View source for Rationale for the Iraq War

{{Short description|U.S. claims and arguments for invading Iraq.}}
{{use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}
<!-- Giving the following material, up to the Weapons of mass destruction section, <u>some</u> section heading moves the Contents box to the top of the article. --> <!-- [[MILFORMAT]] -->
[[File:Colin Powell anthrax vial. 5 Feb 2003 at the UN.jpg|thumb|US Secretary of State [[Colin Powell]] holding a model vial of [[anthrax]] while giving the [[Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council|presentation]] to the [[United Nations Security Council]] on 5 February 2003]][[File:WeaponsInspector.JPG|thumb|A [[United Nations]] weapons inspector in Iraq|219x219px]]{{Campaignbox Iraq War}}

There are various [[Explanation|rationales]] that have been used to justify the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]], the [[Iraq War]], and subsequent hostilities.

The [[Presidency of George W. Bush|George W. Bush administration]] began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the [[Iraq War]] was articulated by a [[joint resolution]] of the [[United States Congress]] known as the [[Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002|Iraq Resolution]]. The [[United States]] intent was to "disarm [[Iraq]] of weapons of mass destruction, to end [[Saddam Hussein]]'s support for [[terrorism]], and to free the Iraqi people".<ref>{{Cite web |title=President Discusses Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom |url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030322.html |access-date=2022-03-27 |website=georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov}}</ref>

In the lead-up to the invasion, the United States and the [[United Kingdom]] falsely claimed that [[Saddam Hussein]] was developing [[weapons of mass destruction]], [[Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|covertly supporting al-Qaeda]], and that he presented a threat to Iraq's neighbors and to the world community. According to the [[Center for Public Integrity]], eight senior-level officials in the [[George W. Bush|Bush]] administration issued at least 935 false statements in the two years leading up to the war.<ref name="Lewis, Reading-Smith">{{Cite web |last=Lewis, Reading-Smith |first=Charles, Mark |date=2008-01-23 |title=False pretenses |url=https://publicintegrity.org/politics/false-pretenses/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606230657/https://publicintegrity.org/politics/false-pretenses/ |archive-date=6 June 2020 |access-date=2024-10-21 |website=Center for Public Integrity |language=en-US}}</ref> The US stated, "On 8 November 2002; the [[United Nations Security Council|UN Security Council]] unanimously adopted [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441|Resolution 1441]]. All 15 members of the Security Council agreed to give Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its obligations and disarm or face the serious consequences of failing to disarm. The resolution strengthened the mandate of the [[UN Monitoring and Verification Commission]] (UNMOVIC) and the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]] (IAEA), giving them the authority to go anywhere, at any time, and talk to anyone in order to verify Iraq's disarmament."<ref>[https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/io/rls/fs/2003/17926.htm UN Security Council Resolution 1441] Retrieved 30 January 2008</ref>

From late 2001 to early 2003, the Bush administration worked to build a case for invading Iraq, culminating in then-[[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[Colin Powell]]'s [[Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council|February 2003 address to the Security Council]].<ref>{{UN document |code=securitycouncil/meeting_4701 |body= Security Council |meeting=4701 |page=2 |anchor=pg002-bk08 | speakername=[[Colin Powell]]| speakernation=United States|date=5 February 2003 | type= PV| accessdate=2007-07-17 }}</ref> Shortly after the invasion, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], and other intelligence agencies put forward information which discredited evidence related to Iraqi weapons as well as [[Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|alleged links]] to [[al-Qaeda]]. The Bush and Blair administrations provided secondary rationales for the war, such as [[Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq|the Saddam Hussein government's human rights record]] and promoting [[democracy in Iraq]].<ref name="Smith, Jeffrey R. 2007">{{cite news|last1=Smith|first1=R. Jeffrey|title=Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=April 6, 2007|access-date=September 10, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070411103726/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html|archive-date=April 11, 2007|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Sandalow|first1=Marc|title=Record shows Bush shifting on Iraq war / President's rationale for the invasion continues to evolve|url=http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/NEWS-ANALYSIS-Record-shows-Bush-shifting-on-2690938.php|publisher=The San Francisco Chronicle|date=September 29, 2004|access-date=June 28, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305022850/http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/NEWS-ANALYSIS-Record-shows-Bush-shifting-on-2690938.php|archive-date=March 5, 2016|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Opinion polling showed that people of nearly all countries opposed a war without a UN mandate. Similar polling showed that the perception of the United States as a danger to world peace had significantly increased.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Curtin|first1=J. Sean|title=Japanese Anti-War Sentiment on Iraq in Accord with Global Opinion|url=http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20030224_trends_s28/|website=GLOCOM Platform|publisher=Japanese Institute of Global Communications|access-date=2016-06-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160404213823/http://glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20030224_trends_s28/|archive-date=2016-04-04|url-status=live}}</ref> UN [[Secretary-General of the United Nations|Secretary-General]] [[Kofi Annan]] described the war as illegal, saying in a September 2004 interview that it was "not in [[conformity]] with the Security Council".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3661134.stm |title=Iraq war illegal, says Annan |access-date=November 15, 2008 |publisher=BBC News |date=September 16, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090115131657/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3661134.stm |archive-date=January 15, 2009 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all }}</ref> The US led the effort for "the redirection of former [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|Iraqi weapons of mass destruction]] (WMD) [[scientist]]s, [[technician]]s, and [[engineer]]s to civilian employment and discourage emigration of this community from [[Iraq]]".<ref>[https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/27409.htm Redirection of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Experts Short-term Program] Retrieved 30 January 2008</ref>

The US officially declared the end of its combat role in Iraq on the 31 August 2010. Several thousand troops remained in the country until all American troops were withdrawn from Iraq by December 2011. In June 2014, US forces returned to Iraq due to [[Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)|an escalation of instability]] in the region. In June 2015 the number of American ground troops totaled 3,550. Between December 2011 and June 2014, [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] officials estimated that there were 200 to 300 personnel based at the US embassy in [[Baghdad]].<ref name=Obama>{{cite news|last1=Baker|first1=Peter|last2=Cooper|first2=Helene|last3=Gordon|first3=Michael|title=Obama Looks at Adding Bases and Troops in Iraq, to Fight ISIS|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-isis-us-military-bases-martin-e-dempsey.html|work=The New York Times|date=June 11, 2015|access-date=February 12, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170125120828/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-isis-us-military-bases-martin-e-dempsey.html|archive-date=January 25, 2017|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

==Background==
The [[Gulf War]] had never officially ended due to the lack of an [[armistice]] to formally end it. As a result, relations between the United States, the United Nations, and Iraq remained strained. Saddam Hussein issued formal statements renouncing his [[invasion of Kuwait]] and made reparation payments following the [[Gulf War]]. The US and the United Nations maintained a policy of "[[containment]]" towards Iraq, which involved [[Iraq sanctions|economic sanctions]], [[Iraqi no-fly zones]] enforced by the [[United States]], [[United Kingdom]], and [[France]] (until it ended its no-fly zone operations in 1998) and ongoing inspections of [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|Iraqi weapons programs]].<ref name="transatlantic">{{cite web |last1=Bellinger |first1=John |title=Transatlantic Approaches to the International Legal Regime in an Age of Globalization and Terrorism |url=https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/l/2005/87203.htm |access-date=2017-06-24 |publisher=US State Department}}</ref> In 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously passed [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441|Resolution 1441]] demanding that Iraq "comply with its disarmament obligations" and allow weapon inspections. Iraq war critics such as former weapons inspector [[Scott Ritter]] claimed that these sanctions and weapon inspection policies, supported by both the Bush and Clinton administrations, were actually intended to foster [[regime change]] in Iraq.<ref>[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh: Iraq Confidential] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070402105811/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter |date=2007-04-02 }} Retrieved 30 January 2008</ref>

US policy shifted in 1998 when the [[Iraq Liberation Act]] was passed in the [[United States Congress]] and signed by President [[Bill Clinton]]. The bill was proposed after Iraq terminated its cooperation with UN weapons inspectors in the preceding August. The act made it official US policy to "support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power", although it also made clear that "nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces".<ref>[http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Legislation/ILA.htm H.R.4655] {{webarchive|url=https://swap.stanford.edu/20090630211140/http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Legislation/ILA.htm |date=2009-06-30 }} Retrieved 30 January 2008</ref><ref>{{Cite web| url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.4655.ENR:| title=Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)| publisher=Library of Congress| access-date=2006-05-25| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080711034008/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105%3AH.R.4655.ENR%3A| archive-date=2008-07-11| url-status=live}}</ref> This legislation contrasted with the terms set out in [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 687]], which made no mention of regime change.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm |title=RESOLUTION 687 (1991) |access-date=2006-05-25 |date=April 8, 1991 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060523015627/https://fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm |archive-date=May 23, 2006 }}</ref>

One month after the passage of the "Iraq Liberation Act", the US and UK launched a bombardment of Iraq named [[Operation Desert Fox]]. The stated rationale of this campaign was to hamper the Saddam Hussein government's ability to produce [[Iraqi chemical weapons program|chemical]], [[Iraqi biological weapons program|biological]], and nuclear weapons. US National Security personnel also reportedly hoped it would help weaken Saddam Hussein's grip on power.<ref>Arkin, William. "The Difference Was in the Details". ''The Washington Post'', January 17, 1999; Page B1. Retrieved from {{cite web|url=http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/irqtar.htm |title=Washingtonpost.com: Desert Fox Special Report |access-date=2007-04-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060909055202/http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/irqtar.htm |archive-date=2006-09-09 }} on 23 April 2007.</ref>

The Republican Party's 2000 campaign platform called for the 'full implementation' of the Iraq Liberation Act and the removal of Saddam Hussein. Key Bush advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz, were longtime advocates of an invasion of Iraq. They contributed to a September 2000 report from the [[Project for the New American Century]], which argued that an invasion of Iraq would enable the US to 'play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security.'.<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Full text of 'Rebuilding Americas Defenses' |url=https://archive.org/stream/RebuildingAmericasDefenses/RebuildingAmericasDefenses_djvu.txt |access-date=November 5, 2024 |website=Internet Archive}}</ref> After leaving the administration, former Bush treasury secretary [[Paul O'Neill (cabinet member)|Paul O'Neill]] said that "contingency planning" for an attack on Iraq had been undergoing since the inauguration and that the first National Security Council meeting discussed an invasion.<ref name=frenzy>{{Cite news| url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/| title=O'Neill: 'Frenzy' distorted war plans account| date=January 14, 2004| publisher=CNN.com| access-date=2006-05-26| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060815123731/http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/| archive-date=August 15, 2006| url-status=live| df=mdy-all}}</ref> Retired Army General [[Hugh Shelton]], former chairman of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], said he saw nothing to indicate the United States was close to attacking Iraq early in Bush's term.<ref name=frenzy/> Despite key Bush advisers' stated interest in invading Iraq, little formal movement towards an invasion occurred until the [[11 September 2001 attacks]].

[[File:Rumsfeld-Memo-HowStart.jpg|right|frame|Excerpt from [[Donald Rumsfeld]] memo dated 27 November 2001<ref name="tv.msnbc.com">{{cite web|url=http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/16/building-momentum-for-regime-change-rumsfelds-secret-memos/|title='Building momentum for regime change': Rumsfeld's secret memos|date=16 February 2013 |access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130322001534/http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/16/building-momentum-for-regime-change-rumsfelds-secret-memos/|archive-date=22 March 2013|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>]] Following the [[11 September 2001 attacks]], the Bush administration national security team actively considered an invasion of Iraq. According to aides accompanying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the [[National Military Command Center]] on 11 September, Rumsfeld asked for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only [[Osama bin Laden]]."<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 4, 2002 |title=Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11 |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plans-for-iraq-attack-began-on-9-11/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060525035205/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml |archive-date=May 25, 2006 |access-date=2006-05-26 |publisher=CBS News |df=mdy-all}}</ref> On the evening of 12 September, President Bush ordered White House counter-terrorism coordinator [[Richard A. Clarke]] to investigate possible Iraqi involvement in the [[September 11 attacks|9/11]] attacks. The administration believed that an attack as devastating as 9/11 involved a state sponsor. Clarke and the US intelligence community were of the opinion that Iraq had no major ties to [[Al-Qaeda]] or to the attacks, and that what few contacts existed were Iraq's attempts to monitor the group.<ref name="National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 2004">{{cite book |last=National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States |url=https://archive.org/details/911commissionrep00nati |title=The 9/11 Commission Report |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |year=2004 |isbn=0-393-32671-3 |location=New York |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|334}}<ref name="waas2">{{cite web |title=Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept from Hill Panel - Murray Waas - NationalJournal.com |url=http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/key-bush-intelligence-briefing-kept-from-hill-panel-20051122 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120710231520/http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/key-bush-intelligence-briefing-kept-from-hill-panel-20051122 |archive-date=10 July 2012 |access-date=13 January 2022 |website=www.nationaljournal.com}}</ref><ref name="Frontline: The Dark Side,">[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/ "Frontline: The Dark Side,"] PBS, aired June 20, 2006</ref>

Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld expressed skepticism towards the CIA's intelligence. They questioned whether the CIA were competent enough to produce accurate information as the agency underestimated threats and failed to accurately predict events such as the [[Iranian revolution|Iranian Revolution]], the [[Iraqi invasion of Kuwait|Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait]], and the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|collapse of the Soviet Union]]. Further, concerns were also raised by General Tommy Franks, regarding the lack of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in the CENTCOM region.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Franks |first=Tommy |title=American Soldier |date=August 3, 2004 |publisher=Regan Books/Harper Collins |isbn=978-0060731588}}</ref> They instead preferred outside analysis. This analysis was supplied by the [[Iraqi National Congress]] (INC), headed by Iraqi exile [[Ahmed Chalabi]]. The INC alleged that Iraq was pursuing [[Weapon of mass destruction|WMD]] development and had ties to Al-Qaeda via Iraqi intelligence.<ref name="Frontline: The Dark Side,"/>

A memo written by Secretary Rumsfeld, dated 27 November 2001, considers a US–Iraq war. One section of the memo lists multiple possible justifications for a US–Iraq War.<ref name="tv.msnbc.com" /> The administration decided to defer an invasion of Iraq in favor of an invasion of [[War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|Afghanistan]].<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html "Chronology: The Evolution of the Bush Doctrine"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822204037/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html |date=2017-08-22 }}. '''PBS.org'''.  Retrieved on 15 May 2007.</ref> President Bush, in a January 2002 [[State of the Union]] address, decried Iraq was a member of the [[Axis of Evil]] stating "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."<ref>[https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html "The President's State of the Union Address"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090502151928/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html |date=2009-05-02 }}.  Office of the Press Secretary, 29 January 2002.</ref> Over the next year, the Bush administration began pushing for international support for an invasion of Iraq. This campaign culminated in Secretary of State [[Colin Powell]]'s 5 February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council.<ref>[https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110312114527/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html |date=2011-03-12 }}. 5 February 2003.</ref><ref>{{Cite web| title = Colin Powell's Speech| work = C-SPAN.org| access-date = 2018-05-07| url = https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4716794/colin-powells-speech| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180507154913/https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4716794%2Fcolin-powells-speech| archive-date = 2018-05-07| url-status = live}}</ref> Prior to this campaign, the Bush Administration were informed by the intelligence community that Iraq had no nuclear weapons, that there was no information about whether Iraq had biological weapons, and that Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaeda.<ref>Vox, 9 July 2016, [https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/7/9/12123022/george-w-bush-lies-iraq-war "No, Really, George W. Bush Lied about WMDs"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191010075257/https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/7/9/12123022/george-w-bush-lies-iraq-war|date=10 October 2019}}</ref><ref>Center for American Progress (29 January 2004) [https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2004/01/29/459/in-their-own-words-iraqs-imminent-threat/ "In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115202751/https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2004/01/29/459/in-their-own-words-iraqs-imminent-threat/|date=15 January 2016}} ''americanprogress.org''</ref><ref name="nelson">Senator [[Bill Nelson (politician)|Bill Nelson]] (28 January 2004) [https://fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s012804b.html "New Information on Iraq's Possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160420112938/https://fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s012804b.html|date=20 April 2016}} ''Congressional Record''</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=25 March 2015 |title=Raw Data: Text of Resolution on Iraq |url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/raw-data-text-of-resolution-on-iraq |website=[[Fox News]] |publisher=Associated Press}}</ref><ref name="National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 2004" />{{rp|334}}<ref name="waas2"/>

After failing to gain UN support for an additional UN authorization, the US, together with the UK and small contingents from Australia, Poland, and Denmark, launched an invasion on 20 March 2003 under the authority of [[UN Security Council Resolution 660]] and [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 678]].<ref name=transatlantic/> A 2008 study conducted by the [[Center for Public Integrity]] and [[Independent and Public Spirited Media Foundation|Foundation for Independent Journalism]] revealed that between September 2001 and September 2003, [[George W. Bush]] and seven senior officials in his administration issued explicit statements on at least 532 occasions claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or had established covert alliances with [[Al-Qaeda]], or both.<ref name="NBC News">{{Cite news |date=23 January 2008 |title=Study: Bush led U.S. to war on 'false pretenses' |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22794451 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029213724/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22794451 |archive-date=29 October 2020 |work=NBC News}}</ref><ref name="Lewis, Reading-Smith"/><ref>{{Cite web |date=23 January 2008 |title=False Pretenses: A score-card of false statements by U.S. officials in the run-up to the Iraq war |url=https://github.com/PublicI/iraq-war-card |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322191530/https://github.com/PublicI/iraq-war-card |archive-date=22 March 2023}}</ref> The study concluded that these statements were issued by the American government as part of an "orchestrated campaign" to generate [[jingoism|jingoistic]] attitudes in the United States for the purpose of initiating a war based on "false pretenses".<ref name="NBC News"/><ref name="Lewis, Reading-Smith"/>

===Iraq War Resolution===
[[File:Bush auth jbc.jpg|thumb|right|President George Bush, surrounded by leaders of the House and Senate, announces the [[Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq]], 2 October 2002]]

In its [[Iraq War Resolution]] issued on October 2002, the [[United States Congress|U.S. congress]] articulated several allegations and justifications for the [[2003 invasion of Iraq|invasion of Iraq]]:<ref>{{cite press release

|publisher=The White House

|date=2002-10-02

|title=Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq |url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/print/20021002-2.html}}</ref>
*Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, including interference with UN weapons inspectors.
*Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and programs to develop such weapons, posed a "threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region".
*Iraq's "brutal repression of its civilian population".
*Iraq's "capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people".
*Iraq's hostility towards the United States as demonstrated by the 1993 assassination attempt on former President George H. W. Bush and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones following the 1991 Gulf War.
*Iraq's harboring of members of [[al-Qaeda]], an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on 11 September 2001.
*Iraq's "continuing to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations", including anti-United States terrorist organizations.
*Iraq's alleged plans to launch attacks against United States using [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]].
*Iraq's alleged plans to transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations.
*Iraq allegedly paying bounties to families of suicide bombers.
*The efforts by the Congress and the President to fight terrorists, including the 11 September 2001 terrorists and those who aided or harbored them.
*The authorization by the Constitution and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism.
*The concerns of governments in Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia regarding Saddam Hussein and their desire for his removal from power.
*The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, a resolution which reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the [[Saddam Hussein]] regime and promote a democratic replacement.

