Coalition of the willing The term coalition of the willing is a post - 1990 political phrase used to collectively describe participants in military interventions that fall outside of United Nations peacekeeping operations . It has existed in the political science / international relations literature at least since UN peacekeeping operations began to run into complications in 1993 - 94 , and alternatives began to be considered . One early documented use of the phrase was by President Bill Clinton in June 1994 in relation to possible operations against North Korea , at the height of the 1994 stand - off with that country over nuclear weapon s . It has been applied to the Australian - led INTERFET operation in East Timor , and , in its most well - known example by President George W . Bush , in reference to the U . S . - led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 . Usage over Iraq . In November 2002 , U . S . President George W . Bush , visiting Europe for a NATO summit , declared that " should Iraqi President Saddam Hussein choose not to disarm , the United States will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm him . " The Bush administration briefly used the term " Coalition of the Willing " to refer to the countries who supported , militarily or verbally , the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent military presence in post - invasion Iraq . The original list released in March 2003 included 46 members . In April 2003 , the list was updated to include 49 countries , though it was reduced to 48 after Costa Rica objected to its inclusion . Of the 48 states on the list , three contributed troops to the invasion force ( the United Kingdom , Australia and Poland ) . An additional 37 countries provided some number of troops to support military operations after the invasion was complete . The list of coalition members provided by the White House included several nations that did not intend to participate in actual military operations . Some of them , such as Marshall Islands , Micronesia , Palau and Solomon Islands , do not have standing armies . However , through the Compact of Free Association , citizens of the Marshall Islands , Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia are guaranteed US national status and therefore are allowed to serve in the US military . The members of these island nations have deployed in a combined Pacific force consisting of Guamanian , Hawaiian and Samoan reserve units . They have been deployed twice to Iraq . The government of one country , the Solomon Islands , listed by the White House as a member of the coalition , was apparently unaware of any such membership and promptly denied it . In December 2008 , University of Illinois Professor Scott Althaus reported that he had learned that the White House was editing and back - dating revisions to the list of countries in the coalition . Althaus found that some versions of the list had been entirely removed from the record , and that others contradicted one another , as opposed to the procedure of archiving original documents and supplementing them with later revisions and updates . By August 2009 , all non - U . S . coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq . As a result , the Multinational Force - Iraq was renamed and reorganized to United States Forces - Iraq as of January 1 , 2010 . Thus the Coalition of the Willing came to an official end . Criticism of use . Specific uses of the phrase in the context of disarming Iraq began appearing in mid - 2001 . Iraq War critics such as John Pilger have pointed out that the vast majority of troops provided came from the U . S . and Britain and is therefore accurately described as a predominantly Anglo - American force rather than as a coalition . Salon . com columnist Laura McClure , noting the large amounts of foreign aid being offered in exchange for supporting the Iraq War , referred to Bush ' s coalition as the " Coalition of the billing " . In the second debate in 2004 U . S . presidential election , Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry questioned the size of the coalition participating in the initial invasion , saying , " . . . when we went in , there were three countries : Great Britain , Australia and the United States . That ' s not a grand coalition . We can do better " . Bush responded by saying , " Well , actually , he forgot Poland . And now there ' re 30 nations involved , standing side by side with our American troops " . The phrase " You forgot Poland " subsequently became a sarcastic shorthand for the perception that most members of the coalition were not contributing much to the war effort compared to the main three allies . The majority of the population in most countries involved did not , according to surveys , support the endeavour or their nation ' s participation . Late U . S . Senator Robert Byrd , then ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee , referred to the coalition by the acronym COW , expressing his concern that the United States was being " milked " as a " cash cow " . A , Carolyn Parrish , referred to the " Coalition of the Willing " as the " Coalition of the Idiots " . She was reprimanded for these comments , and was eventually removed from the Liberal Party of Canada caucus following a long - standing dispute with Prime Minister Paul Martin over policy .