• Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Mohammed Al-Rehaief (aided Jessica Lynch)

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    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.
    Mohammed Al-Rehaief
    (aided Jessica Lynch)

    Alex Wong/Getty Images file

    Iraqi attorney Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, who lost vision in his left eye when he helped rescue former POW U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch, addresses the media at the National Press Club on Nov. 10, 2003 in Washington.

     
    THEN
    When Jessica Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital by Army Rangers in early April 2003, much of the credit went to a 32-year-old local lawyer, Mohammed al-Rehaief, who was reported to have walked six miles to a United States Marine checkpoint to tell where Lynch was being held. Al-Rehaief -- whose wife, a nurse, had seen Lynch being mistreated in the hospital -- was then, according to news reports, sent back to the hospital to gather information that was used to plan Lynch’s rescue.
    Though U.S. military was later reported to have learned of Lynch’s location from several informants — and his exact role in the rescue was much disputed — Al-Rehaief was immediately labeled as a hero and was soon granted, along with his wife and child, asylum in the United States.

    NOW
    After arriving in the U.S. in April 2003, al-Rehaief immediately joined The Livingston Group, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm run by former U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, according to Fox News.  In recognition of his assistance, the U.S. government granted him humanitarian parole immediately after his arrival in America. 

    Apart from working at the Livingston Group, al-Rehaief also found time to write a book about his experiences, “Because Each Life Is Precious,” for which he reportedly was paid $300,000. He also was a consultant to “Saving Private Lynch,” a 2003 TV movie made about the incident. A biography released by the Livingston Group said that Al-Rehaief also is a black-belt practitioner of Kung Fu 
    In addition, he served for several years on the advisory board of Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-partisan group based in Washington, D.C., that describes its mission to “empower public opinion against authoritarian dictatorships and terrorist minorities.” Sen. John McCain is listed as being a member of its advisory board; however, al-Rehaief’s involvement with the organization ended “several years ago,” according to its president and founder, Kenneth Ballen.
    Overall, though, Al-Rehaief has generally adopted a low profile in recent years, cutting back on giving speeches about his experiences.
    However, in 2008, Al-Rehaief was the subject of a resolution by his home state’s Virginia General Assembly, honoring his “selfless act in helping United States forces come to the aid of Jessica Lynch.” The resolution also noted “his passion for kung fu, in which he holds a black belt, and he opened a martial arts school in Nasiriyah, where he taught for several years.”
    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

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  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Farris Hassan

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Farris Hassan

    Peter Dejong/AP file

    Farris Hassan, a 16-year-old-teen from Fort Lauderdale. Fla., poses for a portrait at a hotel, backdropped by the Ramadan 14th mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 28, 2005.

    THEN:
    One of the more bizarre incidents during the Iraq war was the trip taken to Baghdad in December 2005 by Florida teenager Farris Hassan, a would-be journalist of Iraqi descent who said he wanted to see conditions in the war-torn country for himself.


    After failing to get into Iraq from neighboring Kuwait, the 16-year-old flew to Beirut, Lebanon, from where he was successful in getting on a flight to Baghdad on December 25. Three days later, he entered the offices of The Associated Press; the AP then contacted the United States Embassy and he was returned a few days later to the United States. His mother said he had encountered some “very dangerous situations.”

    The episode became a major news event, with his return being covered by dozens of media outlets. 

     

    NOW:
    Hassan, the youngest of four children of a South Florida physician divorced from a psychologist wife, went on to become a student at Amherst College, a prestigious four-year school in western Massachusetts.

    Prior to that he was a student at the Pine Crest School, a private academy of about 700 students in Fort Lauderdale. According to a report in the Miami Herald, Hassan’s mother said the boy was put on probation from the school for his unexcused absence in Iraq, given community service hours and his grades were lowered. In an interview with NBCNews.com (then msnbc.com) in March 2009, Hassan said he was in fact given 60 hours of detention rather than community service. “I served one hour during the school day for the rest of the year,” he said. “Incredibly, I stayed on very good terms with my principal and my dean and all my teachers. They thought I was at root a good kid.” 

