The Iraq War

Paper Summary:

This paper examines some of the public explanations the Bush administration offered for why war in Iraq was necessary. Bush's public explanations of his reasons for attacking Iraq without UN backing are discussed, as are the messages regarding U.S. foreign policy towards Iraq that are contained within official policy documents. The reasons behind the U.S. war on Iraq as they emerge from both sources are analyzed, as are possible explanations for the discrepancies in the public and private explanations for the war.

From the Paper:

"From this October 7th 2002 speech, then, we see that President Bush, and his administration had several main reasons for attacking Iraq on March 21st 2003: that they viewed Saddam Hussein as "a grave threat to peace" (Bush, 2002); that the weapons of mass destruction program developed by Saddam Hussein decades earlier had never been stopped; that Saddam Hussein was a "threat to world peace" (Bush, 2002); that Saddam Hussein was a dictator, and as such, should be removed from power; that evidence was available to suggest that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction program; that Saddam Hussein had links to terrorist groups, which in the wake of 9/11 was a bad thing; that Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda; that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program; and finally, that the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein was necessary on humanitarian grounds, so that the Iraqi economy could be reconstructed, and so that "institutions of liberty" (Bush, 2002) could be constructed."

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