Criticism of the Iraq War
Encyclopedia
Rationale for the Iraq War
The rationale for the Iraq War has been a contentious issue since the Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress known as the Iraq Resolution.The...
has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States. Putting this controversy aside, both proponents and opponents of the invasion
Opposition to the Iraq War
Significant opposition to the Iraq War occurred worldwide, both before and during the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, United Kingdom, and smaller contingents from other nations, and throughout the subsequent occupation...
have also criticised the prosecution of the war effort along a number of lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the U.S. and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating widespread human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs.
Some academics see such costs as inevitable until US foreign policy turns away from expanding US hegemony
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
. Professor Chip Pitts
Chip Pitts
Chip Pitts is the Board President of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and former Chairman of Amnesty International USA.-Career:Pitts is an international attorney, human rights activist, and law educator who lectures on human rights and international business at law schools and universities...
accepts that an American empire
American Empire
American imperialism is a term referring to the economic, military and cultural influence of the United States on other countries. The concept of an American Empire was first popularized during the presidency of James K...
exists, but argues that it is profoundly at odds with better instincts of US citizens and policymakers, and that rejecting neo-colonialism by military means as employed in the Iraq War is a prerequisite to restoring domestic civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
that have been infringed upon by an imperial presidency
Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency is a term that became popular in the 1960s and that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States...
– while crucial, as well, to promoting peace and stability in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and other places of vital US interest. For Iraqi citizens, it seems that can't happen soon enough. When asked directly, 82–87% of the Iraqi populace is opposed to US occupation and want US troops to leave. 47% of Iraqis support attacking US troops. More Americans understand this now, as shown in the documetary film The Ground Truth
The Ground Truth
The Ground Truth is a 2006 documentary film about veterans of the Iraq War...
, which interviews American soldiers returning from Iraq and their families. As of 2007, President Bush's administration made a total of 935 false statements in a two-year period about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.
Government expenditures
An Australian investigation (Panorama, 9 June 2008) estimates that around $23 billion (£11.75 billion) may have been lost, stolen or not properly accounted for in Iraq.The United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
has imposed gagging orders that prevent further investigation.
International Law
The use of force by a state is prohibited by Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter. The only exceptions are with Security Council authorization under Chapter VII, which was not obtained, or in self-defence against an armed attack by another state under Article 51; Iraq never attacked either state.On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said of the invasion, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."
Furthermore, before the invasion even the then UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, advised that the war would likely be illegal for several reasons including the lack of a Security Council resolution. He later changed his mind when it appeared that the invasion would take place regardless of the legal situation.
Even prominent supporters of the war have accepted that it was illegal. Richard Perle, a hawkish member of the Pentagon has stated that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone."
Troop levels
The troop level for the initial invasion of Iraq was controversial throughout the run-up to the war, particularly among U.S. military personnel. In 1999, then head of United States Central Command Marine General Anthony ZinniAnthony Zinni
Anthony Charles Zinni is a retired four-star General in the United States Marine Corps and a former Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command...
(ret.) organised a series of war games known as Desert Crossing to assess an invasion aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein. His plan, which predicted much of the violence and instability that followed the actual invasion, called for a force of 400,000 troops. Consistent with the Desert Crossing scenarios, the original U.S. army plan for the invasion of Iraq contemplated troop levels of up to 500,000, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
declared this plan "the product of old thinking and the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the military", and decided on an invasion force of approximately 130,000, bolstered by some 45,000 troops from the UK and a handful of troops from other nations. The plan to invade with a smaller force was publicly questioned by then Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki
Eric Shinseki
Eric Ken Shinseki is a retired United States Army four-star general who is currently serving as the 7th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs. His final U.S. Army post was as the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army...
, who, during a February 25, 2003 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, suggested that an invasion force would be "on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." In a November 15, 2006 hearing of the same committee, General John Abizaid
John Abizaid
John Philip Abizaid, AO is a retired General in the United States Army and former Commander of the United States Central Command , overseeing American military operations in a 27-country region, from the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia, covering much of the Middle...
, then head of U.S. Central Command, confirmed that "General Shinseki was right that a greater international force contribution, U.S. force contribution and Iraqi force contribution should have been available immediately after major combat operations."
