Twenty years ago this morning the UK woke up to the news that the “shock and awe” element of Operation Iraqi Freedom had begun with the bombardment of the country’s major cities. The war drums had been beating out of Washington for some time and duly echoed in the UK, where then prime minister Tony Blair was a fully paid-up member of American president George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing”. Despite Bush declaring “mission accomplished” within two months, the war was to continue for eight years, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and combatants.

But since Bush’s successor as president, Barack Obama, pulled US troops out of Iraq in 2011, violence has continued to fill mortuaries across the fractured country. Lily Hamourtziadou is an expert in security studies at Birmingham City University and a member of the Iraq Body Count team that has monitored violent deaths in Iraq for 20 years. She gives us their assessment of the casualty count and the strife-torn nation the US invasion left behind. For the UK, it was a conflict that was to define Blair’s time in office. But, despite all the heartache and misgivings about the UK’s role in Iraq, little appears to have been learned.

Elsewhere, we hear from experts on how to achieve happiness at work and why the evolution of holey bones was so crucial to dinosaurs’ success in dominating the planet.

Jonathan Este

Associate Editor, International Affairs Editor

‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’: the bombing of Baghdad, March 2003. Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo

Iraq 20 years on: death came from the skies on March 19 2003 – and the killing continues to this day

Lily Hamourtziadou, Birmingham City University

Iraq Body Count has kept a close tally of people killed in Iraq since the invasion started in March 2003.

Jacob Lund/Alamy Stock Photo

Seven tips for finding happiness at work

Cary Cooper, University of Manchester

The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime, so you might as well try and enjoy it.

Dinosaurs once dominated Earth’s landscapes. AmeliAU/Shutterstock

Bones like Aero chocolate: the evolution adaptation that helped dinosaurs to fly

Sally Christine Reynolds, Bournemouth University

Hollow bones were essential for dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex.

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