    After his return from Iraq, Hassan continued to engage in “immersion journalism,” including in 2007 attending the hippie-dominated Rainbow Gathering camping festival in Colorado and posing as a Jew in the mainly Arab and Muslim community of Dearborn, Mich, as a means of investigating anti-Semitism.

    He described his experiences on his website:  

    “Through this journey I discovered that American Muslims, with an emphasis on American, make a surprisingly strong distinction between Jews and Zionists. Walking amongst them in the streets, restaurants, and mosques while displaying a Star of David necklace and my school’s Jewish Club t-shirt, I had expected to get beaten up within days. Instead, I was met with a curious hospitality. …

    “Still, ugly ideas reached me. I discovered once again that many Muslims hold elaborate conspiracy theories about Jews, which seemed to be instilled by the political context of their upbringing.” 

     Hassan’s adventures continued in 2007, when he traveled to Afghanistan where he said he was studying the plight of women and street kids.

    The Miami Herald reported that Hassan once again surprised his family by calling from the airport and announcing that he was on his way to Kabul.

    "I think for a teenager to think so big and accomplish so much is truly something to be proud of," his mother told the newspaper. "He has opened a new road for us to start and try to make a difference in the world."

    In 2010, after his junior year at Amherst, Hassan interned with Morgan Stanley in New York City on a research team covering oil services stocks. At the end of the summer he was offered a permanent position and worked as a Wall Street stock analyst, becoming one of the firm's experts on stocks in the electric utilities industry.

    "The joke among my colleagues used to be, was I a Wall Street guy or was I really just my typical immersion journalist self-investigating Wall Street undercover?" he told NBC News. 

     In 2012 he left Morgan Stanley to start his own hedge fund, Farris Fund Management, which was incorporated in early 2013. He said he hopes to buy newspapers, magazines, film studios, television networks, and then “improve the quality of their output with better management and artistic direction.” 

    “The prices just need to be right,” he told NBC News. “I am a value investor in a tradition similar to that of Warren Buffett.”

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

     

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Ali Hassan Al-Majid ('Chemical Ali')

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .
    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Adnan Hajj Ali/AP file

    Ali Hassan Al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's first cousin, in 2003.

    THEN
    Cheers went up across much of Iraq in April 2003 when many news outlets reported that the notorious “Chemical Ali,” a cousin of Saddam Hussein widely credited with launching a 1988 chemical attack that killed up to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, had been killed in an air strike on his house in Basra. 
     Al-Majid held numerous positions of power in the Iraqi government, including head of the nation’s southern region, where he commanded Iraq’s military forces. Appointed to this role by then-leader Saddam in March 2003, al-Majid was one of four senior commanders reporting directly to the president.

     

     

    We believe that the reign of terror of Chemical Ali has come to an end,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters after the Basra strike.
    Rumsfeld had spoken too soon. Two months later, he acknowledged that al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein and fifth on the U.S. list of most wanted Iraqis, could still be living. 
     A couple of months later, however, U.S. military officials captured him, announcing on August 21 that they had found him on August 19. (The delay apparently to ensure that the earlier, incorrect report would not be repeated.) 

    Paul Furst/Pool via Reuters

    Ali Hassan al-Majid addresses the court during his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on Oct. 18, 2006. Co-defendent Saddam Hussein looks on at lower right.

