By Nie Shuyi
聂舒翼
File photo: A public cemetery in Fallujah, Iraq. After 20 years of war and conflicts, it is difficult to find a person in Iraq who has no loved ones lost. (Photo from The New York Times)
资料图：伊拉克费卢杰市一所公共墓地。经历20年战乱，在伊拉克很难找到没有失去亲人的人。（来源：《纽约时报》）
In the early morning of March 20, 2003, the United States brazenly launched a major attack of Iraq. The Iraq War is a war of aggression unilaterally launched by the United States and the United Kingdom without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council. Two decades later, Iraq is still struggling in the quagmire and shadow left by the war, and the peace and prosperity promised have never arrived.
2003年3月20日凌晨，美国悍然对伊拉克发动侵略战争。伊拉克战争是一场未经联合国安理会授权、美英单方面发动的侵略战争。20年后，伊拉克仍在战争留下的泥潭和阴影中挣扎，曾经许诺的和平与繁荣从未到来。
Over the past 20 years, the war has caused profound disasters to Iraq. According to the Costs of War project of the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University in the United States, between 185,000 and 208,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the Iraq War launched in 2003, and countless Iraqi families and tens of millions more have also been affected by the nightmarish chaos and post-war trauma.
20年来，战争给伊拉克造成了深重的灾难。美国布朗大学沃森国际研究所“战争成本”项目指出，20年间，有18.5万至20.8万名伊拉克平民在战争中丧生，受到战争殃及的伊拉克家庭、民众更是不计其数。
According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data, more than 9 million Iraqis have been reduced to the homeless or international refugees due to the war.
联合国难民署的数据显示，超过900万伊拉克人因战争沦为国内无家可归者或是国际难民。
The New York Times quoted data from the World Bank and the International Labour Organization (ILO) on March 18 as saying that at present, the unemployment rate of young Iraqis is as high as over 1/3, and 1/4 of Iraqis live below the poverty line.
《纽约时报》18日引述世界银行和国际劳工组织的数据称，目前，伊拉克年轻人失业率高达1/3以上，1/4的伊拉克人生活在贫困线以下。
In addition to the humanitarian disaster, it is also difficult to restore Iraq to calm in terms of political and security situation. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the United States tried to build Iraq into the so-called "democratic model in the Middle East" with the Western democratic system as a template, but this dragged Iraq into political chaos in which sectarian violence, ethnic antagonisms, and factional conflicts are hard to reconcile.
除了人道主义灾难，伊拉克的政治和安全局势也难以恢复平静。在萨达姆政权被推翻后，美国以西方民主制度为模板，试图将伊拉克打造成所谓“中东民主样本”，却将伊拉克拖入了教派冲突、族群对立、派系矛盾难以调和的政治乱局中。
In particular, after the legislative elections of Iraq in October 2021, the domestic political struggle got dramatically intensified, resulting in the delay in the birth of a new president and the long-term shelving of national legislature formation. At the end of August 2022, the continued political stalemate and protests eventually developed into a sanguinary conflict that caused heavy casualties.
特别是2021年10月举行国民议会选举后，伊拉克国内政治斗争迅速激化，导致新总统迟迟难产，组阁事宜长期搁置。去年8月底，持续的政治僵局和抗议活动最终发展为造成重大人员伤亡的流血冲突。
Over the past 20 years, the West Asia and North African region has been continuously mired in war and turmoil by the Iraq War. The war not only subverted the internal order in Iraq, but also caused serious spillover effects in the region. It disrupted the balance between the Shiites and the Sunnis in Iraq, and contributed to the spread of terrorism in the region, resulting in many undesirable consequences, exacerbating the crisis in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and ultimately leading to the Arab Spring, wave of pro-democracy protests and uprisings that took place in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
20年来，西亚和北非地区因这场战争持续陷入战乱和动荡中。伊拉克战争不但颠覆了伊拉克的国内秩序，也在地区造成了严重的外溢效应。战争破坏了什叶派和逊尼派之间在该国的平衡，并助长了恐怖主义在该地区的扩散，产生了诸多不良后果，加剧了中东和北非地区许多国家内的危机，最终导致了席卷该地区许多国家的“阿拉伯之春”革命。
In addition, under the civil strife in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State Terrorist Organization has taken advantage of the situation and wreaked havoc in both countries since 2013, causing enormous damage and humanitarian disasters. To this day, the organization continues to perpetrate terrorist attacks in regional countries including Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan and has branches located in areas like Nigeria and the Philippines.
