History of the United States II / Unit 17 USH2 2461 review, 2 to 3 minutes
Why the United States Invaded Iraq
The idea
Why the United States invaded Iraq in two thousand three is the most contested decision of these years, and the sources frame it carefully. The administration's stated reason, in the anchor's account, was the claim that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and might turn them on the United States; the anchor calls the fear of stockpiled weapons the immediate impetus. Congress authorised force in October two thousand two, and Colin Powell presented allegations of a robust weapons programme to the United Nations in February two thousand three. The Bush Doctrine, as the anchor defines it, claimed a right to pre-emptive war and to replace hostile governments with friendly ones.
In practice
A war begun on an allegation, and a banner declaring its mission accomplished six weeks later.
Where people slip
The Yawp supplies the evidence that complicates the stated reason: Iraq had suspended its weapons programme while Saddam Hussein fostered ambiguity to deter attack; Iraq began cooperating with inspectors in late two thousand two, but the administration pressed on; and no evidence of weapons of mass destruction was ever found. The war cost four thousand four hundred seventy-five American lives, the anchor records, and an insurgency the United States struggled for ten years to contain. Two misreadings sit on either side. The first says the invasion answered September eleventh; the attackers were sheltered in Afghanistan, and the anchor's account of the case for war in Iraq rests on weapons, not on the attacks. The second says the sources prove officials knew there were no weapons; the sources record a claim that proved false and inspections cut short, and they do not establish what officials privately believed. The course keeps the anchor's framing, a claim, states what was found, and lets the student judge.
Your place on the trail
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Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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