Failure of intelligence: The Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq
I. Introduction
On March 20, 2003, American troops entered Iraq beginning an invasion that would define a political generation, the culmination of George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.” This polarizing military action will forever be tied to phrases like “weapons of mass destruction” and the image of Bush standing in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” long before United States’ troops left the country. As months turned into years, Operation Iraqi Freedom quickly became an exhibition in finger pointing and double speak. A large chunk of the American public began to lose trust in the information being fed to them by the Bush administration as the President and cabinet members attempted to cover their tracks and provide alternative explanations for the invasion of Iraq.
In October 2012, President Obama accused Mitt Romney of defending the invasion of Iraq 2003. Rather than defending the decision or backing his Republican counterpart, Romney simply denied ever being in favor of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This shows how quickly the opinions on the war had changed, in March of 2003 many were enthusiastically behind an invasion but by 2012 even the Republican candidate for President was running away from his earlier position.
In the years that have followed the decision to invade much has been written in defense and opposition to the decisions made by the Bush administration leading up to the invasion. Weaknesses exist in researching this topic. Less than a decade after the invasion – many vital government documents are still confidential and individuals on both sides of the argument still have political and personal stakes in the conflict that could impact their honesty when it comes to the rationale for their decisions and opinions. With that said, there is still a significant amount of writing about the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq circulating today. Journalists that covered the action from Baghdad to Washington D.C. and members of Bush’s cabinet have released texts and articles that will compliment the work of historians placing the invasion in context and speeches and memos from 2003 and earlier.
Many wonder whether this was a war started by a son attempting to avenge the foreign policy failures of his father while in control of one of the world’s most powerful military forces, or a conflict kicked off because Bush and his advisors genuinely believe that weapons of mass destruction existed within the borders of Iraq. There have been questions as to who was actually making decisions within the Bush administration and the private fiscal motivations of different government officials to invade Iraq in 2003. As with any conflict that draws controversy, many theories swirled about the true motives behind the beginnings of the war. The most extreme of these could be considered conspiracy theories, while others might simply represent the truth being brought to the light.
This paper will attempt to take all of these theories into account in a study of the lead up to the March 2003 invasion. The paper will attempt to resolve two main points of contention, to answer two main questions that circle the invasion of Iraq. First, I will attempt to determine the true reasons for the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq. Second, I will use those reasons to determine whether or not the correct decision was made, whether an invasion was the right choice or diplomatic options existed to deal with the issue of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. I will use first hand accounts from decision makers in the Bush administration along with peer reviewed scholarly articles and texts from reporters that were close to the invasion to give balance to both sides of the argument.
II. Iraq from 1990 – 2001
Before determining what reasons the Bush administration had for the invasion of Iraq, it is helpful to take a quick look at the recent history of the area to help get an idea of what initially drew the attention of the United States in the early 21st century.
In August 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein led an invasion into Kuwait. This invasion drew the ire of President George H.W. Bush, who “declared the Saddam’s unprovoked aggression would not stand and gave him an ultimatum to withdraw from Kuwait….when the dictator defied his demands, [Bush] rallied a coalition of thirty-four countries – including Arab nations – to enforce it” (Bush 226). This conflict – which was labeled “Operation Desert Storm” – was the United States’ introduction into conflict with Iraq.
While the younger Bush admits that his father “had a chance to rid the world of Saddam…but he stopped at the liberation of Kuwait,” he still considers Operation Desert Storm “a stunning success” based on the fact that “coalition forces drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in fewer than 100 hours” (Bush 226). Many disagree that the speed in which Desert Storm was carried out makes it a success.
