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The Long Journey to the War on Terror

The devastating loss of life in a war still fought and grown in size requires an answer to the question: what is this War on Terror? Other than to find, stop and defeat terrorist groups, why are men, women and children killed daily, or live in poverty and fear, without home or country? How can we come to understand this human insecurity, its context and its consequences? The chapter explores the journey to the War on Terror and four narratives around it: clashing civilisations, the battle between good and evil, the politics of a hegemon and a hegemonic shift. The securitisation of Iraq is traced back to the Gulf War and links are made between the two wars, in terms of how issues around Iraq became part of the West’s security agenda and in terms of how ‘speaking security’ resulted in the deaths of thousands. The chapter concludes by introducing the first publication of Iraq Body Count, the Dossier on Civilian Casualties, compiled by IBC in the 2003-2005 period. The Dossier provided an initial assessment of the War on Terror, by revealing the recorded impact of the invasion and of the violence it triggered on civilians.