The [[Iraq War Resolution]] required President Bush's diplomatic efforts at the UN Security Council to "obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion, and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions". The resolution authorized the United States to use military force to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq".

==Weapons of mass destruction==
{{Main|Iraq disarmament crisis|Iraq and weapons of mass destruction}}
{{Further|Allegations of Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories|Iraqi aluminum tubes|Niger uranium forgeries|Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence}}[[File:Powell UN Iraq presentation, alleged Mobile Production Facilities.jpg|thumb|250px|Computer-generated image of an alleged [[Allegations of Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories|mobile production facility for biological weapons]], presented by [[Colin Powell]] at the UN [[Security Council]]. Absence of more substantial proof undermined the credibility of the speech on the international scene. Russian experts questioned the likelihood of such mobile facilities, which are extremely dangerous and difficult to manage.]]

The US government's belief that Iraq was developing [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] (WMDs) in the form of nuclear weapons was based upon intelligence which the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] argued could not be trusted.<ref>{{cite news|author=Wolf Blitzer|url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/08/wbr.iraq.claims/|title=Did the Bush Administration exaggerate the threat from Iraq?|publisher=CNN|date=July 8, 2003|access-date=October 23, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080208195520/http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/08/wbr.iraq.claims/|archive-date=February 8, 2008|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref> The CIA was overruled on its opinion on nuclear weapons as the administration sought outside information from Ahmed Chalabi's [[Iraqi National Congress]] (INC). Declassified CIA reports from 2002 suggested Iraq had begun production of other forms of WMDs in the form of chemical warfare agents such as [[mustard gas]], [[sarin]], [[Cyclosarin]], and [[VX (nerve agent)|VX]].<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001327062.pdf "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Program"] Dated October 2002. Retrieved on 20 February 2025.</ref>

George Bush, speaking in October 2002, said that "The stated policy of the United States is regime change{{Nbsp}}… However, if [Saddam Hussein] were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions that I have described very clearly in terms that everybody can understand, that in itself will signal the regime has changed."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-10-2002_pg4_1 |author=Bob Kemper |title=Saddam can keep rule if he complies: Bush |publisher=Daily Times |date=October 23, 2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040825024139/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-10-2002_pg4_1 |archive-date=August 25, 2004 }}</ref> Similarly, in September 2002, [[Tony Blair]] stated, in an answer to a [[question time|parliamentary question]], that "Regime change in Iraq would be a wonderful thing. That is not the purpose of our action; our purpose is to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020924/debtext/20924-05.htm|title=Tony Blair: Answer to Parliamentary Question|publisher=Hansard|access-date=2017-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629085841/http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020924/debtext/20924-05.htm|archive-date=2011-06-29|url-status=live}}</ref> In November of that year, Blair further stated that "So far as our objective, it is [[disarmament]], not regime change{{Snd}}that is our objective. Now I happen to believe the regime of Saddam is a very brutal and repressive regime; I think it does enormous damage to the Iraqi people{{Nbsp}}… so I have got no doubt Saddam is very bad for Iraq, but on the other hand I have got no doubt either that the purpose of our challenge from the United Nations is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction; it is not regime change."<ref>{{cite web|title=PM gives interview to Radio Monte Carlo |url=http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1299.asp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114172743/http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page1299.asp |archive-date=2007-11-14 }}</ref>

Between September 2002 and May 2003, Bush administration began attempting to mix its "war on terror" rhetoric with [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] allegations, in addition to espousing [[Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|allegations of Iraqi support to al-Qaeda]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gershkoff, Kushner |first=Amy, Shana |date=September 2005 |title=Shaping Public Opinion: The 9/11-Iraq Connection in the Bush Administration's Rhetoric |journal=Perspectives on Politics |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=527, 528 |doi=10.1017/S1537592705050334}}</ref> In his [[2003 State of the Union address]] delivered on 28 January 2003, George W. Bush insinuated about hypothetical scenarios wherein Ba'athist Iraq was plotting to perpetrate mass-casualty attacks using [[chemical weapon]]s: <blockquote>"Before [[September the 11th Attacks|September the 11]], many in the world believed that [[Saddam Hussein]] could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans— this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes."<ref name="Gershkoff, Kushner 528">{{Cite journal |last=Gershkoff, Kushner |first=Amy, Shana |date=September 2005 |title=Shaping Public Opinion: The 9/11-Iraq Connection in the Bush Administration's Rhetoric |journal=Perspectives on Politics |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=528 |doi=10.1017/S1537592705050334}}</ref></blockquote>

At a press conference on 31 January 2003, George Bush stated: "Saddam Hussein must understand that if he does not disarm, for the sake of peace, we, along with others, will go disarm Saddam Hussein."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/31/sprj.irq.bush.blair.topics/|title=Bush, Blair: Time running out for Saddam|publisher=CNN|date=January 31, 2003|access-date=May 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090424201643/http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/31/sprj.irq.bush.blair.topics/|archive-date=April 24, 2009|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref> As late as 25 February 2003, Tony Blair said in the [[House of Commons]]: "I detest his regime. But even now he can save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page3088.asp |title=Tony Blair: Parliamentary Statement |publisher=Hansard |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040213200626/http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page3088.asp |archive-date=2004-02-13 }}</ref>

Secretary of State Powell said in his 5 February 2003 presentation to the [[United Nations Security Council|UN Security Council]]: the first National Security Council meeting discussed of an invasion {{blockquote|"the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction".<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/index.html "Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208074448/http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/index.html |date=2007-02-08 }}. [http://www.cnn.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010911000000/http://www.cnn.com/ |date=2001-09-11 }}, 6 February 2003. Retrieved on 6 April 2007.</ref>}} During the same presentation, Powell also claimed that al-Qaeda was attempting to build weapons of mass destruction with Iraqi support:
{{Blockquote|quote="[[Al-Qaeda|Al-Qaida]] continues to have a deep interest in acquiring [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]]. As with the story of [[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi|Zarqawi]] and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how [[Ba'athist Iraq|Iraq]] provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida. Fortunately, this operative is now detained and he has told his story. ... The support that this detainee describes included Iraq offering [[Chemical weapon|chemical]] or [[biological weapons]] training for two al-Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as [[Abdullah Abu Azzam al-Iraqi|Abdallah al-Iraqi]] had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gasses. Abdallah al-Iraqi characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful."|author=|source=<ref name=UNSC_Powell_20030205>{{cite web |title=Remarks to the United Nations Security Council |publisher=US Department of State |first=Secretary Colin L. |last=Powell |location=New York City |date=February 5, 2003 |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm |access-date=October 21, 2021 |archive-date=February 5, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205163122/http://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>|title=[[Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council|Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council]], 5 February 2003}}
On 11 February 2003, [[FBI]] Director [[Robert Mueller]] testified to Congress that "Iraq has moved to the top of my list. As we previously briefed this Committee, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security, a threat that will certainly increase in the event of future military action against Iraq. Baghdad has the capability and, we presume, the will to use biological, chemical, or radiological weapons against US domestic targets in the event of a US invasion."<ref name="fbi">"[https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/war-on-terrorism Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181023034821/https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/war-on-terrorism|date=2018-10-23}}". Fbi.gov. 11 February 2003.</ref><ref name="cnn">"[http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/11/transcripts.mueller/ Mueller: 'Enemy is far from defeated'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180525192539/http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/11/transcripts.mueller/|date=2018-05-25}}". CNN. 11 February 2003.</ref>

In a [[Radio Speech|radio speech]] delivered on 8 March 2003, George W. Bush said: <blockquote>“The attacks of September 11, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terror states could do with [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]].”<ref name="Gershkoff, Kushner 528"/></blockquote>

On 10 April 2003, White House press secretary [[Ari Fleischer]] reiterated "...we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about, and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030410-6.html |title=Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer |publisher=White House |date=April 10, 2003 |access-date=2008-02-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715091357/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030410-6.html |archive-date=July 15, 2012 }}</ref> Despite the Bush administration's consistent assertion that [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|Iraqi weapons programs]] justified an invasion, former [[United States Deputy Secretary of Defense|Deputy Secretary of Defense]] [[Paul Wolfowitz]] later cast doubt on the administration's conviction behind this rationale by saying in a May 2003 interview: "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue{{Snd}}weapons of mass destruction{{Snd}}because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s867453.htm|title=Wolfowitz reveals Iraq PR plan|website=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]]|access-date=2006-09-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060825201018/http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s867453.htm|archive-date=2006-08-25|url-status=live}}</ref>

After the invasion, despite an exhaustive search led by the [[Iraq Survey Group]] involving a more than 1,400-member team, no evidence of Iraqi weapons programs was found. The investigation concluded that Iraq had destroyed all major stockpiles of [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] and ceased production in 1991 when [[Iraq sanctions|sanctions]] were imposed.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/12/wmd.search/ "Official: U.S. calls off search for Iraqi WMDs"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070510083209/http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/12/wmd.search/ |date=2007-05-10 }}. CNN.com, 12 January 2005. Retrieved on 17 May 2007.</ref><ref name=duelfer_revised>{{cite web|title=Comprehensive Revised Report with Addendums on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Duelfer Report) |url=http://www.gpoaccess.gov/duelfer/ |publisher=US Government Printing Office |access-date=2006-09-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060107122008/http://www.gpoaccess.gov/duelfer/ |archive-date=2006-01-07 }}</ref><ref name=500_munitions_negroponte>{{cite web|author=Negroponte, John D. |title=Iraqi Chemical Munitions |url=http://intelligence.house.gov/Media/PDFS/DNILetter.pdf |publisher=US Director of National Intelligence |date=2006-06-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628195008/http://intelligence.house.gov/Media/PDFS/DNILetter.pdf |archive-date=2006-06-28 }}</ref> The failure to find evidence of Iraqi weapons programs following the invasion led to considerable controversy in the United States and worldwide, including claims by critics of the war that the Bush and Blair administrations deliberately manipulated and misused intelligence to push for an invasion.

===UN inspections before the invasion===
Between 1991 and 1998, the United Nations Security Council tasked the [[United Nations Special Commission]] on Disarmament (UNSCOM) with finding and destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In 1996, UNSCOM discovered evidence of continued biological weapons research and supervised destruction of the [[Al Hakum (Iraq)|Al Hakum]] biological weapons production site{{Snd}}allegedly converted to a chicken feed plant, but retaining its barbed wire fences and anti-aircraft defenses.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Inspections Maze |publisher=Christian Science Monitor |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/inspections/suspicions.html |access-date=2006-04-28 |year=2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927193201/http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/inspections/suspicions.html |archive-date= September 27, 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap6_annxB.html |title=Biological Warfare Annex B |access-date=2006-09-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060831021659/https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap6_annxB.html |archive-date=2006-08-31 }}</ref> In 1998, [[Scott Ritter]], leader of a UNSCOM inspection team, found gaps in the prisoner records of [[Abu Ghraib prison|Abu Ghraib]] when investigating allegations that prisoners had been used to test [[anthrax]] weapons. Asked to explain the missing documents, the Iraqi government charged that Ritter was working for the CIA and refused to cooperate further with UNSCOM.

On 26 August 1998, approximately two months before the US ordered United Nations inspectors withdraw from Iraq, Scott Ritter resigned from his position rather than participate in what he called the "illusion of arms control". In his resignation letter to Ambassador [[Richard Butler (diplomat)|Richard Butler]],<ref>[https://fas.org/news/iraq/1998/08/980826-ritter.htm Resignation Letter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313203033/http://fas.org/news/iraq/1998/08/980826-ritter.htm |date=2016-03-13 }} Retrieved 30 January 2008</ref> He wrote: {{blockquote|"The sad truth is that Iraq today is not disarmed.{{Nbsp}}... UNSCOM has good reason to believe that there are significant numbers of proscribed weapons and related components and the means to manufacture such weapons unaccounted for in Iraq today{{Nbsp}}… Iraq has lied to the Special Commission and the world since day one concerning the true scope and nature of its proscribed programs and weapons systems."}} On 7 September 1998, Ritter testified before the [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services|Senate Armed Services]] and [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Foreign Relations Committee]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/ritter.htm |title=Testimony of Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM Inspector |access-date=2002-12-24 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021224112338/http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/ritter.htm |archive-date=December 24, 2002 }}<!--this reference may be available from the congressional record--></ref> During his testimony, [[John McCain]] (R, AZ) asked him whether UNSCOM had intelligence suggesting that Iraq had assembled the components for three nuclear weapons and all that it lacked was the fissile material. Ritter replied: "The Special Commission has intelligence information, which suggests that components necessary for three nuclear weapons exists, lacking the fissile material. Yes, sir."

