Annie Medosch Mr. Palmatier Period 7 Did George Bush make the correct decision to invade Iraq in 2003?

George Bush insisted in 2003 to launch a campaign on Iraq to fight global terrorism, remove Saddam Hussein from power, and to create democracy in the Middle East; motives logical enough to drive any moral man to protest. But why war? To quote Isaac Asimov, War is the last resort of the incompetent. Various alternatives to war were not taken into strong consideration before deployment, creating a controversy on the morality of sending American troops abroad, placing civilians at risk, and committing breach of international UN law. The U.N had searched Iraq in the early 1990s for weapons of mass destruction, and were successful in getting rid of the majority, yet this method wasnt taken before warfare. This War on Terrorism taken by George Bush, also had deep rooted provocations with long standing government objectives: oil, democracy. The reasons for invasion by September 24, 2003 were not justified because it was a breach of international UN law (as well as breach of the international law of aggression) with the high disapproval rates among various countries in Europe, because WMDs were not during the investigation prior to invasion, and because the decision-making process leading up to the invasion had planning failures, and indecisive objectives. War was not correct due to the cost of human life, diplomatic status, and financial costs. These three statements alone prove questionability of invasion, supporting the claim that Bush was not correct in making the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

http://www.philosophylounge.com/platonism-invasion-iraq/ http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2003-04-28/was-the-iraq-war-moral http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/unjust.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum http://home.comcast.net/~lionelingram/562_Mitchell%20and%20Massoud_Anatomy%20of %20Failure_Bushs%20Decision-Making%20Process%20and%20the%20Iraq%20War.pdf Thesis: 1. Death of civilians and soldiers 2. Breach of international law 3. The misnomer of the War on Terrorism. The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious, with critics charging that it has been exploited by participating governments to pursue long-standing policy / military objectives 4. President Bush could have been motivated to invade Iraq by his fathers failure to resolve the Saddam problem, and by Saddams link to a plot to assassinate his father. 5. the war was driven by domestic political considerations, given that President Bush was at the height of his popularity before the Iraq war, which brought his approval ratings down 6. no authorization from the UN Reasons for war: 1. Finding weapons 2. Oil 3. Terrorism in U.S 4. Global Terrorism 5. Al-Qaeda 6. Democracy in Middle East 7. Removing Saddam President Bush declared in the summer of 2002 that the U.S. was going to disarm Iraq through warfare. Most nations of the world, the United Nations, most of the American people, and the U.S. Congress disagreed with President Bush at that time that a U.S. invasion into Iraq should be the first step in solving the problem. In fact, most agreed that war should be the last step rather than the first step. They insisted that U.N. inspections, which had succeeded in getting rid of most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the early 1990's, should be attempted before starting a war. If inspections fail, then warfare would be an option. Not all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were found during the inspections of the 1990's and many believed that Iraq was still hiding some. What do you do during the summer?