2003 Invasion of Iraq

To understand why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 we must first analyze the past these two countries have with each other. The United States has had heated relations with Iraq for some time now. It all started in 1979, when President Bakr resigned making the vice president Saddam Hussein president. It was under Hussein’s control in which most of the tension between the United States and Iraq was caused. Under the Carter administration the U.S. State department listed Iraq as a state that sponsors terrorism the same year Hussein came into power. This is when Iraq began its downward spiral. Whether is was capturing his own Iraqi people to use as dummies in chemical war fare testing or using chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war, someone had to step in and police Hussein’s rule. Initially, the U.S. tried working with Iraq by establishing diplomatic relations. We were sending over billions and billions of dollars to help stabilize the country. I believe it was in the best U.S. interest to maintain good ties with Iraq because of the easy access Iraq has to oil. We even went as far as to side with Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. After the Iraq-Iran war, the world banks were refusing to loan any more money to Iraq because they were still viewed an unstable country. They had no problem getting money out of the United States however as we continued to loan them billions of dollars. The U.S. couldn’t turn a blind eye anymore when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.N. gave Iraq a date in which they had to pull out of Kuwait entirely and if they refused the U.N. would use any means necessary to remove them. When Iraq refused Desert Storm was put into effect and Iraq was forced to leave Kuwait. Some time passes and Hussein is re-elected president. Iraqi international affairs seem to be ok but internally there are still many issues with its own people. Turkey steps in to help police the Iraqi people and eventually so does the United States. Iraq was granted