Iraq War
The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States–led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict persisted as an insurgency that arose against coalition forces and the newly established Iraqi government. US forces were officially withdrawn in 2011. In 2014, the US became re-engaged in Iraq, leading a new coalition under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the conflict evolved into the ongoing Islamic State insurgency.
The Iraq invasion was part of the Bush administration's broader war on terror, launched in response to the September 11 attacks. In October 2002, the US Congress passed a bipartisan resolution granting Bush authority to use military force against Iraq. The war began on March 20, 2003, when the US, joined by the UK, Australia, and Poland, initiated a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Coalition forces launched a ground invasion, defeating Iraqi forces and toppling the Ba'athist regime. Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003 and executed in 2006.
The fall of Saddam's regime created a power vacuum, which, along with the Coalition Provisional Authority's mismanagement, fueled a sectarian civil war between Iraq's Shia majority and Sunni minority, and contributed to a lengthy insurgency. In response, the US deployed an additional 170,000 troops during the 2007 troop surge, which helped stabilize parts of the country. In 2008, Bush agreed to withdraw US combat troops, a process completed in 2011 under President Barack Obama.
The primary rationale for the invasion centered around false claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission concluded in 2004 that there was no credible evidence linking Saddam to al-Qaeda, and no WMD stockpiles were found in Iraq. These false claims faced widespread criticism, in the US and abroad. Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the United Nations, declared the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter. The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry, concluded the war was unnecessary, as peaceful alternatives had not been fully explored. Iraq held multi-party elections in 2005, and Nouri al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006, a position he held until 2014. His government's policies alienated Iraq's Sunni minority, exacerbating sectarian tensions.
The war led to an estimated 150,000 to over a million deaths, including over 100,000 civilians, with most occurring during the post-invasion insurgency and civil war. The war had lasting geopolitical effects, including the emergence of the extremist Islamic State, whose rise led to the 2013–17 War in Iraq. The war damaged the US' international reputation, and Bush's popularity declined. UK prime minister Tony Blair's support for the war diminished his standing, contributing to his resignation in 2007.
Background
Following the Gulf War, the United Nations passed 16 Security Council resolutions calling for the complete elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi officials harassed inspectors and obstructed their work, and in August 1998, the Iraqi government suspended cooperation with the inspectors completely, alleging that the inspectors were spying for the US. The spying allegations were later substantiated.In October 1998, removing the Iraqi government became official US foreign policy with the enactment of the Iraq Liberation Act. The act provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." This legislation contrasted with the terms set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which focused on weapons and weapons programs and made no mention of regime change.
One month after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, the US and UK launched a bombardment campaign of Iraq called Operation Desert Fox. The campaign's express rationale was to hamper Saddam Hussein's government's ability to produce chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but US intelligence personnel also hoped it would help weaken Saddam's grip on power.
Following the 2000 presidential election of George W. Bush, the US moved towards a more aggressive Iraq policy. The Republican Party's campaign platform in the 2000 election called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act as "a starting point" in a plan to "remove" Saddam. Little formal movement towards an invasion occurred until the September 11 attacks, although plans were drafted and meetings were held from the first days of his administration.
Pre-war events
Following the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration's national security team debated an Iraq invasion. On the day of the attacks, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at the same time. Not only Osama bin Laden." The next day, Bush ordered White House counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to investigate possible Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks, believing that a devastating attack like 9/11 involved a state sponsor.Bush spoke with Rumsfeld on 21 November and instructed him to conduct a confidential review of OPLAN 1003, the war plan for invading Iraq. Rumsfeld met with General Tommy Franks, the commander of US Central Command, on 27 November to go over the plans. A record of the meeting includes the question "How start?", listing multiple possible justifications for a US–Iraq War. Bush began laying the public groundwork for an invasion of Iraq in his January 2002 State of the Union address, calling Iraq a member of the Axis of Evil, and saying that the US "will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
The intelligence community, however, indicated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks and there was little evidence that Iraq had any collaborative ties with Al Qaeda. Ultimately, the rationale for invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 has been widely refuted, as there was no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
A 5 September 2002 report from Major General Glen Shaffer revealed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff's J2 Intelligence Directorate had concluded that the United States' knowledge on different aspects of Iraq's WMD program ranged from essentially zero to ~75%, and that knowledge was weak on aspects of a possible nuclear weapons program. "Our knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program is based largely… on analysis of imprecise intelligence," they concluded. "Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence." Similarly, the British government found no evidence that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq posed no threat to the West, a conclusion British diplomats shared with the US government. The US intelligence community was of the opinion that Iraq had no nuclear weapons, and had no information about whether Iraq had biological weapons.
Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld expressed skepticism toward the CIA's intelligence and accuracy to predict threats, and instead preferred outside analysis with intelligence supplied by the Iraqi National Congress, which alleged that Saddam was pursuing WMD development and had ties to al-Qaeda. Bush began formally making his case to the international community for an invasion of Iraq in his 12 September 2002 address to the UN Security Council.
File:WeaponsInspector.JPG|thumb|A United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in 2002
In October 2002, the US Congress passed the Iraq Resolution. Key US allies in NATO, such as the United Kingdom, agreed with the US actions, while France and Germany were critical of plans to invade Iraq, arguing instead for continued diplomacy and weapons inspections. After considerable debate, the UN Security Council adopted a compromise resolution, UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorized the resumption of weapons inspections and promised "serious consequences" for non-compliance. Security Council members France and Russia made clear that they did not consider these consequences to include the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi government. The US and UK ambassadors to the UN publicly confirmed this reading of the resolution.
Resolution 1441 set up inspections by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Saddam 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. As of February 2003, the IAEA "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq"; the IAEA concluded that certain items which could have been used in nuclear enrichment centrifuges, such as aluminum tubes, were in fact intended for other uses. In March 2003, Blix said progress had been made in inspections, and no evidence of WMD had been found.
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 a presentation to the United Nations Security Council
On 5 February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the UN to present evidence that Iraq was hiding unconventional weapons. Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service and the British Secret Intelligence Service that the source was untrustworthy, Powell's presentation included information based on the claims of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball", an Iraqi emigrant living in Germany who later admitted that his claims had been false. Besides claiming a relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, Powell also alleged that al-Qaeda was attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.
As a follow-up to Powell's presentation, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Japan, and Spain proposed a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but NATO members like Canada, France, and Germany, together with Russia, strongly urged continued diplomacy. Facing a losing vote as well as a likely veto from France and Russia, the US, the UK, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Japan, and Australia eventually withdrew their resolution.
In March 2003, the United States, the UK, Poland, Australia, Spain, Denmark, and Italy began preparing for the invasion of Iraq with a host of public relations and military moves. In an address to the nation on 17 March 2003, Bush demanded that Saddam and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, surrender and leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline.
The UK House of Commons held a debate on going to war on 18 March 2003 where the government motion was approved 412 to 149. The vote was a key moment in the history of the Blair government, as the number of government MPs who rebelled against the vote was the greatest since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Three government ministers resigned in protest at the war, John Denham, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the then Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook.