Why did the US invaded Iraq in 2003 can’t be answered with just a few words, it’s complicated?? Although I strongly don’t agree with it, there seems to be some reasons that make sense to our politicians. War is always caused by governments, not people, at least I believe so.
The US invaded Iraq in 2003 because Iraq posed a threat to the peace of the West. The decision was controversial at the time, but the reason was clear. Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator of Iraq for 35 years, was the central threat to Middle East. With that threat removed, Bush Administration believed that a functional democracy in Iraq would encourage the growth of democracy elsewhere in the Arab world. As the democracy spreads, terrorism will retreat (that’s their logic, don’t question it). It is on the bloodstained life and career of Saddam Hussein that we need to understand on, why did the US feel forced to act against in 2003. We begin with the Iraq war on the 1980s, during that period, Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) such as poison gas, were used on a regular basis by both sides.
Once the war ended on 1988, instead of building back his nation, Saddam decided to embark on another lucrative venture. In 1990, he tried to grab 19% of the world’s oil supply, by invading Kuwait. His brief annexation of Kuwait proved to be another disaster. Operation Desert Storm turned out to be a 3-week brawl, his Iraqi army brought down by a coalition force of the US and various other nations. Rather than trying Saddam as a war criminal, the USA and the west allowed him to stay in power. This appesement led to Saddam, once again, to draw an entirely wrong conclusion and to his making, another colossal mistake. He arrogantly believed that his Iraqi army might actually defeat the USA in the second encounter. His trump card, he believed, or what he was trying to make the world believed, was his possession of the WMD - Large quantities of poison gas and probably nuclear weapons development program. There was no reason to doubt that he had WMD since he used the WMD in the war 10 years prior. NO ONE has any doubt about it.
Looking back at the 12 years between the 1991 Gulf war and the Iraq war, Saddam might be able to establish international credibility by complying with the 16 U.N. RESOLUTIONS passed between 1990 and 1999. This resolutions required Saddam to, among other things, destroy all of his ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km, stop support for terrorism internationally and prevent terrorist organization from operation within Iraq, and bear financial liability for damage from the Gulf War, which Saddam spent the whole of the 1990s mocking and defying the US and Britain in every possible way.
He attempted to shoot down the royal US air force over the no-fly zones created to prevent him from slaughtering his own citizens. He corruptly profited from the U.N oil for food scandal, while Iraqi children starve to death. He offered 25 thousand dollars, to the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber. He harboured many of the world’s leading terrorists and he expelled U.N. weapon inspectors. By the time, the terrorist attack of 911, something that Saddam wasn’t responsible for or rather blamed for. Any war against terror that did not involve toppling this brutal dictator who might supply WMD to terrorists for future attacks would have been absurd.
Still, had he backed out and accepted repeated U.N. Resolutions, especially the ones requiring him to destroy his stockpiles of WMD and had no nuclear weapon development programs, there would be no US action. Instead, he only became more arrogant. That’s why some democrats, such as senator Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and John Kerry voted to authorise the second Iraq war. Only later did they recant their decision after claiming they’ve been lied to by the Bush Administration. There has been no need for the Bush Administration to lie. Bush assessment to the threat, that Saddam pose, concurred with that with the Clinton Administration, as well as numerous EU intelligence services. The road to a democratic Middle East had to begin in Iraq. A vicious, mass murdering dictator convinced the world that he had WMDs and would use them against those that stood in the way. In 2003, that was obvious both to the Republicans and to the Democrats, along with Britain and dozens of other nations. That is why President George W. Bush, took the USA to war against Iraq. Or they just did it for the oil, like how everyone likes to think.