Erstellt am: 15. 12. 2011 - 15:20 Uhr

Heads held high, or heads in the sand?

Reality Check: US pulls out of Iraq, Operation Last Chance, Wukan land grabbing rebellion, science of ear worms

Who remembers "mission accomplished!"?

That was the infamous speech President George W. Bush gave on May 1st, 2003, standing proudly on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, just before hostilities really got going on the ground in Iraq.

He announced the end of major combat operations, but in fact, the real combat was only just beginning.

Now, nearly 9 years later, US troops are finally leaving, and are arriving home to a tumultuous welcome, as Daniel Ryntjes reports.

However, the war is estimated to have cost around a trillion dollars, and to have been a serious contributor to the US debt crisis. Is has also cost the lives of 4,500 US military personnel, as well as over 30,000 wounded. The number of Iraqi deaths is widely disputed, but most estimates put it in hundreds of thousands, with as many as a million deaths directly or indirectly connected with the conflict.

Now, the US troops are going home, and President Obama is declaring the operation "a success". He says the forces can go home with "their heads held high", though some might say Obama and others are sticking their heads in the sand.

Iraq, essentially, is in a mess. 2 million people are below the poverty line, 1.3 million are internally displaced, and hundreds of thousands homeless. The government is split, and while the security situation has improved since the peak levels of violence in 2007, the streets are far from safe. Sunni regions of the country are considering declaring independence from Baghdad, and sectarian and ethnic divides are as deep as ever.

Many analysts are expressing concern that a weakened and divided Iraq will be vulnerable to increasing influence from Iran, and tribal violence in Syria is already spilling over the borders into Iraq.

I wonder whether Mr. Bush left his rose-tinted glasses in the Oval Office for the use of the next president. It certainly seems to need a bit of a stretch of the imagination to describe the mission as "successful".

On today's Reality Check, Jim Muir, our correspondent in Baghdad, told Steve Crilley about the conditions inside the country and the dangers and challenges that lie ahead.

• Operation Last Chance II

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre launches its final appeal to track down any surviving Nazi war criminals. Our Berlin correspondent, Peter Fritz, tells Riem Higazi about the unabated efforts to bring the few remaining war criminals to justice.

• Land grabbing rebellion in Wukan, China

How a coastal community of 20.000 is standing up to illegal land grabbing by local authorities and big enterprises. Our Beijing correspondent, Jörg Winter, tells Riem Higazi about the extraordinary events that have put the community in Wukan under siege.

• The science of "ear worms"

Vicky Williamson, a music psychologist at the University of London is researching what makes an "Ohrwurm" and how this could help people with mental illnesses.

FM4 Reality Check

Monday to Friday from 12.00 to 14.00, and after the show via Podcast or fm4.orf.at/realitycheck.