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Articles on Iraq War

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Packed and ready to leave? Perhaps not quite yet. Capt. Robyn Haake/US Army/AFP via Getty Images

The Iraq War has cost the US nearly $2 trillion

The Pentagon has spent more than $800 billion on military operations in Iraq. But that doesn’t include money needed to care for veterans, rebuild the country or pay interest on war debt.
A memorial procession for Sgt. James Johnston, who was killed in Afghanistan in June, passes through Trumansburg, N.Y., Saturday, Aug. 31, 2019. AP/David Goldman

From Vietnam to Afghanistan, all US governments lie

US officials have consistently lied over decades about progress in the Afghanistan war. The lies are no surprise, writes a foreign affairs scholar – but they have profound consequences.
President Harry S Truman established the initial version of the National Intelligence Council. AP Photo

An invisible government agency produces crucial national security intelligence, but is anyone listening?

The National Intelligence Council works inside government but is little understood outside. Yet it has helped respond to almost all the major foreign policy challenges of the last 40 years.
Smoke billows from the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor (2017). Impossible living conditions force people to migrate. It is time to collect a “destruction tax” on arms transactions ? Stringer / AFP

Should we tax arms manufacturers to finance refugee resettlement?

Wars play a central role in increasing numbers of refugees worldwide. Is it time to think about a “destruction tax”?
Family members of Sunni men and boys in Iraq accused of supporting ISIS hold up pictures of their arrested relatives. AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo

Iraq’s brutal crackdown on suspected Islamic State supporters could trigger civil war

Iraq beat the Islamic State. Now, its Shia government is jailing and even executing all suspected terrorists – most of them Sunni Muslims. The clampdown may inflame a centuries-old sectarian divide.
Garbage piled up in the opposition-held city of Afrin, Syria, in March 2018. AP/Lefteris Pitarakis

Garbage collection in Syria is crucial to fighting the Islamic State

Keeping the water and power on, managing sewers and collecting garbage will help communities shattered by the Syrian civil war rebuild – and keep out the Islamic State, says a former aid official.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Hassan Rouhani of Iran and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, following their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 7, 2018. Reuters/Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool

The US will have to accept second-class status in the Middle East

The US was once the dominant force in the Middle East. That old order has disappeared. Now the new powers are Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Russia – and the US needs a new policy for the region.
No questions have been asked about Australia’s knowledge of torture committed by the US. Shutterstock

Why Australia needs its own torture report

As a liberal democracy, Australia needs its own report on US torture in Iraq and has a legal and moral obligation to prevent torture.
Iraqis carry the picture of three men who were kidnapped and executed by Islamic State during a funeral procession in Karbala, southern Iraq, in June 2018. EPA-EFE/FURQAN AL-AARAJI

Islamic State has survived 100,000 bombs and missiles and is still active

The wars against Islamic State and al-Qaida show that military responses may seem to work in the short term but don’t change much in the long run.
Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush’s former secretary of defense during the war in Iraq. DR

‘The geopolitics of risk’: the new age of uncertainty

The question is no longer how to repel all threats. Instead, it’s how can we organise ourselves as a society to remain ourselves in the face of these multiple threats.
Radical policy shifts are a hallmark of the Trump administration. On May 8, the president announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the international Iran nuclear deal. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Presidents often reverse US foreign policy — how Trump handles setbacks is what matters most now

Many presidents have radically changed US foreign policy. Truman created his own doctrine. Carter gave up the Panama Canal. But a presidential historian sees danger in Trump’s decision-making style.
Hillary Clinton is seen in this February 2016 campaign event welcoming former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright onto the stage in New Hampshire during the Democratic primary. As both women condemn U.S. President Donald Trump for his creeping fascism, are they forgetting their own pasts? (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Switching sides: Whitewashing history in the age of Trump

The likes of Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton and Michael Hayden are correctly issuing dire warnings about fascism under Trump. But what about their own actions?

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