U.S.-Iraq War

B

2

Contingency Plans for War

Ever since the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. military had contingency plans to invade Iraq. Military planning began in earnest, however, in the months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C. (see September 11 Attacks). The U.S. intelligence community quickly concluded that the attacks were the work of al-Qaeda, an international terrorist organization led by Saudi Arabian millionaire Osama bin Laden and based in Afghanistan. In October, a U.S.-led international coalition invaded Afghanistan and within weeks overthrew the ruling Taliban regime, which had supported al-Qaeda. Emboldened by the success, the Bush administration turned its attention to Iraq.

President Bush began to make the case publicly for military action against Iraq in his January 2002 State of the Union speech in which he identified Iraq as a member of an “axis of evil,” along with neighboring Iran and North Korea. All three nations, Bush said, were threatening global security. The Bush administration viewed Iraq as a rogue state and Hussein as a regional troublemaker in the volatile Middle East. Iraq, like many Arab states, opposed Israel, a U.S. ally, and supported the Palestinian cause (see Arab-Israeli Conflict).

However, various insider accounts later disclosed that the Bush administration’s plans for war with Iraq began in early 2001. According to Paul O’Neill, the administration’s former treasury secretary, planning for war with Iraq began almost as soon as Bush took office. Bush’s former head of counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, later wrote that immediately after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush approached him with a demand to learn if Iraq could be linked to the attacks. And the day of the attacks Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz all raised the question of whether to attack Iraq, not just Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, with Rumsfeld calling it “an opportunity,” according to an account by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward.

By July 2002 the Bush administration had decided that military action against Iraq was inevitable, according to a British government memo, known as the Downing Street Memo after it was leaked to a British newspaper. Although the Bush administration was publicly proclaiming at the time that war was “a last resort,” the memo revealed that the Bush administration had “no patience” for going through the United Nations and that detailed military planning was taking place between the U.S. and British military commanders. The Downing Street Memo stated: “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

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B

3

Prewar Intelligence Claims

The stated concern of the administration was over Iraq’s alleged program to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The Bush administration asserted that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of lethal chemical weapons, had accelerated its program to make biological weapons, and was actively seeking materials to make nuclear weapons. Key figures such as Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice refrained from qualifying these claims. In August 2002 Cheney told a meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that “there is no doubt” that Iraq under Hussein was amassing weapons of mass of destruction to use against the United States and its allies. And in September he told a Republican fundraising meeting in Casper, Wyoming, that “we now have irrefutable evidence” that Hussein had reconstituted a nuclear weapons program. The administration claimed that with such an arsenal, Hussein could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for use against the United States, while also implying that Hussein was linked with al-Qaeda. In all, Bush administration officials made about 935 claims relating to Iraq’s possession of WMD and ties to al-Qaeda, according to a database compiled by the Center for Public Integrity.

In speeches and reports Bush and his administration made the case for preemptive military action to avoid such a potential threat. “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long,” Bush said in June 2002. In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush cited reports that Hussein had attempted to buy “significant quantities of uranium from Africa” as well as special aluminum tubes in order to produce nuclear weapons. The charge that Iraq sought uranium from Africa was later to reverberate in the Valerie Plame Wilson affair. In the aftermath, it became clear that both allegations were incorrect. The allegation that Iraq sought uranium from Africa was based on forged documents. The charge that it had bought aluminum tubes for use in a nuclear weapons program was disputed at the time by experts in the administration’s Department of Energy and was later found to be baseless by weapons inspectors following the U.S. invasion. Another claim that Iraq was developing mobile biological weapons laboratories was based on the claims of an Iraqi defector known as Curve Ball, but his alleged eyewitness description of a biological weapons site was later discredited by satellite photographs of the site.

Opponents of military action against Iraq challenged the Bush administration’s case. They argued that an invasion to overthrow Hussein would pull resources away from the U.S. campaign against terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the war in Afghanistan. Critics pointed to an October 2002 assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which concluded that Hussein was unlikely to cooperate with terrorist groups unless he felt that his regime was in peril. Critics also said that information about Iraq’s weapons programs was uncertain, that Iraq could be pressured to readmit UN weapons inspectors, and that the Hussein regime did not present an imminent threat. War opponents also argued that the Bush administration had not developed an effective exit strategy under which U.S. troops could be withdrawn from Iraq after the war.

