The Iraq War is the main reason why George W Bush is hated by liberals more than Richard Nixon, Osama Bin Laden, and Satin combined. In their minds, the left imagines that Bush and the vast right wing conspiracy hatched an evil plan to start a war and steal Iraqi oil so that Bush’s oil company friends could make an easy buck.
No war for oil? Where is all that oil? If we went to war for oil, why was gas five dollars a gallon not too long ago? We should have taken Iraqi oil in exchange for our blood spilt and treasure spent liberating Iraq. Liberals love to revise history, so for those interested in what really happened, pay attention.
In August 1990, Iraq invades the tiny Gulf nation of Kuwait. The UN imposes sanctions, which do nothing; finally 34 nations lead by the US expelled Iraq from Kuwait by force.
To avoid losing power Saddam Hussein Surrendered to the Coalition in 1991. He agreed to 12 UN resolutions that limited the Iraqi military and prohibited them from possessing WMD’s.
Throughout the 1990’s Saddam defied the resolutions agreed to in the Gulf War cease fire. Occasionally, Bill Clinton would fire cruise missiles into Iraq when he needed a distraction (allegedly). Despite this, Iraq continued to disobey UN sanctions. They continued to develop both banned conventional weapons, as well as weapons of mass destruction.
To be fair, President Clinton was somewhat tough with Iraq during the 1990’s, but on September 11th, 2001 everything changed, no longer could we afford to sanction and occasionally target Iraq with cruise missiles. We could no longer risk allowing a rogue radical Islamic nation to develop WMD’s, WMD’s that could find their way into the hands of murderous Muslim terrorists.
Because no WMD’s were found after the Liberation of Iraq, liberals think this means that Iraq never had and never wanted to have WMD’s. They forget, Iraq had developed WMD’s in the past and nearly everyone in the world believed Iraq possessed them in 2003.
"How close is the peril of Iraqi WMD? Today, or at most within a few months, Iraq could launch missile attacks with chemical or biological weapons against its neighbors (albeit attacks that would be ragged, inaccurate, and limited in size). Within four or five years it could have the capability to threaten most of the Middle East and parts of Europe with missiles armed with nuclear weapons containing fissile material produced indigenously—and to threaten U.S. territory with such weapons delivered by nonconventional means, such as commercial shipping containers. If it managed to get its hands on sufficient quantities of already produced fissile material, these threats could arrive much sooner."
Who said that? Not George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, or Halliburton. It was none other than Clinton Administration official Robert Einhorn in 2002. (1)
George W Bush was not the only one with the opinion that Iraq possessed WMD’s and that they posed a clear and present danger to other countries. The CIA along with intelligence agencies from Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China, and Israel all agreed that Saddam possessed WMD’s. Even UN inspector Hans Blix believed Iraq had huge stockpiles of weapons hidden. Shortly before the invasion, UN inspectors found a stockpile of chemical warheads in a bunker 100 miles southwest of Baghdad. It was the opinion of Hans Blix that, because the bunker was relatively new, that stockpile might be the tip of a much larger iceberg. (2)
Due to the mountain of evidence the US Senate, in 2002, authorized the use of military force to disarm Iraq and enforce the Gulf War cease fire treaty. Senators voting to go to war with Iraq included John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein. Only 23 Senators voted against the resolution, mostly a who’s who of the radical left that would have opposed entering WWII after Pearl Harbor.
Finally, after 12 years of Iraq ignoring UN threats and sanctions, after all diplomatic efforts had been exhausted, the US lead a coalition of 40 nations to disarm Iraq and depose tyrannical dictator Saddam Hussein.
No WMD’s were found after the invasion of Iraq. Does that mean Iraq never had WMD? If that was the case, why would Saddam not consent to UN inspections? The fact is Saddam did have weapons before the invasion, the questions is what happened to the weapons? Either he destroyed them prior to the 2003 invasion or shipped them to friendly neighbors like Syria or Iran. Either way the invasion was more than justified given all of the evidence.
The mistake Bush made was in conducting the war too much like a police action after the initial ‘shock and awe’. Liberal rules of engagement and low troop levels hamstrung the US and coalition forces. Once General Petraeus and President Bush implemented the surge, the situation in Iraq was quickly brought under control.
People now opposed to the war say that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and we should be focused on Al-Qaeda. We were not attacked by a country on 9-11; we were attacked by radical Islam. Just who do anti war liberals think we were fighting in Iraq? The Iraqi boy scouts? The Muslim terrorists we are fighting over there are the same Muslim terrorists that would be plotting another 9-11 if they were not so busy fighting our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What should we have done? That is the question for all of the people opposed to the war in Iraq. Rewind back to 2003, less than two years after 9-11, mountains of evidence, 12 years of UN resolutions, what would the right thing to do be? George W Bush tried to do the right thing and liberals hate him for it. Instead, liberals should just be thankful that George W Bush did something to fight radical Islam and make the world a safer place.