Ramadi (Iraq) | An illustrated example of American foreign policy

Ramadi was liberated from ISIL occupation February 2016 at the cost of total destruction.
    

                                                    Image source:  LobeLog

  
Civilians fleeing Ramadi May 2015.  It was hardest for children and the elderly.

                                          Image source: The Malay Mail Online

In a city of half a million, no electricity, no water, no habitable homes, loads of rubble everywhere.  Schools & health centers destroyed.  Roads and bridges in shambles.  All businesses shut, no jobs.  Displaced residents cannot return as  Ramadi is peppered with landmines and IEDs.  Airstrikes, shelling, booby traps ... 80% of the city flattened.  Worst  destruction ever in Iraq since 2003!  Heaviest losses caused by US coalition bombings, chasing out its own creation. Plenty of devastation also inflicted purposely by ISIL during retreat.  Cost of rebuilding estimated at more than $10 billion equivalent to 10 years of Iraq's budget.  With a crippled Iraqi economy, selling crude at $28/barrel, no one knows who will pay.  America won't even talk of it.

Adding insult to injury, a US official stationed in Iraq stated liberation wasn't worthwhile considering the extent of destruction caused.  Strange they never thought of that when they raided the entire country in 2003.

ISIL attacked and captured Ramadi a year ago May 2015 when Iraqi security forces fled the city.  Suffering of civilians was heart-rending, indescribable.  They were sandwiched between the violence of ISIL and the callousness of the Iraqi government.  Soon after the occupation, 40,000 civilians fled to the capital Baghdad for safety.  But the bridge was shut and they were refused entry.  Wary of a dozen ISIL militants suspected of infiltrating into Baghdad, the government barred 40,000 helpless civilians - thousands of them women, children and elderly in wheel chairs - from entering Baghdad.  They were left  unprotected in scorching summer temperatures and harsh sandstorms with no arrangements for food and water..  Many died waiting to cross the bridge.

 

  

Below: Library of the University of Anbar, Ramadi.  During ISIL occupation of Ramadi, they seized the campus and used it as their headquarters.  This is what they did to the library.  While retreating they set ablaze some parts of the University and blew up other parts.                                               

 

                                          Image source:  Big Story