Moscow: The US continues to maintain that the invasion of Iraq was justified in the name of its global hegemony despite the fact that the entire world has known for years that it was founded on false pretences and a violation of international law, the Russian ambassador to Washington said on Monday.

In a statement on the anniversary of the attack on Iraq, Anatoly Antonov referred to it as a "dark page in American history" in which the US violated the sovereignty of Iraq using "open deceit" and "once again demonstrated complete disregard for the UN Charter and the norms of international law".

According to Antonov, the pretext for the war was "deliberately fabricated." He cited the infamous incident in which Secretary of State Colin Powell waved a vial of powder at the UN while claiming it was a sample of Iraq's nonexistent WMDs.

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Many thousands of people perished. "Millions of people left their homes and became refugees," said Antonov. He continued by saying that the destruction of Fallujah, the murders carried out by Blackwater mercenaries, and the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison would serve as prime examples of US "democratisation."

By sowing chaos in Iraq, the US provided fertile ground for the rise of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), as well as other Middle Eastern terrorist organisations that continue to pose a threat to regional and global security, noted Antonov.

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In spite of the passage of 20 years, the US still maintains that the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein's regime was justified in some way, which, in Antonov's opinion, is an effort to persuade the rest of the world "that the Americans have the right to do whatever they please."

This implies that no state can feel secure if it acts in a way that angers Washington, Antonov said.

The ambassador noted that US troops are still present in the area "under the guise of the noble counter-terrorism mission," but in reality, they are attempting to play the role of world police and exert control over both resource-rich Iraq and its surroundings.

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On March 20, 2003, American forces were joined by British, Australian, and Polish troops to invade Iraq on the basis of Washington's assertions that Baghdad had WMD and was somehow associated with Al-Qaeda, which was held responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Although the conventional Iraqi resistance had been crushed by May 1, a long-lasting uprising against the US occupation authorities persisted. US troops had formally left Iraq at the end of 2011, but they came back in 2014 to battle IS, which had taken control of a third of the nation.