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Why did America invade Iraq in 2003?

posted 7 years ago by Yorick_Brown
2 replies | jump to latest

Is it the official story?

Which is that George H.W. Bush REALLY was so stubbornly stupid—but innocent—as to think Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and then said 'WHOOPS! My bad!' when he saw the there were not any and THEN just thought 'Well, we already invaded and beat them. Might as well bring democracy to Iraq'?

I ask because the whole 'it was about oil' narrative sounds tastier and more plausible but I've seen fairly good arguments as to why that isn't the truth or the whole truth?

So did we invade because:

A. Bush was stubbornly stupid but innocent and thought that this mad dictator was an imminent threat to the world
B. There were nefariously non-ideological economic and political reasons for entering the war (like World War I)?
C. Some other reason or set of reasons that may or may not include one or both of the above?

Note: Please see Fair Game (2010) to see a great dramatization of the Valerie Plame Affair.

We try but we didn't have long
We try but we don't belong...

-Hot Chip (Boy from School)

[–] mhansen-25806 7 years ago

You're confusing your Bushes.

President George H. W. Bush led the coalition in Desert Storm in 1991.
President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003.

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

[–] HairynosedWombat 7 years ago

High level politicians don't have the time to be on top of the minutiae of every issue, so they rely on executive summaries and advisors.
When those advisors have machievelian agendas they can wield enormous power by giving the boss limited information biased towards where they want to go.

Bush was controlled by the neocon cabal led by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, whose agenda was for the US to be world policeman, starting with the first game, Iraq and with Iran next. Iran was saved by two things, first that the Iraq adventure went belly-up due to Rumsfelds incompetence and second, Bush noticed that the CIA was not interested in fostering the lie of Iranian aggression.

Bush realised possibly around 2006 what the neocons were up to, sacked Rumsfeld and brought in Condi Rice to bring some competence to the war.

I still don't know where Blair fits into the above scenario. He was more than a dupe like Powell, possibly along for the ride promised riches by Cheney.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable