Iraq War Term Analysis

The conflict between an American-led coalition and the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussein, which was quickly deposed in 2003, and then between the same coalition and Iraqi insurgent groups that flourished in the absence of a functioning government (from 2003-2011). The United States initially justified invading Iraq in March 2003 by declaring that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and was supporting al-Qaeda, but both these claims were soon disproven; ultimately, many observers have condemned the war as illegitimate under international law (including Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1997-2006). While President George W. Bush openly denied that the Iraq War had anything to do with the September 11 attacks, he also called it “the central front in the War on Terror.” Beyond committing numerous human rights violations (torturing prisoners, killing and displacing civilians, and using chemical weapons), the American coalition also arguably left Iraq far more politically unstable and hospitable to fundamentalist terrorist groups than it was before the war.