The Pros And Cons Of Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Bush administration's National Security Strategy was a product of America’s belief in American interventionism and exceptionalism, and marked a dramatic shift in the United State's foreign policy. In addition, it showcased the Bush administration’s push to find answers to 9/11. In the few years after the tragedy, the US would seek to strike a blow in the war on terror in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime had supposed ties to terror groups such as Al-Qaeda. The nation quickly moved to war, and invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003. However, even though the war was quickly declared over, the continued deaths of American troops in Iraq gave rise to powerful protests. Artist Joe Wezoreck’s collage War President, critiques the continued stay of American troops in Iraq. Once Iraqi accounts of the war, such as Wendell Steveanson’s collection of stories “Dispatches from Iraq” surfaced, the American public truly began to question the real purpose behind the Iraq war. These sources initiated the changing perception of the American identity as a bastion of freedom and democracy as a result of the Iraq war. In the end, the Iraq war ultimately failed to provide answers to a post 9/11 nation, and instead revealed the flaws of interventionism and muddled American foreign policy to the disillusioned American

In 2003, President George Walker Bush and his administration sent the United States military to war in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s ruler and dictator, who murdered over 600,000 innocent people, and “...used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from their villages in northern Iraq…” (Rosenberg 2). According to the Department of Defense’s website, the war removed Saddam Hussein from power, ending an era when “Iraqis had fewer rights than when its representatives signed the Human Rights Declaration in 1948” (1). American blood, money, and honor was spent in what was allegedly a personal war and perhaps a fight to gain oil and natural resources, but only history may reveal the truth. Although the Iraq War removed tyrant Saddam Hussein from power, the failures of the war dwarf the successes.

The military and U.S. government have the ultimate say in what is broadcasted. For Operation Iraqi Freedom, the military came up with new press rules that addressed previous criticisms that it did not allow journalists contact with fighting troops in combat situations. The Pentagon now allowed reporters to travel with U.S. military units as long as they followed a strict set of rules. These rules basically meant that the military could censor and monitor all outgoing broadcasts and reports from the war. If any of the rules were broken, the reporter would be immediately sent out of contact with the military. This makes it very hard to believe the broadcasts coming from the conflict, yet the American public accepted them as the truth which is exactly how the government had designed.

As the country goes through its tenth year of the war on terror one can look back and see some of the policy differences that has plagued this country when, as a nation, our young men are sent to war. Everything, in this author’s view needs to be on the table, and transparent. Of course, troops strength, strategy, and general war plans should be kept from the enemy, the need of informing our own people has been a tight rope that is not easy to balance on for any one person. This was especially true of the “enhanced interrogations” used by the Bush administration at the beginning of the War on Terror. What this paper plans to do is to explain the four greatest

The day was Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. During the morning hours on this specific day, one of the deadliest attacks on human soil had occurred. On this day, over 3,000 innocent people had lost their lives when four planes had crashed; two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon, and one in Pennsylvania that was believed to be en route to the White House. After this attack, the citizens of the United States of America had lusted for revenge against those who were responsible for bringing so much destruction and tragedy among their nation. The 9/11 attacks were, essentially, the catalysts that propelled the United States of America into the Afghanistan War to fight the Taliban and other terrorist

Jim Lewandowski said, “None of us could see a reason of why we were still there, and it just kept going on and on.”In 2003, with president George W. Bush accusing Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein of harboring weapons of mass destruction , within one month Hussein has been ousted. After the election in 2008, President Obama vowed to bring American troops home, and in 2011 he withdrew the last U.S. forces. The United States was now using airstrikes to fight ISIS and the debate is growing about whether the United States withdrew its forces from Iraq. Our troops should be removed from Iraq because of the Iraq war may turn out to be the worst war in American history. Also, the war causes the Americans National security to be endangered.

