Why did we go into Iraq back in 2003?

Interesting question and here is my take.

Pre 9/11 support for a war to remove leadership in Iraq was going to be very hard to come by. They were not verbally threatening us, they were not attacking a country and any action on our part would have to be entirely pre emptive which is unheard of in our time to remove a person from power and put in a different form of government without an attack against the United States.

Come 9/11. Support swiftly changes and anger/fear take over America. We do not want another 9/11 to occur. Just how far will we go to stop another attack. Our entire foreign policy shifts to pressuring countries that harbor terrorists, support terrorism in anyway, to give up any sort of weapons they have that are capable of mass destruction. Chemical, Biological and Nuclear weapons. These do not need to get into the hands of terrorists and any rational person understands this.

Leading up to the Iraq war all we heard from President Bush was Iraq does have WOMD. WOMD this WOMD that. No talk of going into Iraq because the people are oppressed and we want to free them and setup a free government. All we heard was they ARE a threat to our national security because they posses chemical, biological weapons and have plans to start up a nuclear program.

President Bush uses this as his whole compaign. I buy it, America buys it. Surely a President that is willing to send our troops into a country, without that country directly attacking us, has his facts straight. I was 100% sure we were going to march into Iraq and within 1 week find the gobs of Weapons that we had been hearing about for so long.

April 20, 2006: 3 years and one month after "Shock & Awe" we have not found these weapons. President Bush does not know where they are and as far as the world is concerned they never existed. Did they ship them to Syria? Possibly. However if they were, it is the job of the President to know this before sending out troops in there especially since he based the war 100% on the fact that Iraq was a DIRECT threat to our national security.

He has failed miserably in this aspect. He has tarnished our nations credibility. No one trusts our intelligence anymore. I am fed up with his handleing of this war.

What is our progress level? A ways to go is an understatement. Iraq is a mess. You can cry about the news not showing the good going on in Iraq but that does not matter. The fact is that our soldiers are still dieing over there, the borders are not secured, the country can not unite and come together and agree on one type of government. There will NEVER see freedom in Iraq like there is in America. Their security is non existent without American troops over there. Want to know why? Look at Spain, look at Iran. Look at these countries in 2000. Look at how countries can go from being somewhat allies to sworn enemies in a matter of years. The same thing will happen with Iraq. The instability is just too great in that region.

Just my .02

US and British forces operating under UN mandate were being shot at on a regular, if not daily basis.



Actually, I will grant you that there was a lot of WMD talk, only because that was what was sexy and could sell in the US media. But you cannot say that there wasn't any talk of going into Iraq to liberate people or to punish Iraq for not following UN resolutions - because in fact there was plenty of that discussion. There were multiple UN resolutions chastising Iraq for not living up to their responsiblilty as stated in a multitude of other UN resolutions. All of the President's speechs included not just talk of WMD (which provided for a soundbyte) but for regime change - a state US policy enacted by the previous administration.



Just out of curiosity, if you bought into the notion of going to war (which is perfectly fine as I had no problem going into Iraq), do you remember what the Operation was called? And if so, why did you focus on something that at best could be considered a secondary objective?



I have to respectfully disagree as to what you consider the basis for war.



I'm curious as to how he's tarnished our credibility. If anything I believe that he's enbolded it from a certain point of view. The leader of this country said "If Iraq doesn't do 'X', then we will do 'Y' " on numerous occasions. Each and every time Iraq didn't do 'X', we infact did 'Y', whether it be ask for sanctions, resolutions, or start shooting.

It's odd, that you say that no one trusts our intelligence anymore, do you think that these "no one" people trust the nations whose intelligence agencies said the same thing as ours and was used to cement the position in other capitals? Did any country's intelligence apparatus say "No, the US and the rest of the world" is wrong>" I am not aware of any?

When was the last time a war was handled "properly" as defined by the world, or even the population of a side in general?



Spain is a sworn enemy?

Just so I can understand your position better, how long do you think it should take for the borders to be secured, and the country united on one type of governemnt? Secondly, is a measure to determine success or failure going to be a mirror of American society? Would you consider success if Iraq had a "Turkish" or "Afghan" "Egyptian" or even an "Israeli" type of Freedom, or does Iraq "have" to mirror the US?




Yet historically, every time we've taken the same position the success was measured in dividends and we have yet to fail. Why would it be different in Iraq?