On 8 November 2002, the UN Security Council passed [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441|Resolution 1441]], giving Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" including unrestricted inspections by the [[United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission]] (UNMOVIC), and the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]] (IAEA). Saddam Hussein accepted the resolution on 13 November and inspectors returned to Iraq under the direction of UNMOVIC chairman [[Hans Blix]] and IAEA Director General [[Mohamed ElBaradei]]. Between that time and the time of the invasion, the IAEA "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq"; the IAEA concluded that certain items which could have been used in nuclear enrichment – [[centrifuge]]s, such as aluminum tubes, were in fact intended for other uses.<ref>{{cite web|title=Statements of the Director General|date=7 March 2003|url=http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml|publisher=IAEA|access-date=2006-09-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060903185204/http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml|archive-date=2006-09-03|url-status=live}}</ref> UNMOVIC "did not find evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction" or significant quantities of proscribed items. UNMOVIC did supervise the destruction of a small number of empty chemical rocket warheads, 50 liters of [[mustard gas]] that had been declared by Iraq and sealed by UNSCOM in 1998, and laboratory quantities of a mustard gas precursor, along with about 50 [[Al-Samoud 2|Al-Samoud]] missiles of a design that Iraq claimed did not exceed the permitted 150&nbsp;km range, but which had traveled up to 183&nbsp;km in tests. Shortly before the invasion, UNMOVIC stated that it would take "months" to verify Iraqi compliance with [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441|resolution 1441]].<ref>{{citation|author=Blix, Hans|title=Thirteenth quarterly report of the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in accordance with paragraph 12 of Security council resolution 1284 (1999)|publisher=UNMOVIC|date=2003-05-13}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Selected Security Council Briefings|url=http://www.unmovic.org/|publisher=UNMOVIC|access-date=2002-09-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020928160417/http://www.unmovic.org/|archive-date=2002-09-28|url-status=usurped}}</ref><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/Story/0,2763,895882,00.html Hans Blix's briefing to the security council] Retrieved 30 January 2008</ref>

===Formal search after the invasion===
After the invasion, the [[Iraq Survey Group]] (ISG), headed by American [[David Kay]], was tasked with searching for weapons of mass destruction. The survey ultimately concluded that Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction ceased, and all major stockpiles were destroyed, in 1991 when economic sanctions were imposed but that the expertise to restart production once sanctions were lifted was preserved. The group also concluded that Iraq continued developing [[ballistic missiles|long-range missiles]] proscribed by the UN until just before the 2003 invasion.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}

In an interim report on 3 October 2003, Kay reported that the group had "not yet found stocks of weapons", but had discovered "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" including clandestine laboratories "suitable for continuing CBW [chemical and biological warfare] research", a prison laboratory complex "possibly used in human testing of BW agents", a vial of live [[Clostridium botulinum|C. botulinum]] Okra B bacteria kept in one scientist's home, small parts and twelve-year-old documents "that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment", partially-declared [[Unmanned Aerial Vehicle|UAVs]] and undeclared fuel for [[Scud]] missiles with ranges beyond the 150&nbsp;km UN limits, "plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000&nbsp;km", attempts to acquire long-range missile technology from [[North Korea]], and document destruction in headquarters buildings in Baghdad. None of the weapons of mass destruction programs involved active production; they instead appeared to be targeted at retaining the expertise needed to resume work once sanctions were dropped. Iraqi personnel involved with much of this work indicated they had orders to conceal it from UN weapons inspectors.<ref name=isg_kay>{{cite web|title=Statement by David Kay on the Interim Progress Report on the Activities of the Iraq Survey Group |url=http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |access-date=2006-09-08 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060310071652/http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html |archive-date=March 10, 2006 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Iraqi scientists gives up 12-year-old nuclear parts|url=http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21314/newsDate/27-Jun-2003/story.htm|date=2003-06-27|access-date=2006-01-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060113155416/http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21314/newsDate/27-Jun-2003/story.htm|archive-date=2006-01-13|url-status=usurped}}</ref>

After [[Charles Duelfer]] took over from Kay in January 2004, Kay said at a Senate hearing that "we were almost all wrong" about Iraq having stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but that the other ISG findings made Iraq potentially "more dangerous" than was thought before the war.<ref>{{cite news|title=Transcript: David Kay at Senate Hearing|url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/|publisher=CNN|date=2004-01-28|access-date=2006-09-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060820150256/http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/|archive-date=2006-08-20|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/kaytestimony.pdf Dr. David Kay Testimony] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170719153917/http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/kaytestimony.pdf |date=2017-07-19 }} to the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]] (28 January 2014).</ref> In an interview, Kay said that "a lot" of the former Iraqi government's weapons of mass destruction program had been moved to [[Syria]] shortly before the 2003 invasion, albeit not including large stockpiles of weapons.<ref>{{cite news|title=Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixnewstop.html|publisher=Telegraph.co.uk|date=2004-01-25|location=London|access-date=May 22, 2010|first=Andrew|last=Haldenby|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080414150429/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F01%2F25%2Fwirq25.xml&sSheet=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F01%2F25%2Fixnewstop.html|archive-date=April 14, 2008|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

On 30 September 2004, the ISG, under [[Charles Duelfer]], issued a comprehensive report. The report stated that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability ... was essentially destroyed in 1991" and that Saddam Hussein subsequently focused on ending the sanctions and "preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted". No evidence was found for continued active production of weapons of mass destruction subsequent to the imposition of sanctions in 1991, though "[b]y 2000–2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions".<ref>{{cite web|title=Comprehensive report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD|url=https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/|access-date=2006-09-09|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061028214857/https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/|archive-date=2006-10-28}}</ref>

The report concluded in its ''Key Findings'' that: "Saddam [Hussein] so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone{{Nbsp}}... The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of weapons of mass destruction after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of weapons of mass destruction policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood weapons of mass destruction revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them." The report also noted that "Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction revival] policy.{{Nbsp}}... The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary." A March 2005 addendum to the report stated that "based on the evidence available at present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of weapons of mass destruction material from Iraq to Syria took place. However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited weapons of mass destruction-related materials".<ref name=duelfer_revised /><ref>{{cite web|title=Addendums to the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD|url=http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/DuelferRpt/Addendums.pdf|publisher=US Government Printing Office|date=March 2005|access-date=2006-01-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060106045004/http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/DuelferRpt/Addendums.pdf|archive-date=2006-01-06|url-status=live}}</ref>

On 12 January 2005, US military forces abandoned the formal search. Transcripts from high level meetings within Saddam Hussein's government before the invasion are consistent with the ISG conclusion that he destroyed his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction but maintained the expertise to restart production.<ref>{{cite news|title=Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations|url=https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1751481|publisher=ABC News International|date=2006-03-21}}</ref>

===Discovery of degraded chemical weapons===
In the post-invasion search for weapons of mass destruction, US and Polish forces found decayed chemical weapons from the [[Iran–Iraq War]]. These chemical weapons led former senator [[Rick Santorum]] (R-PA) and representative [[Peter Hoekstra]] (R-MI) to say that the US had indeed found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.<ref name=500_munitions_negroponte />

These assertions were directly contradicted by weapons experts David Kay, the original director of the [[Iraq Survey Group]], and his successor [[Charles Duelfer]]. Both Kay and Duelfer stated that the chemical weapons found were not the "weapons of mass destruction" that the US was looking for. Kay added that experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in "almost 100 percent agreement" that [[sarin]] nerve agent produced in the 1980s would no longer be dangerous and that the chemical weapons found were "less toxic than most things that Americans have under their [[Sink|kitchen sink]] at this point". In reply, Hoekstra said "I am 100 percent sure if David Kay had the opportunity to look at the reports{{Nbsp}}... he would agree{{Nbsp}}... these things are lethal and deadly".<ref>{{cite news|first=Katherine|last=Shrader|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201475.html|title=New Intel Report Reignites Iraq Arms Fight|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=22 June 2006|access-date=2007-05-22}}</ref> Discussing the findings on NPR's ''[[Talk of the Nation]]'', Charles Duelfer described such residual chemical munitions as hazardous but not deadly.

{{blockquote|What we found, both as UN and later when I was with the Iraq Survey Group, is that some of these rounds would have highly degraded agent, but it is still dangerous. You know, it can be a local hazard. If an insurgent got it and wanted to create a local hazard, it could be exploded. When I was running the ISG{{Snd}}the Iraq Survey Group{{Snd}}we had a couple of them that had been turned into these IEDs, the improvised explosive devices. But they are local hazards. They are not a major, you know, weapon of mass destruction.<ref>Interview with Charles Duelfer, "[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5504298 Iraq WMD Find Did Not Point to Ongoing Program] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181216074501/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5504298 |date=2018-12-16 }}", NPR ''Talk of the Nation''. 22 June 2006.</ref>}}

The degraded chemical weapons were first discovered in May 2004, when a binary sarin nerve gas shell was used in an [[improvised explosive device]] (roadside bomb) in Iraq. The device exploded before it could be disarmed, and two soldiers displayed symptoms of minor sarin exposure. The 155&nbsp;mm shell was unmarked and rigged as if it were a normal high-explosive shell, indicating that the insurgents who placed the device did not know it contained nerve gas. Earlier in the month, a shell containing mustard gas was found abandoned in the median of a road in Baghdad.<ref name=sarin_ied_foxnews>{{cite news|title=Tests Confirm Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell|url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/tests-confirm-sarin-in-iraqi-artillery-shell|publisher=Fox News|date=2004-05-19|first=Liza|last=Porteus|access-date=2006-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060814033202/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html|archive-date=2006-08-14|url-status=live}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=September 2021}}<ref name=sarin_ied_cbs>{{cite news|title=Iraq Sarin Find Worries U.S.|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-sarin-find-worries-us/|publisher=CBS News|date=2004-05-14|access-date=2006-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071224055339/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/06/iraq/main627580.shtml|archive-date=2007-12-24|url-status=live}}</ref>

In July 2004, Polish troops discovered insurgents trying to purchase [[cyclosarin]] in gas warheads produced during the [[Iran–Iraq War]]. Cyclosarin is an extremely toxic substance which is an [[organophosphate]] [[nerve agent]] like its predecessor, [[sarin]]. To thwart these insurgents, Polish troops purchased two rockets on 23 June 2004. The US military later determined that the two rockets had only traces of sarin, small and deteriorated and virtually harmless, with "limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces".<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3861197.stm "Troops 'foil Iraq nerve gas bid"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051221165516/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3861197.stm |date=2005-12-21 }}. BBC News, 2 July 2004. Retrieved on 22 May 2007.</ref>

=== 'Dodgy dossier' ===
{{main|Dodgy Dossier}}

The [[Dodgy Dossier|'Dodgy Dossier']] was an article written by [[Ibrahim al-Marashi]] which was [[Plagiarism|plagiarized]] by the British government in a 2003 briefing document entitled ''Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/bbc-man-says-campbell-sexed-up-up-iraq-dossier-1.492730|title=BBC man says Campbell 'sexed up' up Iraq dossier|newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/aug/12/bbc.iraqdossier|title = Kelly 'said government sexed up Iraq dossier'|website = [[TheGuardian.com]]|date = 12 August 2003}}</ref> This document was a follow-up to the earlier [[September Dossier]], both of which concerned [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction]] and were ultimately used by the government to justify its involvement in the [[2003 Invasion of Iraq]]. Large portions of al-Marashi's paper were quoted verbatim by the [[United States Secretary of State]] [[Colin Powell]] to the UN General Assembly. The most frequently quoted section was the allegation that Saddam had WMDs that could be launched within 45 minutes.

The material plagiarized from Marashi's work and copied nearly verbatim into the "Dodgy Dossier" was six paragraphs from his article ''Iraq's Security & Intelligence Network: A Guide & Analysis'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html|title=Iraqi Security and Intelligence |date=2008-01-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080110202006/http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html|access-date=2019-03-27|archive-date=2008-01-10}}</ref> which was published in the September 2002 issue<ref>{{Cite web|date=2006-02-21|title=Vol. 6 No. 2 – June 2002|url=http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jvol6no3in.html|access-date=2021-07-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060221003244/http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jvol6no3in.html|archive-date=21 February 2006}}</ref><!-- Please fill out reference details based on original website data rather than archive.org data generated from Visual Editor automatic citation generator --> of the ''Middle East Review of International Affairs'' (or MERIA). [[Tony Blair]]'s office ultimately apologized to Marashi for its actions, but not to the MERIA journal.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chilcot-report-author-of-dodgy-dossier-accuses-uk-of-systematic-failure-a7123136.html|title=Student whose thesis became Blair's 'dodgy dossier' accuses UK of systematic failure|date=2016-07-06|website=The Independent|language=en|access-date=2019-03-27}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://meria.idc.ac.il/british-govt-plagiarizes-meria.html|title=British Government Plagiarizes MERIA Journal|date=2005-10-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051023050337/http://meria.idc.ac.il/british-govt-plagiarizes-meria.html|access-date=2019-03-27|archive-date=2005-10-23}}</ref>

===Conclusions===
{{quote box
|align=right
|width=33%
| quote = The bad news, therefore, is that the UN proved unequal to the task of preventing a rogue regime from stealing some of its own money. The good news is that this same UN machinery proved equal to the task of preventing that same regime from fielding WMD, developing nuclear weapons and reconstituting a military threat to its neighbors. Most observers would conclude that the UN, however inadequate its financial oversight, certainly got its priorities right.

The UN sanctions regime against Iraq, including the Oil for Food program is worth close scrutiny not because it was a scandal, although scandal there was, but because taken as a whole, it is the most successful use of international sanctions on record. Documenting the why and wherefores of that success is as important as correcting the shortfalls that allowed a rogue regime, in connivance with unscrupulous international businessmen, to siphon funds from UN-administered Iraqi accounts.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Dobbins|first1=James|title=A Comparative Evaluation of United Nations Peacekeeping|date=11 June 2007 |url=https://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT284.html|publisher=RAND Corp.|access-date=12 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212223606/http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT284.html|archive-date=12 February 2015|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>
|source=–Testimony on ''A Comparative Evaluation of United Nations Peacekeeping'' by [[James Dobbins (diplomat)|James Dobbins]] presented before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2007
}}

The failure to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq caused considerable controversy, particularly in the United States. US President [[George W. Bush]] and [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]] [[Tony Blair]] defended their decision to go to war, alleging that many nations, even those opposed to war, believed that the Saddam Hussein government was actively developing weapons of mass destruction.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

Critics such as [[Democratic National Committee]] Chairman [[Howard Dean]] charged that the Bush and Blair administrations deliberately falsified evidence to build a case for war.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Baker|first1=Russ|title=The Big Lie|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/big-lie/|publisher=The Nation|access-date=2016-06-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812192118/https://www.thenation.com/article/big-lie/|archive-date=2016-08-12|url-status=live}}</ref> Critics claims were supported by the fact that the Bush administration's preferred outside analysis with intelligence provided by [[Ahmed Chalabi|Ahmed Chalabi's]] [[Iraqi National Congress]] was largely proven to be false and that Chalabi was subsequently denounced as a fabricator.<ref name="prairieweather.typepad.com">{{cite web |title=The Scribe |url=http://prairieweather.typepad.com/the_scribe/2006/09/9706_npr_michae.html |access-date=3 November 2015 |work=typepad.com}}</ref><ref name="Independent20151103">{{cite web |last1=Salaheddin |first1=Sinan |date=3 November 2015 |title=Ahmed Chalabi: Politician who furnished Bush and Blair with the false information that led to the allied invasion of Iraq |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ahmed-chalabi-politician-who-furnished-bush-and-blair-with-the-false-information-that-led-to-the-a6720136.html |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151120031542/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ahmed-chalabi-politician-who-furnished-bush-and-blair-with-the-false-information-that-led-to-the-a6720136.html |archive-date=2015-11-20 |access-date=12 October 2017 |website=www.independent.co.uk}}</ref> Criticisms were further strengthened with the 2005 release of the so-called [[Downing Street memo]], written in July 2002, in which the former head of British Military Intelligence wrote that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein from power.<ref name="csmonitor.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0517/dailyUpdate.html|title=Why has 'Downing Street memo' story been a 'dud' in US?|work=[[Christian Science Monitor]]| access-date=2007-03-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070310182232/http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0517/dailyUpdate.html |archive-date=March 10, 2007}}</ref>

While the Downing Street memo and the [[Niger uranium forgeries|yellowcake uranium]] scandal lent credence to claims that intelligence was manipulated, two bipartisan investigations, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the other by a specially-appointed [[Iraq Intelligence Commission]] chaired by [[Charles Robb]] and [[Laurence Silberman]], found no evidence of political pressure applied to intelligence analysts.<ref name="factcheck.org">{{cite web|title=Iraq: What Did Congress Know, And When? |url=http://factcheck.org/iraq_what_did_congress_know_and_when.html |website=FactCheck.org |publisher=Annenberg Public Policy Center |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303104521/http://factcheck.org/iraq_what_did_congress_know_and_when.html |archive-date=March 3, 2009 }}</ref> An independent assessment by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that Bush administration officials did misuse intelligence in their public communications. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney's September 2002 statement on ''[[Meet the Press]]'' that "we do know, with absolute certainty, that he (Saddam) is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon", was inconsistent with the views of the intelligence community at the time.<ref name="factcheck.org" />

A study co-authored by the [[Center for Public Integrity]] found that in the two years after [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001]], the president and top administration officials had made 935 false statements, in an orchestrated public relations campaign to galvanize public opinion for the war, and that the press was largely complicit in its uncritical coverage of the reasons adduced for going to war.<ref>[[Center for Public Integrity]], January 23, 2008 [http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=home&context=overview&id=945 Iraq: The War Card] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080127142002/http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=home&context=overview&id=945 |date=2008-01-27 }}</ref><ref>Associated Press, January 23, 2008 [https://web.archive.org/web/20220527224230/http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MISINFORMATION_STUDY?SITE=MITRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Study: Bush Led U.S. To War on 'False Pretenses']</ref> PBS commentator [[Bill Moyers]] had made similar points throughout the lead-up to the Iraq War, and prior to a national press conference on the Iraq War<ref name=pressconference20030306>{{cite web|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html|title=President George Bush Discusses Iraq in National Press Conference|publisher=White House|access-date=2017-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708202824/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html|archive-date=2011-07-08|url-status=live}}</ref> Moyers correctly predicted "at least a dozen times during this press conference he [the President] will invoke 9/11 and al-Qaeda to justify a preemptive attack on a country that has not attacked America. But the White House press corps will ask no hard questions tonight about those claims."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/bill_moyers_on_the_record.html|title=Bill Moyers: On the record|publisher=PBS (The Moyers Blog)|author=Bill Moyers|access-date=2017-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912234414/http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/bill_moyers_on_the_record.html|archive-date=2017-09-12|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="moyers">{{cite news|title=Buying the war|publisher=Public Broadcasting System|author=Bill Moyers|date=April 25, 2007|url=https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html|access-date=September 10, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171001004459/http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html|archive-date=October 1, 2017|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Moyers later also denounced the complicity of the press in the administration's campaign for the war, saying that the media "surrendered its independence and skepticism to join with [the US] government in marching to war", and that the administration "needed a compliant press, to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on".<ref name="moyers" />