    NOW
    After several years of delays, al-Majid was tried for crimes against humanity -- particularly for his involvement in the Anfal campaign against the Kurds -- in front of the Iraq Special Tribunal, the same court that decided the fate of his cousin Saddam Hussein.
    During hearings in January 2007, the court heard 1988 tapes of Hussein and al-Majid discussing how chemical weapons could be used to exterminate thousands of Kurds.
    “I will strike them with chemical weapons and kill them all,” a voice identified by prosecutors as al-Majid was heard saying.
    “Who is going to say anything? The international community? Curse the international community,” the voice continued.
    “Yes, it’s effective, especially on those who don’t wear a mask immediately, as we understand,” a voice identified as Saddam is heard saying on another tape.
    Saddam was hanged on Dec. 30, 2006, after being convicted in an earlier trial for his role in killing 148 Shiites in the 1980s.
    Al-Majid, who maintained that Anfal was a legitimate military operation targeting Kurdish guerrillas who had sided with Shiite Iran during the last stages of the Iraq-Iran war, was convicted in June 2007 and sentenced to death by hanging.
    In December 2008, he was once again convicted and sentenced to death, this time for playing a role in killing between 20,000 and 100,000 Shi'ite Muslims during the revolt in southern Iraq that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And in March 2009 he was found guilty and sentenced to death for the third time, this for his involvement in the assassination of Grand-Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr in 1999.
    After a fourth trial, in which he was accused, among other things, of killing Shi’ites in 1991 and 1999, Al-Majid was executed by hanging on January 25, 2010.
    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Paul Bremer (Iraq administrator)

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .
    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.
    Paul Bremer (Iraq administrator)

    Stan Honda/Pool via AP

    U.S. top civil administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer speaks to reporters during his tour of Iraq's largest oil refinery in the northern town of Baiji on Aug. 5 2003.

    THEN:
    With his full head of remarkably un-gray hair, Paul Bremer looked almost too young when in May 2003, about a month after the invasion was completed, he was put in charge of Iraq’s Coalition Provisional Authority and as such in charge of the country until elections could be held. 
    Bremer, however, was 61, and had considerable experience in foreign affairs, highlighted by 23 years in the State Department, including a stint in the 1980s as a counter-terrorism guru for President Reagan. He had also worked for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm, Kissinger Associates.
    Reporting to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bremer was responsible for trying to get the war-torn country back on its feet, including restoring its infrastructure and guiding the creation of political institutions. During his term, he survived at least one attempt on his life and, according to an Associated Press report, had a price of 10,000 grams of gold (about $125,000) placed in his head by Osama bin Laden.

    Bremer returned to the United States in June 2004, after an interim Iraqi government had been formed. For his efforts in Iraq, Bremer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, by President Bush in December 2004. 
    NOW:
    Since leaving Iraq, Bremer has remained busy, serving on several boards and making many public appearances, particularly since the January 2006 publication of his book “My Year In Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope.” In more recent times, he also has embarked on a career as a painter. 
    In the book, he alleged that senior U.S. officials tried to make him a scapegoat for postwar setbacks, including the decision to disband the Iraqi army following the US invasion in 2003. 
    After leaving his Iraq position, Bremer served as chairman of the advisory board for GlobalSecure Corporation,  a company whose business, according to its website, is “securing the homeland with integrated products and services for the critical incident response community worldwide.” Bremer left GlobalSecure in 2009, an assistant told NBCNews.com. 
    Lately, he has been exercising his artistic side. According to a March 2009 article in U.S. News and World Report, has embarked on a new venture – selling oil paintings he has made of scenes in Vermont. 
    "I launched my Web site for my paintings this week, www.bremerenterprises.com,” he is quoted as e-mailing friends. “Most of the works on it now are scheduled to be in my next exhibition in Vermont at the end of the summer. Hope you enjoy them." 
    But it is for being the target of shoe-throwing that Bremer has made the most headlines in the past few years. 
    In two appearances in London, shoes were hurled at him, incidents similar to when President George Bush was targeted by a footwear thrower in 2008.
    The first came in 2009 and was repeated in February this year during a meeting at the Palace of Westminster -- home to the House of Commons.
    The hurler, yelling that he had “a message from Saddam Hussein to deliver,” missed Bremer with his first volley. When he threw another shoe, the former administrator leaped up and tried to catch the makeshift missile.
    Before resuming his speech, Bremer taunted the protester for missing him, saying: “You should improve your aim if you want to do something like that.
    “If he had done that while Saddam Hussein was alive,” he added, “he would be a dead man by now.”
    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks (U.S. Army spokesman)

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Reuters file

    U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks holds up a pack of playing cards with pictures on each of Iraqi's wanted by the U.S. on April 11, 2003. The deck will be issued to coalition troops to help them remember the faces of personalities they can "pursue, capture or kill."

    Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks (U.S. Army spokesman)

    THEN
    When America and its allies launched their 2003 invasion of Iraq, the world was hungry for news. And there to provide it — or, at least, the U.S. Army’s version of it — was Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, the spokesperson for the U.S. Army Central Command (CENTCOM), based in nearby Qatar.

     Brooks, an unflappable Alaskan, became a daily presence on network shows and live cable-TV briefings, in part because his superior Gen. Tommy Franks was uncomfortable dealing with the media (and, of course, was much consumed with the progress of the war).

    Born in Anchorage, Brooks attended West Point, where he was the first black brigade commander, and graduated first in his class in 1980. He later earned a master’s degree from the School of Advanced Military Studies at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and to study at Harvard University as a national security fellow.

     

    Ali Haider/EPA

    Lt. Gen. Vincent Brooks talks to members of the media during the Gulf Defence Conference (GDC) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Feb. 16, 2013.

    NOW:
    After the initial media frenzy had subsided, Brooks moved back to the U.S. in May 2003, where he was appointed deputy director for the war on terrorism, a unit of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to a bio on the Army’s Web site, in July of 2004 he became deputy chief of public affairs for the Army, followed six months later to promotion as chief of the office. In May 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by the New England School of Law. 

    After about 18 months in the U.S., Brooks found himself back in the Iraq, becoming deputy commander of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad and the 1st Cavalry Division (which is based in Ft. Hood, Texas). 

    He was soon back in America, moving to the giant Fort Hood facility between Dallas and Austin, Texas. In February 2008, Brooks hosted Dick Cheney as the then-vice president welcomed home 9,000 members of the 1st Cavalry when they returned from Iraq. 

    Brooks spent most of 2010 in southern Iraq as Commanding General of the 1st Infantry Division for the national elections and the transition from Iraqi Freedom to Red Dawn. He became commander of the Third Army and Army Forces Central in 2011  and was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Commanding General of US Army Pacific, a position which has been elevated to a four-star command.

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf ('Baghdad Bob')

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .
    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Reuters file

    Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf speaks at a news conference in Baghdad on March 24, 2003.

    Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf (‘Baghdad Bob’)

    THEN:
    On the other side of the spokesmen’s fence from the U.S.’s Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks was a man with a much less stellar reputation, Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

    Al-Sahaf’s daily press briefings in the lead-up to the war and in its first weeks led to him being nicknamed “Baghdad Bob” or “Comical Ali” (an allusion to “Chemical Ali,” the nickname of former Iraqi defense minister Ali Hassan al-Majid.) He gained a considerable cult following, with several websites devoted to his outrageous claims.

    In February 2007, al-Sahaf was back in the news when London’s Guardian newspaper compared his wartime pronouncements to those of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

    “Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge,” al-Sahaf is quoted as saying in early 2003. “You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat.” “We will embroil them, confuse them, and keep them in the quagmire,” he said later, adding that “they cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege.”

    According to The Associated Press in January 2009, al-Sahaf’s whereabouts are uncertain, but some reports have placed him in Qatar.For instance, as coalition troops stormed the capital, al-Sahaf declared, “The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad.”

    He frequently unleashed harsh words against President Bush and other leaders, calling them “an international gang of criminal bastards,” “blood-sucking bastards,” and “ignorant imperialists, losers and fools.”

    A Shia Muslim, al-Sahaf was an outsider in the Sunni-dominated government in power from 1968 and was one of the few senior Iraqi officials not to come from the area around Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit.

    His last public appearance as information minister was on April 8, 2003, the day before the fall of Baghdad, when he said that the Americans “are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender, it is they who will surrender.” 

