page_title: Presidency of George W. Bush
section_title: Prelude to the war
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of George W. Bush / Foreign affairs / Iraq / Prelude to the war
caption_attribution_description: Map of the Middle East for use on Wikivoyage, English version. Note that this in no way comments on the political situation, nor seeks to include or exclude countries for any reason other than breaking the world up into reasonable travel regions.
context_page_description: The presidency of George W. Bush began at noon EST on January 20, 2001, when George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican, took office following a very close victory over Democratic incumbent vice president Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2004 election, he defeated Democrat John Kerry to win re-election. Bush, the 43rd president, is the eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush. He was succeeded by Democrat Barack Obama, who won the 2008 presidential election.
  Upon taking office, Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, a major education bill. He also pushed for socially conservative efforts, such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush created the United States Department of Homeland Security and declared a global war on terrorism. In October 2001, Bush ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy the terrorist group al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden.
context_section_description: During the presidency of George H. W. Bush, the United States had launched the Gulf War against Iraq after the latter invaded Kuwait. Though the U.S. forced Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait, it left Saddam Hussein's administration in place, partly to serve as a counterweight to Iran. After the war, the Project for the New American Century, consisting of influential neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Cheney, advocated for the overthrow of Hussein. Iraq had developed nuclear and chemical weapons prior to the Gulf War; after the war, it had submitted to WMD inspections conducted by the United Nations Special Commission until 1998, when Hussein demanded that all UN inspectors leave Iraq. The administration believed that, by 2001, Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, and could possibly provide those weapons to terrorists. Some within the administration also believed that Iraq shared some responsibility for the September 11 attacks, and hoped that the fall of Hussein's regime would help spread democracy in the Middle East, deter the recruitment of terrorists, and increase the security of Israel.
  In the days following the September 11 attacks, hawks in the Bush administration such as Wolfowitz argued for immediate military action against Iraq, but the issue was temporarily set aside in favor of planning the invasion of Afghanistan. Beginning in September 2002, the Bush administration mounted a campaign designed to win popular and congressional support for the invasion of Iraq. In October 2002, Congress approved the Iraq Resolution, authorizing the use of force against Iraq. While congressional Republicans almost unanimously supported the measure, congressional Democrats were split in roughly equal numbers between support and opposition to the resolution. Bowing to domestic and foreign pressure, Bush sought to win the approval of the United Nations before launching an attack on Iraq. Led by Powell, the administration won the November 2002 passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which called on Iraq to dismantle its WMD program. Meanwhile, senior administration officials became increasingly convinced that Iraq did indeed possess WMDs and was likely to furnish those WMDs to al-Qaeda; CIA Director George Tenet assured Bush that it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq possessed a stockpile of WMDs.
  After a U.N. weapons inspections team led by Hans Blix, as well as another team led by Mohamed ElBaradei, failed to find evidence of an ongoing Iraqi WMD program, Bush's proposed regime change in Iraq faced mounting international opposition. Germany, China, France, and Russia all expressed skepticism about the need for regime change, and the latter three countries each possessed veto power on the United Nations Security Council. At the behest of British prime minister Tony Blair, who supported Bush but hoped for more international cooperation, Bush dispatched Powell to the U.N. to make the case to the Security Council that Iraq maintained an active WMD program. Though Powell's presentation preceded a shift in U.S. public opinion towards support of the war, it failed to convince the French, Russians, or Germans. Contrary to the findings of Blix and ElBaradei, Bush asserted in a March 17 public address that there was "no doubt" that the Iraqi regime possessed weapons of mass destruction. Two days later, Bush authorized Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the Iraq War began on March 20, 2003.
caption: Map of the Middle East, including Iraq.
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