Many in the US intelligence community expressed sincere regret over the flawed predictions about Iraqi weapons programs.  Testifying before Congress in January 2004, [[David Kay]], the original director of the [[Iraq Survey Group]], said unequivocally that "It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/|title= Transcript: David Kay at Senate hearing – Jan. 28, 2004|website=www.cnn.com|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181004223153/http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/|archive-date=4 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>  He later added in an interview that the intelligence community owed the President an apology.<ref>
Comments on intelligence failure:
* [http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/ Kay: No evidence Iraq stockpiled WMDs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060204214736/http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/ |date=2006-02-04 }}
* {{cite news|title=Bush takes responsibility for invasion intelligence|url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html|publisher=CNN|date=2005-12-14|access-date=2006-02-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211222322/http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html|archive-date=2006-02-11|url-status=live}}
* {{cite news|title=Transcript of Bush speech|url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.transcript/index.html|publisher=CNN|date=2005-12-14|access-date=2006-02-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060217113851/http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.transcript/index.html|archive-date=2006-02-17|url-status=live}}
* {{cite news|title=No evidence Iraq stockpiled WMDs|url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/|date=2004-01-26|publisher=CNN|access-date=May 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805113212/http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/|archive-date=August 5, 2010|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}
* {{cite news|title=White House knew there were no WMD: CIA|work=Sydney Morning Herald|date=2006-04-22|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/white-house-knew-there-were-no-wmd-cia/2006/04/22/1145344306427.html|access-date=2006-06-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060602045602/http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/white-house-knew-there-were-no-wmd-cia/2006/04/22/1145344306427.html|archive-date=2006-06-02|url-status=live}}
</ref>

In the aftermath of the invasion, much attention was also paid to the role of the press in promoting government claims concerning weapons of mass destruction production in Iraq. Between 1998 and 2003, ''[[The New York Times]]'' and other influential US newspapers published numerous articles about suspected Iraqi rearmament programs with headlines like "Iraqi Work Toward A-Bomb Reported" and "Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort". It later turned out that many of the sources for these articles were unreliable, and that some were tied to [[Ahmed Chalabi]].<ref name="kagan_column">{{cite news|author=Kagan, Robert|title=It Wasn't Just Miller's Story|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401405.html|date=2005-10-25|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=2017-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170512023942/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401405.html|archive-date=2017-05-12|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=The New York Times' role in promoting war on Iraq|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/23/1079939624187.html|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=2004-03-23|access-date=2006-09-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628091807/http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/23/1079939624187.html|archive-date=2006-06-28|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Source of the Trouble|url=http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index.html|work=New York Magazine|access-date=2006-09-08|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627012329/http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index.html|archive-date=2006-06-27}}</ref>

Some controversy also exists regarding whether the invasion increased or decreased the potential for nuclear proliferation. For example, hundreds of tons of dual-use high explosives that could be used to detonate fissile material in a nuclear weapon were sealed by the IAEA at the [[Al Qa'qaa]] site in January 2003. Immediately before the invasion, UN Inspectors had checked the locked bunker doors, but not the actual contents; the bunkers also had large ventilation shafts that were not sealed. By October, the material was no longer present. The IAEA expressed concerns that the material might have been looted after the invasion, posing a nuclear proliferation threat. The US released satellite photographs from March 17, showing trucks at the site large enough to remove substantial amounts of material before US forces reached the area in April. Ultimately, Major Austin Pearson of Task Force Bullet, a task force charged with securing and destroying Iraqi ammunition after the invasion, stated that the task force had removed about 250 tons of material from the site and had detonated it or used it to detonate other munitions. Similar concerns were raised about other dual use materials, such as high strength aluminum; before the invasion, the US cited them as evidence for an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, while the IAEA was satisfied that they were being used for permitted industrial uses; after the war, the IAEA emphasized the proliferation concern, while the Duelfer report mentioned the material's use as scrap. Possible chemical weapons laboratories have also been found which were built subsequent to the 2003 invasion, apparently by insurgent forces.<ref>
{{cite news |title=Missing Iraqi nuke equipment worries IAEA |url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/12/iraq.nuclear/index.html |publisher=CNN |date=2004-10-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060513101049/http://www2.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/12/iraq.nuclear/index.html |archive-date=May 13, 2006 }}
*{{cite news|title=U.S. Team Took 250 Tons of Iraqi Munitions|url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137017,00.html|publisher=Fox News|date=2004-10-30|access-date=2006-01-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130126074114/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137017,00.html|archive-date=2013-01-26|url-status=dead}}
*[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170223203729/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html |date=2017-02-23 }}
</ref>

On 2 August 2004, President Bush stated "Knowing what I know today we still would have gone on into Iraq.{{Nbsp}}... The decision I made is the right decision. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."<ref>{{cite web|title=President's Remarks on Intelligence Reform|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040802-2.html|access-date=2006-09-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100506180218/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040802-2.html|archive-date=2010-05-06|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Allegations of Iraqi sponsorship of terrorism==
{{Main|Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|War on terror|Iraq War and the war on terror}}
{{Further|Mohamed Atta's alleged Prague connection|2001 anthrax attacks#Al-Qaeda and Iraq blamed for attacks|Wood Green ricin plot}}
Along with Iraq's alleged development of weapons of mass destruction, another justification for invasion was the purported link between Saddam Hussein's government and terrorist organizations, in particular al-Qaeda.<ref name="powell_presentation">{{Cite web|last=Powell|first=Colin|date=February 5, 2003|title=U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110312114527/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html|archive-date=March 12, 2011|access-date=2006-05-25|publisher=Whitehouse.gov|df=mdy-all}}</ref> In that sense, the Bush administration cast the Iraq war as part of the broader [[War on Terrorism]]. U.S President [[George W. Bush]] regularly described the Iraq War as the "central front in the war on terror".<ref>{{cite web |title=President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror |url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050628-7.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170711145020/https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050628-7.html |archive-date=11 July 2017 |access-date=4 October 2018 |website=georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov |df=dmy-all}}</ref> In a press conference held on 6 March 2003, Bush argued:<blockquote>"Iraq is a part of the [[war on terror]]. Iraq is a country that has got terrorist ties, it's a country with wealth, it's a country that trains terrorists, a country that could arm terrorists. And our fellow Americans must understand, in this new war against terror, that we not only must chase down al Qaeda terrorists, we must deal with [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] as well."<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 March 2003 |title=Transcript of Bush news conference on Iraq |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/06/bush.speech.transcript/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031004142337/https://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/06/bush.speech.transcript/index.html |archive-date=4 October 2003 |work=CNN}}</ref></blockquote>On 11 February 2003, [[FBI]] Director [[Robert Mueller]] testified to Congress that "seven countries designated as [[State Sponsors of Terrorism]]{{Snd}}Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea{{Snd}}remain active in the US and continue to support terrorist groups that have targeted Americans".<ref name="fbi" /><ref name="cnn" />

In October 2002, according to [[Pew Research Center]], 66% of Americans believed that "Saddam Hussein helped the terrorists in the September 11th attacks"; and 21% said he was not involved in 9/11.<ref>{{cite news |title=A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/ |work=Pew Research Center |date=March 14, 2023}}</ref> A poll published by ''[[The Washington Post]]'' in September 2003 estimated that nearly seven-tenths of Americans continued to the hold the perception that [[Ba'athist Iraq]] had a role in the [[September 11 attacks]]. The poll further revealed that approximately 80% of Americans suspected Saddam Hussein of providing [[Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|material support to al-Qaeda]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Milbank, Deane |first=Dana, Claudia |date=5 September 2003 |title=Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/09/06/hussein-link-to-911-lingers-in-many-minds/7cd31079-21d1-42cf-8651-b67e93350fde/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170519174502/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/09/06/hussein-link-to-911-lingers-in-many-minds/7cd31079-21d1-42cf-8651-b67e93350fde/ |archive-date=19 May 2017 |work=The Washington Post}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=7 September 2003 |title=US public thinks Saddam had role in 9/11 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/07/usa.theobserver |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170321084658/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/07/usa.theobserver |archive-date=21 March 2017 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>

===Al-Qaeda===
The U.S. government alleged that a highly secretive relationship existed between Saddam and [[al-Qaeda]] from 1992, specifically through a series of meetings reportedly involving the [[Iraqi Intelligence Service]] (IIS).

The U.S. claimed that in April 2001, lead 9/11 hijacker [[Mohamed Atta]] met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in [[Prague]], [[Czech Republic]]. In an interview with [[NBC]]'s ''[[Meet the Press]]'' on December 9, 2001, Vice President [[Dick Cheney]] said:<blockquote>It's been pretty well confirmed that (Atta) did go to Prague, and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in (the Czech Republic) last April, several months before the attack.<ref name="Meet the Press">{{cite press release |title=The Vice President Appears on NBC's Meet the Press |date=2001-12-09 |publisher=The White House |url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/print/vp20011209.html |work=White House news release}}</ref></blockquote>Cheney repeated these allegations in 2002 and 2003.<ref name="Frontline: The Dark Side,"/>

The U.S. also claimed that Saddam Hussein was harboring Jordanian terrorist [[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi]], whom U.S. Secretary of State Powell called a "collaborator of [[Osama bin Laden]]".<ref name="powell_presentation" /> During his February 2003 presentation in the UN Security Council, Powell claimed:

{{Blockquote|text="... the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq...

Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization [[Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan|Ansar al-Islam]] that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. ...

Going back to the early and mid-1990s when bin Laden was based in Sudan, ... Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that al-Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early al-Qaida ties were forged by secret high-level intelligence service contacts with al-Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al-Qaida. ...

Saddam was also impressed by [[USS Cole bombing|al-Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole]] in Yemen in October 2000.

Iraqis continue to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to al-Qaida members on document forgery.

From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the al-Qaida organization."|source=|title=}}

Powell further claimed that al-Qaeda sought WMD from the Iraqis, noting:

{{Blockquote|text="Al-Qaida continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida. Fortunately, this operative is now detained and he has told his story.

... The support that this detainee describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abdallah al-Iraqi had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gasses. Abdallah al-Iraqi characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful."}}

===Other terrorist organizations===
In making its case for the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration also referenced Saddam Hussein's relationships with terrorist organizations other than al-Qaeda. Saddam Hussein provided financial assistance to the families of Palestinians killed in the conflict{{Snd}}including as much as $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers, some of whom were working with militant organizations in the Middle East such as [[Hamas]].<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2846365.stm Palestinians get Saddam funds] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106234046/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2846365.stm|date=2009-01-06}}, BBC News. March 13, 2003.</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Saddam Hussein's Support for International Terrorism|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect5.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Western signs of support for Iranian dissident group will only deepen the divide with Tehran|author=Sam Khanlari|publisher=[[CBC News]]|date=2018-07-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Conor Friedersdorf|title=Is One Man's Terrorist Another Man's Freedom Fighter?
|date=16 May 2012
|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/is-one-mans-terrorist-another-mans-freedom-fighter/257245/|publisher=[[The Atlantic]]}}</ref> In his [[Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council|presentation to the UN Security Council]] on 5 February 2003, Colin Powell claimed:

{{Blockquote|text="... the record of Saddam Hussein's cooperation with other Islamist terrorist organizations is clear. [[Hamas]], for example, opened an office in [[Baghdad]] in 1999 and Iraq has hosted conferences attended by [[Palestine Islamic Jihad]]. These groups are at the forefront of sponsoring suicide attacks against Israel."}}

Following the [[1993 World Trade Center bombing]], Iraqi-American suspect [[Abdul Rahman Yasin]] fled to Iraq after being initially detained by the FBI. Shortly after, the FBI discovered evidence linking him to the bomb. It was alleged that Yasin's involvement signified Iraqi involvement in the bombings.<ref name="usatoday.com">{{cite web|title=USATODAY.com - U.S.: Iraq sheltered suspect in '93 WTC attack|url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-17-iraq-wtc_x.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716181115/http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-17-iraq-wtc_x.htm|archive-date=16 July 2012|access-date=4 October 2018|website=www.usatoday.com|df=dmy-all}}</ref> This allegation was popularized by Dr. [[Laurie Mylroie]] of the [[American Enterprise Institute]] and former associate professor of the [[U.S. Naval War College]]. Mylorie developed a connection with fellow neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, who also subscribed to that view.

Yasin is on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list, and is still at large.<ref name="Most Wanted Terrorists">[https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/fugitives.htm Most Wanted Terrorists] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611015453/http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/fugitives.htm|date=2008-06-11}}</ref>

=== Conclusions ===
Evidence of ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda was discredited by multiple US intelligence agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Department's Inspector General's Office even prior to the 2003 invasion. A 21 September 2001 [[President's Daily Brief]] (prepared at Bush's request) indicated that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks and there was "scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." The PDB wrote off the few contacts that existed between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda as attempts to monitor the group, not work with it.<ref name="waas2"/> The CIA also expressed skepticism about the alleged meeting between Atta and Iraqi intelligence.<ref>Ron Suskind, ''The One Percent Doctrine'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006) p. 23.</ref> A CIA report in early October 2004 "found no clear evidence of Iraq harboring Abu Musab al-Zarqawi".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Borger |first1=Julian |date=October 7, 2004 |title=There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160716124645/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1 |archive-date=July 16, 2016 |access-date=June 28, 2016 |work=The Guardian |df=mdy-all}}</ref> More broadly, the CIA's Kerr Group summarized in 2004 that despite "a 'purposely aggressive approach' in conducting exhaustive and repetitive searches for such links{{Nbsp}}... [the US] Intelligence Community remained firm in its assessment that no operational or collaborative relationship existed".<ref>{{cite web |title=Kerr Report |url=http://irrationallyinformed.com//pdfcollection/20040729_Kerr_Report.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070616093452/http://irrationallyinformed.com//pdfcollection/20040729_Kerr_Report.pdf |archive-date=2007-06-16 |access-date=2006-01-30 |website=Irrationally Informed}}</ref> Documents recovered from Iraq confirmed that no relationship ever existed between al-Qaeda and Iraq.<ref>{{cite web |author=Woods, Kevin M. and James Lacey |date=November 2007 |title=Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents – Executive Summary; Volume 1 |url=https://fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/v1.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081031075111/https://fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/v1.pdf |archive-date=October 31, 2008 |access-date=October 26, 2008 |publisher=Institute for Defense Analysis / Federation of American Scientists |pages=16, 18, 51}}</ref>

Allegations of Iraqi involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was also discredited. Neil Herman, who headed the FBI investigation into the bombings noted that Yasin's presence in Baghdad does not mean Iraq sponsored the attack: "We looked at that rather extensively. There were no ties to the Iraqi government." CNN terrorism reporter Peter L. Bergen writes, "In sum, by the mid-'90s, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the F.B.I., the U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, the C.I.A., the N.S.C., and the State Department had all found no evidence implicating the Iraqi government in the first Trade Center attack."<ref name="armchair2">{{cite news |author=Bergen, Peter |date=December 2003 |title=Armchair Provocateur |url=http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.bergen.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081101154056/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.bergen.html |archive-date=November 1, 2008 |access-date=October 26, 2008 |work=Washington Monthly}}</ref> Bergen later stated that Mylorie was a "crackpot" who claimed that "Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the [[1998 United States embassy bombings|bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania]] to the [[Oklahoma City bombing|leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City bombing]] to September 11 itself."<ref name="armchair2"/> Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]], writes: "The most knowledgeable analysts and investigators at the CIA and at the FBI believe that their work conclusively disproves Mylroie's claims."<ref>{{cite book |author=Benjamin, Daniel and Steven Simon |url=https://archive.org/details/nextattackfailur00benj/page/145 |title=The Next Attack |publisher=Times Books |year=2005 |isbn=0-8050-7941-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nextattackfailur00benj/page/145 145]}}</ref>

Despite these findings, the Bush administration continued to assert that a link existed between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which drew substantial criticism from members of the intelligence community and leading Democrats when it turned out no connection ever existed.<ref>{{cite news |date=April 6, 2007 |title=Cheney asserts Iraq-al Qaeda link |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6533367.stm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607071307/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6533367.stm |archive-date=June 7, 2007 |access-date=May 16, 2007 |publisher=BBC News |df=mdy-all}}</ref> At the time of the invasion, the State Department listed 45 countries, including the United States, where al-Qaeda was active. Iraq was not one of them.<ref>{{cite web |title=Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda |url=http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/12.htm |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030403220403/http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/12.htm |archive-date=April 3, 2003 |access-date=2007-08-08}}</ref> The information that alleged a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda was supplied by [[Ahmed Chalabi|Ahmed Chalabi's]] [[Iraqi National Congress]]. Outside analysis with INC intelligence was preferred by Vice President [[Dick Cheney]], Defense Secretary [[Donald Rumsfeld]], and fellow neoconservatives as they had skepticism towards the CIA's interpreting of intelligence.<ref name="Frontline: The Dark Side,"/> Most of the information supplied by the INC proved to be false, and Chalabi was subsequently denounced as a fabricator.<ref name="prairieweather.typepad.com" /><ref name="Independent20151103" />

