Was there any good reason to invade Iraq?

codemap

Yes, I think so. Iâ€™ll give you a few reasons, but first let me give you a little history. I donâ€™t know how old you are, but you may recall that Saddam Hussein had a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction during the first Gulf War. In fact, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he actually used these weapons in battle. Thatâ€™s where the whole WMD scare came from.

The United Nations ordered Saddam to stop the invasion, but he refused and eventually the U.N came to Kuwaitâ€™s defense. Saddamâ€™s troops were beaten back to Iraq, all the way to Baghdad. But rather than invade Baghdad and remove Saddam from office, the U.N. called a cease-fire on the condition that Saddam give up his WMDs and not re-invade Kuwait. Saddam agreed to these terms, and so the Gulf War ended.

In 1992, Clinton was elected and over the next two terms he discovered just how dangerous Saddam was. For starters, Saddam broke the condition that the cease-fire was based on. U.N weapons inspectors were repeatedly blocked as they attempted to verify that the weapons had been destroyed. When the inspectors went to a location where they thought WMDs might be stored, Saddam basically told them to wait at the front door. Satellite images taken while the U.N. weapons inspectors were forced to wait show convoys of military trucks slipping out the back door. Itâ€™s not clear whether there were WMDs in these trucks, or if he was just trying to make everyone think there were. But either way, everyone thought he still had WMDs.

In 1998, Saddam raised the stakes even higher by completely kicking the U.N weapons inspectors out of the country. He no longer made them wait at the front door; he didnâ€™t let them come into the country at all. This was a clear violation of the agreement that he made that the Gulf War cease-fire was based on, and President Clinton didnâ€™t like that one bit. In that same year, he ordered the U.S Air Force and Navy to bomb Iraq, because Saddam refused to let the weapons inspectors back in. That softened Saddam up a bit, and he finally agreed to let the U.N weapons inspectors back in. Clinton told Saddam that if he tried anything like that again, the U.S could bomb him without warning.

Whatâ€™s sad is that at the time, Republicans accused Clinton of trying to distract the U.S from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, instead of crediting him for doing what was in the best interest of security â€“ both for our country and other countries around the world. Why would Republicans do this? Anytime you credit the opposing political party for doing something well, you increase the chances that they will be re-elected, which obviously reduces your own partyâ€™s power.

After Clinton left office, Saddam started playing the â€œwait at the front doorâ€ game again. Bush now had to make a decision as to how to deal with Saddam, and since we were already â€œnext doorâ€ in Afghanistan it made sense to remove Saddam from office. Saddam was still playing games to make the world think that he had WMDs, and that coupled with the genocide that Saddam committed were two darn good reasons for invading the country.

It turns out that we never found WMDs; Saddam was only bluffing, but we did find mass graves of people that Saddam murdered. If anyone ever opposed him, Saddam had him or her killed and dumped into a pit. This is why there was enormous support for the war right when Saddam was removed from office. He was a mass murderer, and a huge majority of Iraqis were thrilled to have him removed from power because they could not do it themselves. They ran out into the streets and danced and celebrated.

Since then a lot of support has eroded because of the ongoing war. Even though the original invasion was justified, â€œwar is hellâ€ and people start to get tired of all of the bloodshed.

The majority of the insurgents are Saddam loyalists - Sunnis that are no longer enjoying the power that they had for several decades. Sunnis only make up about 20% of the population, but Saddam was a Sunni and he oppressed the 80% of the population that are Shiite. Even at 80% of the population, Shiites had no power while Saddam was in power. Now that Saddam is gone, many Shiites donâ€™t want to give any power to the Sunnis who have oppressed them for so long. Why should they give power to the minority, when the minority didnâ€™t give them any power? This has led to Shiite militias killing Sunnis for â€œrevengeâ€.

There is no question that Iraq is a "messy" situation right now. Perhaps things would be better under different leadership; it isnâ€™t clear. But that's different then trying to re-write history as many people are trying to do. (Actually, most people just have no idea what the historical fact are.) What is clear is that Clinton and Bush both perceived Saddam as a threat and both attacked him. Iâ€™m not convinced that if Clinton were in office that we wouldnâ€™t be in Iraq right now anyway. This isn't an attack on Clinton; Clinton understood the threat.

In fact, only a few months ago Clinton came out and said that invading Iraq was the right thing to do. (He knows because he had the exact same information that Bush did.) Everyone really needs to look at the historical facts and stop playing the political smear game. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty.

Just because things aren't going perfectly now, and just because WMDs weren't found, we can't say that there was "no good reason" to invade Iraq. We have to base our assessment on the information that we had before the war.

Swordfish

Hiliburton, stage a US port in the Middle East and oh yea oil, oil, oil, and once again OIL.

schwa204

Oil, Regime Change, Democracy?

To kick Saddam out.

The king

Bush get Iraqi oil and our solders get killed

Desert Fox

The number reson USA Went to war in Iraq is HALIBURTAN.

collegedebt

Hey conservitive. It's spelled conservative. And you're a moron if you thinks Bush gives two shits about anyones freedom or making the United States safer.

Caffiend

rubi

to steal their oil..rape their women in prisons..make babies orphans ... then kill them and above all make MR.BUSH happy.

conservitive

There are many good reasons, but if you have to ask that question then you really don't want to hear them...you just want to hear people bash Bush & play to all the left-wing nut-bags!

superstar dj

to bankrupt the united states, turn millions of arabs against the west, imperil international laws (like the geneva convention), villify Hans Blix and others who said the US would find nothing there, and kill 30,000 men women and children who did nothing wrong. oh wait. those are BAD reasons.

I guess it proves the government can tell the people what to think and not the other way around.

browneyed girl

Yes, I am a republican!! Yes, I support our Chief in Command, President George W. Bush!!! Yes, I strongly support our Troops!!!

Everyone acts like Saddam Hussein was such a nice guy!!! How soon we all forget the past!! I personally would rather fight terrorism on foreign soil rather then in our own beloved land!! If we don't fight it there, we will end up fighting it here!! In our own backyards!!

I'm sure if we were over there kicking "major ***" and the media was reporting only the positive aspects of the war instead of only the negative all you liberals would have a different opinions on our President.

I guess we could all sit back and patiently wait for someone to attack us again before take action!!!

If all of you are so bent out of shape about oil prices, QUIT DRIVING!!! This was never the reason for war!!

Well said Codemap!!! Thank You for reminding people and informing them about Saddam! Everyone has seemed to have forgotten about his previous actions. Again, Thank You!! Great Answer!!!

Ho K

Yes. Bush has good excusses ( not reason).

1. To steal their oil.
2. To show the world who is in charge.
3. To use all the old stock of weapons.
4. To test new weapons.
5. To give training to new troops.

Leon Trotsky

Is imperialism and oil a good answer?

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