Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there is now a myth, repeated by distinguished writers and commentators, that most Iraqis initially welcomed the US-led invasion. No matter that the widely-broadcast pulling down of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad by US forces and the ‘Pentagon Iraqis’ involved about two hundred people in a city of six million. There was no uprising in Basra after all.
And there was no reported mass meeting or demonstration, except in Iraqi Kurdistan, which attracted more than a few hundred in support of the invasion. All the large gatherings since have been in opposition.
The opposition is now turning into large scale, popularly backed resistance inexorably leading to a war of attrition with echoes of Vietnam unless the US withdraws.
