition soldiers saw danger around every corner the political vacuum left by saddam's defeat also allowed many extremist organizations to gain a significant foothold in the middle east turning the country into a war zone between government forces and radical militias by 2006 the violence had escalated into a full-scale civil war that saw the attempts of ethnic cleansing by both sunnis and shias resulting in the displacement of several million people to this day iraq remains one of the most unstable countries on earth with american forces being withdrawn in 2011 only to return in 2014 to combat the growing power of isis in the region faced with endless threats both external and internal the fragile democratic state now ruling the nation is constantly hamstrung by the meddling of foreign intelligence agencies and the deep bitter divisions amongst its populace but with isis finally losing its territory in the country in 2017 some still cling to the faint hope that iraq may finally be regaining its footing as a modern nation even so there is still much work left to be done you

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 2,607,180

Keywords: The Iraq War, War in the middle east, america in the middle east, war for oil, gulf war, second gulf war, 2003 invasion of iraq, the war in iraq, the invasion of afghanistan, terrorism, history of the us in the middle east, middle eastern history, american history, 9/11, bush doctrine, the war on terror, weapons of mass destruction

Id: 9hoe43sI758

Length: 31min 42sec (1902 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021