此外，由于伊拉克和叙利亚的内乱，自2013年起，极端组织“伊斯兰国”趁势而起并在两国肆虐，造成巨大破坏和人道主义灾难。时至今日，该组织仍在包括叙利亚、伊拉克、阿富汗等地区国家不断制造恐怖袭击，并在尼日利亚、菲律宾等国有分支组织存在。
At the same time, the war has also intensified the geopolitical game between foreign powers and regional powers in West Asia and North Africa, plunging Yemen, Libya, Syria, and other countries into long-term civil strife, with influence spreading to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and so on.
同时，这场战争还加剧了域外大国和地区强国在西亚和北非地区的地缘政治博弈，令也门、利比亚、叙利亚等国陷入长期内乱，并波及沙特、阿联酋等国。
The United States has waged the war on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, but so-called weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found. According to data from the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit organization in the United States, President Bush and top administration officials made a total of 935 false public statements at least about Iraq’s alleged national security threat in the two years following the 9/11 attacks.
美国以所谓“伊拉克拥有大规模杀伤性武器”为由动战争，但所谓的大规模杀伤性武器至今未见踪影。根据美国非营利组织“公共廉正中心”的数据，在“9·11”事件后的两年里，布什和他的高级官员们公开说了至少935个关于萨达姆对美国构成威胁的谎言。
The constant lies made by the United States government have ultimately made it suffer the consequences. Luis Rueda, the head of the Iraq Operations Team of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States, once stated that for the United States, the issue of weapons of mass destruction was secondary to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. "Even if Saddam Hussein had a rubber band and a paper clip, we would still invade Iraq." This unscrupulous practice of deceiving the public in order to achieve political goals has ultimately undermined public trust in the United States government.
美国政府这种不断撒谎的行径最终令美国自食其果。美国中央情报局伊拉克行动组负责人路易斯·鲁埃达曾表示，对美国来说，相比于推翻萨达姆政权，大规模杀伤性武器问题是次要的，“哪怕萨达姆·侯赛因有一根橡皮筋和一个回形针，我们都会入侵伊拉克”。这种为实现政治目的不择手段、欺骗公众的做法，最终损害了民众对美国政府的信任。
It is regrettable that Western politicians, represented by the United States, not only failed to reflect on this devastating war, but also tried to conceal or even distort the facts with words. Twenty years ago, the United States waged war with lies, which eventually destroyed the lives of Iraqis; Twenty years later, the United States sought so-called "absolute security" to realize its hegemony in Europe, sending Ukraine into the vortex of war. If the United States remains addicted to imperial arrogance and the endless pursuit of hegemony, it will only create more "Iraq Wars" in the future and ultimately drag itself into the abyss of disaster.
令人遗憾的是，对这场造成巨大破坏的战争，以美国为代表的西方政客不但没有反思，还试图用言辞掩盖乃至扭曲事实。20年前，美国以谎言发动战争，最终摧毁了伊拉克人的生活；20年后，美国在欧洲寻求所谓“绝对安全”的霸权行径，将乌克兰送进了战争的漩涡。美国若仍沉溺于帝国的傲慢与对霸权的无尽追求之中，未来只会制造更多的“伊拉克战争”，并最终将美国自身拖入灾难的深渊。
Editor's note: Originally published on opinion.haiwainet.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
