Five years ago, on March 20, 2003, the United States went to war in Iraq.

At that time, President George W. Bush said the objectives of the invasion were to disarm weapons of mass destruction, remove Saddam Hussein from power and liberate the Iraqi people.

Enough time has passed now to look back on those objectives and see what has and has not been accomplished.

Although Hussein has been removed from power and executed, many controversies still remain in Iraq.

The inability to discover WMDs, the extreme cost of the war and an increasing number of fatalities are just a few that have garnered headlines during the Iraq war.

WMDs

In 2004, a 1,000-page report by the leader of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, stated that, contrary to intelligence provided to the Bush administration, “Saddam Hussein ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf War.”

President Bush called the report the “last word” on the issue of WMDs.

Also included in Duelfer’s report were facts that discarded the notion of Iraq purchasing uranium overseas and that aluminum tubes, thought to be for nuclear weapons production, were for used for production of artillery rockets.

Finally, according to the report, “the [weapons inspection] team found no evidence that Iraq was developing biological weapons trailers or rail cars. Two trailers found after the war were for producing hydrogen gas for weather balloons.”

These statements directly contradict a statement made by President Bush during a Sept. 12, 2002, address to the United Nations.

“Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons,” President Bush said during the address. “We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons – the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.”

Cost

At the onset of the Iraq war, former White House Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsey estimated the cost of the war would be about $50 billion.

Today, it is apparent that Lindsey’s prediction was wrong, to say the least.

According to numbers released by The Associated Press, the war is currently costing the United States approximately $12 billion per month.

Along with the increasing financial burden, the number of lives lost – among both U.S. forces and the Iraqi population – has continued to climb. U.S. military deaths have reached nearly 4,000, while estimates of the number of fatalities among Iraqis vary. According to www.iraqbodycount.org, the total of Iraqi deaths is somewhere between 82,267 and 89,778.

At a public address Wednesday, Bush acknowledged the great losses in lives and capital in Iraq but said both were necessary for success.

“No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure,” Bush said. “But those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq.”

The president

The five-year anniversary of the war also marked President Bush’s lowest approval rating during his tenure in the White House – 31 percent.

Alongside the poor national perception of the president, individuals within the Bush administration have simply walked away. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, former Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsey and former Chief of U.S. Forces in the Middle East William Fallon have all resigned.

In response to the widespread disapproval, Bush said the “progress” seen in Iraq is “undeniable.”

“The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable, yet some in Washington still call for retreat,” Bush said. “War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much.”