Furthermore, an April 2007 report by Acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, found that the Defense Department's [[Office of Special Plans]]{{Snd}}run by then-Undersecretary of Defense [[Douglas J. Feith]], a close ally of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld{{Snd}}purposely manipulated evidence to further strengthen the case for war.<ref name="Smith, Jeffrey R. 2007" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Landay |first1=Jonathan |last2=Wells |first2=Tish |title=Global Misinformation Campaign was Used to Build Case for War |url=http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0316-02.htm |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060322021527/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0316-02.htm |archive-date=March 22, 2006 |website=Common Dreams}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=McCollam |first1=Douglas |title=How Chalabi Played the Press |url=http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040715003628/http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp |archive-date=July 15, 2004 |publisher=Columbia Journalism Review}}</ref> These claims were supported by the July 2005 release of the so-called [[Downing Street memo]], in which [[Richard Dearlove]] (then head of British foreign intelligence service [[MI6]]) wrote that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed [by the US] around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein from power.<ref name="csmonitor.com" /> 
A study published in 2005 by American political scientists Amy Gershkoff and [[Shana Kushner Gadarian]], which analyzed George Bush's speeches and polling data between September 2001 and May 2003, found that it was the American public's views about Saddam Hussein's perceived connections with al-Qaeda and the [[September 11 attacks]] that became the major catalyst behind the rise in support of the [[2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq]] among Americans.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gershkoff, Kushner |first=Amy, Shana |date=September 2005 |title=Shaping Public Opinion: The 9/11-Iraq Connection in the Bush Administration's Rhetoric |journal=Perspectives on Politics |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=525–537 |doi=10.1017/S1537592705050334}}</ref> According to the findings of the study:<blockquote>"2003 war in Iraq received high levels of public support because the [[Presidency of George W. Bush|Bush administration]] successfully framed the conflict as an extension of the [[war on terror]], which was a response to the September 11, 2001, attack on the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] and the Pentagon. Our analysis of Bush's speeches reveals that the administration consistently connected Iraq with 9/11. ''[[New York Times]]'' coverage of the president's speeches featured almost no debate over the framing of the Iraq conflict as part of the war on terror. This assertion had tremendous influence on public attitudes, as indicated by polling data from several sources."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gershkoff, Kushner |first=Amy, Shana |date=September 2005 |title=Shaping Public Opinion: The 9/11-Iraq Connection in the Bush Administration's Rhetoric |journal=Perspectives on Politics |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=525 |doi=10.1017/S1537592705050334}}</ref></blockquote>Intelligence experts argued that the Iraq War increased terrorism, even though no acts of terrorism occurred in the US. London's conservative [[International Institute for Strategic Studies]] concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for jihadists and that the invasion "galvanized" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} Counter-terrorism expert [[Rohan Gunaratna]] called the invasion of Iraq a "fatal mistake" that greatly increased terrorism in the Middle East.<ref>Rohan Gunaratna, "The Post-Madrid Face of Al Qaeda," ''Washington Quarterly'' 27:3 (Summer 2004) p. 98.</ref> The US [[National Intelligence Council]] concluded in a January 2005 report that the war in Iraq had encouraged a new generation of terrorists; David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills{{Nbsp}}... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." The Council's Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity."<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html | newspaper=The Washington Post | title=Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground | first=Dana | last=Priest | date=January 14, 2005 | access-date=May 22, 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110224030135/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html | archive-date=February 24, 2011 | url-status=live | df=mdy-all }}</ref> And the 2006 [[National Intelligence Estimate]] outlined the considered judgment of all 16 US intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2006-10-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060930220648/http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-30 }}</ref>

Al-Qaeda leaders also publicly cited the Iraq War as a boon to their recruiting and operational efforts, providing both evidence to jihadists worldwide that America is at war with Islam, and the training ground for a new generation of jihadists to practice attacks on American forces. In October 2003, Osama bin Laden announced: "Be glad of the good news: America is mired in the swamps of the Tigris and Euphrates. Bush is, through Iraq and its oil, easy prey. Here is he now, thank God, in an embarrassing situation and here is America today being ruined before the eyes of the whole world."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ACB47241-D25F-46CB-B673-56FAB1C2837F.htm |title=Aljazeera.Net - Message to Iraqis October 2003 |access-date=2006-11-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061008124315/http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ACB47241-D25F-46CB-B673-56FAB1C2837F.htm |archive-date=2006-10-08 }}</ref> Echoing this sentiment, al-Qaeda commander [[Saif al-Adel|Saif al-Adl]] gloated about the war in Iraq, indicating, "The Americans took the bait and fell into our trap."<ref>{{Cite web |last=fpifadmin |date=2005-10-27 |title=Planting the Seeds of Al-Qaidas Second Generation - FPIF |url=https://fpif.org/planting_the_seeds_of_al-qaidas_second_generation/ |access-date=2025-03-13 |website=Foreign Policy In Focus |language=en-US}}</ref> A letter thought to be from al-Qaeda leader [[Atiyah Abd al-Rahman]] found in Iraq among the rubble where al-Zarqawi was killed and released by the US military in October 2006, indicated that al-Qaeda perceived the war as beneficial to its goals: {{blockquote|"The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness{{Nbsp}}... indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1006/p01s04-woiq.html|title=How Al Qaeda views a long Iraq war|date=6 October 2006|access-date=4 October 2018|journal=Christian Science Monitor|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031017/https://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1006/p01s04-woiq.html|archive-date=5 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>}}

==Human rights==
{{Multiple image
| direction = vertical
| align = right
| image1 = 
| image2 = 
| width = 220
| caption2 = Aftermath of Saddam Hussein's [[Halabja poison gas attack|Use of chemical weapons at Halabja]]
}}The US cited the United Nations condemnation of Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses as one of several reasons for the Iraq invasion.

As evidence supporting US and British claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction weakened, the Bush administration began to focus more upon the other issues that Congress had articulated within the [[Iraq Resolution]], such as [[Human rights in Saddam's Iraq|human rights violations of the Saddam Hussein government]] as justification for military intervention.<ref>[http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-07/30/article04.shtml Senators Slam Shifting Iraq War Justification.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926225839/http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-07/30/article04.shtml|date=2007-09-26}} Islamonline. July 30, 2003.</ref> The Saddam Hussein government consistently and violently violated the human rights of its people is in little doubt.<ref>[http://web.amnesty.org/pages/irq-index-eng "Decades of human rights abuses in Iraq"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070509062152/http://web.amnesty.org/pages/irq-index-eng|date=2007-05-09}}. Amnesty International, retrieved on May 16, 2007.</ref> During his more than two decades of rule, Saddam Hussein tortured and killed thousands of Iraqi citizens, including [[Halabja poison gas attack|gassing]] [[Al-Anfal Campaign|and killing thousands of Kurds]] in northern Iraq during the mid-1980s, brutally repressing Shia and Kurdish uprisings following the 1991 Gulf War, and a fifteen-year campaign of repression and displacement of the [[Marsh Arabs]] in Southern Iraq. In the 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush mentioned Saddam's government practices of obtaining confessions by torturing children while their parents are made to watch, electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.<ref>{{cite web|last=Borger|first=Julian|date=31 December 2002|title=Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/31/iraq.politics|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005072130/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/31/iraq.politics|archive-date=5 October 2018|access-date=4 October 2018|website=the Guardian|df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=MSN - Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos|url=http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3294143|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160114162053/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3294143/|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 January 2016|access-date=4 October 2018|website=NBC News|df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/Iraq926.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100615171955/http://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/Iraq926.htm|archive-date=15 June 2010|access-date=4 October 2018|df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite press release|url=https://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/iraq012503.htm|title=Iraq: Devastation of Marsh Arabs|publisher=Human Rights Watch|location=New York|date=January 25, 2003|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140421083101/http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/iraq012503.htm|archive-date=21 April 2014|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Many critics have argued, despite its repeated mention in the Joint Resolution, that human rights was never a principal justification for the war, and that it became prominent only after evidence concerning weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism became discredited. For example, during a July 29, 2003, hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spent the majority of his testimony discussing Saddam Hussein's human rights record, causing Senator [[Lincoln Chafee]] (R-RI) to complain that "in the months leading up to the war it was a steady drum beat of weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction. And, Secretary Wolfowitz, in your almost hour-long testimony here this morning, once{{Snd}}only once did you mention weapons of mass destruction, and that was an ad lib."<ref name="defenselink.mil">{{cite web|title=Testimony as Delivered by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Director, Office of Management and Budget, Joshua Bolten, and Acting Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, Gene, Tuesday, July 29, 2003|url=http://www.defenselink.mil/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=494|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061023141653/http://www.defenselink.mil/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=494|archive-date=October 23, 2006|website=Defenselink|publisher=US Department of Defense}}</ref>

Leading human rights groups such as [[Human Rights Watch]] and [[Amnesty International]] further argued that even in the case that human rights concerns been a central rationale for the invasion, military intervention would not have been justifiable on humanitarian grounds. [[Kenneth Roth|Ken Roth]] Executive Director of Human Rights Watch wrote in 2004, despite Saddam Hussein's horrific human rights record, "the killing in Iraq at the time was not of the exceptional nature that would justify such intervention".<ref>Roth, Ken. [http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm "War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404145739/http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm|date=2007-04-04}} Human Rights Watch. January 2004. Retrieved April 6, 2007.</ref>

More broadly, war critics have argued that the US and Europe supported the Saddam Hussein regime during the 1980s, a period of some of his worst human rights abuses, thus casting doubt on the sincerity of claims that military intervention was for humanitarian purposes. The US and Europe provided considerable military and financial support during the Iran–Iraq war with full knowledge that the Saddam Hussein government was regularly using chemical weapons on Iranian soldiers and Kurdish insurgents. US aid was aimed primarily to prevent Iraqi defeat after 1983.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sciolino |first1=Elaine |title=The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis |date=1991 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9780471542995 |page=163}}</ref> Following along this line, critics of the use of human rights as a rationale, such as [[Columbia University]] Law Professor Michael Dorf, have pointed out that during his [[2000 United States presidential election|first campaign for president]] Bush was highly critical of using US military might for humanitarian ends.<ref>Dorf, Michael C. [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20040818.html "Kerry Stands by His Iraq War Vote"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071115014753/http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20040818.html|date=2007-11-15}}. ''FindLaw.com'', August 18, 2004. Retrieved on May 17, 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Yoram Dinstein|title=War, Aggression and Self-Defence|date=December 12, 2011|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|page=113}}</ref>

Others questioned why military intervention for humanitarian reasons would supposedly have been justified in Iraq but not in other countries with even worse human rights violations, such as [[Darfur]].<ref name="defenselink.mil" />

===United Nations===
By article 1 of the UN Charter, the [[United Nations]] has the responsibility: "To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion".<ref name="charter">[https://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ Charter of the United Nations] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090220011242/http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/|date=2009-02-20}}</ref> By UN Charter article 39, the responsibility for this determination lies with the [[Security Council]].<ref name=charter />{{Context inline|date=July 2021}}

===Ending sanctions===
{{Main|UN sanctions against Iraq}}
US Vice President [[Dick Cheney]], who called the sanctions "the most intrusive system of arms control in history",<ref>{{cite news|date=2002-08-27|title=EYES ON IRAQ; In Cheney's Words: The Administration Case for Removing Saddam Hussein|work=New York Times|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9505E3D9113CF934A1575BC0A9649C8B63|access-date=2009-05-30}}</ref> cited the breakdown of the sanctions as one rationale for the Iraq war.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Vice President and Mrs. Cheney's Remarks in Wilmington, Ohio|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041026-7.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927020309/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041026-7.html|archive-date=2011-09-27|access-date=2009-05-30|publisher=Georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov}}</ref> Accepting a controversial large estimate of casualties due to sanctions,<ref>{{cite news|last=Murray|first=Iain|date=2003-03-21|title=Recent Research Suggests ...|publisher=[[United Press International]]|url=http://mattwelch.com/Press/UPImead.htm|access-date=2009-07-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050319105007/http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030321-100212-7593r|archive-date=2005-03-19}}</ref> [[Walter Russell Mead]] argued on behalf of such a war as a better alternative than continuing the sanctions regime, since "Each year of containment is a new [[Gulf War]]."<ref>{{cite web|title=Deadlier Than War - Council on Foreign Relations|url=http://www.cfr.org/publication/5684/deadlier_than_war.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060720084444/http://www.cfr.org/publication/5684/deadlier_than_war.html|archive-date=2006-07-20|access-date=2009-06-29|publisher=Cfr.org}}</ref> However, economist [[Michael Spagat]] "argue[s] that the contention that sanctions had caused the deaths of more than half a million children is [as were [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] claims] very likely to be wrong".<ref name="Spagat">{{Cite web|last=Spagat|first=Michael|date=September 2010|title=Truth and death in Iraq under sanctions|url=http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Truth%20and%20Death.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227042643/http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Truth%20and%20Death.pdf|archive-date=2016-12-27|access-date=2010-07-17|work=[[Significance (journal)|Significance]]}}</ref>

==Oil==

===Statements indicating oil as a rationale===
Bush's [[United States Secretary of the Treasury|Treasury Secretary]] [[Paul O'Neill (Secretary of the Treasury)|Paul O'Neill]] said that Bush's first two [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] meetings discussed invading Iraq. He was given briefing materials entitled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq", which envisioned dividing up Iraq's oil wealth. A Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001, was titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts", and included a map of potential areas for exploration.<ref>{{cite news|last=Rebecca|first=Leung|title=Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq?|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-sought-way-to-invade-iraq/|access-date=22 March 2013|newspaper=60 Minutes|date=February 11, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130306165646/http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-592330.html|archive-date=6 March 2013|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

In July 2003, Polish foreign minister, [[Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz|Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz]], said "We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities." This remark came after a group of Polish firms had signed a deal with [[KBR (company)|Kellogg, Brown and Root]], a subsidiary of [[Halliburton]]. Cimoszewicz stated that access to Iraq's oilfields "is our ultimate objective".<ref name="Poland_seeks_Iraqi_oil">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3043330.stm "Poland seeks Iraqi oil stake"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091214015528/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3043330.stm |date=2009-12-14 }} ''BBC News''</ref>

One report by BBC journalist [[Gregory Palast]] citing unnamed "insiders" alleged that the US "called for the [[Coalition Provisional Authority#Privatization of Iraq.27s economy|sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields]]"<ref name="newsnight">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm|title=Secret US plans for Iraq's oil|date=17 March 2005|access-date=4 October 2018|via=news.bbc.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031046/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm|archive-date=5 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> and planned for a coup d'état in Iraq long before [[September 11 attacks|September 11]].<ref name="newsnight" /> Palast also wrote that the "new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the OPEC cartel through massive increases in production above OPEC quotas",<ref name="newsnight" /> but Iraq oil production decreased following the Iraq War.<ref>[http://www.metamute.org/en/Apocalypse-and-or-Business-as-Usual.-The-Energy-Debate-After-the-2004-US-Presidential-Elections Apocalypse and/or Business as Usual? The Energy Debate After the 2004 US Presidential Elections] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071105182922/http://www.metamute.org/en/Apocalypse-and-or-Business-as-Usual.-The-Energy-Debate-After-the-2004-US-Presidential-Elections |date=2007-11-05 }}</ref>

General [[John Abizaid]], [[United States Central Command|CENTCOM]] commander from 2003 to 2007, said of the Iraq war: "first of all I think it's really important to understand the dynamics that are going on in the Middle East, and of course it's about oil, it's very much about oil and we can't really deny that".<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/15/abizaid-of-course-its-abo_n_68568.html | work=Huffington Post | title=Abizaid: "Of Course It's About Oil, We Can't Really Deny That" | date=October 15, 2007 | first=Think | last=Progress | access-date=July 31, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140104171803/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/15/abizaid-of-course-its-abo_n_68568.html | archive-date=January 4, 2014 | url-status=live | df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{YouTube|id=9sd2JseupXQ&t=21m45s}}</ref>