Post-invasion plans
In addition to raising questions about troop levels, critics of the Iraq War have argued that the U.S. planning for the post-invasion period was "woefully inadequate." In particular, critics have argued that the U.S. was unprepared for the widespread looting and the violent insurgency that immediately followed the invasion. Soon after the invasion, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul WolfowitzPaul Wolfowitz
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University...
, a leading architect of the war, acknowledged that the U.S. made assumptions related to the insurgency that "turned out to underestimate the problem." Pre-war beliefs about the occupation were inherently rosy, with Vice President Cheney noting on "Meet the Press" that U.S. forces would be "greeted as liberators". Subsequent reports have indicated that oversights such as the failure to control access to the Qa'qaa munitions factory in Yusufiyah
Yusufiyah
Yusufiyah is a regional township in the country of Iraq, located in Baghdad Province, approximately 25 km southwest of the capital, Baghdad...
allowed large quantities of munitions to fall into the hands of al-Qaida.
The U.S. plans for reconstructing Iraq have also come under heavy fire. In a February 2006 report, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction was created in October 2004 as the successor to the Coalition Provisional Authority Office of Inspector General . SIGIR is an independent government agency created by the Congress to provide oversight of the use – and potential...
, wrote that: "There was insufficient systematic planning for human capital management in Iraq before and during the U.S.-directed stabilisation and reconstruction operations." Critics have particularly chastised the Pentagon, which was charged with preparing for the post-invasion period, for largely ignoring a $5 million study entitled the Future of Iraq Project, which the U.S. State Department compiled in the year preceding the invasion.
Human and financial costs
As the Iraq War has progressed from the relatively short invasion period2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
to the considerably longer and more costly occupation, many critics have argued that the war is no longer worth the growing number of casualties among both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. For example, the U.S. organisation Gold Star Families for Peace, launched by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President...
and other parents of soldiers killed in Iraq and other wars, advocates "bringing an end to the occupation of Iraq" by raising "awareness in the United States about the true human costs of the invasion/occupation of Iraq."
Just as the human costs have mounted, the total financial costs have also risen from the initial Bush Administration estimates of $50 billion to more than $400 billion total, most of it coming from the United States, but at least £4 billion from the United Kingdom.
As the war bill has grown, many U.S. politicians, including some who supported the invasion, have begun to argue that its cost outweighs its benefits, and that it is jeopardising the preparedness of the U.S. Military. For example, on March 29, 2007, Nebraska Senators and longtime rivals Chuck Hagel
Chuck Hagel
Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002...
(R-NE) and Ben Nelson
Ben Nelson
Earl Benjamin "Ben" Nelson is the senior U.S. Senator from Nebraska. He is a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000....
(D-NE) released a joint statement saying that "there is now a 'significant' risk that the United States military will not be able to respond to an emerging crisis."
Effect on global war on terror
During the runup to the invasion a group of 33 international relations scholars took out a full-page ad in the New York Times suggesting, among other things, that invading Iraq would distract the United States from its fight against al-Qaeda and further distablize the Middle East.Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
was advised prior to the invasion, "that the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests came from al-Qaeda and related groups, and that this threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq." The International Institute for Strategic Studies
International Institute for Strategic Studies
The International Institute for Strategic Studies is a British research institute in the area of international affairs. It describes itself as "the world’s leading authority on political-military conflict"...
agreed, saying in late 2003 that the war had swollen the ranks of al-Qaida and galvanised its will by increasing radical passions among Muslims.
In January, 2004, an Army War College report said the war diverts attention and resources from the threat posed by Al Qaeda. The report by Jeffrey Record, a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, calls for downsizing the war on terrorism and focusing instead on the threat from Al Qaeda.
Impact on Israel
As early as October 2004, the Jewish Telegraphic AgencyJewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is an international news agency serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world. The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in The Hague with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and...
reported that Jewish support for the war had declined, due to fears of its negative impact on Israel, as well as the broader controversy.
Effect on religious minorities
After the invasion there was a general lawless state in Iraq which is directly attributable to the invasion. This has allowed some Islamic extremists to attack people of religious minorities which they consider to be infidelInfidel
An infidel is one who has no religious beliefs, or who doubts or rejects the central tenets of a particular religion – especially in reference to Christianity or Islam....
s. Among these religious minorities are Chaldeans
Chaldean Catholic Church
The Chaldean Catholic Church , is an Eastern Syriac particular church of the Catholic Church, maintaining full communion with the Bishop of Rome and the rest of the Catholic Church...
and Mandaeans.