    NOW:
    In June 2003 day al-Sahaf recorded an interview for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel. He said he had surrendered to U.S. forces and had been interrogated by them. He was reportedly paid as much as $200,000 for the interview, in which he was very unlike the bombastic man seen during the war.

    For a while in late 2003. al-Sahaf was featured on Abu Dhabi Television, one of the Arab-speaking world’s most popular satellite channels, in a weekly series of interviews, talking about Iraq and the war. He also appeared several times as a pundit.

    There have been no moves to charge or detain al-Sahaf for his role in the Saddam Hussein government.

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Gen. Tommy Franks (invasion commander)

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    AFP – Getty Images file

    U.S. Gen.Tommy Franks pumpa his fist upon arrival at the newly re-named Baghdad International Airport April 16, 2003.

    Gen. Tommy Franks (invasion commander)

    THEN
    The commander of allied forces in the Persian Gulf, Franks directed the war in Iraq from the high-tech U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) near Doha, Qatar. President Bush called on the four-star army general in early 2002 to begin planning the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

    Franks, who was born in Oklahoma, grew up in Texas, attending the same high school as first lady Laura Bush. He was the U.S. general leading the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

    Franks’ retirement was announced on May 22, 2003, little more than a month after the invasion was completed. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was reported to have offered him the position of Army Chief of Staff, but he declined. Franks retired in July and was succeeded by Gen. John Abizaid.

    He may have retired, but Franks continues to keep busy.

    According to his Web site, Franks has traveled the world speaking on “leadership, character and the value of democracy.” He also found time to write his autobiography, “American Soldier,” which was a best-seller in 2004.

    He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by order of Queen Elizabeth II on May 25, 2004, and President George W. Bush awarded him the Nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on December 14, 2004.

    Win McNamee/Getty Images file

    Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, from left former CIA director George Tenet, retired four star General Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer, former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, attend the awards ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Dec. 14, 2004.

    NOW

    Franks and his wife, Cathryn Carley Franks, have one daughter, who is married to a military officer, and several grandchildren. According to his Web site, they divide their time between homes in Tampa, Fla., and Oklahoma.

    In December 2007, Franks opened the first iteration of the General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute and Museum in downtown Hobart, Okla. “Experience the life and times of General Tommy Franks as they are showcased throughout the newly renovated facilities,” according to a posting on his website.

     According to a report in the local Lawton Constitution paper, Franks told a crowd of people who gathered for the museum’s 2007 “soft opening” that Americans should learn from history, and not be too quick to judge, when deciding how to approach foreign policy.

    He is also working on the Four Star Leadership Camp, a program that selects 50 top-performing high school students and offers them the opportunity to meet with national and international leaders, according to the program's website. "The purpose is to improve their thinking, communication, and leadership abilities so these future leaders will be better prepared to influence the direction of our country," Michael Hayes, Franks' chief of staff, told NBC News.

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Tony Blair (U.K. prime minister)

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Tony Blair (U.K. prime minister)

    Mark Wilson/Getty Images file

    British Prime Minister Tony Blair addresses a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress as Vice President Dick Cheney looks on in Washington on July 17, 2003.

    THEN:
    At the turn of the millennium, Tony Blair was on a roll. Elected by a vast majority in early 2001 to his second term as Britain’s prime minister, he was presiding over a reinvigorated economy and had also received many domestic accolades for his support of America during 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan (in which British troops participated). 

     That was all to change when in 2003 he wholeheartedly threw his support — and thousands of British troops — behind the U.S.’s determination to throw out Saddam Hussein. With speeches to the international community, he fully signed on to the notion that Iraq was a rogue state that possessed weapons of mass destruction, and his support — especially coming from someone far from George Bush on the political spectrum — was important in establishing credibility for the invasion. 

    When after the war it was established that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, Blair’s pre-war statements became a major domestic controversy. Many members of the Labour Party, not only those who were opposed to the Iraq war, were among those critical; among opponents of the war, accusations that Blair had deliberately exaggerated the threat were made.