2008 Republican Presidential Candidate [[John McCain]] was forced to clarify his comments suggesting the Iraq war involved US reliance on foreign oil. "My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East", McCain said. To clarify his comments, McCain explained that "the word 'again' was misconstrued; I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean."<ref>{{cite news|title=McCain Clarifies Comments Suggesting Iraq War Was Fought Over Foreign Oil |url=http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2008/05/02/mccain-says-100-years-in-iraq-ad-is-direct-falsification/ |agency=Associated Press |publisher=Fox News |date=May 2, 2008 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090423071542/http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2008/05/02/mccain-says-100-years-in-iraq-ad-is-direct-falsification/ |archive-date=April 23, 2009 }}</ref>

Many critics have focused upon administration officials' past relationships with energy corporations. Both George W. Bush and [[Dick Cheney]] were formerly CEOs of oil and oil-related companies such as [[Arbusto]], [[Harken Energy]], [[Spectrum 7]], and [[Halliburton]]. Before the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]] and even before the [[War on Terror]], the administration had prompted anxiety over whether the private sector ties of cabinet members (including [[National Security Advisor (United States)|National Security Advisor]] [[Condoleezza Rice]], former director of [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]], and [[United States Secretary of Commerce|Commerce Secretary]] [[Donald Evans]], former head of Tom Brown Inc.) would affect their judgment on [[energy policy]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1138009.stm|title=Analysis: Oil and the Bush cabinet|date=4 October 2018|access-date=4 October 2018|via=news.bbc.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031041/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1138009.stm|archive-date=5 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Prior to the war, the CIA saw Iraqi oil production and illicit oil sales as Iraq's key method of financing. The CIA's October 2002 unclassified white paper on "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs" states on page one under the "Key Judgments, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs" heading that "Iraq's growing ability to sell oil illicitly increases Baghdad's capabilities to finance weapons of mass destruction programs".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/nie_first+release.pdf|title=National Security Archive - 30+ Years of Freedom of Information Action|website=www.gwu.edu|access-date=4 October 2018}}</ref>

====Private oil business====
Iraq holds the world's fifth-largest [[List of countries by proven oil reserves#Countries|proven oil reserves]] at {{convert|141|Goilbbl|m3}},<ref name="eia.gov">{{cite web|url=http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=iz|title=International - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)|website=www.eia.gov|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509054707/http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=iz|archive-date=9 May 2015|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> with increasing exploration expected to enlarge them beyond {{convert|200|Goilbbl|m3}}.<ref name="globalpolicy">[http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm Global Policy Forum: Oil in Iraq] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070715050454/http://www.globalpolicy.org/security///oil/irqindx.htm |date=2007-07-15 }} retrieved 26 July 2007</ref> For comparison, Venezuela{{Snd}}the largest proven source of oil in the world{{Snd}}has {{convert|298|Goilbbl|m3}} of proven oil reserves.<ref name="eia.gov" />

Organizations such as the [[Global Policy Forum]] (GPF) asserted that Iraq's oil is "the central feature of the political landscape" there, and that as a result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, {{"'}}friendly' companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades". According to the GPF, US influence over the 2005 [[Constitution of Iraq]] has made sure it "contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies".<ref name="globalpolicy" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm#washington|title=Crude Designs|first=James Paul - Global Policy|last=Forum|website=www.globalpolicy.org|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008162924/https://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm#washington|archive-date=8 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

====Strategic importance of oil====
[[File:Oil Reserves.png|thumb|right|300px|A [[proven oil reserves]] map of the world (CIA{{Snd}}[[The World Factbook]], 2009)]]
Oil exerts tremendous economic and political influence worldwide, although the line between political and economic influence is not always distinct. The importance of oil to [[national security]] is unlike that of any other [[commodity]]:

{{blockquote|Modern warfare particularly depends on oil, because virtually all weapons systems rely on oil-based fuel{{Snd}}tanks, trucks, armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery pieces, airplanes, and naval ships. For this reason, the governments and general staff of powerful nations seek to ensure a steady supply of oil during wartime, to fuel oil-hungry military forces in far-flung operational theaters. Such governments view their companies' global interests as synonymous with the national interest and they readily support their companies' efforts to control new production sources, to overwhelm foreign rivals, and to gain the most favorable pipeline routes and other transportation and distribution channels.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm|title=Oil Companies in Iraq|first=James Paul - Global Policy|last=Forum|website=www.globalpolicy.org|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190112064659/https://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm|archive-date=12 January 2019|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>}}

Critics of the Iraq War contend that US officials and representatives from the private sector were planning just this kind of mutually supportive relationship as early as 2001, when the [[James Baker Institute|James Baker III Institute for Public Policy]] and the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] produced "Strategic Energy Policy: Challenges for the 21st Century", a report describing the long-term threat of energy crises such as blackouts and rising fuel prices then playing havoc with the state of California. The report recommended a comprehensive review of US military, energy, economic, and political policy toward Iraq "with the aim to lowering [[anti-Americanism]] in the Middle East and elsewhere, and set the groundwork to eventually ease Iraqi [[oil field|oil-field]] investment [[Iraq sanctions|restrictions]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3535.htm#3|title=STRATEGIC ENERGY POLICY CHALLENGES|website=www.informationclearinghouse.info|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170925142901/http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3535.htm#3|archive-date=25 September 2017|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> The report's urgent tone stood in contrast to the relatively calm speech [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]] CEO [[Kenneth T. Derr]] had given the [[Commonwealth Club of California]] two years earlier, before the [[California electricity crisis]], where he said, "It might surprise you to learn that even though Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas{{Snd}}reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to{{Snd}}I fully agree with the sanctions we have imposed on Iraq."<ref>[http://www.chevron.com/news/archive/chevron_speech/1998/98-11-05.asp "Engagement: A Better Alternative." Speech by Kenneth T. Derr to the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco, California, November 5, 1998] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070924053434/http://www.chevron.com/news/archive/chevron_speech/1998/98-11-05.asp |date=September 24, 2007 }}</ref>

====Oil and foreign relations====
Post-Iraq invasion opinion polls conducted in [[Jordan]], [[Morocco]], [[Pakistan]], and [[Turkey]] showed that the majority of each country's population tended to "doubt the sincerity of the [[War on Terrorism]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206|title=A Year After Iraq War - Pew Research Center|date=16 March 2004|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080306024203/http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206|archive-date=6 March 2008|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Although there has been disagreement about where the alleged will to control and dominate originates, skeptics of the War on Terror have pointed early<ref>[http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20091008055601/http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100102_bush_advisors.html "Bush Advisers Planned Iraq War Since 1990s." Joe Taglieri, ''From the Wilderness'', 2002]</ref> and often<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/books/14kaku.html?ex=1185595200&en=c85d7c9a765d6b61&ei=5070 |title="Supporter's Voice Now Turns on Bush." Michiko Kakutani reviews Francis Fukuyama, ''New York Times'', March 14, 2006 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=14 March 2006 |access-date=February 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160114162052/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/books/14kaku.html?ex=1185595200&en=c85d7c9a765d6b61&ei=5070 |archive-date=January 14, 2016 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all |last1=Kakutani |first1=Michiko }}</ref> to the [[Project for a New American Century]], a [[neoconservative]] [[think tank]] established in 1997 by [[William Kristol]] and [[Robert Kagan]]. The organization made plain its position on oil, territory, and the use of force in series of publications, including:
*a 1998 letter to President [[Bill Clinton]]:

{{blockquote|It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will all be put at hazard.{{Nbsp}}... The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near-term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.<ref name="newamericancentury.org">{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20080909200819/http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm "Letter to President Clinton on Iraq." PNAC, January 26, 1998]}}</ref>}}

*a September 2000 report on foreign policy:
{{blockquote|American forces, along with British and French units{{Nbsp}}... represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the [[Persian Gulf|Gulf]] transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070808162833/http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf "Rebuilding America's Defenses." PNAC, September 2000]}}</ref>}}

*a May 2001 call to "Liberate Iraq":
{{blockquote|Twice since 1980, Saddam has tried to dominate the Middle East by waging wars against neighbors that could have given him control of the region's oil wealth and the identity of the Arab world.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20131011003041/http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20010514.htm Liberate Iraq]}} Reuel Marc Gerecht, ''The Weekly Standard'', May 14, 2001</ref>}}

*a 2004 justification:
{{blockquote|His [Saddam Hussein's] clear and unwavering ambition, an ambition nurtured and acted upon across three decades, was to dominate the Middle East, both economically and militarily, by attempting to acquire the lion's share of the region's oil and by intimidating or destroying anyone who stood in his way. This, too, was a sufficient reason to remove him from power.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040217.htm |title=The Right War for the Right Reasons|author=Robert Kagan & William Kristol|publisher=Weekly Standard|date= February 27, 2004|archive-date=11 March 2013|url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130311163527/http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040217.htm|access-date=30 July 2015}}</ref>}}

Of 18 signatories to the 1998 PNAC letter, 11 would later occupy positions in President Bush's administration: 
*[[Elliott Abrams]], 
*[[Richard Armitage (politician)|Richard Armitage]], 
*[[John R. Bolton]], 
*[[Paula Dobriansky]], 
*[[Francis Fukuyama]], 
*[[Zalmay Khalilzad]],
*[[Richard Perle]],
*[[Peter W. Rodman]],
*[[Donald Rumsfeld]], 
*[[Paul Wolfowitz]], and 
*[[Robert B. Zoellick]].<ref name="newamericancentury.org" />

Administration officials [[Dick Cheney]], [[Eliot A. Cohen]], and [[Lewis Libby]] signed the 1997 PNAC "Statement of Principles".<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20050205041635/http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm PNAC "Statement of Principles." June 3, 1997]}}</ref><!--

n.b. The Guardian retracted this statement June 6, 2003; see http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,971436,00.html: Similarly, former Deputy Secretary of Defense [[Paul Wolfowitz]] said that Iraq's oil wealth, and consequent ability to resist economic sanctions, was the central difference in U.S. policy to Iraq and North Korea.  As Wolfowitz explained in a June 2003 speech: "we just had no choice in Iraq.  The country swims on a sea of oil."<ref>Wright, G. (June 4, 2003) [http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/wolfowitz2.html "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070407140705/http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/wolfowitz2.html |date=2007-04-07 }} ''Guardian Unlimited'' (London: Guardian Newspapers Limited)</ref>-->

==== Wolfowitz Cabal ====
Just after the US invasion of Afghanistan, ''The Guardian'' reported plans to invade Iraq and seize its oil reserves around [[Basra]] and use the proceeds to finance Iraqi oppositions in the south and the north. Later the US intelligence community called these claims as not credible and said that they had no plan to attack Iraq. On October 14, 2001, The Guardian reported:
{{blockquote|The group, which some in the State Department and on Capitol Hill refer to as the "Wolfowitz cabal", after Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz, was yesterday laying the ground for a strategy that envisions the use of air support and the occupation of southern Iraq with American ground troops to install an Iraqi opposition group based in London at the helm of a new government. Under the plan, American troops would also seize the oil fields around Basra, in south-eastern Iraq, and sell the oil to finance the Iraqi opposition in the south and the Kurds in the north, one senior official said.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism8|title=The Gamble: part two|date=2001-10-13|website=the Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-10-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181023160626/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism8|archive-date=2018-10-23|url-status=live}}</ref>}}The Guardian later retracted statements which referred to the Iraq war as being premised on the control and extraction of Oil. The Guardian editors writing in a correction "The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed."<ref name=":1" /> In this correction Wolfowitz was noted as saying "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq."

====Petrodollar warfare====
{{Main|Petrodollar recycling}}

The term '''petrodollar warfare''' refers to the idea that the international use of the [[United States dollar]] as the standard means of settling oil transactions is a kind of [[Theories of imperialism|economic imperialism]] enforced by violent military interventions against countries like Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela, and is a key driver of world politics. The term was coined by William R. Clark, who has written a book with the same title.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=2003-06-06 |title=Corrections and clarifications |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/jun/06/correctionsandclarifications |access-date=2025-03-13 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> The phrase ''oil [[currency war]]'' is sometimes used with the same meaning. In reality, the use of dollars in international oil transactions increases overall U.S. dollar demand by only a tiny fraction, and the dollar's overall status as the major [[international reserve currency]] has relatively few tangible benefits for the United States economy as well as some drawbacks.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/07/debunking-the-dumping-the-dollar-conspiracy/|title=Debunking the Dumping-the-Dollar Conspiracy |last1=Baker |first1=Dean |website=[[Foreign Policy Magazine]] |date=7 October 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= The dollar's international role: An "exorbitant privilege"? |author1=[[Ben Bernanke]] |url=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/ |publisher=[[Brookings Institution]] |date=7 January 2016}}</ref>

===Statements against oil as a rationale===
''[[The New York Times]]'' reported that in February 2003, Saddam Hussein had offered, through a [[Track II diplomacy|clandestine backchannel]], to give the United States first priority as it related to Iraq oil rights, as part of a deal to avert an impending invasion. The overtures intrigued the Bush administration but were ultimately rebuffed.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/world/struggle-for-iraq-diplomacy-iraq-said-have-tried-reach-last-minute-deal-avert.html?src=pm&pagewanted=3 "THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: DIPLOMACY; Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403111522/http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/world/struggle-for-iraq-diplomacy-iraq-said-have-tried-reach-last-minute-deal-avert.html?src=pm&pagewanted=3 |date=2017-04-03 }} New York Times, November 6, 2003</ref>

In 2002, responding to a question about coveting oil fields, [[George W. Bush]] said "Those are the wrong impressions. I have a deep desire for peace. That's what I have a desire for. And freedom for the Iraqi people. See, I don't like a system where people are repressed through torture and murder in order to keep a dictator in place. That troubles me deeply. And so the Iraqi people must hear this loud and clear, that this country never has any intention to conquer anybody."<ref>''[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/us/2002-election-excerpts-conference-imagine-hussein-with-nuclear-weapons.html THE 2002 ELECTION; Excerpts From News Conference: Imagine 'Hussein With Nuclear Weapons'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180824112300/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/us/2002-election-excerpts-conference-imagine-hussein-with-nuclear-weapons.html |date=2018-08-24 }}'', ''The New York Times'' November 8, 2002</ref>

[[Tony Blair]] stated that the hypothesis that the Iraq invasion had "some[thing] to do with oil" was a "[[conspiracy theory]]": "Let me first deal with the conspiracy theory that this is somehow to do with oil{{Nbsp}}... The very reason why we are taking the action that we are taking is nothing to do with oil or any of the other conspiracy theories put forward."<ref>{{cite hansard | url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2003/jan/15/engagements | house=House of Commons | date=15 January 2003 | title=Engagements | access-date=27 April 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090718201400/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/2003/jan/15/engagements | archive-date=18 July 2009 | url-status=live }}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=February 2024}}

Then Australian Prime Minister [[John Howard]] has dismissed on multiple occasions the role of oil in the Iraq Invasion: "We didn't go there because of oil and we don't remain there because of oil."<ref name="Ausoil">{{Cite news| title=Australia 'has Iraq oil interest'| date=July 5, 2007| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6272168.stm| work=[[BBC]]| access-date=2008-04-03| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080502234816/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6272168.stm| archive-date=May 2, 2008| url-status=live| df=mdy-all}}</ref> In early 2003 John Howard stated, "No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that United States behavior is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."<ref name="BN">{{cite news|last1=Bradford|first1=Gillian|title=Australia must protect oil supply: Howard|url=http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1970312.htm|publisher=The World Today|date=July 5, 2007|access-date=April 3, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110142924/http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1970312.htm|archive-date=November 10, 2012|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Economist [[Gary S. Becker]] stated in 2003 that "if oil were the driving force behind the Bush Administration's hard line on Iraq, avoiding war would be the most appropriate policy".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Becker |first=Gary S. |date=2003-03-17 |title=Why War with Iraq Is Not about the Oil |language=en |work=[[Bloomberg News]] |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2003-03-16/why-war-with-iraq-is-not-about-the-oil |access-date=2022-05-15}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ahmad |first=Muhammad Idrees |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J1mrBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 |title=Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War |date=2014-06-30 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-9304-7 |pages=24–25 |language=en}}</ref>

According to economist [[Ismael Hossein-zadeh|Ismael Hossein-Zadeh]] (2006): "there is no evidence that, at least in the case of the current invasion of Iraq, oil companies pushed for or supported the war. On the contrary, there is strong evidence that, in fact, oil companies did not welcome the war because they prefer stability and predictability to periodic oil spikes that follow war and political convulsion".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hossein-zadeh |first=Ismael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQHGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 |title=The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism |date=2006 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4039-8342-8 |pages=136 |language=en}}</ref>

Political scientist John S. Duffield wrote in 2012 that "no compelling evidence, either in the form of declassified documents or participants' memoirs, has yet emerged indicating that oil was a prominent factor or constant consideration in the thinking of decision makers within the Bush administration".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Duffield |first=John S. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N2SpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA145 |title=Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-64151-0 |editor-last=Cramer |editor-first=Jane K. |pages=145 |language=en |chapter=Oil and the decision to invade Iraq |editor-last2=Thrall |editor-first2=A. Trevor}}</ref>