Some historians argue that the strategies used during Operation Desert Storm place the United States in a position in which a second war with Iraq was inevitable. In Fiasco, Thomas Ricks lays out the three mistakes that the elder Bush administration and military leadership made that in many ways led to his son’s hand being forced in 2003. Ricks states that the U.S. government “encouraged the Shiites and Kurds to rebel, but didn’t support them” (Ricks 5). This action ensured that rebellious groups would exist within the borders of Iraq, but without the means to overthrow Hussein. Ricks cites an elder Bush memoir when claiming, “the U.S. government assumed that Saddam’s regime was so damaged that his fall was inevitable” (Ricks 5). This belief could explain the lack of an invasion of Baghdad following Desert Storm – while the elder Bush wanted Hussein out of power in Iraq, his administration thought it could be done without placing more American lives in harm’s way. The previous two mistakes were compounded by the third, “the U.S. military didn’t undercut the core of Saddam Hussein’s power…much of his army, especially the elite Republican Guard units, were allowed to leave Kuwait relatively untouched” (Ricks 6). While Operation Desert Storm was successful in removing Hussein’s troops from Kuwait, the elder Bush left Iraq with a strong military force and Saddam Hussein’s power essentially untouched.
The 1991 conflict resulted in weapons restrictions being placed on Iraq. These restrictions led to the need for weapons inspections in 1998, which Hussein did not allow to occur. In December 1998, President Clinton ordered bombings of possible weapons facilities in Iraq. The four-day bombing spree was known as Operation Desert Fox. Throughout Desert Fox, “a total of 415 cruise missiles had been used…they and 600 bombs hit a total of 97 sites, the majors ones being facilities for the production and storage of chemical weapons” (Ricks 19). While the lack of “boots on the ground” and the controversy swirling around President Clinton’s sex life at the time meant significantly less press for Desert Fox than Desert Storm, some consider Desert Fox to have been a much more successful operation. Part of this reasoning is based on Hussein’s reactions to the bombings, “Saddam panicked during the strikes. Fearing that his control was threatened, he ordered large-scale arrests and executions, which backfired and destabilized his regime for months afterwards” (Pollack 95). These bombings had a long term effect on the minds of the Iraqis, they realized that “visible elements of weaponry, such as missile programs, which require a large, easily observed infrastructure such as engine test stands, could be hammered at any time” (Ricks 21).
While Desert Storm exhibited the military dominance of the United States over Iraqi Republican Guard, and Desert Fox had a significant impact on the weaponry infrastructure of Iraq, by the time George W. Bush took office, Saddam Hussein was still in power. Hussein was still committing crimes against his own people and the developing weaponry that threatened bordering nations. While “neither Iraq nor terrorism were issues in the 2000 presidential campaign” and “were hardly mentioned by the candidates of either party,” Hussein and Iraq were still in the back of the minds of many Americans as President Clinton left the White House and President Bush took office (Ricks 24). Just two years later Iraq would again enter the forefront of American foreign policy, a place it would stay for most of the next decade.
III. Bush administration’s reasons for invasion
During the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the American public became familiar with the acronym “WMD,” or weapons of mass destruction. This term quickly became famous, and just as quickly infamous after the invasion fell out of public favor. The concern of Hussein’s possession and/or development of WMD was the most notable of the Bush administration’s four main justifications for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a fact that would lead to many in the public questioning the credibility Bush administration and the intelligence community for years. Along with WMD, the members of the Bush administration cited Hussein’s human rights violations and violations of post-Gulf War agreements along with his support of terror groups within and outside of Iraq. These reasons for invasion were not at all new complaints; President Clinton alluded to similar issues before Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. He explained, “the hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threats the well being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world” (Clinton).
