20 Years After U.S. Invasion, Iraq Is a Freer Place, but Not a Hopeful One

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Conversations with dozens of Iraqis offer a portrait of a nation that is rich in oil, hobbled by corruption and unable to guarantee its citizens’ safety.

By Alissa J. Rubin
Alissa J. Rubin, who has covered Iraq for much of the past two decades and twice served as The Times’ Baghdad bureau chief, spent several weeks in central and northern Iraq talking with Iraqis from all walks of life for this article.

March 18, 2023
Updated 5:44 a.m. ET

A couple of streets away from the new buildings and noisy main road of the desert city of Falluja, there was once a sports stadium. The goal posts are long gone, the stands rotted years ago.

Now, every inch is covered with gravestones.

“This is the martyrs’ graveyard,” said Kamil Jassim Mohammed, 70, the cemetery’s custodian, who has looked after it since 2004, when graves were first dug for those killed as U.S. troops battled Iraqi militias. “I stopped counting how many people are buried here, but there are hundreds, thousands of martyrs.”

As Iraq marks the 20th anniversary on Monday of the American-led invasion that toppled the dictator Saddam Hussein, an army of ghosts haunts the living. The dead and the maimed shadow everyone in this country — even those who want to leave the past behind.

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