Political scientist Jeff Colgan wrote in 2013 that "Even years after the 2003 Iraq War, there is still no consensus on the degree to which oil played a role in that war." Colgan said that the fact that oil contracts were awarded to non-American companies, including Russian and Chinese corporations, is evidence against the view that the war was for oil.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Colgan|first1=Jeff|title=Fueling the Fire: Pathways from Oil to War|journal=International Security|date=Fall 2013|volume=38|issue=2|pages=148, 177|doi=10.1162/ISEC_a_00135|s2cid=57568563}}</ref>
Journalist Muhammad Idrees Ahmad wrote in 2014 that:

{{Blockquote|text=Inferring oil as the war's presiding motive from the fact that US forces showed extraordinary solicitude towards Iraq's energy infrastructure assumes that if the war was not for oil then the invaders would not care about it. Gulf energy resources have always been a vital US interest. On no other occasion has the US had to occupy a country to secure them. Regardless of why Iraq was invaded, it is reasonable to assume that an occupier would exploit rather than destroy its assets. Indeed, the neoconservatives used oil both as an incentive to get the energy industry onside and as a disincentive against dissent, threatening exclusion from future oil contracts. Oil may have played a part in the thinking of some policy makers – as [[Juan Cole]] argues it had in Dick Cheney's – but even Cole admits that Iraq was invaded only because the Israel lobby was blocking all other means of access to it. If oil were indeed the overriding concern, it is likelier that we would have US boots on Venezuelan ground. After all, nowhere were US interests more threatened than in Latin America, and few governments had a more provocative attitude towards the US than [[Hugo Chavez]]'s. Yet, the US was able to do little when the Venezuelan government rewrote laws to claim 30 per cent (up from 16 per cent) of the oil profits for the national oil company.|author=Muhammad Idrees Ahmad|title=''The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War''<ref name=":0" />}}

==Other rationales==

===Bringing democracy to the Middle East===
One of the rationales that the Bush administration employed periodically during the lead-up to the Iraq war was that deposing Saddam Hussein and installing a democratic government in Iraq would promote democracy in other [[Greater Middle East|Middle Eastern]] countries.<ref>Wright, Steven. ''The United States and Persian Gulf Security: The Foundations of the War on Terror'', Ithaca Press, 2007 {{ISBN|978-0-86372-321-6}}</ref> The United States also proclaimed that the monarchies in [[Jordan]] and Saudi Arabia, and the military government of [[Pakistan]] were American allies, despite the [[human rights abuses]] and subversion of democracy attributed to them respectively. As Vice President Cheney argued in an August 2002 speech to the annual [[Veterans of Foreign Wars]] convention, "When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace."<ref>{{cite web |title=Vice President Speaks at VFW 103rd National Convention |url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html |website=The White House -- George W. Bush |access-date=4 October 2018 |language=en |date=August 26, 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031005/https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html |archive-date=5 October 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

At a 2003 [[Veterans Day]] address, President Bush stated:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031111-10.html|title=President Bush Discusses Iraq in Veterans Day Address|publisher=[[The White House]]|date=2003-11-11|access-date=2008-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110312120813/http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031111-10.html|archive-date=2011-03-12|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Our mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is clear to our service members{{snd}}and clear to our enemies. Our men and women are fighting to secure the freedom of more than 50 million people who recently lived under two of the cruelest dictatorships on earth. Our men and women are fighting to help democracy and peace and justice rise in a troubled and violent region. Our men and women are fighting terrorist enemies thousands of miles away in the heart and center of their power, so that we do not face those enemies in the heart of America.}}

===Establishing long-term Middle East military presence===
US General [[Jay Garner]], who was in charge of planning and administering post-war reconstruction in Iraq, compared the US occupation of Iraq to the Philippine model in a 2004 interview in ''[[National Journal]]'': "Look back on the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century: they were a coaling station for the navy, and that allowed us to keep a great presence in the Pacific. That's what Iraq is for the next few decades: our coaling station that gives us great presence in the Middle East", "One of the most important things we can do right now is start getting basing rights with (the Iraqi authorities)", "I hope they're there a long time{{Nbsp}}... And I think we'll have basing rights in the north and basing rights in the south{{Nbsp}}... we'd want to keep at least a brigade", Garner added.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://nationaljournal.com/members/news/2004/03/0310insider.htm |title=Garner: Federalism Can Avert Civil War In Iraq (03/10/2004) |access-date=2007-06-18 }}{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} quoted in {{Cite web |url=http://www.alternet.org/story/17923/ |title=AlterNet: Bush Lies Uncovered |access-date=2007-06-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070608002934/http://www.alternet.org/story/17923/ |archive-date=2007-06-08 |url-status=live }}; See also [[Philippine–American War]]</ref>

Also, the House report accompanying the emergency spending legislation said the money was "of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases".<ref>BBC News, March 30, 2006, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4834032.stm Iraq bases spur questions over US plans] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423092139/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4834032.stm |date=2006-04-23 }}</ref>

===Other allegations===
[[Nabil Shaath]] told the BBC that according to minutes of a conference with Palestinian leader [[Mahmoud Abbas]], Bush said, "God inspired me to hit al Qaeda, and so I hit it. And I had the inspiration to hit Saddam, and so I hit him."<ref>{{cite news|last=MacAskill|first=Ewen|title=George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=11 November 2010|date=7 October 2005|location=London|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825182706/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa|archive-date=25 August 2013|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> ''[[Haaretz]]'' provided a similar translation of the minutes. When an [[Arabist]] at the ''Washington Post'' translated the same transcript, Bush was said to have indicated that God inspired him to "end the tyranny in Iraq" instead.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100801094.html ''Washington Post:'' Interpretation of Bush's Comments Reignites Debate] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171024155708/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100801094.html |date=2017-10-24 }} October 9, 2005</ref>

In a 2003 interview, [[Jacques Chirac]], President of France at that time, affirmed that President George W. Bush asked him to send troops to Iraq to stop [[Gog and Magog]], the "Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse". According to Chirac, the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East{{Nbsp}}... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled{{Nbsp}}... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."<ref>{{Cite book|first=Jean-Claude |last=Maurice |title=Si vous le répétez, je démentirai... - Chirac, Sarkozy, Villepin |publisher=[[Plon]] |location=Paris |year=2003 |isbn=978-2-259-21021-8 }}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref>{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

===Purported Iraqi plots===
David Harrison claimed in the ''Telegraph'' to have found secret documents that purported to show Russian President [[Vladimir Putin]] offering the use of assassins to Saddam's Iraqi regime to kill Western targets on November 27, 2000.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/|title=News|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=15 March 2016|access-date=4 October 2018|via=www.telegraph.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181004004947/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/|archive-date=4 October 2018|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> [[Fox News]] claimed that evidence found in Iraq after the invasion was used to stop the attempted assassination of the Pakistani ambassador in New York with a shoulder-fired rocket.<ref>{{cite news|via=Associated Press|title=Iraqi Oil-for-Food Official Killed|url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/iraqi-oil-for-food-official-killed|publisher=Fox News|date=July 3, 2004|access-date=June 28, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160612145101/http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/07/03/iraqi-oil-for-food-official-killed.html|archive-date=June 12, 2016|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=September 2021}} US government officials claimed that after the invasion, Yemen and Jordan stopped Iraqi terrorist attacks against Western targets in those nations. US intelligence also warned 10 other countries that small groups of Iraqi intelligence agents might be readying similar attacks.<ref name="A53096-2004Jun18">{{Cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53096-2004Jun18.html| title=Russia Warned U.S. About Iraq, Putin Says| first=Walter| last=Pincus| newspaper=Washington Post| date=June 19, 2004| pages=A11| access-date=2006-07-14| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061008062615/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53096-2004Jun18.html| archive-date=October 8, 2006| url-status=live| df=mdy-all}}</ref> After the [[Beslan school hostage crisis]], public school layouts and crisis plans were retrieved on a disk recovered during an Iraqi raid; this caused concerns in the United States. The information on the disks was "all publicly available on the Internet" and US officials "said it was unclear who downloaded the information and stressed there is no evidence of any specific threats involving the schools".<ref>{{cite news|last1=Feller|first1=Ben|title=Computer disc found in Iraq contained U.S. school plans|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-10-07-school-disk_x.htm|publisher=USA Today|date=October 8, 2004|access-date=June 28, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006230321/http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-10-07-school-disk_x.htm|archive-date=October 6, 2016|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

===Pressuring Saudi Arabia===
According to this hypothesis, the operations in Iraq occurred as a result of the US attempting to put pressure on Saudi Arabia.<!-- Is this a fact, a hypothesis, or a conjecture? Who said it? -->  Much of the funding for al-Qaeda came from sources in Saudi Arabia through channels left over from the Afghan War.  The US, wanting to staunch such financial support, pressured the Saudi leadership to cooperate with the West.  The Saudis in power, fearing an Islamic backlash if they cooperated with the US which could push them from power, refused.  In order to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to cooperate, the invasion of Iraq was conceived.  Such an action would demonstrate the power of the US military, put US troops near to Saudi Arabia, and demonstrate that the US did not need Saudi allies to project itself in the Middle East.<ref>Friedman, George ''America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies'' Doubleday, 2004 {{ISBN|0-385-51245-7}} pg. ?</ref>

===Display of US military power to assert US global supremacy===
Ahsan Butt argues that the invasion of Iraq was partially motivated by a desire of American policymakers to reassert American prestige and status following 9/11. Butt argues that prior to 9/11 the United States was recognized internationally as the undisputed world superpower and hegemon, but the 9/11 attacks called this status into question. Butt argues that invading Iraq was a means of allowing the United States to demonstrate that it was and intended to remain a global hegemon. Since Afghanistan was too weak a nation to demonstrate American power, Iraq was also invaded. Butt argues that Saddam had also damaged American prestige as he remained defiant following the [[Gulf War]].<ref>Butt, Ahsan I. "Why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003?." Security Studies 28, no. 2 (2019): 250-285.</ref> A 2012 poll found that "Assert dominance in a New American Century" was viewed as the most important motivation for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and neoconservatives by international relations experts.<ref>Jane Cramer and A. Trevor Thrall, “Introduction: why did the United States invade Iraq,” in Why did the United States Invade Iraq, ed. Jane Cramer and Trevor Thrall (New York: Routledge, 2012), 7.</ref>

== Criticisms ==
{{See also|Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq|Opposition to the Iraq War|Protests against the Iraq War|Legality of the Iraq War}}

Despite these efforts to sway public opinion, the invasion of Iraq was seen by some, including [[Kofi Annan]],<ref>{{cite news |title=Iraq war illegal, says Annan |publisher=BBC |date=2004-09-16 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912171408/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm |archive-date=2014-09-12 |url-status=live }}</ref> the [[United Nations Secretary-General]], Lord Goldsmith, the [[United Kingdom|British Attorney General]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/document/2003/0307advice.htm|title=British Attorney General's Advice to Blair|first=James |last=Paul|website=www.globalpolicy.org|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170916182829/https://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/document/2003/0307advice.htm|archive-date=16 September 2017|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> and [[Human Rights Watch]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/iraq0202003.htm|title=International Humanitarian Law Issues In A Potential War In Iraq|publisher=Human Rights Watch|date=February 20, 2003|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100615171914/http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/iraq0202003.htm|archive-date=15 June 2010|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> as a violation of [[international law]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm#_ftn15|title=GlobeLaw.com|website=www.globelaw.com|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180411175246/http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm#_ftn15|archive-date=11 April 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> breaking the [[UN Charter]], especially since the US failed to secure UN support for an invasion of Iraq. In 41 countries the majority of the populace did not support an invasion of Iraq without UN sanction and half said an invasion should not occur under any circumstances.<ref name="gallup Iraq survey 2003">{{cite web|url=http://www.gallup-international.com/download/GIA%20press%20release%20Iraq%20Survey%202003.pdf|title=Gallup International Iraq Poll 2003|year=2003|publisher=Gallup International|access-date=11 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927044750/http://www.gallup-international.com/download/GIA%20press%20release%20Iraq%20Survey%202003.pdf|archive-date=2011-09-27}}</ref> 73 percent of the population of the United States supported an invasion.<ref name="gallup Iraq survey 2003" /> To build international support the United States formed a "[[Multinational force in Iraq|Coalition of the Willing]]" with the United Kingdom, Italy, [[Poland]], Australia and several other countries despite a majority of citizens in these countries opposing the invasion.<ref name="gallup Iraq survey 2003" /> Massive protests of the war occurred in the US and elsewhere.<ref>{{cite news |title=Cities jammed in worldwide protest of war in Iraq |publisher=CNN |date=2003-02-16 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/15/sprj.irq.protests.main |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070106110646/http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/15/sprj.irq.protests.main/ |archive-date=2007-01-06 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title='Million' march against Iraq war |publisher=BBC |date=2003-02-16 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2765041.stm |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060831031751/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2765041.stm |archive-date=2006-08-31 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>[http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=54365 Largest Anti-War Rally] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040904214302/http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=54365 |date=2004-09-04 }}. Guinness Book of World Records.</ref> At the time of the invasion, [[UNMOVIC]] inspectors were ordered out by the United Nations. The inspectors requested more time because "disarmament, and at any rate verification, cannot be instant".<ref>{{cite news|title=Blix wants months – and Straw offers 10 days |work=The Guardian |date=2003-03-07 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/Story/0,2763,909793,00.html |location=London |first=Sarah |last=Left |access-date=May 22, 2010}}</ref><ref name="transcript.blix">{{cite news|title=Transcript of Blix's U.N. presentation|url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.blix/|publisher=[[CNN]]|date=2003-03-07|access-date=2008-01-09|quote=How much time would it take to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks? While cooperation can—cooperation can and is to be immediate, disarmament, and at any rate verification of it, cannot be instant. Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude induced by continued outside pressure, it will still take some time to verify sites and items, analyze documents, interview relevant persons and draw conclusions. It will not take years, nor weeks, but months.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080130005742/http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.blix/|archive-date=2008-01-30|url-status=live}}</ref>

Following the invasion, no stockpiles of [[weapons of mass destruction]] were found, although about 500 abandoned chemical munitions, mostly degraded and left over from Iraq's Iran–Iraq war, were collected from around the country.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/|title=Washington Post: Breaking News, World, US, DC News & Analysis|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170916061515/https://www.washingtonpost.com/|archive-date=16 September 2017|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq |publisher=Fox News |date=2004-05-17 |url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/sarin-mustard-gas-discovered-separately-in-iraq |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061104194311/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C120137%2C00.html |archive-date=2006-11-04 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{better source needed|date=October 2018}} [[David Kelly (weapons expert)|The Kelly Affair]] highlighted a possible attempt by the British government to cover-up fabrications in British intelligence, the exposure of which would have undermined Tony Blair's original rationale for involvement in the war. The US [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] found no substantial evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.<ref>[http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060921074629/http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf |date=2006-09-21 }} Retrieved September 10, 2006.</ref> President George W. Bush has since admitted that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong".<ref>{{cite news |title=Bush takes responsibility for invasion intelligence |publisher=CNN |date=2005-12-14 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html |access-date=2006-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211222322/http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html |archive-date=2006-02-11 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Transcript of Bush speech |publisher=CNN |date=2005-12-14 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.transcript/index.html |access-date=2006-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060217113851/http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.transcript/index.html |archive-date=2006-02-17 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Bush admits Iraq intelligence was wrong |work=The Guardian |date=2005-12-14 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/Story/0,,1667412,00.html |location=London |access-date=May 22, 2010}}</ref> The Iraq Survey Group's final report of September 2004 stated, {{blockquote|"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should weapons of mass destruction be discovered."<ref>{{cite news|title=Iraq Survey Group Final Report|publisher=GlobalSecurity.Org|url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_cw_key-findings.htm|access-date=2006-11-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061107055941/http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_cw_key-findings.htm|archive-date=2006-11-07|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

In the March 2005 Addendum to the Report, the Special Advisor furthermore went on to state that "ISG assesses that Iraq and Coalition Forces will continue to discover small numbers of degraded chemical weapons, which the former Regime mislaid or improperly destroyed prior to 1991. ISG believes the bulk of these weapons were likely abandoned, forgotten and lost during the Iran–Iraq war because tens of thousands of CW munitions were forward-deployed along frequently and rapidly shifting battlefronts."<ref>{{cite news |title=Addendums to the Comprehensive Report |publisher=GlobalSecurity.Org |url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2005/isg-addendums_mar2005.pdf |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061108091621/http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2005/isg-addendums_mar2005.pdf |archive-date=2006-11-08 |url-status=live }}</ref> (For comparison, the US Department of Defense itself was famously unable in 1998 to report the locations of "56 airplanes, 32 tanks and 36 Javelin command launch units".)<ref>{{cite news |title=Government's financial systems fall flat |publisher=Government Computer News |date=2000-06-24 |url=http://www.gcn.com/print/vol19_no20a/2482-1.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927194520/http://www.gcn.com/print/vol19_no20a/2482-1.html |archive-date=2007-09-27 }}</ref> ISG also believed that Saddam did not want to verifiably disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, as required by UN resolutions, for fear of looking weak to his enemies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol1_rsi-05.htm|title=Iraq Survey Group Final Report|first=John|last=Pike|website=www.globalsecurity.org|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005112524/https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol1_rsi-05.htm|archive-date=5 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