Saddam Hussein’s human rights violations surrounding the time of his invasion of Kuwait drew criticism from the international community, but they only got worse after Operation Desert Storm. In his personal memoir, Known and Unknown, Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld outlines some of the crimes Hussein had committed against his own citizens. According to Rumsfeld’s intelligence briefings, Hussein “drove some 150,000 Iraqis from their homes…his intelligence services were merciless in torturing suspected opponents…arbitrary arrests and unexplained disappearances were commonplace” and “he built rape rooms to bring ‘dishonor’ to the female members of families suspected of opposition to him” (Rumsfeld 417). In the words of President Bush, Hussein “and his henchmen had tortured innocent people, raped political opponents in front of their families, scalded dissidents with acid, and dumped tens of thousands of Iraqis into mass graves” (Bush 228). While there is not doubt that Hussein was a dangerous and maniacal leader, it is important to keep in mind that he was not the only foreign leader committing atrocities against his own people during the Bush administration. If these acts of violence, torture and genocide were alone enough to call for an invasion, the United States would have had troops in Sudan due to the genocide in Darfur. Calling for a full invasion based on a mistreatment of citizens by a leader can result in a quick fall down the slippery slope to “nation building” and becoming known as the world policeman. While many do not have a problem with these labels, it is certainly a murky reason to invade.
Hussein was also heavily criticized by members of the Bush administration for his violations of agreements and restrictions that followed the outcome of the first Gulf War in 1991. Hussein was accused of diverting “nearly two billion dollars from the Oil-for-Food program—which the UN had created to provide for the basic humanitarian needs of the Iraqis—to enrich his cronies and reconstitute his military strength” (Bush 227). Iraq had fired on American fighters patrolling the no-fly zone above Iraq hundreds of times since the 1991 Gulf War, and he “had defied sixteen UN resolutions, dating back to the Gulf War” (Bush 228). While UN resolutions and misuse of money given to the government does not jump off the page like genocide, WMD, or support of terrorist groups, breaking these sanctions did help the United States when it came to asking for international support for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
One criticism of Hussein that is often overlooked today is his connections to terror groups in the Middle East. This was certainly not a new development in 2003, “Iraq had been on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terror since 1990. The regime’s links to individual terrorists and terrorist groups earned Iraq its place on the ‘axis of evil’ list” (Rumsfeld 421). Rumsfeld cites a unclassified written statement by CIA Director George Tenet that notes “senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa’ida going back a decade” including discussions of safe havens, terrorists found in Baghdad, and most startling, “credible reporting that al-Qa’ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities” (Rumsfeld 421). Obviously the September 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil had a huge impact on the way the Bush administration perceived the connections between Hussein’s government and the leaders of terrorist organizations, especially al-Qa’ida. President Bush felt that 9/11 had completely changed the way Americans should view Iraq, “Through the lens of the post-9/11 world, my view changed. I had just witnessed the damage inflicted by nineteen fanatics armed with box cutters. I could only imagine the destruction possible if an enemy dictator passed his WMD to terrorists” (Bush 229). The Bush administration used these connections to tie the invasion of Iraq to the “War on Terror,” which in many ways looked like an attempt to directly connect Saddam Hussein to the events of September 11, 2001. While connections might exist between Hussein, Iraq, and various terrorist groups, these leaps by the Bush administration were part of the reason that many Americans lost faith in his presidency.
The issue of WMD is easily the most controversial of any of the Bush administration’s four main reasons for invasion of Iraq in 2003. For the sake of this section, I will simply concentrate on what members of the administration claim to have been aware of at the time of invasion, reports to the contrary will be brought up later in this paper. Rumsfeld writes about the confidence that the intelligence agencies had in the existences of WMD in Iraq, most notably an August 2002 CIA briefing that mentioned “Iraq had reconstituted its facilities for biological and chemical weapons…there was construction at old nuclear facilities, and Iraq was ‘clearly working’ on fissile material, which meant that Saddam could have a nuclear weapon within one year” and “there were 3,200 tons of chemical weapons the regime previously had that remained unaccounted for” (Rumsfeld 433). Rumsfeld does note that he had one major concern at the time, “we heard a great deal about what our intelligence community knew or thought they knew, but not enough about what they didn’t know” (Rumsfeld 433). It was the unapologetic confidence in the existence of WMD that would come back to bite many members of the administration, most notably Bush, who is much less apologetic about his confidence in their existence.
