And it also recalls a time not too long ago ------ to be exact, just over 15 years ago ---- when the United States and the UK were claiming repeatedly that Saddam Hussein, the leader of a Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction in his arsenal and therefore represented a grave threat to the rest of the world. Officials of the administration of the President George W. Bush, led by the CIA, insisted that they knew for sure that Hussein had stockpiles of chemical weapons and possibly nuclear weapons, and that he was hiding them. They refused to provide the evidence of this charge but said in effect 'Trust us, he's got them.'
CIA director George Tenet said famously at the time, that it was a "slam dunk" certainty that Hussein had the weapons.
International weapons inspectors were doubtful and said they had found no evidence of WMD in Iraq.
But Bush and his administration stuck to their position that Iraq was a major threat. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was important to move quickly against Saddam because he had terrible weapons of war that could threaten this country.
Bush said at one point, "We can't wait for final proof --- the smoking gun --- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
So on March 19, 2003, American forces launched an invasion of Iraq, an attack which was not authorized by the UN and was illegal under international law. American forces quickly overran the country, killed Saddam and set up a new government.
But just a few months later, the whole case made by the Bush administration for making war in Iraq fell apart. An American team sent in to find WMD ---- after months of searching --- came up empty. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
By that point, thousands of Iraqis had already been killed, many Americans had been killed and there was massive damage to the infrastructure of Iraq, which up to that point had been one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East.
The war did not stop there. The U.S. military and its allies had to spend the next eight years fighting in Iraq, maintaining large troop contingents in an effort to stabilize the country and suppress rebellions against the U.S. imposed government.
By the time President Barack Obama decided to pull the bulk of U.S. troops out of Iraq in 2011, the U.S. had lost some 4500 soldiers and military personnel and more than 30,000 were wounded. The Iraqi death toll was estimated at close to 1 million.
Now, according to researchers Nicolas J.S. Davies and Medea Benjamin, a study of mortality figures in Iraq shows that the Iraqi death toll for the past 15 years is likely to be 2.4 million.
If that figure is correct, a case could be made that the U.S., Britain and allied forces committed genocide in Iraq.
The financial cost to the United States already for waging war in Iraq has been a staggering $1.7 trillion. Estimates are that future costs stemming from the war will be trillions more, once the cost of ongoing veterans care is factored in.
By any rational standards, the Iraq war has been a total disaster for the United States, and catastrophic for Iraq and its people.
Did the U.S. really wage war on Iraq because of the possible presence of weapons of mass destruction? No. There was no imminent threat posed by Iraq and U.S. and British officials knew it, despite their public statements.
The real reason for the invasion was that the United States wanted to lay claim to Iraq's considerable oil reserves and make them available to Western companies. U.S. policymakers also wanted to remove Saddam, because he was a sometimes independent actor in the Middle East who was seen as an impediment for the U.S. maintaining total control over the region.
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