Many countries believed that Saddam Hussein remained a military threat even after more than a decade of efforts by the United States and the United Nations to disarm Iraq. The September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States finally provided the impetus for a U.S. drive for war against Iraq. This time, however, unlike the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. goals included not only disarming Iraq but also toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. September 11, 2001, and the war on terrorism, terrorist attack by the terrorist group al-Qaeda proved to be the turning point for American policies on terrorism. Shortly after this terrorist
attack, U.S. president George Bush declared war on terrorism in an address to Congress and the nation, promising to use every resource and tool, even war, to disrupt and defeat the global terror network. In addition, Bush signalled a U.S. intention to conduct a military strike on countries that harbor terrorists or support terrorism:
“(…) We will pursue
nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United Sates as a hostile regime (…).
This pledge
quickly became a reality. Shortly after Bush’s speech the United States accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harbouring terrorists and demanded that it turn over al-Qaeda terrorists to the United States and close all terrorist bases in the country. October 7, 2001, the United States and Britain attacked Afghanistan. Over the next few months U.S. and British forces ousted the Taliban regime and destroyed al- Qaeda bases there. Following
the successful military action against Afghanistan, U.S. president George
W.Bush praised the U.S. military victory in his State of the Union address to
the nation on January 29, 2002. In the same speech Bush warned of another facet
of terrorism—an “axis of evil” consisting of three countries: Iraq, Iran, and North
Korea. He charged that these states sponsor terrorism and seek to develop chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons. Regarding
Iraq the president charged that the Iraqi regime had plotted to develop anthrax
and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade, had already used chemical weapons
to murder thousands of its own citizens, and “is a regime that has something to
hide from the civilized world.” The president, however, faced stiff opposition to
his proposal for military action against Iraq. The opposition came from many
different quarters, both inside and outside his administration, and from both Democrats
and Republicans. His critics pointed out that there was no evidence that Hussein
possessed nuclear or missile capabilities that would pose a current or imminent
threat to the United States. Indeed, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on July 31, 2002, Richard Butler, the former head of UNSCOM, the team
of weapons inspectors that searched for weapons in Iraq during the 1990s, noted
the lack of knowledge about the status of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,
stating:
“(…) We
do not know and never have known fully the quantity and quality of Iraq’s WMD
[weapons of mass destruction] (…)”.
On February 5, 2003, U.S. secretary of state Colin
Powell spoke at the United Nations to present information that the United
States knew about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and to try to persuade UN
member countries to support a military action against Iraq. Powell reminded UN
members that Iraq admitted having vast quantities of biological weapons in
1995, was known to have used chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988, and in
both 1991 and 1995 was discovered to have been working on developing nuclear
weapons. He argued that Iraq had failed to account for many of these weapons as
the UN demanded, and had been trying to conceal evidence of prohibited weapons
from UN weapons inspectors. The evidence Powell presented included audio tapes
of discussions between Iraqi military officers allegedly discussing how to hide
prohibited items from UN weapons inspectors, satellite photos of a weapons munition
and missile facilities allegedly showing trucks used for decontaminating and
moving prohibited materials just prior to visits by UN weapons inspectors, and
a large engine test stand used by Iraq for testing prohibited long-range
ballistic missiles. In addition, Powell presented information from human
sources stating that Saddam Hussein had warned all Iraqi scientists of the serious
consequences that they and their families would face if they revealed any
sensitive information to the inspectors and that Iraq had been experimenting on
human beings to perfect its biological or chemical weapons. Further evidence
presented came from Iraqi defectors stating that Iraq had mobile production
facilities used to make biological agents and that Hussein had made repeated
attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from eleven different
countries, for use in making nuclear weapons. Given the lack of firm
information about weapons of mass destruction, critics of a war plan suggested
that the United States wanted war with Iraq not to counter a threat from such
weapons, but instead to remove Hussein and install a U.S.-friendly government
in Iraq. This, they said, would ensure U.S. access to Iraqi oil reserves, which
are the second largest in the world and constitute a significant portion of
U.S. oil imports. Bush said that the new
policy was necessary to remove terrorist threats, but critics argued that it
reversed previous U.S. efforts to limit military action to defensive purposes.
This, critics said, could be very dangerous because it gives the United States
license to attack other countries and could lead other countries to adopt
similar aggressive policies against the United States or other nations. The cost of a war and the aftermath, they said, would
be astronomical for the United States.
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