Critics of the contention that the Hussein regime maintained ties with al-Qaeda, and in particular with one of its leading members, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, appeared to have been vindicated in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion. In September 2006 the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Republican senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, concluded that there was no evidence linking the Iraqi government to al-Qaeda, the September 11 attacks, or Zarqawi. It was also shown that information provided by a suspected al-Qaeda detainee alleging a connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda was obtained under torture in an Egyptian prison. The detainee later recanted his statements. In March 2008 the Department of Defense released a study that concluded there was no direct connection between the Saddam Hussein regime and al-Qaeda. The study was based on an analysis of 600,000 Iraqi government documents seized by U.S. forces after the invasion and the interrogations of former top officials in Hussein’s government.

Opposition to a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was widespread among European political leaders, but with the United States still shaken by the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration won the domestic debate. In October 2002 the U.S. Congress voted to authorize the use of military force to defend the United States against “the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” The Bush administration had pushed for the vote to be held prior to congressional elections in November, which placed increased political pressure on the lawmakers to support military action against Iraq. In the Senate the resolution passed by a 77-23 margin. The Republican majority in the Senate overwhelmingly approved the measure, with only 1 Republican and 1 independent joining 21 Democrats in opposition. In the House the vote also largely followed party lines with 6 Republicans joining 127 Democrats in opposing the authorization.

C

International Debate

After receiving congressional support for military action against Iraq, the Bush administration turned to the UN. British prime minister Tony Blair, the White House’s staunchest foreign ally in its campaign against Hussein, had urged Bush to seek UN approval. Blair believed that he needed UN backing in order to build support in Britain for the operation.

Most UN member states, however, hoped to avoid a conflict by pressuring Iraq to let UN inspectors return. On October 8 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1441, stating that Iraq was in “material breach of its obligations” for failing to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. The Security Council measure demanded that Iraq provide a complete accounting of its weapons programs and unrestricted access to all buildings, equipment, and records. The resolution also called for Iraq to allow UN inspectors to transport Iraqi scientists and their families outside of Iraq. That way the scientists would not be subject to intimidation by the Iraqi government when they were interviewed. In November, Iraq agreed to allow inspectors to reenter the country and resume their work.

The renewed weapons inspections were in some ways quite successful. Iraq granted access to former and suspected weapons sites that had previously been concealed. The Iraqi government also agreed to destroy certain missiles that were capable of hitting targets more than 150 km (90 mi) away (a range prohibited by previous disarmament agreements). On the other hand, Iraq did not facilitate private interviews with Iraqi scientists and weapons makers, and the government was not forthcoming about the details of its earlier weapons programs.

Although inspectors visited 100 of 600 sites designated as suspicious by Western powers, they found nothing of interest. On March 7, Mohammad ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the UN Security Council: “After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.” An earlier March 6 working paper by the UN weapons inspectors concluded with regard to chemical and biological weapons, “No proscribed activities, or the result of such activities from the period of 1998-2002 have, so far, been detected through inspections.”

The UN Security Council was sharply divided about what action to take next and faced an impasse. In order for a Security Council resolution to pass, 9 out of 15 members must vote for it. However, any of the 5 permanent members may veto it. The United States and Britain (permanent members of the Security Council) and Spain (a nonpermanent member) favored a second resolution that would have set a March 17, 2003, deadline for Iraq to disarm or face the consequences. But France, Russia, and China (permanent members) and Germany (nonpermanent member) were opposed, arguing that it was too soon to give up on the inspections. Most of the other nonpermanent members also opposed military action. The opposition of France and Germany, longtime U.S. allies, particularly troubled the Bush administration.

This was not the only foreign policy complication that the United States faced. The United States had hoped to open a northern front against Iraq from neighboring Turkey. The plan was to use Turkish soil as a staging area for a drive south by the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, which would complement a larger ground attack mounted from Kuwait, in the southeast. However, the newly elected Turkish government was reluctant to agree to this due to overwhelming opposition from the Turkish public. The United States offered $6 billion in grants and additional billions in credits if Turkey agreed to its plan, but Turkey’s parliament rejected the plan. Turkey’s decision represented a major setback for the Bush administration, not only because it interfered with U.S. military strategy. It also deprived the United States of the support of a largely Muslim nation, which would have helped lend additional credibility to an invasion of Iraq in the Islamic world.

D

Last Moves

Faced with opposition in the Security Council and reluctance on the part of Turkey, the United States and Britain remained determined to take military action and assembled a coalition force in Kuwait. The coalition force consisted of a U.S. force that initially numbered about 200,000 personnel (eventually expanding to 290,000), of which 100,000 formed the invasion force. In addition, there were about 50,000 British personnel, about 2,000 Australian troops, and about 200 Polish soldiers. Coalition planners felt that if there was to be a war, it was better to have it sooner than later. A major factor was the weather: In the summer, the temperature in Iraq can soar to more than 50°C (120°F), which would hamper military operations.

