The War on Terror and The US-Iraq War

The War on Terror On September 20, 2001 (9 days after 9/11) President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” From that time until now America has considered itself in a permanent War against Terrorists. Our first act was the invasion of Afghanistan Just a week ago president Obama stated that while we will continue to fight terrorism a permanent war on terror is neither practical nor desirable I

Reasons for The Invasion of Iraq In spite of the fact that Saddam Hussein was a secular leader and had no connections with the terrorists G W bush decided we had to invade Iraq in Because: Supposed connections to Al Qaeda (both Iraq and Al Qaeda bought weapons from the same source, there was no other connection) Supposed “Weapons of mass destruction” that Iraq had and planned to use on the US (International inspectors said there were none and none were found)

No easy victory The Problem with invading Iraq was not victory over Saddam Hussein that was accomplished quickly It was ruling the conquered country The Bush administration thought that the Iraqi people would be so happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein that we would have no problems! At first this was true, but as time passed things fell apart. In our efforts we even resorted to what some call torture when interrogate prisoners Like “Waterboarding”

Divided by Ethnicity United by a Dictator Like African colonies Iraq had borders that didn’t match its peoples Three different groups lived there and didn’t get along: The Sunni Arabs: These were the rulers under Saddam and resisted US rule The Shia Arabs: These dlash with their Sunni rulers and are backed by Iran The Kurds, Sunnis but not Arab they want an independent state

Keeping the Peace As a result fighting among the people of Iraq became the problem. Al-Qaeda became active in Iraq after the war began…and used the war to recruit terrorists Peace was not achievable In 2011 the last of our troops went home but Terrorism and fighting in Iraq continue

The “War” continues While we have withdrawn from Iraq and soon will from Afghanistan we continue to fight terrorists in many ways some of which threaten our civil rights. We limit what people can carry onto a plane and search everyone. We have held people in detention without trial. We have targeted people with drone attacks killing even American citizens without trial Monitored communications of Americans without proper permission from a Judge