Both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticized the prosecution of the war effort along a number of other lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the U.S. and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating widespread human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs.
The court-martial of Ehren Watada, the first U.S. officer to refuse to serve in Iraq, ended in a mistrial because the Judge Advocate General's Corps would not consider the question of whether orders could be illegal. A federal district court judge ruled that Watada cannot face double jeopardy on three of his five charges, but abstained from ruling on whether the two remaining charges of conduct unbecoming an officer may still go forward.
Another criticism of the initial intelligence leading up to the Iraq war comes from a former CIA officer who described the Office of Special Plans as a group of ideologues who were dangerous to U.S. national security and a threat to world peace, and that the group lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam. Subsequently, in 2008, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, a group partially funded by George Soros has enumerated a total of 935 allegedly false statements made by George W. Bush and six other top members of his administration in what it termed a "carefully launched campaign of misinformation" during the two year period following 9/11 attacks, in order to rally support for the invasion of Iraq.
Financial costs with approximately $612 billion spent as of 4/09 the CBO has estimated the total cost of the war in Iraq to U.S. taxpayers will be around $1.9 trillion.
Adverse effect on U.S.-led global "war on terror"
Damage to U.S.' traditional alliances and influence in the region, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Endangerment and ethnic cleansing of religious and ethnic minorities
Disruption of Iraqi oil production and related energy security concerns (the price of oil has quadrupled since 2002)
After President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, some anti-war groups decided to stop protesting even though the war was still going on. Some of them decided to stop because they felt they should give the new President time to establish his administration, and others stopped because they believed that Obama would end the war.
Financial cost
The financial cost of the war has been more than £4.55 billion ($9 billion) to the UK, and over $845 billion to the U.S., with the total cost to the U.S. economy estimated at $3 trillion.
A CNN report noted that the U.S. led interim government, the Coalition Provisional Authority lasting until 2004 in Iraq had lost $8,800,000,000 in the Development Fund for Iraq. In June 2011, it was reported by CBS News that six billion in neatly packaged blocks of US $100 bills was literally air-lifted into Iraq by the George W. Bush administration, which flew it into Baghdad aboard C-130 military cargo planes. In total, the Times says $12 billion in cash was flown into Iraq in 21 separate flights by May 2004. All of which has disappeared. An inspector general's report mentioned that "'Severe inefficiencies and poor management' by the Coalition Provisional Authority would leave no guarantee that the money was properly used," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., director of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. "The CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls to ensure that funds were used in a transparent manner." Bowen told the Times the missing money may represent "the largest theft of funds in national history."
Humanitarian crises
More than half of Iraqi Christians have fled to neighboring countries since the start of the war. In FY 2007, the U.S. resettled 1,608 Iraqi refugees.
Main articles: Humanitarian crises of the Iraq War and Refugees of Iraq
Malnutrition rates have risen from 19% before the U.S.-led invasion to a national average of 28% four years later. Some 60–70% of Iraqi children are suffering from psychological problems. 68% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water. A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq is thought to be the result of poor water quality. As many as half of Iraqi doctors have left the country since 2003.
The Foreign Policy Association reported that "Perhaps the most perplexing component of the Iraq refugee crisis... has been the inability for the U.S. to absorb more Iraqis following the 2003 invasion of the country. To date, the U.S. has granted less than 800 Iraqis refugee status, just 133 in 2007. By contrast, the U.S. granted asylum to more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War."
Human rights abuses
Throughout the entire Iraq war there have been human rights abuses on all sides of the conflict.
Iraqi government
The use of torture by Iraqi security forces.
Iraqi police from the Interior Ministry accused of forming Death Squads and committing numerous massacres and tortures of Sunni Arabs and the police collusion with militias in Iraq have compounded the problems.
Coalition forces and private contractors
This photograph released in 2006 shows several naked Iraqis in hoods, of whom one has the words “I'm a rapeist” (sic) written on his hip.
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
Haditha killings of 24 civilians (ongoing with some charges dropped)
White phosphorus use in Iraq
Gang-rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the murder of her family, in Mahmoudiyah
The torture and killing of prisoner of war, Iraqi Air Force commander, Abed Hamed Mowhoush
The killing of Baha Mousa
Bombing and shooting of 42 civilians at a wedding party in Mukaradeeb
Controversy over whether disproportionate force was used, during the assaults by Coalition and (mostly Shia and Kurdish) Iraqi government forces on the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah in 2004.
Planting weapons on noncombatant, unarmed Iraqis by three U.S. Marines after killing them. According to a report by The Nation, other similar acts have been witnessed by U.S. soldiers. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War tell similar stories.
Iraq War insurgent attacks
Car bombings are a frequently used tactic by insurgents in Iraq.
Killing over 12,000 Iraqis from January 2005 to June 2006, according to Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, giving the first official count for the victims of bombings, ambushes and other deadly attacks. The insurgents have also conducted numerous suicide attacks on the Iraqi civilian population, mostly targeting the majority Shia community. An October 2005 report from Human Rights Watch examines the range of civilian attacks and their purported justification.
Attacks against civilians including children through bombing of market places and other locations reachable by car bombs.
Attacks on diplomats and diplomatic facilities including; the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 killing the top UN representative in Iraq and 21 other UN staff members;beheading several diplomats: two Algerian diplomatic envoys Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, Egyptian diplomatic envoy al-Sherif, and four Russian diplomats.
The February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, destroying one of the holiest Shiite shrines, killing over 165 worshipers and igniting sectarian strife and reprisal killings.
The publicised killing of several contractors; Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley, Kenneth Bigley, Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov (Bulgarian truck drivers.) Other non-military personnel murdered include: translator Kim Sun-il, Shosei Koda, Fabrizio Quattrocchi (Italian), charity worker Margaret Hassan, reconstruction engineer Nick Berg, photographer Salvatore Santoro (Italian) and supply worker Seif Adnan Kanaan (Iraqi.) Four private armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague, were killed with grenades and small arms fire, their bodies dragged from their vehicles, beaten and set ablaze. Their burned corpses were then dragged through the streets before being hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates.
Torture or killing of members of the New Iraqi Army, and assassination of civilians associated with the Coalition Provisional Authority, such as Fern Holland, or the Iraqi Governing Council, such as Aqila al-Hashimi and Ezzedine Salim, or other foreign civilians, such as those from Kenya.
All about war in Iraq:
The Iraq War
Preparations for Iraq war
Iraq war post-invasion phase
Iraq war and Tensions with neighbors
Iraq awards oil contracts
Criticism and cost of Iraq War
Public opinion on the Iraq War
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