Watson Events

March 2023 marks 20 years since United States forces invaded Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, under the false claim that his regime was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing war, in which U.S. ground presence peaked in 2007 with over 170,000 soldiers, caused massive death, destruction, and political instability in Iraq. Among the consequences was the increase of sectarian politics, widespread violence and the rise of the Islamic State militant group with its terror attacks throughout the Middle East. Though the U.S. government officially ended its Iraq war in 2011, the repercussions of the invasion and occupation as well as subsequent and ongoing military interventions have had an enormous human, social, economic, and environmental toll. An estimated 300,000 people have died from direct war violence in Iraq, while the reverberating effects of war continue to kill and sicken hundreds of thousands more.

In this panel, co-hosted by the Watson Institute’s Costs of War project and Center for Middle East Studies, scholars from the Iraqi diaspora Zahra Ali (Rutgers University), Khaled al-Hilli (Rutgers University), Oula Kadhum (London School of Economic and Political Science), and Kali Rubaii (Purdue University) will reflect on the broad consequences of war in Iraq over the past 20 years, in particular in relation to gender, culture, displacement, the environment and health.

Center for Middle East Studies