Who is Responsible for the Establishment of the War in Iraq?

During the past decade of military operations combating terrorism, members of the U.S. government have thoroughly debated the power of the President and the role of Congress during a time of war. A historical review of war powers in America demonstrates the unchecked power of the executive when it comes to military decision-making and the use of force. Throughout history the power of the President to initiate, conduct, and sustain military operations without oversight has greatly increased. Through a historical lens, this essay will

At the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War, the Security Council passed Resolution 687, which set out the terms that Iraq’s leader Suddam Hussein was to comply with. The resolution required the destruction of all chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and required Iraq to submit to a rigorous UN inspection system. Inspections were conducted by United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and later the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) throughout the 1990s to the US-led invasion 2003. The UNSC has proved to be an effective legal response to monitoring conflict and maintaining world order as no ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were found after the American invasion in 2003.

In conclusion, President George Bush’s letter shows how united the world is against Iraq’s aggression. Twenty-eight countries would give military aid and one hundred governments would agree with the United States position. Iraq has no allies in their takeover of Kuwait. Bush’s threats of military action challenge Saddam Hussein’s arrogance and sense of infallibility. Warnings of the destruction of Iraq’s military and loss of life would be on the hands of Hussein himself. The United States would not be responsible for Iraq’s losses. Again, the primary audience for this letter is Hussein himself, because in a dictatorship such as Iraq, the people themselves are deprived of such information. Brute

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 invasion and the war in Iraq remains a continuous topic of divisiveness and sensitivity in today’s America. One of the negative evaluation of the war is attributed to the false impression of the length of the war which lasted seven years, not six months as presumed in 2003. As the invasion initiated, the ideologies of American government then failed to perceive the large number of troops required, casualties and the financial toll in the interest of the preventive war doctrine. However, when weighing the failures of this war, there are successes brought home that relate mostly to the lessons the American military and the government learned with the use of counterinsurgency tactics after “winning the hearts and minds” of Iraqis (Young). Nevertheless, with evaluation through levels of analysis, the accomplished agenda of ending Saddam Hussein’s regime justifies success and failure, mutually.

United States policy towards the Iran-Iraq war was interesting to say the least. While the United States claimed to be a neutral party, they supported Iraq for the majority of the war, supported Iran for a brief period, then went back to only supporting Iraq. Both sides committed numerous atrocities and war crimes, and for the most part received little to no American condemnation. Through this essay, I will explore the reasons for the US involvement, and their responses to a number of war crimes, particularly Iraq’s use of chemical weapons throughout the war.

Although severe consequences come with the decision of war with Iraq, most blinded United States of America citizens are still yet persuaded to support such a war. The Bush Administration has covered their schemes of war with lies to gain support. While weapons of mass destruction is supposedly the reason why the United States launched military action to begin with, all the clearly ignored consequences will haunt their final decision of war, and will remind them how the war is not and never was justified. Whither the war is for the protection of the United States and their alliances, or for oil production and the spread of democracy, the United States is only intensifying the aggression of the situation.

Bush, asserted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), multiple Iraqi human rights violations stemming from the WMDs, and the suspected Iraqi support for al-Qa’ida, who had been previously chased out of Afghanistan. After the initial invasion, however, U.S.-led Coalition Forces were unable to locate any significant evidence of WMDs. Back in the U.S., investigative committees subsequently concluded that Iraq possessed no WMDs and did not harbor any connections to terrorist organizations. Moreover, Hussein had been successful at evading capture despite an intensive manhunt, and U.S. forces seemingly were unable to play a domestic security role, further leading to the dissolution of Iraqi security services and ushering in widespread looting and disorder. This highlighted that the invasion of Iraq was not be an easy victory as originally surmised. Since that time, many scholars have focused on the effects of the Iraq War, speculating on the Bush Administration’s motives for the decision. While some within scholarly circles have attributed the invasion of Iraq to groupthink, a theory that has recently become a staple in understanding foreign policy disasters, there is little literature that has been applied to the rationality of the decision to invade and whether groupthink influenced the decision-making process. Therefore, this paper will seek to examine the decision to launch the invasion of Iraq and the clearly failed planning for the occupation of the

