It was the party of the Baghdad summer season of 2003. A dustier, hotter version of the bar on the Titanic. Assembled on the lawn of the Ottoman-era British embassy, sipping cocktails, exchanging gossip and self-consciously keeping a stiff upper lip, le tout Baghdad assembled as the rest of the Iraqi capital dissolved into chaos.

Soldiers in combat uniform, neo-conservative advisers in suits and boots, portly Iraqi exiles and diplomats from the “coalition of the willing” gathered for what they believed would be the first of many such receptions, as life inevitably returned to normal in post-invasion Iraq.

Five years on and memories of that spectacle on the banks of the Tigris seem more surreal than ever. Many of those who attended the garden party have now retired, some in disgrace. Others never made it out of the country alive.

The summer hats worn by a few well-groomed women have long since been replaced by Kevlar helmets. Alcohol is no longer served openly in the city. The old British embassy building was abandoned long ago for a bomb-proof UK mission deep inside the heavily-fortified Green Zone.

Iraq timeline: five years of conflict

From accusations that the weapons of mass destruction dossier had been sexed-up to withdrawal of British troops from Basra

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No one pretends any more that Iraq is a success or that life will become normal any time soon for its long-suffering inhabitants. Since the US-led invasion on the night of March 19 five years ago this month, the conflict has gone beyond the worst nightmare scenarios envisaged when a quarter of a million American and British troops poured across the border from Kuwait.

Even by the most conservative estimates 80,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, four million refugees have fled to neighbouring countries and sectarian tensions still threaten to explode into an all-out civil war between Sunnis and Shias.

Nearly 4,000 US and 175 British troops have been killed. The war has cost more than £200 billion, including a fortune squandered on failed reconstruction efforts. Baghdad today is in far worse shape than it was when American tanks executed the “thunder run” into the capital three weeks after the invasion.

The country has some modest gains to show for this astronomical price. A ruthless dictator and his henchmen have been driven from power. A once subjugated population has held two rounds of elections and approved a constitution.

Northern Iraq has flourished since the invasion, a point not lost on the local Kurdish population, who this weekend will mark the 20th anniversary of the chemical weapons attack on Halabja, where 5,000 Kurdish civilians died under clouds of Saddam’s poison gas. In the south Shia Muslims, once persecuted, now largely run their own affairs. There are signs that the economy may recover thanks to the rising price of the country’s huge oil reserves. People have access to mobile phones, the internet and a free press.

Zaedon Najah, a Baghdad resident, was only 24 when the invasion happened. Like many Iraqis he had high hopes that his life would improve. But change came at a heavy cost.

“When the invasion first happened my friends and I started talking about the new Iraq and how it will be another Japan or Germany, but instead we found ourselves in a new Afghanistan,” he said yesterday.

“Yes my salary increased. For the first time in my life I can buy a brand new car, I can wear better clothes and travel abroad. But none of this will bring back my brother who was arrested and killed by the police commandos. Take my car and give me back my friend Imad who was badly tortured and killed.”

What distinguishes Iraq from other conflicts across the world is its global impact. Iraq is the dominant war of its time. It has affected more people in more countries than any struggle since the Cold War, even the attacks against America on September 11, 2001.

Iraq has deepened divisions between the West and Islam. The brutality of the war, particularly the abuse by US troops of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and the vicious nature of the militant insurgency, have polarised Christian and Muslim like no other recent conflict. The once durable transatlantic alliance, the bedrock of Western security since the Second World War, has been shaken by divisions over Iraq, where America and Britain chose to fight and France and Germany did not.

There remain doubts, highlighted in Afghanistan, about whether the alliance will ever be able to fight effectively again.

Ideology aside, the war has pumped billions of dollars into America’s battle-hardened and high-tech war machine, which is now barely able to operate in combat alongside its weaker European allies.

Iraq’s casualties also include a generation of Western political leaders such as George Bush and Tony Blair, whose reputations will forever be tarnished by the expedition in Mesopotamia.

The list of the discredited is topped by the American neoconservatives, the champions of the war who have since been driven from office.

The Left has also suffered collateral damage.

It remains split between those opposed to US military intervention on any grounds and those in favour of intervening against dictatorships for humanitarian reasons, even if it means using American might.

The United Nations, whose Security Council never approved the invasion, is a victim in two senses. Its mission in Baghdad was one of the first to be attacked by al-Qaeda, killing 23 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN envoy. The organisation has never really recovered.

As the people of Darfur and others suffering around the globe have learnt to their cost, there are few volunteers for foreign intervention and peacekeeping duties in the wake of the Iraq fiasco.

For millions of people individually, Iraq has also become one of the burning issues of our time. Intellectuals in Paris have raged over the war. Dinner parties in London and New York have broken up in acrimony between the pros and cons. Publishers and film makers have invested millions in reproducing the stories and images of the conflict that will live with us for a generation.

There are few winners for this conflict. Some would argue that Iran has emerged stronger from the overthrow of Saddam and the election of their Shia brethren to power.

The Iranians should be cautious about taking comfort from the plight of modern Iraq.

Even Al-Qaeda, which thrived off the anarchy in the country for three years, is now on the run and licking its wounds.

Where are they now?

Comical Ali

If, for the millions watching at home, the war in Iraq was like a slowly unfolding movie, then Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf was the light relief. The hapless sidekick to the arch-villain Saddam Hussein, al-Sahhaf — Comical Ali — was the cult figure of the conflict, his increasingly bizarre pronouncements as Iraqi Information Minister appearing on mugs, T-shirts and websites around the world.

But the man who said of the American forces, as tanks rolled into Baghdad almost in view of his press conference: “We besieged them and we killed most of them,” is nowadays a more subdued presence. An occasional interviewee on Abu Dhabi television, he is believed to be living in the United Arab Emirates with his family but, unlike other senior figures in the Baath party, is not on the run. Perhaps this could be to do with friends in high places — George Bush says he is a big fan.

Tim Collins

“We go to liberate, not to conquer. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own."

With those rousing words Colonel Tim Collins led his troops into Iraq and the Northern Irish officer entered the history books. His eve-of-battle speech represented the war that Britain hoped it was entering. George Bush hung a copy of his address on the wall of the Oval Office.

Colonel Collins grew disillusioned with the war and after being falsely accused of war crimes, he left the Army. Now Tim Collins, OBE, he earns a living as a director of private security firms and through public speaking engagements — for which he commands up to £7,000 a night. He has been vocal in his criticism of the war but today is cautiously hopeful, telling The Times: “The birth pains of the new country are fierce, but the nation will be worth the pain.”

Tom Whipple

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