PRESS

force, especially in the cases of Italian ground contingents
sent to Iraq in 2003 after Saddam Hussein was
removed from power, to Afghanistan as part of the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission,
and to Lebanon following the “33-Day War” between
Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Wary of casualties and
unwilling to provide the extended security rationale
that would be needed to justify Italy’s involvement in
all three missions, successive governments in Rome
have sold these deployments—involving thousands
of Italian soldiers in total—to the Italian public as
“peacekeeping” and “humanitarian” missions. But,
of course, neither the Iraq nor the Afghanistan mission
turned out to be the “soft” power, light security
missions the Italians expected.
Iraq.
The Italian military’s deployment to Iraq—which
lasted from June 2003 until November 2006—was certainly
as difficult an experience for Italy’s forces as
what they faced in Afghanistan, and undoubtedly reinforced
Rome’s inclination to take a cautious operational
approach in Afghanistan. Coming on the heels
of the American-led military campaign removing
Saddam Hussein from power—a campaign decidedly
unpopular with the Italian electorate—the decision to
send Italian troops was justified by the government as
an “urgent intervention in favor of the Iraqi people.”
Keeping with this theme, Italy’s defense minister at
the time said the intervention was just the “opposite
of war.” 23
But war it was. Just a few short months after deploying
almost 3,000 troops to Nasiriyah, a city in Dhi
Qar Province southeast of Baghdad, a lightly protect-
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