    NOW:
    As criticism wore on — including fallout over the suicide of a government warfare expert accused of leaking documents related to the government’s decision to go to war — Blair found himself far from the bright-eyed boy of British politics that he had once been. (At his initial election, in 1997, he became, at 44, the youngest prime minister since 1812.)

    Perhaps reflecting his reversal of fortune, in October 2004, Blair declared his intention to seek a third term but not a fourth (there are no term limits in the British parliament). His party won a third consecutive stint in government at the 2005 general election, although its majority in the House of Commons was considerably reduced.

    San Tan/AP file

    Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair leaves his house in central London on May 28, 2012.

    On 7 September 2006 Blair publicly stated he would step down by the time of the Labour Party annual conference in September 2007, an announcement that was followed in May 2007 by a speech in his home constituency that he intended to resign the following month. On June 27 he tendered his resignation as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to the Queen.

    The same day Blair was officially confirmed as Middle East envoy for the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia, otherwise known as the Quartet.

    In addition to his work for the Quartet, Blair maintains a rigorous schedule of speeches across the world, promoting several organizations he has founded, including the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. In the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics in London, he launched the Tony Blair Sports Foundation which aims to increase participation in sport by young people, particularly those who are socially excluded, according to his website.

    He lives in London with his wife Cherie Booth, a prominent lawyer. They have four children.

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Ahmed Chalabi (Iraqi exile leader)

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Ali Haider/AP file

    Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi, right, talks to tribal leader Ali-Farhan Al-Temimi in Baghdad on April 18, 2003.

    Ahmed Chalabi (Iraqi exile leader)

    THEN:
    When the American-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, it marked a triumph for Ahmed Chalabi, the scion of a prominent Baghdad Shiite family who had long led efforts from abroad to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime.

    Born in 1944, Chalabi left Iraq as a boy, and has spent most of his life in the USA and the UK, earning a degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in the same subject from the University of Chicago. He then took a position in the mathematics department at the American University of Beirut, where he went on to form a Jordanian bank, the Petra Bank, which eventually went bust, leading Jordanian authorities to sentence Chalabi in absentia to a multi-year jail term.

     It was to prove just the start of controversy for Chalabi, who subsequently went on to head the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella opposition group that received considerable amounts of money from the American government as it attempted to bring about the downfall of the Saddam regime.

    Chalabi’s greatest sin, according to critics, was in persuading the American government and U.S. media outlets -- most notably the New York Times (through its former reporter Judith Miller) --  that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and/or the means to produce them.

    Saad Shalash/Reuters file

    Iraqi Shi'ite politician Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, speaks at a news conference in Baghdad Feb. 14, 2010.


    NOW:
    Once back in Iraq, Chalabi quickly tried to establish himself as the voice of the Shi’ite majority, but soon found that role largely taken by the religious leaders who had guided their population through the Saddam dictatorship. 

     He also faced legal troubles. Chalabi and other members of the INC were investigated for fraud involving the exchange of Iraqi currency, theft of national and private assets. In May 2004, U.S. government discontinued their regular payments to Chalabi and then police supported by U.S. soldiers raided his offices. 

     Once again repeating his phoenix-like ability to rise from apparent ruin, Chalabi in 2005 was named a deputy prime minister as well as acting oil minister. 

     And in early 2007, he again astounded observers with another remarkable political reincarnation: as an intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces involved in President Bush’s controversial “surge” designed to push militants out of the city. According to the Wall Street Journal,  the position was meant to help Iraqis get payments for damage to their cars and homes caused by the security sweeps in the hope of maintaining public support for the strategy. 

     In September of 2008, Chalibi was fortunate to escape with his life when his motorcade was attacked in the tony Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. Iraqi officials said at least six people, including five from Chalabi's entourage, were killed. Nine of Chalabi's guards or drivers were among the 17 wounded.

    And in January 2012, it was reported that Chalabi had been in contact with some members of the leading opposition group in Bahrain, Al Wefaq National Islamic Society. (Bahrain has been wracked by sometimes violent protests by the Shi’ite majority at the rule of the Sunni al-Khalifa family.) This was confirmed by Jawad Fairooz, secretary general of Wefaq and a former member of Parliament in Bahrain.

