Ron Paul: Iraq far worse than before US attack

Former U.S. Congressman Ron Paul

Former U.S. Congressman Ron Paul has said Iraq is now “in far worse shape” than 2003, when the U.S. invaded the country.

In his new article published on Monday, Paul severely criticized the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying U.S. President Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush took the wars “to mean that they could make war anywhere at any time they please.”

“We left Iraq after a decade of fighting and the country is in far worse shape than when we attacked in 2003. After trillions of dollars wasted and tens of thousands of lives lost, Iraq is a devastated, desperate, and violent place with a presence of al Qaeda. No one in his right mind speaks of a U.S. victory in Iraq these days. We learned nothing from it,” said Paul on his weekly column on thefreefoundation.org.

Under the pretext that former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq in March 2003. In October 2004, however, a CIA report revealed that Saddam Hussein did not possess any weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion.

U.S. troops left Iraq more than nine years after the invasion though a few hundred are still stationed in the country.

Paul warned against future U.S. interventionism saying, “Instead of learning from these disasters brought about by the interventionists and their failed foreign policy, the president is now telling us that we have to go into Syria!”

The U.S. government has recently intensified its rhetoric against Syria after the Obama administration claimed earlier this month that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against foreign-backed militants crossing Washington’s “red line.” Damascus strongly rejected the accusation.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for “immediate” airstrikes on Syria at a White House meeting on June 12, and one day later, President Obama approved military aid for militant groups in Syria.