Six Ways to Learn About the Iraq War

by - bangladeshbangla

2 years ago

Twenty years ago, the United States invaded Iraq as part of the “war on terror” announced by President George W. Bush after the attacks by Al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Bush and members of his administration said that Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s leader, was manufacturing and concealing weapons of mass destruction, though no evidence was ever found to back up those accusations. The Americans quickly toppled Mr. Hussein’s brutal authoritarian government but also unleashed a sectarian civil war and a violent insurgency against occupying U.S. forces.

The United States spent an estimated $2 trillion in Iraq over the two decades, a price tag that barely begins to express the toll it has taken on the two countries. Iraq lost nearly a half-million civilians in the war and the subsequent eight-year American occupation. Roughly 8,500 American military personnel and contractors died there, and as many as 300,000 others returned home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.

How did the war change Iraq, and the United States? What lessons should we learn from the war, and what is the war’s legacy?

In this teaching resource, we highlight a variety of multimedia resources The New York Times put together in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war. We offer six teaching ideas for thinking deeply about the war’s causes and its wide-ranging, and often devastating, effects.