Resolved: That the Us Should Go to War with Iraq

Copyright 2004 Devon M. Largio. All rights reserved.

Introduction

In the weeks and months that followed the events of September 11, 2001, the nation

watched, listened, and read as the Bush administration declared a war on terror and the media

began frenzied coverage of the military efforts in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden

and al Qaeda. But in the midst of all of the chaos, speculation about the suspects at the heart of

the attacks started to shift, though ever so slightly, into the direction of a familiar foe to the

United States, and particularly to the Bush family: Saddam Hussein. Although he was

mentioned by members of the media and the Bush administration as a possible conspirator in the

terrorist acts on New York City and Washington, D.C. and any actual connection has yet to be

established, the name Saddam Hussein was in the news and on the lips of government officials

and President Bush himself only a couple of weeks after the dust had settled at Ground Zero.

Now, more than two years after the horror of 9-11, a war with Iraq has been fought and,

supposedly, won. Saddam's regime has been ousted and a new-found freedom awaits the Iraqi

people. But how did we get here, to the point of final confrontation with an enemy once

challenged and long despised? When did the road to war with Saddam begin? When did the

nation start to focus on the threat of terrorism in Iraq as opposed to threats from other nations and

networks?

Much discussion has occurred in political circles, in the news media, in classrooms, and

in social settings about the reasons for the recent war with Iraq. The focus of the Iraq war

rationales has been on the war on terrorism, a war that began as a result of September 11, 2001,

and launched its first attack on Afghanistan and al Qaeda approximately one month later. Yet, as

preliminary research for this project showed, many other states were harboring al Qaeda

networks and the link between al Qaeda and Iraq has yet to be solidly proven by the Bush

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administration or others. Iraq may or may not actually have been supporting terrorism against

the United States. What was clear to the Bush administration, however, was Saddam Hussein's

outright refusal to allow United Nations' inspectors in his country any longer. It seems, then,

that another rationale behind the war emerges: the potential for nuclear, biological, or chemical

weapons