The fourth mission was to collect more information on Iraqis weapons of mass destruction activity, as with the objective of collecting information on other terrorist groups. The U.S military recovered documents on its illegal weapon programs. The fifth objective was too lock Iraq’s oil production and fields. Many people thought was the first objective because U.S military forces secured the filed within early hours of the war. The U.S had made announcement on April 14th, that all of Iraqis major oil sources were under control. There was very little damage on the resources. One of the last goals that were important to the United States was too give Iraq humanitarian relief and end sanctions. Even while the war was still in the process the U.S forces started to help the

America is torn betwixt the dispatchment of American ground troops to fight the terrorist group Isis. The Isis ideology and vision consists of the restoration of the caliphate of early Islam and pledging allegiance to it. Isis regards to maintain the purification of Islamic society, they must fight non-Muslim countries. This desire of a pure Islamic society has precipitated harm on several non-Muslim countries, and even on their own country. The American government is considering sending our ground troops to fight Isis, however, the negatives to sending ground troops to fight Isis are monumental.

Carlson, Timothy and Katovsky, Bill, _Embedded: The media at war in Iraq_, The Lyons Press, Guilford, 2003.

There are defining moments in American society; the attack on Pearl Harbor, Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, 11 September 2001. On 19 March 2003, I was watching television with my parents while I was working on a school project for debate class. Oddly enough, the debate the following school day was to be about whether or not the global war on terrorism should expand to Iraq. Then President George W. Bush announced to the nation, “My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger (CNN, 2003).” On that day a coalition of over 35 counties led by the United States of America began what we know today as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The more you research about Operation Iraqi Freedom the more you tend to realize that it began well before 19 March 2003. It dates back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s and it continues well past 18 December 2011, the day the last troop left Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom continues through

What does the United States have to gain from a war with Iraq? Supporters of a war with Iraq say it will help prevent the risk of an attack by a weapons of mass destruction developed by Iraq. Critics of a military action that say nothing will be gained, and the U.S. just wants to obtain the oil that Iraq controls. They claim that casualties will be too costly for America to afford. Nonetheless, America should act while others will not for fear of disturbing global peace. Iraq poses a “clear and present danger” to the security of the United States and the security of countries around the world.

The views of this slowly began to change throughout different American conflicts. For instance, during the gulf war, Operation Desert Storm became the most widely and most swiftly reported war in history due to the “CNN effect”, which refers to the widely available round-the-clock broadcasts of the Cable News Network. (Belknap) General Powell instructed National Defense University students, “Once you’ve got all the forces moving and everything’s being taken care of by the commanders, and turn your attention to television, because you can win the battle but lose the war if you don’t handle the story right” (Belknap). Both the media and the military began to share a dedication to American freedoms, and neither wanted a news story to be the cause of a single American soldier’s death. This marked a turning point in military-media relations and a turning point for Americans’ view of that relationship. Despite this progress, another lawsuit challenged press restrictions during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. In the case titled Nation Magazine v. Dept. of Defense, several news organizations confronted a

All across the country military men and women are coming home from the war in Iraq, otherwise known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. This "Operation" is costing many soldiers not only their physical lives but their mental lives as well. It's one thing to come home with part of your leg or arm amputated, but it is an entirely different matter when you come home and you have lost the ability to sleep well at night. Or you cannot stand the sound of fireworks, or you cannot drive over a bridge for fear something terrible will happen, or you wake up in the night screaming from the horrors that your mind will just not forget. This is the case with many military veterans returning home from the war in Iraq. One wife recalls of her husband, "He keeps waking

In times of War, the media plays a crucial role both in reporting, monitoring and giving updates. During the Vietnam War of 1955-1975, the American press played crucial roles of reporting until it ended up shifting its tone under the influence of occurrence of some events like the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre, the bombing of Cambodia and leaking of Pentagon papers resulting into lack of trust in the press (Knightly 1975). From the beginning of the war up to present times there have been undying debates over the role of media in the war. The have been various criticisms over the American News Media’s actions and influences on the outcome of the war. The debate is embedded on the particular political assumptions perceived across the

In this paper, I intend to analyze Iraq war of 2003 from Realist and Marxist/ Critical perspectives. I intend to draw a conclusion as to which theoretical framework, in my opinion, is more suitable and provides for a rational understanding of the Iraq War. While drawing comparative analysis of two competing approaches, I do not intend to dismiss one theory in entirety in favour of another. However, I do intend to weigh on a golden balance, lacunas of both theories in order to conclude as to which theory in the end provides or intends to provide a watertight analysis of the Iraq war.