In the week leading up to the war the Bush administration continued to press its claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that it was allied with al-Qaeda. In an appearance on the Meet the Press television show, Vice President Cheney claimed that Hussein had “a long-standing relationship” with al-Qaeda and had “in fact” reconstituted a nuclear weapons program. Cheney also predicted that U.S. forces would “be greeted as liberators.”

On March 17 in a nationally televised speech, Bush said, “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq government continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” Bush gave Saddam Hussein and his immediate family 48 hours to leave the country or face a military attack. It was later disclosed that Hussein had offered to leave Iraq and go into exile but under conditions that were not acceptable to the Bush administration. As UN weapons inspectors evacuated Iraq on March 18, Hans Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), indicated that he believed the inspectors should have been given more time to investigate Iraq’s weapons programs.

On March 19 the United States conducted an air strike in an attempt to kill Hussein. It involved an attack on the Dora Farms area of Baghdād where Hussein was believed to be holding a meeting in a bunker. After the war, the U.S. military determined that there was no bunker at this location. A number of civilian casualties resulted from this attack.

The war began on March 20. The invasion of Iraq, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom by the White House, was led by General Tommy Franks, then head of the U.S. Central Command.

III

Operation Iraqi Freedom

The military plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom differed from that for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Unlike the Persian Gulf War, coalition military commanders did not plan for a long bombing campaign prior to introducing ground forces. The plan was for the air campaign and a ground attack to begin nearly simultaneously. In the 2003 war the United States also used a far smaller ground force than it used in 1991. When the war began, the coalition ground force consisted primarily of two U.S. Army divisions, a Marine Expeditionary Force, and a British Armored Division. This approach derived from a new way of thinking about warfare advocated by U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld sought to move away from the traditional U.S. war strategy of deploying huge numbers of infantry forces and tank columns to overwhelm the adversary. Instead, he envisioned a more mobile military that would use U.S. airpower to stagger the enemy. The strategy called for more flexible conventional forces and a larger role for special operations troops in winning battles on the ground. Theoretically, Rumsfeld’s military would be more responsive to situations requiring U.S. military action.

Considerable debate about this approach took place among military specialists in the United States. It broke with the doctrine of overwhelming force used by U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell when he planned the Persian Gulf War as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 12 years earlier. As a result, some Persian Gulf War commanders asserted that the ground force was too small given the need to protect supply lines from Kuwait, secure Baghdād, and occupy much of the country. Rumsfeld insisted the force was more than adequate since the coalition also had unrivaled control of the air, superior military technology, and, Rumsfeld assumed, the cooperation of much of the Iraqi population. The U.S. military made much greater use of precise, high-tech weaponry than in the Persian Gulf War. In 2003 it used satellite-guided bombs and advanced drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) for reconnaissance. In addition, according to most reports, the Iraqi military had grown much weaker over the years, although it still consisted of about 400,000 soldiers.

To hedge their bets, U.S. military planners arranged for additional forces to flow into Kuwait as the battle began. These forces included the 1st Armored Division and the 4th Infantry Division, which the United States had originally hoped to deploy in Turkey. These units would act as reinforcements if the fighting proved to be tough or act as peacekeepers if a victory was quickly achieved.

After the March 19 bombing attack, which was intended to kill Hussein, Iraqi forces responded by firing surface-to-surface missiles at U.S. bases in Kuwait. Iraqis also set fire to a small number of oil wells in the Ar Rumaylah oil field in southeastern Iraq. Coalition officials were concerned that Iraq might set the entire oil field ablaze. This would have been a major setback for the coalition, which wanted to preserve Iraq's oil wells to benefit a future Iraqi government and to help pay for Iraq’s reconstruction. As a result, plans for the allied ground invasion were advanced one day and took place on March 20 before the main air assault, which came a day later.

On the night of March 21, as coalition forces streamed into southern Iraq, the United States unleashed air strikes against Baghdād. The air attack, referred to as a “shock and awe” campaign, was intended to provoke an Iraqi surrender early in the conflict. Bombs destroyed key targets in the capital, but the bombardment failed to lead to the collapse of the Hussein regime. Also on March 21, U.S. special operations forces seized two airfields in western Iraq in an effort to prevent the Iraqis from attacking Israel with Scud missiles, as they had done during the Persian Gulf War. The Bush administration feared that if Israel entered the war, it would be more difficult to maintain the quiet support of some Arab and Muslim nations. No Scud missiles were found.

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