The Pros And Cons Of The Iraq War

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.

When the United States seized control over Iraq, many Iraqi citizens were left without a job. As a result of this widespread unemployment, recruitment for Muslim extremist groups thrived. Lt. General Michael Flynn, a key figure of the War, has admitted “As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him.” Flynn went on to say. “The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that

The disbanding of the Iraqi army and “debathification” or dismantling of the government in place only served to increase the casualties of American troops and Iraqi civilians as the radical Sunni insurgency expanded. This point of cause and effect, clash of two distinct political and cultural worlds, defined this war for the generation serving, at home and the future generations. The threat of increasing terrorism after the attack of September 11, 2001 was one of the driving force of invasion of Iraq. However, in one analysis the increase of global terrorism today is told to be well contributed by the conflicts that were fueled by the western presence in Iraq and the surrounding

What triggered the Iraq War that we are currently still having? During this time in history we were still in the cold war as well Cold War (1945–1991), a lot of events has happened during this time period. I am going to start with the Iran-Iraq war which started in 1980 and ended in 1988. The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes, and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution. (Wikipedia, Iran–Iraq War, 2011). This war had at least a million and half casualties and it severely damaged both their economies, the Iran-Iraq war conflict is often

…The U.S. began the Iraq war with the goal of ridding the region of a tyrannical government that didn’t protect its people. However, a decade later, at the conclusion of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, the people are perhaps worse off than they were before the

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

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

Military intervention is defined as the deliberate act of a nation or a group of nations to introduce its military forces into the course of an existing controversy. For the most part, military intervention is focused on upholding basic human rights throughout the world but, the idea of the military intervention itself is a controversy, there is a constant debate on whether it is good or bad. Many people believe that military intervention does more harm than it does good to all the countries involved and is a violation of the Constitution of the United States of America, arguing that the government is in place to protect its citizens from violation of their rights and from domestic violence. Which being said is to be upheld by the police force and the military is there to protect American citizens from foreign

June 7 2005, 42 Iraqis reported slaughtered in revolt related savagery, 67 individuals reported harmed in four bombings - three in the northern town of Hawija and one in Baghdad, 3 US officers executed, 1 remote prisoner taken, 40 outside prisoners accepted to be alive in confinement, 20 presumed agitators caught in Tal Afar, 8,000 Iraqi troops, 30,000 US troops working in Baghdad, 1,800,000 barrels of oil created, 25 percent of Iraqis totally subject to government nourishment hand-outs, 50 percent of Iraqis with no entrance to safe drinking water. Women and honorable men, welcome to a typical day for an Iraqi. Taking after the September 11 fear based oppressor assaults on the world exchange focuses in America, there has been a sentiment anxiety and a need to get revenge on those dependable. This response however has streamed into what we now know as the war in Iraq. Being an Australian, it is simple for us to be tricked by the media and media representations of these issues. We just realize what we see and what we see is not generally reality. President George Bush has intense issues. Prior to the main organization of troops to Iraq, Bush put forth various clear expressions about the reason the United States expected to seek after the most radical activities any country can embrace - demonstrations of war against another country. Presently plainly a number of his announcements seem, by all accounts, to be false. President Bush tended to the United Nations on September 22nd

At the same time, Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat thanks to the public relations campaign the Bush administration had been doing. In addition, the White House was finishing up a speech that was for the president to announce on October 7, 2002, so that the use of force on Iraq could be authorized. In the end the CIA declined the speech because of a sentence in the speech: “The [Iraqi] regime has been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa-an essential ingredient in the enrichment process.” The line was later removed after the CIA insisted on the change. Although the lined was thought to be removed from the speech, there was a loss of communication with the two agents responsible for translating the Niger intelligence resulting in the line not getting taken out.

Media analyzes claiming that there was no planning for the continuation of the war in Iraq should address the public record. The reality is that extensive plans were made for post-war reconstruction but failed to take into account humanitarian and social problems of any importance, with emphasis on maintaining the authoritarian structures of the brutal Saddam regime after its abolition while upgrading the infrastructure, structure of Iraqi oil to benefit foreign investors.

In “Bush/Cheney Created Conditions That Led Directly to ISIL” (2014), Creamer claims that Bush administration’s foreign policy blunders that lead to the creation of ISIS. He supports his claim by stating that “The War in Iraq...created massive numbers of terrorists that otherwise would not have dreamed of joining extremist organizations. It did so by killing massive numbers of Iraqis, creating hundreds of thousands of refugees, imprisoning thousands, and convincing many residents of the Middle East that the terrorist narrative was correct: that the U.S. and the West were really about taking Muslim lands” (Creamer), Creamer also states that Bush’s “de-Baathification program” which removed all Sunnis from power in Iraq, led to a renewing of the

In order to fully interpret the nation of Iraq’s holistic condition during and after the Saddam Era, Social, Political, and Economic factors must be weighed accordingly and in contrast to each other. In order to do this, the span of years leading up to 1989, and

The basic levels of analysis start at the individual level. This is done by locating the sources of behaviors and outcomes of the characteristics and natural tendencies of people. Examples of the variables would be one’s perceptions, personality, and preferences. By using these variables, one can analyze the effects those individuals will have on the policies. In the war in Iraq, we can analyze the individual role George W. Bush had as the President of the United States. Because the President viewed Saddam Hussein as aggressive and dangerous, Bush chose to declare war against them in order to prevent further attacks. George W. Bush’s personality as a protector and a leader would cause him to feel the need to protect his country, and also the allies of the United States. He saw the signs of aggression as acts of hostility and proceeded to intervene on the Iraqi situation.

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.