The Second Gulf War (Iraq war) can be defended

Good luck to my opponent. I hope this shall be an entertaining and informative discussion for both us and the audience. The result of this debate does not in anyway delegitimise the ability of wither me or my opponent as a debater but is merely a reflection on this question. In order to have a productive discussion I would like to set up some rules of consent: 1) No use of uncivil or hateful language 2) No slandering of libel 3) A forfeit is an automatic loss 4) Cite sources when you can otherwise they can just be ignored In this debate I have to prove that the war in Iraq from 2003-2011 can be defended. By that I mean that I can morally uphold the decision to go into Iraq, the actions of forces in Iraq and the aftermath left from the war and subsequent allied occupation. defensible - justifiable by argument. I have three points as to why it can be defended and they all concern the decision to go into Iraq. The other actions surrounding the war do not need me to argue on however I will rebut any counter-points relating to other aspects of the war to make sure that all aspects of the war are covered. Argument 1: The Baathist regime was murderous and genocidal. Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator who committed multiple crimes against his own people including executions and torture. One example of this was the use of cyanide gas during the chemical weapons attack on Halabja in 1988 in which over 5000 Kurdish civilians died. https://en.wikipedia.org... His regime was also responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Iraqi marshes throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Civilians were often strapped to tanks in order to act as human shields as they would shoot up civilian areas in order to put down protests. https://usiraq.procon.org... An estimated 2 million Iraqi people were directly or indirectly murdered by Saddam's totalitarian regime over a 24 year period. This murdering was constant over that period and even up to the last months the discovery of mass graves in the Northern desert sparked great criticism of the regime. Tony Blair even explained during the war that one of the reasons he was so determined to join the American intervention was because he himself had been shown the pictures of the mass graves. Thus I think that in order to stop this killing by the regime it was reasonable for the allied force to intervene merely on humanitarian grounds. Considering the low levels of death in war (many of whom were armed soldiers), the intervention was justified and thus the war is defensible. Argument 2: The war in Iraq can be defended because the Iraqi regime was destabilising and war-mongering. Saddam had started a war within the 1st year of his leadership of the country. The Iran-Iraq war was started by Saddam himself when he ordered his troops to illegally invade Iran. This 8 year long war cost 750 000 to 1 500 000 lives and the use of chemical weapons was widespread, especially by the Iraqi side. Furthermore, it greatly affected western and global economies. Iraq and Iran's oil revenues were reduced in many cases to 10% of pre-war levels. Both countries became massively indebted. Iraq owed up to 100 billion dollars and this caused immense potential for instability in the Western world since oil prices (which increased) were and still are critical to the success of all world economies. Saddam then invaded Kuwait illegally, once again causing more economic crises. The instability caused by the warmongering actions of the Iraqi regime was enough to warrant action from the west on more than 2 occasions and considering that Saddam was posed to invade Saudi Arabia and threaten economic warfare on the west and the whole world, the intervention can be defended. To an extent, it was about oil. However, this is reasonable since oil was being used as a weapon. Argument 3: The war can be defended because Saddam Hussein broke international conventions of weapons of mass destruction. Chemical and biological weapons do count as weapons of mass destruction and there is overwhelming evidence to show that they were used. Furthermore, although Saddam did not have nuclear weapons in 2003, clearly he was in the process of obtaining them. This is described in this pre-war article: https://www.theguardian.com... The regime had purchased materials from other countries and nuclear weapons firms and also had the teams of nuclear engineers on the ground in Iraq. My argument is that had we not intervened then, Saddam could easily have the bomb now. We could not have said that North Korea was a nuclear threat in 2003 but look how close they were to getting a usable nuclear missile in 2017. The same could be said for Iran, which is now probably the greatest nuclear threat. Therefore, based on the fact that the regime did have WMDs which warrant intervention and that they were well on their way to going nuclear the Iraq war was justified for the security of the future of the world. Conclusion: The conduct in the war itself is debatable but one thing is certain. The brutality of the regime before the war greatly outweighs the suffering and loss of life afterwards. This is cause for intervention and was used as a reasonable form of justification at the time. Secondly, Iraq was a destabilising and growing threat which directly caused economic concerns for the west. Those countries affected therefore have a stake in the events in the gulf. Saddam's many illegal wars were justification for an invasion and the second gulf war was in many ways an extension of the 1st. Bush Senior tried to contain Saddam but after weapons inspectors were abused and deported and no-fly zones constantly ignored, these violations warranted a continuation of the 1st gulf war. Finally, the world should celebrate the prevention of yet another serious and more unscrupulous nuclear threat today as well as the respect shown towards the UN convention on WMDs which Saddam had flouted on countless occasions. Sometimes, war, although seemingly immoral is justified for betterment of everyone else. A brief period of terrible violence can be justified when the backdrop is one of decades of horrendous murder, far worse wars and nuclear threats.