    “Mr. Chalabi has helped us with contacts in Washington like other people have done and we thank them,” Fairooz told the New York Times, "but we are not allowing any person or party from outside to dictate us what to do in Bahrain.”

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

     

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Tariq Aziz

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Reuters file

    Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz speaks to an Egyptian delegation in Baghdad on Feb.25, 2003.

    Tariq Aziz

    THEN:
    With his fluent English, thick glasses and bushy mustache — and the trivia-friendly status as being the lone Christian in Saddam Hussein’s regime — Tariq Aziz was a familiar face to those watching coverage of Iraq, both during the 1991 war and the lead-up to the 2003 invasion.


    A close associate of Hussein since their days as Ba’ath party activists in the 1950s, Aziz was Iraq’s foreign minister from 1983 to 1991 and deputy prime minister from 1979 until the overthrow of the Saddam regime. Born Mikhael Yuhanna in northern Iraq, he changed his name (it means “glorious past”) after studying English and setting out to be a journalist.

    Because of security concerns, Saddam rarely left Iraq, and Aziz would often represent Iraq abroad. In December 2002, Aziz called the United Nations arms inspection a “hoax” and war “inevitable”. What the U.S. wanted, he said, was not “regime change” in Iraq but rather “region change.”

    When war began, Aziz was in Iraq, and even before it had got into full swing, on March 19, 2003, reports surfaced that he had been shot dead while trying to enter the Kurdish part of the country. However, Aziz quickly held a press conference to tell the world he was still alive and well.

    After the fall of Baghdad and the rest of the country, Aziz surrendered to United States forces on April 24, 2003. He was the 43rd of 55 most-wanted Iraqi leadership members on the U.S. Department of Defense’s famous deck of cards. 

    Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP – Getty Images file

    Iraqi journalists watch a live broadcast on state television showing Iraq's former deputy premier Tariq Aziz sitting in the dock as the supreme criminal court passes a verdict of "deliberate murder and crimes against humanity,

    NOW:
    According to a December 2004 report by NBC’s Lisa Myers, Aziz was at first more cooperative than most of Hussein’s henchmen, ready to talk most particularly about corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food program. According to Myers,  U.S. officials say Aziz implicated France and others, claiming payoffs were made with the understanding that recipients would support Iraq on key matters before the U.N.

    Such cooperation, however, did not save him, along with other captured members of the Saddam regime, from being scheduled for trial for alleged crimes against humanity.

    It was to be a long wait, punctuated with many complaints about his health and treatment.

    Eventually, in April 2008, Aziz went on trial, accused in the deaths of 42 merchants executed for sanctions-profiteering in 1992. He also faced charges in the 1999 death of Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, a leading voice of opposition to President Saddam Hussein (and the father of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr).

    At first things looked good for Aziz, when he was acquitted on March 1, 2009, of the charges related to Ayatollah al-Sadr’s death. However, on March 11 he was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison his role in the deaths of the merchants.

     On October 2010, Aziz was sentenced to death by an Iraqi panel for crimes against humanity. However, Iraq’s president Jalal Talabini has refused to sign the execution order, according to a 2010 article in London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.  "I sympathise with Tariq Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian. Moreover he is an old man who is over 70," Talabini said.

    According to a January 2013 Agence France-Presse article, Aziz is suffering from depression in addition to diabetes, heart disease,and ulcers.

    His lawyer, Badie Aref, quoted Aziz as saying, "I would prefer to be executed rather than stay in this condition."

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Colin Powell

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Elise Amendola/AP file

    U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said could contain anthrax as he presents evidence of Iraq's alleged weapons programs to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003.

    THEN:
    During the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had masterminded the U.S. role in the 1991 Iraq war, found himself with the difficult job of presenting the Bush administration’s position that Saddam’s Hussein’s regime must be removed by force to the rest of the world. 