After the Iraq War became a [[Iraqi civil war (2006–2008)|civil war]] with an [[Iraqi insurgency (2003–2011)|ongoing insurgency]] against the [[Occupation of Iraq (2003–2011)|US-led occupation]], [[James Baker]], [[Brent Scowcroft]], and Colin Powell all noted in interviews released in 2008 that while they were frequently asked in interviews and during public appearances following the Gulf War about why Saddam Hussein was not removed from power during that conflict, they were no longer being asked the question.<ref>{{cite episode|title=George H.W. Bush (Part 2)|episode-link=George H.W. Bush (film)|series=American Experience|series-link=American Experience|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=May 6, 2008|season=20|number=14|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/bush/|access-date=September 7, 2024|quote=[BAKER]. Some people said, 'Why didn't you guys take care of Saddam when you had the chance? Why didn't you go to Baghdad?' Well, guess what. I got that question a lot when I used to go out and speak. Nobody asks me that question anymore.<br/>[SCOWCROFT]. We heard no rumbles of discontent at all. They emerged shortly after, and then for a number of years we heard, 'Why didn't you finish the job?' We don't hear that anymore.<br/>[POWELL]. In recent months, nobody's been asking me about why we didn't go to Baghdad. Pretty good idea now why Baghdad should always looked at with some reservations.}}</ref> Scowcroft stated in a 2001 interview that removing Hussein from power was not an objective of any [[United Nations Security Council resolution]] related to the Gulf War or the [[Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 1991|1991 Iraq AUMF Resolution]], and that it was a fundamental interest of the United States to maintain a unified Iraq and to keep a balance in the region.<ref>{{cite episode|title=Gunning for Saddam|series=Frontline|series-link=Frontline (American TV program)|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=November 8, 2001|season=19|number=16|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/script.html|access-date=September 7, 2024|quote=[SCOWCROFT]. Because... first of all, one of our objectives was not to have Iraq split up into constituent parts. It's... a fundamental interest of the United States to keep a balance in that area, in Iraq... But... suppose we went in and intervened, and the Kurds declare independence, and the Shiites declare independence. Then do we go to war against them to keep a unified Iraq? ...<br/>[BERGMAN]. I thought we had two interests. One was to evict the Iraqi army from Kuwait. But the other really was to get Saddam out of power.<br/>[SCOWCROFT]. No. No, it wasn't. ... [Y]ou can't find that anywhere as an objective, either in the U.N. mandate for what we did or in our declarations, that our goal was to get rid of Saddam Hussein.}}</ref> Powell also stated in his 2008 interview that the decision to not remove Hussein from power during the Gulf War was made in light of the Iran–Iraq War, while Scowcroft noted in his 2008 interview that the United States engaging in military action beyond what was authorized by the UN Security Council resolutions would have set a bad precedent and that any occupation would have likely resulted in a hostile reaction from the Iraqi population and would have had no clear [[exit strategy]].<ref>{{cite episode|title=George H.W. Bush (Part 2)|episode-link=George H.W. Bush (film)|series=American Experience|series-link=American Experience|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=May 6, 2008|season=20|number=14|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/bush/|access-date=September 7, 2024|quote=[SCOWCROFT]. We did not know what would happen if we went on into Baghdad. It would have been simple to do. But we would have been occupiers in a hostile land. Our troops would have been sniped at and so on. And we had no exit plan. How do you get out once you've occupied the country?<br />[POWELL]. Another consideration that we took into account, as a military matter, is we did not want to totally destroy the Iraqi army. And you can guess why: Iran. We did not want Iraq laying prostrate before Iran. And so it was always our intention to leave Saddam Hussein with enough of an army that it would not be a threat to his neighbors anymore, but it would not leave him totally vulnerable to Iranian misadventure, keeping in mind that that Iraq-Iran War had only ended three years earlier.<br/>[SCOWCROFT]. We were trying to set a pattern for behavior in the post-Cold War world. We were operating under a UN mandate. If we said, 'Okay, we've fulfilled the mandate but now we want to go on and do some more,' that's a bad precedent to set for people relying on the United States to do what the UN mandates and not further.}}</ref>

Two months before the passage of the [[Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002|2002 Iraq AUMF Resolution]], ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' published an [[op-ed]] written by Scowcroft that argued against any imminent military action to remove Hussein from power because it would likely require a long-term and large-scale occupation of Iraq following any military campaign that would indefinitely divert and seriously jeopardize the efforts of the United States in the global war on terrorism; that the intelligence linking Hussein with Al-Qaeda, other terrorist organizations, or the September 11 attacks was too limited to prove that the alleged relationships existed or the alleged involvement occurred; that Hussein's attempts to acquire WMDs was to deter the United States from blocking his efforts to dominate the Persian Gulf region rather than attacking the United States; and that Hussein did not have any incentive to give WMDs to terrorist organizations because the long-term goals of such terrorist organizations were not aligned with his and that Hussein's usage of WMDs in such a way or threats to do so would be met with severe military action from the United States. Instead, Scowcroft argued that the United States should pursue a UN Security Council resolution authorizing an effective no-[[notice]] WMD inspection policy for Iraq, which if Hussein refused to agree to or comply with would provide a more persuasive ''[[casus belli]]'' than allegations that Hussein had secretly continued or reactivated his WMD program.<ref>{{cite news|last=Scowcroft|first=Brent|date=August 15, 2002|title=Don't Attack Saddam|work=The Wall Street Journal|publisher=News Corp|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1029371773228069195|access-date=September 10, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite episode|title=George W. Bush (Part 1)|episode-link=George W. Bush (film)|series=American Experience|series-link=American Experience|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=May 4, 2020|season=32|number=6|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/george-w-bush/#transcript|access-date=September 10, 2024|quote=Ten days after [Colin Powell's] meeting with Bush, an Op-Ed appeared in the Wall Street Journal written by Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor under George H. W. Bush and a close family friend.}}</ref>

[[Clare Short]] claims that in July 2002, UK government ministers were warned that Britain was committed to participating in a US invasion of Iraq, and a further allegation was that "the decision by Blair's government to participate in the US invasion of Iraq bypassed proper government procedures and ignored opposition to the war from Britain's intelligence quarters".<ref>{{cite web|title=Claire Short |url=http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=claire_short |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061002024816/http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=claire_short |archive-date=October 2, 2006 }}</ref> Tony Blair agreed to back military action to oust Saddam Hussein with an [[September Dossier|assessment]] regarding weapons of mass destruction, at a summit at President George W. Bush's Texas ranch. Also present at the meeting were three other British officials{{Snd}}[[Secretary of State for Defence|Defense Secretary]] [[Geoff Hoon]], [[Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs|Foreign Secretary]] [[Jack Straw]] and [[Secret Intelligence Service]] (MI6) head Sir [[Richard Dearlove]].
[[File:Victory Day Parade 2005-26.jpg|thumb|[[Jacques Chirac]], [[Gerhard Schröder]] and [[Vladimir Putin]] made public statements in opposition to the invasion of Iraq.]]
In Europe the [[peace movement]] was very strong,<ref>{{cite news|title=Millions march against war |publisher=Boston.Com |date=2003-02-16 |url=http://www.boston.com/news/packages/iraq/globe_stories/021603_marches.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614134809/http://boston.com/news/packages/iraq/globe_stories/021603_marches.htm |archive-date=June 14, 2006 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Assir |first=Serene |title=No reason to rest |work=Al-Ahram Weekly |date=14 April 2004 |url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/685/re1.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061107204657/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/685/re1.htm |archive-date=2006-11-07 }}</ref> especially in Germany, where three-quarters of the population were opposed to the war.<ref>{{cite news |title=Analysis: Germany finds a voice |publisher=BBC |date=2003-02-03 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2720317.stm |first=Katya |last=Adler |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040626045526/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2720317.stm |archive-date=2004-06-26 |url-status=live }}</ref> Ten NATO member countries did not join the coalition with the US, and their leaders made public statements in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. These leaders included [[Gerhard Schröder]] of Germany,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2720317.stm|title=Analysis: Germany finds a voice|date=3 February 2003|access-date=4 October 2018|via=news.bbc.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031044/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2720317.stm|archive-date=5 October 2018|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> [[Jacques Chirac]] of France,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2003/0224/cover/story.html |title=Chrac says ''non'' |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060913202500/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2003/0224/cover/story.html |archive-date=2006-09-13 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Guy Verhofstadt]] of [[Belgium]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/back-to-resolution-drawing-board/|title=Back To Resolution Drawing Board|website=[[CBS News]]|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130518092840/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/17/iraq/main540851.shtml|archive-date=18 May 2013|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> and [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]] of [[Turkey]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20031022-1507-turkey-iraq.html|title=Turkey|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040911050934/http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20031022-1507-turkey-iraq.html|archive-date=11 September 2004|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Public perceptions of the US changed dramatically as a consequence of the invasion.<ref>{{cite news |title=America's Image Further Erodes, Europeans Want Weaker Ties |publisher=The Pew Research Center |date=2003-03-18 |url=http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=175 |access-date=2006-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060928180229/http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=175 |archive-date=2006-09-28 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists|publisher=The Pew Research Center|date=2004-03-16|url=http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206|access-date=2006-07-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060805084619/http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206|archive-date=2006-08-05|url-status=live}}</ref> [[China]] and [[Russia]] also expressed their opposition to the invasion of Iraq.<ref>"[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2688117.stm Opposition to Iraq war widens] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031037/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2688117.stm |date=2018-10-05 }}". BBC News. 23 January 2003.</ref>

Other possible US objectives, denied by the US government but acknowledged by retired US General Jay Garner, included the establishment of permanent US military bases in Iraq as a way of projecting power (creating a credible threat of US military intervention) to the oil-rich Persian Gulf region and the Middle East generally.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/justify/2004/0221chalabigarner.htm|title=Chalabi, Garner Provide New Clues to War|first=James |last=Paul|website=www.globalpolicy.org|access-date=4 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090519194827/http://www.globalpolicy.org/security///issues/iraq/justify/2004/0221chalabigarner.htm|archive-date=19 May 2009|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> In February 2004, Jay Garner, who was in charge of planning and administering post-war reconstruction in Iraq, explained that the US occupation of Iraq was comparable to the [[Philippine]] model: "Look back on the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century: they were a coaling station for the navy, and that allowed us to keep a great presence in the Pacific. That's what Iraq is for the next few decades: our coaling station that gives us great presence in the Middle East";<ref>{{cite news |title=Bush Lies Uncovered |publisher=AlterNet |date=2004-02-23 |url=http://www.alternet.org/story/17923/ |access-date=2006-06-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060626105425/http://www.alternet.org/story/17923/ |archive-date=2006-06-26 |url-status=live }}</ref> (see also [[Philippine–American War]]). Garner was replaced by [[Paul Bremer]] after reports came out of his position in SY Coleman, a division of defense contractor [[L-3 Communications]], specializing in missile-defense systems. It was believed his role in the company was in contention with his role in Iraq.<ref>{{cite news |title=General reverses his role |work=The San Francisco Chronicle |date=2003-02-26 |url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/26/BU48310.DTL |first=David |last=Lazarus |access-date=2019-04-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616034215/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2003%2F02%2F26%2FBU48310.DTL |archive-date=2012-06-16 |url-status=live }}</ref> The House Appropriations Committee said the report accompanying the emergency spending legislation was "of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases".<ref>{{cite news |title=Iraq bases spur questions over US plans |publisher=BBC |date=2006-03-30 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4834032.stm |first=Becky |last=Branford |access-date=2006-03-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423092139/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4834032.stm |archive-date=2006-04-23 |url-status=live }}</ref> However, the [[United States House of Representatives]] voted in 2006 not to fund any permanent bases in Iraq.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Will of the People's House Is Clear: No Permanent Bases in Iraq |publisher=US House of Representatives: Tom Allen Homepage |url=http://tomallen.house.gov/article.asp?id=647 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061114013040/http://www.tomallen.house.gov/article.asp?id=647 |archive-date=2006-11-14 }}</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* ''[[A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm]]''
* [[Credibility gap]]
* [[Curveball (informant)]]
* [[Energy Task Force]]
* [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]]
* [[Habbush letter]]
* [[2004 Iraq document leak]]
* [[Iraqi biological weapons program]]
* [[Media coverage of the Iraq War]]
* [[Plame affair]]
* [[Prelude to the Iraq War]]
* [[Public opinion in the United States on the invasion of Iraq]]
* [[Rationale for the Gulf War]]
* [[United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
*  Coletta, Giovanni.  "Politicising intelligence: what went wrong with the UK and US assessments on Iraqi WMD in 2002" ''Journal of Intelligence History'' (2018) 17#1 pp 65–78 is a scholarly analysis.
* Cornish, Paul, ed. ''The conflict in Iraq, 2003'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), articles by scholars..
* Isikoff, Michael.  and David Corn. ''Hubris: The inside story of spin, scandal, and the selling of the Iraq War'' (2006) is journalistic.
*[http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100320360 Jervis, Robert. 2010. ''Why Intelligence Fails Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War''. Cornell University Press.]
*Lake, David A. "Two cheers for bargaining theory: Assessing rationalist explanations of the Iraq War." ''International Security'' 35.3 (2010): 7–52.
* Rapport, Aaron. "The Long and Short of It: Cognitive Constraints on Leaders' Assessments of “Postwar” Iraq." ''International Security'' 37.3 (2013): 133–171.
*[[Antonius Robben|Robben, Antonius C.G.M.]], ed. (2010). ''Iraq at a Distance: What Anthropologists Can Teach Us About the War''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8122-4203-4}}.
* Rosen, Gary, ed. ''The Right War?: The Conservative Debate on Iraq'' (2005).
* Cramer, J., & Thrall, A.T. (eds.). (2012). Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203804568
* Stieb, Joseph. ''[https://tnsr.org/2023/06/why-did-the-united-states-invade-iraq-the-debate-at-20-years/ Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? The Debate at 20 Years]'' (2023)

==External links==
*[https://www.businessinsider.com/chilcot-inquiry-blair-2003-memo-george-w-bush-fundamental-goals-iraq-war-on-terror-2016-7#/#you-can-define-international-politics-for-the-next-generation-1 Tony Blair tells George W Bush they can create 'post-cold war world order' in 2003 note]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20210224174555/https://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/archive/137en.htm 'The U.S. and Europe, 1945 to Today'] by Immanuel Wallerstein
*[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25751-2005Mar10.html U.S. Gaining World's Respect From Wars, Rumsfeld Asserts] by Ann Scott Tyson
*[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yKwkNpcutv_pWDJTMWaPcHsfd8GKsHvCCxLrg8y8jXs/edit 'The Bush Turn and The Drive for Primacy'] by Peter Gowan
*[https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/12100/Duggan_Edward_C_phd2011su.pdf?sequence=1 'The War Lobby: Iraq and the Pursuit of U.S. Primacy'] by Edward Duggan
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xJkcU6ZwKY Norman Finkelstein on Iraq War],  conversation with Chris Hedges 
*[https://newrepublic.com/article/147640/scarier-neoconserative-john-bolton-radical-nationalist Scarier Than a Neoconserative] by Jeet Heer
*[https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/03/20/why-did-bush-go-war-iraq-answer-more-sinister-you-think Why Did Bush Go to War in Iraq?] by Ahsan I Butt
* {{cite episode|title=The War Behind Closed Doors|series=Frontline|series-link=Frontline (American TV program)|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=February 20, 2003|season=21|number=6|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/showsiraq/|access-date=April 18, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=Truth, War, and Consequences|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=October 9, 2003|season=21|number=15|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/showstruth/|access-date=April 18, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=Beyond Baghdad|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=February 12, 2004|season=22|number=3|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/beyond-baghdad/|access-date=April 19, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=The Dark Side|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=June 20, 2006|season=24|number=8|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/darkside/|access-date=April 18, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=Bush's War|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=March 24–25, 2008|season=26|number=5–6|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/bushswar/|access-date=April 18, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=Losing Iraq|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=July 29, 2014|season=32|number=13|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/losing-iraq/|access-date=April 19, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=Once Upon a Time in Iraq|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=July 14, 2020|season=38|number=22|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/once-upon-a-time-in-iraq/|access-date=April 19, 2024}}
* {{cite episode|title=America After 9/11|series=Frontline|network=PBS|station=WGBH|date=September 7, 2021|season=40|number=1|episode-link=America After 9/11|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/america-after-9-11/|access-date=April 18, 2024}}

{{Iraq War}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rationale For The Iraq War}}
[[Category:Causes and prelude of the Iraq War| ]]
[[Category:Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration]]
[[Category:United States in the Iraq War]]