The Iraq War: Justification, Critics, and Global Response

Introduction

President George W. Bush described himself as a "wartime president," and at least to some extent this is true. The attack by al-Qaeda on the United States on September 11, 2001, was clearly an act of war. It represented a new and unconventional conflict in which a country was at war with a terrorist organization rather than another nation-state. Certainly, any president would have taken it seriously; as Kassop notes, "All presidents view their responsibility to protect their citizens and their nation from hostile attack as the most solemn duty of the office. Nothing matters more than this profound obligation" (Kassop).

The first response to this attack — in Afghanistan — was understandable even to Muslim countries such as Pakistan. Virtually all governments knew that al-Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. It was Bush's next major act, the war with Iraq that began on March 19, 2003, that raised far greater concerns. The great majority of critical commentary from both scholars and other countries suggests that the United States attacked Iraq precipitously and without exploring all other options first. In addition, credible evidence emerged that the reasons given by Bush and his administration to justify the invasion did not stand up to close scrutiny.

Justification for War

After the war with Iraq began, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters that because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), it could provide them to terrorists, who might then use them in another attack on the United States (Kassop).

There was a degree of historical justification for that hypothetical scenario. Iraq had viewed WMD as strategically important for over three decades. The regime endured eleven years of stringent economic sanctions rather than abandon its WMD program. It had invested significant sums in WMD development before the Gulf War, and it kept the program secret and invisible to satellites — including through the construction of underground facilities (Cordesman 175–176). Iraq was also careful to purchase equipment with dual-use potential whenever it had to trade on the world market (Cordesman 176).

The United Nations maintained an intensive inspection program targeting Iraq's weapons manufacturing, but Iraq employed multiple strategies to thwart UN inspectors (Cordesman 175). The need for these inspections was clear: Iraq had used WMD not only on civilian targets during the Iran-Iraq War and Gulf War, but also against minority groups within its own borders (Cordesman 176). The Bush administration believed — largely because of Iraq's intense efforts to obstruct UN authority — that Iraq might have hidden some WMD outside its borders (Kassop).

Domestic Critics and Intelligence Disputes

Post-war analysis of the timeline leading to war with Iraq reveals that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney began formulating a plan to attack Iraq as early as November 2001. In his State of the Union Address in January 2002, Bush declared that an "axis of evil" existed. The word "axis" implied that these states were coordinating, much as the Axis Powers had during World War II. Bush declared that the United States should not wait passively while "dangers gather" (Kassop). During the following months, the President secretly instructed the CIA to use lethal force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. By the summer of 2002, Bush had begun preparations to ask Congress to authorize the use of force against Iraq (Pfiffner). He also made plans to present the case to the United Nations Security Council as a strike against a terrorist organization — similar to the action in Afghanistan — rather than one nation waging war on another (Kassop).

The President knew, at least initially, that the American public would find this argument credible. In a survey taken on September 13, 2001, nearly 80% of Americans believed there was some link between Osama bin Laden and Iraq, even though terrorism experts knew that bin Laden held Saddam Hussein in contempt because Iraq was a secular state (Pfiffner).

The administration continued to build on this initial public perception. On October 7, 2002, Bush stated that the U.S. government had learned that al-Qaeda members had been trained in bomb-making, poisons, and deadly gases by Iraq (Pfiffner). If true, that would have made Iraq as much of a threat as Afghanistan. Vice President Cheney reinforced this view during an appearance on Meet the Press near the end of 2001, claiming that Mohammed Atta — one of the nineteen September 11 hijackers — had met with an Iraqi government official in Prague, thus establishing a direct link between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq. In a separate interview, Rumsfeld described the tie between Iraq and al-Qaeda as "bulletproof" (Pfiffner).

However, neither Bush nor any other member of his administration publicly acknowledged the doubts held within the U.S. intelligence community regarding the Prague report. Both the FBI and the CIA investigated the claim and concluded it was "not convincing" (Pfiffner). Since this supposed Prague meeting was a cornerstone of the argument that Iraq participated in the September 11 attacks, some experts have concluded that Bush deliberately misled the American public regarding the justification for war (Pfiffner).

Conclusion

The most serious criticism of the decision to go to war with Iraq may not be the war itself but the timeline followed to get there. One commentator argued that the United States conducted the Iraq War "at a remarkably low price, human and economic, both for the U.S. and its allies, and for the Iraqi people," and that "America came to Iraq to overthrow a tyrant and build a new state and a new society, in the process reaping some strategic and economic profit" (Campo). Such statements carry uncomfortable echoes of colonialism, in which invaders believed their society was superior to the culture they were displacing while reaping significant financial rewards. The United States, however, never claimed financial gain as a motive.

The more enduring criticism concerns the rush to war. The United States planned to resolve the Iraq situation by military force even while the United Nations was still diligently working to confirm whether WMD existed at all. As became clear in the years that followed, no such weapons were ever found — and their alleged existence was the strongest and most primary justification offered for the war.

Bibliography

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