Bush brings up the argument that not only did multiple intelligence agencies have evidence that Hussein currently possessed WMD or was at least in the process of producing and acquiring, but his use of WMD in the past contributed to the arguments in favor of an invasion. Bush brought up the fact that “he deployed mustard has and nerve agents against the Iranians and massacred more than five thousand innocent civilians in a 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja…nobody knew what Saddam had done with his biological and chemical stockpiles, especially after he booted inspectors out of the country” (Bush 229). For members of the Bush administration, information from the intelligence community claiming that Hussein was arming Iraq, past use of WMD, and a refusal to allow weapons inspectors into the country was more than enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD.
The Bush administration has received much criticism over the past decade for their decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, and the next section of the research paper will outline many of the most notable critiques. While each of the four main reasons for invasion given by the Bush administration are open for criticism, they are certainly claims that would make any leader of a similar country consider the possibility of invasion, but for the good of his or her own country, and for the good of the citizens of a country like Iraq.
IV. Arguments against invasion
While the Bush administration posed many valid (though not necessarily factual) arguments in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were many naysayers at the time that believed military action was not a suitable response to Saddam Hussein. In the later years of the war and in the months since the United States has withdrawn troops from Iraq the numbers of those that believe the invasion was a poor choice have grown. In this paper, documenting the opinions against the invasion will include sources from before, during and after the invasion took place. While most of these arguments revolve around WMD (or lack thereof) this section will include some level of response from the opposition on each of the four identified reasons of the Bush administration for invasion.
There is little argument that exists that suggests that Saddam Hussein was not in fact a vile leader. The atrocities committed against his own people, the brutal oppression of women in Iraq, and his attempts at ethnic cleansing during the late 20th century are essentially common knowledge. A report by the Iraq Survey Group confirmed the Bush administration’s claims regarding his misuse of the Oil-for-Food Program funding. While many criticize the administration’s desire to “nation build” in Iraq. While no tears were shed over the collapse of Hussein’s dictatorship, there were questions of the morality of reconstructing Iraq without completely understanding the inner-workings of the country. International relations expert Nigel Biggar accuses American leaders of an “underestimation of the task of nation-rebuilding” which he feels “is partly attributable to a lack of virtue, in particular the absence of empathy for, and patience with, ‘the poor’—in this case, a society demoralized by decades of ruthless tyranny” (Biggar 30).
Hussein and Iraq’s defiance of the United Nations was one the factors that Bush used in his justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and his actions when calling upon allies and the international community for military support in the endeavor. While there is little doubt that Hussein shattered many of the restrictions placed on Iraq following the first Gulf War, the results of some of these penalties leads some historians to question the use of such strong punitive sanctions by the UN in the future. Euclid Rose drew comparisons between the sanctions placed on Iraq and the atomic bomb dropped on Japan in regards to the great negative impact both actions had on innocent civilians in each country. Rose states, “more than 600,000 Iraqi children died as a result of punitive UN sanctions…general malnutrition rates in Iraq were alarmingly high: 14.7 percent among infants, 33 percent among children under five and 25 percent among Iraqis under 26 years…far above the level that had existed in Iraq prior to its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which triggered the sanctions and the Gulf War that followed” (Rose 467).
While the sanctions might not have been the only factor in the decrease in overall health of Iraqis, but the Gulf War as a whole was undoubtedly the greatest catalyst. While the Bush administration called for war in part because of the dangers the oppressive leadership of Hussein brought to the nation, they seemed to largely ignore the great negative impact that a war could have on the well being of Iraqis living on invaded soil. These statistics emphasize the dangers of invasion for Iraqi citizens and bring up questions regarding the future of punitive sanctions by the UN, but do not eliminate the fact that Hussein and Iraq went against the wishes of the UN in many ways between the first Gulf War and the 2003 invasion.