     This was made even more irksome by Powell’s differences with White House hawks, with whom he had clashed repeatedly over Iraq policy. Powell initially was opposed to a forcible overthrow of Hussein, preferring to continue a policy of containment; however, he eventually agreed to go along with the determination to remove Hussein, the main concession being that the international community be rallied behind the invasion. Successful in persuading President Bush of this course, Powell then had to take the case to the United Nations.

    However, most nations refused to be persuaded and after several weeks of argument, the U.S. dropped its efforts on March 17 and decided to go it alone with a few allies. 

    Mario Anzuoni/Reuters file

    Former Secretary of State Colin Powell accepts the President's Award at the 42nd Annual NAACP Image Awards at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles on March 4, 2011.

    NOW:
    Powell stayed as secretary of state until the end of President Bush’s first term, before resigning in December 2004.

    In September 2005, during an interview with Barbara Walters, he acknowledged that his assertions about Iraq’s WMD capabilities were a “blot” on his record, adding that it was “painful.” 

    Since leaving the government, Powell has assumed a number of private-sector positions, including membership of several corporate boards. In July, 2005, he became a strategic limited partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm and has become more active at The Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at his alma mater, the City College of New York. In May, 2006, he succeeded Henry Kissinger to become the 8th Chairman of the Eisenhower Fellowship Program, which brings together current and emerging leaders from around the world. 

    More recently, he joined the board of directors of AOL founder Steve Case's new company Revolution Health. Powell also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations board of directors and in 2008 served as a spokesperson for National Mentoring Month, a campaign held each January to recruit volunteer mentors for at-risk youth.

    Later in 2008, he endorsed presidential candidate Barack Obama and was mentioned as a possible member of Obama’s administration, a move that did not occur.

    Powell, who is married to the former Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham, Ala., lives in McLean, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. He is a fan of vintage Volvo cars, which he restores as a hobby. 

     

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  • Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Hans Blix (U.N. weapons inspector)

    Click here to see our full series of Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? .

    Jessica Lynch. Tommy Franks.  'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.

    Hans Blix (U.N. weapons inspector)

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix speaks during a television interview at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Feb. 9, 2003.

     THEN
    In the lead-up to the Iraq war, one of the most familiar faces to those following the news was that of United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix.

    Called out of retirement in 2000 by the United Nations to determine whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency headed U.N. teams that from 2002 went into Iraq to search for evidence.

    After playing a cat-and-mouse game with the Hussein regime, at the beginning of 2003 Blix reported to the U.N. that Iraq most probably neither possessed WMDs or the means to produce them and asked for more time to come up with a conclusive answer. However, the United States and its allies, most notably Britain, declared that they had had enough of Hussein’s shenanigans and decided to invade Iraq. 

    David Guttenfelder/AP file

    Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix arrives to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center in London on July 27, 2010.

    NOW
    When the U.S. in 2005 acknowledged that no WMDs had been found, Blix, who had been much criticized by Republicans for being too soft on Saddam — Newt Gingrich said he was “determined to buy time and find excuses for Saddam Hussein” — was largely vindicated.

    By this time, however, he had already been retired for two years, returning to his native Sweden, where he lives in Stockholm with his wife, Eva. In 2003, he was awarded the Olof Palme Prize — named after the former Swedish prime minister who was gunned down on February 28, 1986 — which is given to people judged to have furthered peace and human rights.

    In 2003 Blix became chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), an independent body funded by the Swedish government and based in Stockholm. It presented a report in 2006 with proposals to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction.

    In 2004, Blix published a book, “Disarming Iraq,” in which he gives his account of the events and inspections before the United States and its allies began its invasion. In an interview on BBC TV in February 2004, Blix accused the U.S. and British governments of dramatizing the WMD threat as they strengthened the case for the Iraq war.

    Blix, who also was Sweden’s foreign minister in the 1970s, delivers occasional lectures and has become a frequent commentator on the situation in Iraq as well as the tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

    IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

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