'What happened in 2003, I don't want happening anywhere in the world - not just Iraq, anywhere,' says Mohsin, who fled the war and found refuge in Australia.
Image: Iraqi civilians and US soldiers pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad on 9 April 2003.Some Iraqis hoped things would quickly return to normal after President Saddam Hussein was ousted. But they didn't.Two decades after the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, Mohsin* said the memories still bring him "overwhelming pain".
"Who's to blame? Just Saddam? No, the US is also to blame. It wasn't just Saddam who we should blame - the US treated us the same way," he said. "By 2005, it was destroyed. Sectarianism conflict broke out... there was nothing left for us there. How was I going to benefit from this country? This is the point where I knew I had to leave," he said.They came to Australia by boat in 2010 after he was granted aTorn apart by the Iraq war, this family has waited 18 years to reunite in Sydney
Mourners carry the body of Iraqi Shamil Nafe, 30, along the streets of Baghdad's Adhamiya area during his funeral procession, in December, 2003. He was killed by the US forces when a demonstration supporting captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took place and ended with clashes with troops.
It said Mr Hussein had ambitions to restart chemical and nuclear programs once sanctions were lifted. But because there were no recent signs of discussion or interest in establishing a new biological warfare program, Iraq would "have faced great difficult in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability".
"Who could see a foreign flag being flown in their own homeland, and feel happy in such a moment?" Mr Alansari recalls his dad saying.
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