The Bush Administration made a very aggressive step in declaring that Iraq and Al Qaeda were allies. Even though it was widely believed throughout the United States, Iraq and Al Qaeda were never allies. Other than being natural allies, they were natural enemies, this is due to the basic nature of these groups. It was almost impossible for there to be any sort of alliance between the two. According to New York Times contributor Daniel Benjamin, he briefly stated that in the perspective of contemporary Jihadists, Saddam Hussein is another line of threats. He was an enemy of the faith who refuses to rule by Sharia’s and has habitually murdered Sunni and Shiite religious leaders in Iraq who might oppose his regime (Benjamin). Ironically Saddam …show more content…
In the fall of 2002, Iraq finally agrees to re-admit UN inspectors into the country causing the inspection officially commenced. This time period was crucial because it pictured Iraq as being confident in their claim that they did not possess these sort of weapons. Arms Control Today contributor Paul Kerr stated that the United States and United Kingdom, were eager to push the UN Security Council to adopt a new resolution governing Iraq's disarmament… in which the council adopted Resolution 1441 (Kerr). This resolution required the Iraqi government to complete a series of disarmament requirements contained in previous council resolutions, the first of which was adopted in 1991 following the Persian Gulf War (Kerr). Observing the Bush Administrant, it seemed as if they were desperate to start an unnecessary war with Iraq. The Resolution 1441 was a gimmick in order to justify the Bush Administrations aggression towards Saddam’s regime. This act was created in 1991 to hold Saddam’s Regime accountable for all the WMD’s and biological weapons they had during the Gulf War. But the Bush Administration used this resolution to their advantage in 2002 to set themselves in a position to invade. In summary, this resolution gave Iraq a final chance of disarming themselves, if their inspection failed, then it would be “necessary” to take …show more content…
The legal issues of the war are mostly based on the Just War doctrine. The framework of Just War doctrine, includes, but not restricted to international laws on the use of the armed forces. The basic fundamental principles of the Just War doctrine is that war is a serious declaration, and the nations that declare war need to explain their morality that justified the war. According to the authors of Just War Doctrine and the Invasion of Iraq, Christian Enemark and Christopher Michiaelson. The two dimensions of the Just War doctrine are jus as bellum (the justice of going to war), and jus in bello (the just conduct of going to war) (Enemark, Michialeson). There are six jus ad bellum criteria that make a war just, this includes: Just Cause, Right Authority, Right Intention, Reasonable Prospect of Success, Proportionate Cause, and War as a Last Resort. All have a relevance to each other (Enemark, Michialeson). In default to the criteria to the Just War Doctrine, the war was
Saddam was trying to make the people fear him using terror, “His rule is based on fear”. He wanted the people to obey him without thinking and without saying no on anything he does believing that he has a divine power. But because he used terror to be respected by everyone he was decieved a lot, sometimes his subordinates lied and did not tell him the truth because they were afraid of getting mad and turing against them, so they would just tell him what he wants to hear. Even his guards were not loyal to him not because they wanted to but becasue they feared him “Their loyalty is governed by fear and self-interest, and will tilt decisively if and when an alternative appears.” Saddam was very suspicious he did not trust anyone and he was also weak but he never wanted to show it, for that he was trying to appear strong and powerful to hide his weakness and insecurity. From the things he used to hide his weaknesses was brutality and violence. An example that shows his savagery was when he wanted to capture U.S. soldiers and tie them up around Iraqi tanks to use them as human shields during the war over Kuwait. This actually shows that he knew he made the wrong decision in invading Kuwait but he did not want to admit it infront of anyone, so he was trying to find any solution that could make them win instead of taking the blame for their defeat. And here one can notices that fear and brutality kind of overlap or connect to each other, because Saddam used violence to make everyone fear him, a good example on that would be when Saddam’s regime accused some people of taking bribe and sentenced them to die, the colleagues, families and friends of those people were ordered to attend their hanging and everyone was compelled to attend because they knew that refusal could turn suspicion on them and end up hanged like
The war in Iraq was declared in March 2003 for many reasons. Some of the reasons are to free Iraq, the oil, and because Saddam Hussein did not allow weapons inspectors search for nuclear weapons. The US wanted to take over Iraq and free its people from the torture they had been enduring for so long. Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction that posed a long-term threat to America. He denied weapons inspectors access to search for nuclear war weapons and this served as a threat to other countries. The aim had been the destruction of the Iraqi society enabling the US and Britain to gain control of Iraq's huge oil reserves.
In the Iraq War, the decision for the United States government to declare war was not what was the ideas of the founding fathers. Before the war even started, the President declared war himself, without the consent of Congress. An in the Constitution itself, it writes that Congress has the power, “to declare War,” (Art. I, sec. VIII). Then, as if to have a slap on the other side of the face, Congress, “refused to insist on enforcement of Article I, Section 8 of
No matter how well intentioned the invasion of Iraq may have been, it was an act of violence and deception that has left many American men dead for no clear reason.