Since the war on Iraq began on March 20, 2003, at least 1,402 coalition troops have died and 9,326 U.S. troops have been wounded in action. This is no small number and the count grows daily. One would hope, then, that these men and women were sent to war with just cause and as a last resort. However, as the cloud of apprehension and rhetoric surrounding the war has begun to settle, it has become clear that the Bush administration relied on deeply flawed analyses to make its case for war to the United Nations and to the American people, rushing this country, and its soldiers, into war. This is not to say that this war was waged against a blameless regime or that our soldiers have died

With presidential insight overlooking Iraq’s government with a fine tooth comb, the Bush Administration decided to turn to public support as a means to increase the awareness in Iraq. This attention was based off the defiance amongst Iraq, and the United Nation (UN) ability to provide full access inside the country of Iraq. As public concern grew on the topic of Iraq, so did the presidential tone and manner when comparing Iraq to “the central front in the War on Terror.” This began a political push from leaders in and outside the U.S. to implement harsher penalties on Iraq or any country that didn’t obey UN weapons inspections (resolution 1441). The resolution 1441 stated that if UN inspection was ever detoured from leaders in the country would be subjected to war. Another country siding with the Bush administration to dissimulate and destroy the Baathist regime in Iraq was Britain and its Prime Minister Tony Blair.

This paper will look at and discuss the presidency’s actions involving Iraq from Reagan to Obama. Each and every president during this time has used different strategies and formats to get their agenda across, to not only convince the public, but the international community as well. We will show how Iraq has gone from an ally to overthrowing the government, to the ensuing turmoil that this created for everyone involved, from ours and their citizenship, governing bodies, and other world leaders. With over 35 years of intervention, we will determine if there has been a consensus of actions among our presidents, and see if there is a cohesive US strategy and long term goals that have been reached for all our effort and actions to all of this.

Yet another instance whereby the government’s hypocrisy has been displayed is when the Bush Administration declared war on Iraq, about five years ago. Matt Matusek, in an article entitled Purpose of Iraq war murky to Americans, wrote: “The plan was to invade Iraq and capture Saddam Hussein so he couldn't use his weapons of mass destruction on any other nation. The United States also wanted to sever Hussein's ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Then, we were to get our troops back home as soon as possible.” However, five years into the war, it can clearly be seen that the government’s initial goal was to get oil from Iraq, but used Saddam as an excuse to engage in war (Matusek). Today, more and more people, just like Montag, are starting to analyze the government’s actions and take a strong stand against them.

Britain and America claim to have gone to war with Iraq as they believed they held weapons of mass destruction and also because they wanted to rid the country of it’s “evil dictator” (who was in power for over twenty years before these two leaders decided to do anything about it). However, during Iraq’s war with Iran during 1980-1988, we gave this “evil dictator” weapons to use and when Iraq used chemical weapons in 1988 against their own people, no one opposed it. Britain and America also claimed that Iraq had broken several resolutions set by the UN (as have many other countries all over the world). However, by invading Iraq, Britain and America defied the UN and International Law themselves, as they went to war without the backing of the UN.

Journalists have argued that George W. Bush accused Iraq along with North Korea and Iran of being a part of “an axis of evil”. This terminology meant that these countries were seen and assumed to be a major threat to world’s stability. Notwithstanding being labeled as such, in order to help the situation the UN decided to cooperate with Iraq on one condition, which was for Iran to allow the UN to carry-out weapon inspections. Despite being given a chance to redeem their countries reputation, Iraq unfortunately failed to cooperate with these terms. This eventually led to the UN having suspicions that Iraq have in their positions illegal weapons, this became another cause for the war occurring.

The incomplete information caused the outbreak of the Iraq war. The incomplete information explanation was due to Saddam Hussein unclear signal of his dismantle of his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Additionally, both sides had private information on their costs of fighting the war and had incentives to misrepresent this information.