One of the most scathing warnings against the 2003 invasion came from Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor under President George H.W. Bush and President Gerald Ford. In an August 2002 editorial originally printed in the Wall Street Journal, he shot holes in the Bush administration’s attempt to tie the invasion into the war on terror. Scowcroft observed, “Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them…there is little evidence to suggest that the United States itself is an object of his aggression” (Scowcroft). This is certainly an important argument, and raises questions from a foreign policy expert on whether or not it is the business of the United States to get involved with a country and leader that would otherwise not be bothering us.
Not only does Scowcroft destroy the Bush administration’s attempts at connection between Hussein and the events of 9/11, he emphasizes the negative impact an invasion will have on the War on Terror. Scowcroft warned, “any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, costs and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism” (Scowcroft). In many ways these were predictions that turned out to be accurate. At the very least the public attention turned from Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Rather than the invasion showing support for the War on Terror, it seems clear that it became a distraction from the goals that President Bush established after the events of September 11.
One of the most important pieces of evidence in the debate surrounding the invasion is the existence of WMD. Unfortunately for the Bush administration, it became clear as the war progressed that the Iraqi WMD programs thought to be placing much of the world in danger were in fact nonexistent. These discoveries were confirmed through the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, often labeled the “Duelfer Report,” named after Charles Duelfer, the leader of the Iraq Survey Group.
The Duelfer Report is one of many intelligence reports that have shown the lack of WMD in Iraq. The report did confirm that “Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability” but also discovered that “Saddam Hussein ended the nuclear program in 1991…ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program” (Duelfer). Similar statements were repeated in regards to Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons programs. While the Bush administration and their intelligence gatherers were correct about the desire of Hussein to possess WMD, they were clearly incorrect about the existence of the weapons while planning the invasion in 2003.
The Bush administration was not the only group that incorrectly believed in the existence of WMD in Iraq. Judith Miller of the New York Times reported the existence of WMD based on a 2002 interview with Adnan Ihsan Saeed Al-Haideri, an Iraqi civil engineer. He claimed to have seen multiple sites in which WMD were being constructed by the Iraqi government. It turned out “none of the weapons sites – which Al-Haideri claimed were located beneath hospitals and behind palaces – have ever been located” (McCollam). Both the Bush administration and large chunks of the American media were incorrect about the existence of WMD in Iraq. This leads to huge holes in an argument in favor of invasion, especially in hindsight.
While not all aspects of the Bush administration’s reasoning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq is contended by historians, journalists, or other experts in the field, most of the major pieces of their argument have been deconstructed and defeated over the past decade. The most notable of these arguments is obviously the conclusions made regarding the existence of WMD in Iraq during the mid-to-late 1990’s and the early 2000’s leading up to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The fact that WMD were not inside the country during those times will play a huge role in regards to the judgment of the decision to invade, not just in this research paper, but by historians for decades. That, on top of the warnings and evaluations from experts in the field regarding the connections of Hussein to 9/11 and the dangers of attempting to “nation build” will impact my personal conclusions regarding this difficult issue. The arguments presented against the invasion will play a large role in the conclusion of this paper.
V. Conclusions
The research into the subject of the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent writing of the paper on the subject resulted in discoveries of information regarding the decisions that led to the invasion and the evaluations of those decisions months and years after they had been made. In order to most effectively come to an educated decision on whether or not the Bush administration made the correct choice in deciding to invade Iraq in 2003, the organized arguments will be evaluated point-by-point. Will this is certainly not an objective process; it should be effective for the purposes of this academic research paper.
