In April 2003, the United States and Britain, against worldwide opposition, invaded and occupied Iraq, in a bid to remove its brutal dictator Saddam Hussein from power. Essentially, the war served to secure the country as a new political ally in the Middle East and a strategic supplier of oil, as a potential alternative to Saudi Arabia. Right after the war, in May and June, I travelled through Iraq, from the Shiite-dominated south across the rebellious Sunni Arab parts west of Baghdad up to the Kurdish-populated areas in the north. What I saw was worrying: while American companies were busy restoring the Iraqi oil industry, American and British occupation troops faced a intensifying guerrilla war which was soon to spiral into a deadly civil war.
