The United States Invasion of Iraq - Essay Example

On 17 March 2003, in his Address to the Nation, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline. The next day, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer rescinded Bush's previous statement, saying that the U.S. would invade Iraq whether Saddam Hussein left or not. Two days later the war began with an air strike against Hussein and the Iraqi leadership. Ground forces (almost exclusively Anglo-American and significantly smaller than the large international force assembled in the first war) began invading the following day, surging primarily toward Baghdad, the southern oil fields, and port facilities; Kurdish and airborne Anglo-American forces opened a northern front late in March. By mid-April, 2003, Hussein's army and government had collapsed, and the allies were largely in control of the major Iraqi cities. The allies gradually turned their attention to the rebuilding of Iraq and the establishment of a new Iraqi government, but progress toward that end was hampered by lawlessness, especially in Baghdad, where U.S. forces had tolerated widespread looting initially. On May 1, President Bush declared victory in the war against Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction, however, were found, leading to charges that U.S. and British leaders had exaggerated the Iraqi biological and chemical threat in order to justify the war. From this fact it's possible to make a conclusion that weapons of mass destruction weren't the main reason for the war, but only a cause, "casus belli". I think that the root the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is control over oil fields. The background of 2nd Gulf War (2003) comes from an armed conflict between Iraq and a coalition of 32 nations including the United States, Britain, Egypt, France, and Saudi Arabia called the 1st Persian Gulf War in 1991. It was a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990; Iraq then annexed Kuwait, which it had long claimed. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein declared that the invasion was a response to overproduction of oil in Kuwait, which had cost Iraq an estimated $14 billion a year when oil prices fell. Hussein also accused Kuwait of illegally pumping oil from Iraq's Rumaila oil field. During August, 1990 Iraq was sending more and more troops streaming into Kuwait, by August 6 there were nearly eleven combat divisions. Intelligence analysts at the time understood that Iraq had enough troops in the area to roll over Saudi Arabia nearly as easily as they had done to Kuwait. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia recognized his situation as dire and immediately requested aid from his most powerful friend and ally, the United States. President Bush promptly ordered the deployment of U.S. ground and air forces to Saudi territory. U.S. Navy ships were also deployed to the region. So began the operation to defend Saudi Arabia that would be called "Desert Storm". The UN Security Council called for Iraq to withdraw and subsequently embargoed most trade with Iraq. On August 7, U.S. troops moved into Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi oil fields. On November 29, the United Nations set January 15, 1991, as the deadline for a peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein refused to comply, Operation "Desert Storm" was launched on January 18, 1991, under the leadership of U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. The U.S.-led coalition began a massive air war to destroy Iraq's forces and military and civil infrastructure. Iraq called for terrorist attacks against the coalition and launched Scud missiles at Israel (in an unsuccessful attempt to widen the war and break up the coalition) and at Saudi Arabia. The main coalition forces invaded Kuwait and S Iraq on February 24 and, over the next four days, encircled and defeated the Iraqis and liberated Kuwait. When U.S. President George H. W. Bush declared a cease-fire on February 28, most of the Iraqi forces in Kuwait had either surrendered or fled. Although the war was a decisive military victory for the coalition, Kuwait and Iraq suffered enormous property damage, and Saddam Hussein was not removed from power. In fact, Hussein was free to turn his attention to suppressing internal Shiite and Kurd revolts, which the U.S.-led coalition did not support, in part because of concerns over the possible breakup of Iraq if the revolts were successful. Coalition peace terms were agreed to by Iraq, but every effort was made by the Iraqis to frustrate implementation of the terms, particularly UN weapons inspections. The 2nd Persian Gulf War became the final, delayed campaign of the 1st Persian Gulf War; it arose in part because the Iraqi government failed to cooperate fully with UN weapons inspections in the years following the first conflict. The election of George W. Bush to the U.S. presidency returned to government many officials from his father's administration that had favored removing Saddam Hussein from power in the first war. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the United States moved toward a doctrine of first-strike, pre-emptive war to eliminate threats to national security. George W. Bush said, "On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability - even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America." So President Bush's decision to launch the 2nd Gulf War was grounded on struggle against terrorism but anyway taking in mind oil fields. President Bush accused Iraq along with North Korea and Iran, as being part of "an axis of evil," and with the Taliban forced from power in Afghanistan in early 2002, the administration's attention turned to Iraq. Accusing Iraq of failing to abide by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire (by developing and possessing weapons of mass destruction and by refusing to cooperate with UN weapons inspections) and of supporting terrorism, the president and other officials suggested that the "war on terrorism" might be expanded to include Iraq and became more forceful in their denunciations of Iraq for resisting UN arms inspections, called for "regime change" in Iraq, and leaked news of military planning for war. President Bush also called on the United Nations to act forcefully against Iraq or risk becoming "irrelevant." As a result, Iraq announced in September 2002, that UN inspectors could return, but Iraqi slowness to agree on inspection terms and U.S. insistence on stricter conditions for Iraqi compliance stalled the inspectors' return. In October, Congress approved the use of force against Iraq, and in November the Security Council passed a resolution offering Iraq a "final opportunity" to cooperate on arms inspections. A strict inspections timetable was established, and active Iraqi compliance insisted on. Inspections resumed in late November. A December declaration by Iraq that it had no weapons of mass destruction was generally regarded as incomplete and uninformative, but by January 2003, UN inspectors had found no evidence of forbidden weapons programs. However, they also indicated that Iraq was not actively cooperating with their efforts to determine if previously known or suspected weapons had been destroyed and weapons programs had been ended. Finally it should be noted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a matter of choice, not of necessity. The United States did not act in response to an aggressive move by a hostile power directed against this country or one of its allies, but rather employed force on its own volition to advance (what the administration viewed as) U.S. national interests. This means that we cannot identify a precipitating action for war, but instead must examine the calculus of costs and benefits that persuaded President Bush to invade Iraq at that particular moment. On one side of this ledger were the disincentives to war: the loss of American lives and the expenditure of vast sums of money. On the other one was the control over the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. Sources: 1. Persian Gulf Wars. Encyclopedia from Infoplease. Retreived June, 23 2005 from http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0838511.html 2. President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat. Remarks by the President on Iraq. Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union Terminal. Cincinnati, Ohio. Retreived June, 23 2005 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html Read More