It was March 20, 2003: 20 years have passed since the American intervention in Iraq. Baghdad residents remember it, many of them with bitterness.
With our correspondent in Baghdad, Marie-Charlotte Rupee
A few hundred meters from where it still stood 20 years ago the huge statue of Saddam Husseinin the bustling neighborhood of Karrada, Ezzet, a spice seller, is very bitter as he thinks back to the last days of March 2003. I don’t feel like it’s been 20 years. In the last 20 years, what has changed? Nothing changed, they just overthrew Saddam Hussein, that’s all he says.
Ali, a fish seller in the street, is in the same frame of mind. “ At first, we thought good things were going to come out of it. Nothing beneficial has been brought to the population: no infrastructure, no buildings, nothing “says Ali.
► Read also Abu Ghraib: a former detainee tells
” I wish we could go back to the old regime »
If they all remember March 20 as a traumatic day, the consequences of the American invasion are not perceived by all in the same way. Zeinab sees only chaos after 2003. I wish we could go back to the old regime, now corruption is everywhere, there is theft and vandalism “, she says.
Duaa, she does not regret the old regime of which her family had been the victim. ” Of course, it’s positive. We have been released from a dark time. Even if the current situation is not ideal, it is still better than what we had before “, she believes.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, twenty years have passed, marked by wars, terrorism and internal conflicts. The new regime is still trying to find its balance in Iraq.
►Also read : Post-Saddam: Year II