Iraq War from the Iraqi Perspective | Animated History

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 before we begin i'd like to thank our sponsor conflict of nations is a free online strategy game with millions of players worldwide fight up to 64 players in a complex real-time environment in games that can last for weeks set at the dawn of the 21st century the game features modern day weapons and technology naturally your objective is world domination accomplished with a well-defined strategy and powerful armies composed of dozens of different unit types from tanks and planes to infantry and artillery the best thing about the game is the pvp aspect which lets you use either force or diplomacy to bring other nations under your sphere of influence plus the game is fully cross-platform with just one single account needed for pc and mobile devices i've set up a special game of conflict of nations for the first viewers who click the link in the description on the website or app search for the armchair historian and enter the password the armchair historian for access remember the slots are limited additionally armchair historian fans are getting a special gift use the link down below to support our channel and get 13 000 gold and 1 month premium subscription for free this offer is available for just 30 days so follow the link in the description below pick a country and start fighting your way to victory now 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 attritional 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 [Music] 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 petro dollars 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 tabol 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 baathists 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 thanks again to conflict of nations for sponsoring this video clicking the link down below really helps out our channel [Music] you

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 303,184

Rating: 4.8835478 out of 5

Keywords: The Iraq War, War on terror, war in afghanistan, 9/11, president bush, the bush doctrine, osama bin laden, saddam hussein, life in iraq, the gulf war, second iraq war, america in the middle east, history of iraq, history in the middle east, united states in iraq, iraq and afghanistan, modern history, proxy wars, isis, syrian civil war, iraqi civil war, iran-iraq war

Id: wMXn-q7ljK4

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/SmallAl]

I wish we had more resources and documentaries about the Iraq War from the Iraqi prospective.

[u/Oneeyebrowsystem]

The animation is great but the info in the video seems like it lifted from a Wikipedia page written by Christopher Hitchens Internet fan base. From surface level to straight up disingenuous.