President George W. Bush’s name will be associated with the agonies of Iraqis for many decades to come. His farewell visit to Baghdad on Sunday ended in embarrassment when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the US president, a symbolic assault on the man who once believed he would be greeted as “liberator” of Iraqis. Instead, the timing and logistics of his visit were shrouded in secrecy for security reasons. For millions of Iraqis, Bush will be remembered for bringing death, destruction and chaos to this once proud nation.

For Americans, Bush’s misadventure in Iraq will be looked upon as an unfolding disaster. The past few weeks have deepened the sense of failure in Iraq. On the eve of the president’s final visit to Baghdad, The New York Times published excerpts from a government report that concluded that US-led efforts to rebuild Iraq were “crippled by bureaucratic turf wars, violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society, resulting in a 100-billion-dollar failure.”

The newspaper added that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the US has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program.

A few days before, a bipartisan Senate report concluded that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice bear direct responsibility for abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison. The report’s findings make it the first time that a direct link between the atrocities in Iraq and Guantanamo has been made with top Bush officials. The legal ramifications of this will be enormous. For years, Abu Ghraib victims have been calling for the punishment of senior officials, who have allegedly approved the torture policy, in addition to those who carried out the physical abuse.

And there were new developments in the Blackwater incident, when US security guards opened fire at Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square in September 2007, killing 17 and injuring many others. US prosecutors are in the Iraqi capital to meet survivors and victims’ relatives to prepare for indictments against five US personnel involved in the attacks.

This could be the tip of the iceberg. In the near future more information will be made available on other crimes carried out by US officials and their subordinates. The American people will also want to investigate other cases associated with the Iraq invasion, starting from the fact that intelligence agencies had provided false evidence to justify launching a war, to the fate of billions of dollars that private contractors and big American companies received in the form of tenders and contracts, many of which were never executed.

Such fact-finding missions and investigations will almost certainly implicate many Iraqi officials who were in cahoots with influential American contractors to fleece the treasury and US aid agencies of billions of dollars.

Recently, Bush admitted that he regretted the fact that intelligence evidence provided to make the case of war was false and that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Such bold admission should be reason enough to launch a full investigation into the war and its aftermath, while considering bringing top administration officials before criminal courts.

Americans are waking up to the bitter reality that their country was needlessly pushed into a war against a nation that posed no threat to their national security. They are finding out that, as a result of this war, they have become more vulnerable to terrorism, and that because of a brash decision by their commander-in-chief they have wasted billions of dollars, caused the destruction of an entire country and suffered human and moral losses.

Even as the Bush era reaches its final stretch, the occupation of Iraq will remain one of the most complicated and challenging foreign policy issue for the new US president. Exiting Iraq is a goal that is short of a definite game plan. The country is not ready yet to run its own affairs. Its unity and civil peace are at risk. It is still susceptible to terrorist infiltration, pressure from strong and influential neighbors and internal dissent.

And with tension gripping the Gulf region, as a result of the Iranian nuclear crisis, Iraq will continue to be an important factor in securing regional stability. For the US to quit Iraq soon, it will be risking a lot in geopolitical terms.

Bush will most likely evade criminal charges in the case of Iraq. But that may not be the case for some of his senior lieutenants such as Rumsfeld, Rice and Cheney. The legacy he was searching for in Iraq, as hero and liberator, has turned into a curse. If he escapes criminal justice, he will not dodge the verdict of history, as well as that of his own people.

Abu Ghraib will continue to blemish America’s image for many years to come. So will Guantanamo. The journey to attain forgiveness and offer restitution should begin now. This is something that the new US administration can begin with if it wants the Iraqi nightmare to end soon.