Before delving into the conclusions drawn from this research, it is necessary to admit some weaknesses within the study itself. The greatest weakness is the timing of the research and the paper. This weakness is twofold – the first being the biased nature of the testaments of Bush and members of his cabinet. These individuals wrote books after the fact, meaning they had time to twist their stories in a way that puts their decisions in a positive light. For example, it would be in their best interest to exaggerate the confidence of the intelligence agencies in the existence of WMD now that it is clear that none existed. If the intelligence agencies were completely confident in the existence of WMD, the blame for an invasion based on faulty information is less solidly on the shoulders of the Bush administration. This is an issue that will come up in any historical study that depends on first-hand testaments after the fact. The other main weakness stems from the fact that the invasion began less than a decade before this paper was written, meaning many documents regarding the decision to invade are still classified. While this makes the study difficult, it is no less important to do this now than it is fifty years after the invasion. It is still helpful to understand why the decisions were made and what impact it has on the world today even if a portion of the vital information will not be available until years down the road.
The first of the four potential reasons for invasion raised in this paper is the human rights atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein during his oppressive rule of Iraq. While no reasonable arguments against the factuality of the atrocities could be found, it is clear that those violations alone do not merit an invasion of a country. The handling of Iraq clearly shows the dangers of invading a country that the US government does not fully understand, and often what is perceived as help can lead to more pain and suffering on the part of the citizens of the country in question. While it is certainly good that Saddam Hussein is out of power, this is a move that could have been made without using US troops on the ground in Iraq. While some might disagree, there are simply too many dangers that exist for the US to safely continue to act as the world policeman.
The facts are also essentially undeniable in the case of Hussein’s violation of UN regulations and the misuse of Oil-for-Food money. While these acts are reprehensible, they are not deserving of swift military action alone. It was not necessarily wrong for the US and the Bush administration to move forward when Hussein violated these regulations, but I would argue that it is the job of the UN to enforce their own regulations and not the job of the United States to become a sort of vigilante police force within the Middle East.
The issue of Hussein’s ties to terror groups creates much more of a murky situation. Research on the subject led to some level of contradiction regarding Iraq’s ties and funding of al-Qa’ida and other terror groups, including accusations that Baghdad had become a safe haven for these groups. Even if Hussein had ties to al-Qa’ida, it seems like a large jump to tie the war in Iraq to the “War on Terror” in relation to a hunt to avenge the American lives lost on 9/11. Even if terrorists were receiving safe haven in Iraq, it would not be reason enough to lead the sort of attack that overthrew the government of the country. That would be like President Obama sending troops to over the Pakistani government because Osama bin Laden spent years hiding in Pakistan. Iraq’s ties to terrorist groups and their funding of those groups certainly raises eyebrows, but it is by no means justification of a complete land invasion of the country and an overthrow of their government.
The toughest issue to deal with in this paper is WMD. Two facts became clear during the research of WMD in Iraq – before the 2003 invasion President Bush believed Hussein possessed WMD, and in reality there were no WMD in Iraq during that time. This leads to the difficult issue of how to judge the Bush administration. Should judgment of a President’s foreign policy decisions be based on what facts he believed to be true at the time of the decision, or is it fair to judge the decision on the reality of the decision, often gained with the benefit of hindsight? It seems that in issues of intelligence the President should be judged for the reality of the situation. President Bush had the opportunity to put together his own cabinet, choose his own advisors, and he likely held a large influence over the retention of many upper-level members of the CIA. If those intelligence groups failed, or if he was unable to sift through fact from fiction, the blame should fall on his shoulders. This might seem like a harsh judgment, but it comes with the territory. The Bush administration was incorrect about the existence of WMD, and that misinformation led to an invasion in which thousands of American lives were lost.
Saddam Hussein violated UN regulations, violated the human rights of countless individuals in and around Iraq, attempted to lead US leaders to believe that Iraq possessed WMD. The world is better to have Saddam Hussein out of power. With that said, it has become clear throughout this paper that while there were some benefits to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it was a poor decision on the part of the Bush administration to call for Operation Iraqi Freedom. President Bush made a decision based on misinformation that led to the loss of lives of thousands of Americans. This is not a decision that he will live down, and while there have certainly been payoffs from the war, it seems for the time being that history will judge the Bush White House harshly for its choices.
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