This March marks the fifth year since the US invaded Iraq. No democracy was installed there, Iraqis do not live any freer and no end to the quagmire in which the Americans have dug themselves into is anywhere in sight.

This means that the heavy loss of life and colossal destruction will go on in a war started for no reason at all. At least no obvious reason, but conspiracy theories will be left aside.

Five years is indeed a very long time: even longer when it is spent in fear, amid destruction. And longer than the two catastrophic world wars which, at least, ended with clear victors and losers.

The Iraq war remains a stalemate with no winners but with many losers, especially among the Iraqis.

Conservative estimates of Iraqi fatalities put the figure at about one million. Add to this the thousands of US soldiers killed in a senseless war, the maimed, the suffering, the material losses, and a vague idea of where the world stands at present.

If the end of this madness were anywhere near and Iraqis were to regain their sovereignty and move on with their lives, there might be some consolation. But for starting the war for no fault of a country and its people, for persisting in the folly and for making the world a much worse place to live in, someone has to be held accountable even so.

For the sake of the record, we should be reminded that the justification for the war was false through and through. Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, it had no weapons of mass destruction nor was it on the verge of acquiring nuclear power.

There should have been a cause for international intervention when crimes against humanity were committed against the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south of the country by the former Iraqi regime. Yet Washington did not lift a finger then, because it suited its interests. On March 16, 20 years ago, chemical weapons were used by Saddam Hussein in Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds, most of whom women and children. Yet that genocidal attack did not trigger the appropriate response from the US or the world at large.

Where was the rest of the international community when all these atrocities were committed? And if it didn’t intervene then, why allow George Bush to start an unjustified war so much later?

This US president will undoubtedly end his term in office while US soldiers are still deployed in Iraq. Sad legacy. Sadder to know that his people let its government get away with it.

Elections will soon bring a new president to the White House. Perhaps he/she will have the sense, compassion and strength to stop soldiers from dying and from killing. Perhaps the world will become a safer place, where reason prevails and weapons fall quiet.