President Barack Obama delivered an address to the nation on the U.S. Counterterrorism strategy to combat ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) on September 10, 2014. The recent issue, which became the basis for this speech, has been President Obama’s response to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against diverse civilians. He delivered this speech to prove to the nation that he has an elaborate strategy along with several tactics to destroy the terrorist group. Obama described the ISIL in his speech by stating, “in a region that has known so much bloodshed, these terrorists are unique in their brutality. They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide. And in acts of barbarism, they
The Iraq war, also known as the second Gulf War, is a five-year, ongoing military campaign which started on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops. One of the most controversial events in the history of the western world, the war has caused an unimaginable number of deaths, and spending of ridiculous amounts of money. The reason for invasion war Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, which eventually was disproved by weapons inspectors. Many people question George W. Bush’s decision to engage a war in Iraq, but there might be greater reason why the decision was made. The ideas of George W. Bush might have been sculpted by one of the greatest works of all time, "The Prince."
After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, President George Bush ordered a large force to deter further aggression. President Bush claimed that he had sufficient authority as president to launch the war without congressional approval. Like Truman, he relied on UN for backing for the war. The House reacted by passing a resolution stating that the President must seek approval from Congress before launching a war in the Gulf unless American lives were in imminent danger. The law ended up in federal court. The court ruled that it cannot decide such a political question, but criticized the President for believing that he alone could take the country to war in the absence of an
In “Ethics and Intervention: The ‘Humanitarian Exception’ and the Problem of Abuse in the Case of Iraq, Alex Bellamy argues that war is only justified in exceptional cases where “supreme humanitarian intervention” is genuinely required (Bellamy, p. 137). Bellamy discusses the ethics of intervention and the decision of the US to invade Iraq. He provides the argument that international law does not provide moral reasoning on the issues of war. However, he acknowledges that it does provide an important foundation on the issue of legitimacy of war. He discusses two legal justifications for war, which include implied UN authorization and pre-emptive self-defense of that state. Neither of these is the case in Iraq, although the government may say
The following video is what the project is going to about. This is where we have gathered our information and we each have watched it. This source will be useful in the sense that we can reference Colin Powell’s attempt to invade Iraq. He provides several good examples of how Iraq won’t comply with the inspections.
For the past several months the United Nations’ Security Council has debated on whether or not to accept the U.S. proposal to force Iraq to comply the new and former resolutions. The new resolution calls for complete disarmament of Iraq and the re-entrance of weapons inspectors into Iraq. If Iraq fails to comply, then military force would be taken in order to disarm Iraq. This proposal met opposition from council members Russia, China, and France. They thought that the U.S. proposal was too aggressive and that the U.S. should not act alone without U.N. approval. For weeks they refused to believe that the only way to make Iraq disarm is through the threat of force and the fear of being wiped out.
Pre-invasion Iraq reflected the views and policies of its leader, Saddam Hussein, who made his first political appearance as a supporter of the Ba’ath Party. He was jailed in 1967 for this, and after his escape quickly rose to power within the faction. (Saddam Hussein Biography, 2008) Saddam became known for his political talent and progressiveness, and soon became a popular politician. After working on extensive unification and expansion efforts for the Ba’athists, the man rose to vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Faced with a tremendous amount of religious, racial, social and economic divisions, Saddam launched a campaign of total control to bring about stability.
Al-Qaeda Introduction Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization established in Peshawar, Pakistan, between 1988 and 1989 by Osama bin Laden and his teacher Abullah Yusuf Azzam. Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist network that is considered the top terrorist threat to the United States. Al Qaeda is seeking to get rid of all westerns from Muslim territory and replace their own Islamic regime. They are a group of people who work together to plan acts of terrorism against Muslims and non-Muslims especially in the United States. Al Qaeda believes that they are fighting a holy war against the enemy of their religion.
...most distressed by outcome of a war, could exercise only inadequate control on the issue of armed action against Iraq. Most of the regional actors discarded the U.S. policy towards Iraq with varying intensity as they feared insecurity after Iraq’s disintegration (Reuters, 2003) whereas; Jordan decided not to endanger its rewarding ties with Washington. Another key actor at this level is the Baathi party in Iraq which was based on tribal division, domestic oppression and economic enticement. Under Baathi regime military, bureaucracy and security services was divided into several competing institutions which reinforced Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq. In the post war Iraq, the USA in collaboration with the Iraq National Congress and the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution started to make Iraq a democracy that is similar to the American political culture and values.
Woods, Kevin M., Stout Mark E. 2010. “Saddam’s Perceptions and Misperceptions: The Case of ‘Desert Storm’.” The Journal of Strategic Studies (February): 5-41.
According to a Washington Post Article entitled Iraqis Thinks the US is in cahoots with Islamic State written by Liz Sly on December 1st, states that it is widely believed among Iraqis that the US is still supporting the Islamic State so they have control over Iraq and its resources (Sly).