page_title: Rationale for the Iraq War
section_title: Criticisms of the rationale for the Iraq war
hierarchical_section_title: Rationale for the Iraq War / Criticisms of the rationale for the Iraq war
caption_attribution_description: ALEXANDROVSKY GARDENS, MOSCOW. With Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and U.S. President George W. Bush.
context_page_description: The rationale for the Iraq War has been a controversial 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 United States Congress known as the Iraq Resolution.
  The US stated that the intent was to remove "a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuses, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world." For the invasion of Iraq the rationale was "the United States relied on the authority of UN Security Council Resolutions 678 and 687 to use all necessary means to compel Iraq to comply with its international obligations".
  In the lead-up to the invasion, the US and UK emphasized the argument that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and that he thus presented a threat to his neighbors and to the world community. The US stated "on November 8, 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441.
context_section_description: Despite these efforts to sway public opinion, the invasion of Iraq was seen by some including Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, Lord Goldsmith, British Attorney General, and Human Rights Watch as a violation of international law, breaking the UN Charter (see Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq) especially since the US failed to secure U.N. support for an invasion of Iraq. In 41 countries the majority of the populace did not support an invasion of Iraq without U.N. sanction and half said an invasion should not occur under any circumstances. In the US, 73 percent of United States supported an invasion. To build international support the United States formed a "Coalition of the Willing" with the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Australia and several other countries despite a majority of citizens in these countries opposing the invasion. Massive protests of the war have occurred in the US and elsewhere. At the time of the invasion UNMOVIC inspectors were ordered out by the United Nations. The inspectors requested more time because "disarmament, and at any rate verification, cannot be instant."
  Following the invasion, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found, although about 500 abandoned chemical munitions, mostly degraded, remaining from Iraq's Iran–Iraq war, were collected from around the country. The Kelly Affair highlighted a possible attempt by the British government to cover-up fabrications in British intelligence, the exposure of which would have undermined the Prime Minister's original rationale for involvement in the war. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found no substantial evidence for reputed links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. President George W. Bush has since admitted that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong". Although evidence of weapons of mass destruction was searched for by the Iraq Survey Group, their final report of September 2004 stated, "While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should weapons of mass destruction be discovered." In the March 2005 Addendum to the Report, the Special Advisor furthermore went on to state that "ISG assesses that Iraq and Coalition Forces will continue to discover small numbers of
  degraded chemical weapons, which the former Regime mislaid or improperly destroyed prior to 1991. ISG believes the bulk of these weapons were likely abandoned, forgotten and lost during the Iran-Iraq war because tens of thousands of CW munitions were forward deployed along frequently and rapidly shifting battlefronts." (For comparison, the US Department of Defense itself was famously unable in 1998 to report the whereabouts of "56 airplanes, 32 tanks and 36 Javelin command launch units".) ISG also believed that Saddam did not want to verifiably disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, as required by U.N. resolutions, for fear of looking weak to his enemies.
  Clare Short claims that in July 2002, UK government ministers were warned that Britain was committed to participating in a US invasion of Iraq, and a further allegation was that "the decision by Blair's government to participate in the US invasion of Iraq bypassed proper government procedures and ignored opposition to the war from Britain's intelligence quarters.". Tony Blair had agreed to back military action to oust Saddam Hussein with an assessment regarding weapons of mass destruction, at a summit at President George W. Bush's Texas ranch. Also present at the meeting were three other British officials – Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) head Sir Richard Dearlove.
  In Europe the peace movement was very strong, especially in Germany, where three quarters of the population wer
caption: Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin made public statements in opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
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