Baghdad: Together Tigris River, Young Iraqi men and women in jeans and sneakers danced with joy to a local rapper on a recent evening as the sun went down behind them. It is a world away from the terror that followed the American invasion 20 years ago.
Iraq’s capital is full of life, its residents enjoying a rare peaceful interlude in a painful modern history. The city’s open-air book market is packed with buyers. Cool young men drive muscle cars. Some glitzy buildings gleam where bombs once fell.
President George W. Bush described the US-led invasion, launched on March 20, 2003, as a mission to liberate the Iraqi people. It overthrew a dictator whose rule kept 20 million people in fear for a quarter of a century. But it also fractured the unified state at the heart of the Arab world. Nearly 300,000 Iraqis were killed between 2003 and 2019, along with more than 8,000 US troops, contractors and civilians.
Half of today’s population is not old enough to remember life under Saddam Hussein. Interview from Baghdad in fallujahYoung Iraqis decried the lawlessness that followed Saddam’s ouster, but many were optimistic about the nascent freedom and opportunities.
Iraq’s capital is full of life, its residents enjoying a rare peaceful interlude in a painful modern history. The city’s open-air book market is packed with buyers. Cool young men drive muscle cars. Some glitzy buildings gleam where bombs once fell.
President George W. Bush described the US-led invasion, launched on March 20, 2003, as a mission to liberate the Iraqi people. It overthrew a dictator whose rule kept 20 million people in fear for a quarter of a century. But it also fractured the unified state at the heart of the Arab world. Nearly 300,000 Iraqis were killed between 2003 and 2019, along with more than 8,000 US troops, contractors and civilians.
Half of today’s population is not old enough to remember life under Saddam Hussein. Interview from Baghdad in fallujahYoung Iraqis decried the lawlessness that followed Saddam’s ouster, but many were optimistic about the nascent freedom and opportunities.
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