Why The United States Invade Iraq In 2003

There have been several questions and debates regarding the reasons for America invading Iraq in 2003. Some critics have gone as far as to claim that President Bush did so to gain control of oil while others saw it as a show of military power and yet others honestly believe it was done as part of the war on terror. The Iraq invasion was a consequence of the September 11, 2001 attack, and America’s war on global terrorism by going after countries that harbored terrorist groups. Although Iraq did not harbor Al-Qaeda, it provided training camps for terrorist groups, which was enough to call for an investigation. The Bush administration invaded Iraq on the claim of weapons of mass destruction and support of the terrorist group in an attempt to
The US State Secretary presented the Security Council with evidence showing that Iraq had success in developing WMD and the Vice President backed him up with claims that left no doubt regarding Hussein’s possession of WMD to use against the United States and its allies (Amin, 2014). Hussein had already used biological and chemical weapons during the Kurdish war and the Iraq-Iran war. This history gave the Bush administration a reason that all people could agree upon since no one wanted Hussein to be in a position to use WMD against Americans. However, scholars have argued that Hussein only used biological and chemical weapons in the countries that could not retaliate in kind. Thus, he could not have attempted to do the same with the United States just as he never did with Israel (Amin, 2014). Moreover, the intelligence regarding the presence of WMD was not precise prior to the invasion, and the United States failed to recover any WMD or evidence of their existence. As a result, many policymakers believed that the US had fabricated this claim to justify its reasons for going to war with
As a consequence, the US-Iraq war damaging to all the countries involved and the decision to invade Iraq has long been considered to be America’s struggle for power. Power hegemony and oil interests proved to be some of the undisclosed reasons for the Iraq invasion in 2003. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States took over the hegemony state globally, and when it was threatened in 2003, it did not hesitate to go to war. Scholars have long speculated that the decision to invade Iraqi was America’s grand strategy towards a coercive assertion of global hegemony (Bojang, 2016). One of the ways that America can show its dominance is through military prowess and removing Saddam Hussein from power would demonstrate the might of the US military against its enemies. Moreover, in the wake of the 9/11 bombing, the Bush administration and the military department considered such a demonstration necessary to dispel any appearance of weakness and deter potential threats (Heinrich, 2015). Another way that the US can demonstrate its global hegemony is through its protectorate over the "world" oil reserves, which happen to be concentrated in the Persian Gulf. As a strategic commodity needed by everyone, oil is vital in demonstrating the military power, and with the US controlling the flow of oil in the global economy,