Justifying The War In Iraq: At What Cost?

Essay by chrisdupuyCollege, UndergraduateA+, October 2006

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The war in Iraq is clearly an unjustified act of war. Though it must be conceded that hindsight has made this more clear than it was to begin with (nobody knew at the time that they were looking at faulty intelligence), there was still no truly justifiable basis for entering into war that has cost us greatly, both in terms of human life and in terms of finances.

The Bush Administration felt as if Saddam and his two sons were potential terrorists and that possible militaristic action may need to be taken. That possibility increased when Iraq refused to let the weapon inspectors test for weapons of mass destruction. This directly led to a United States preparation for an Invasion of Iraq. Once Bush's deadline expired, forces of US and British troops invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, which eventually lead to the collapse of the Iraqi government (Savoy 16).

If the US felt threatened by the fact that inspectors were not allowed to search for weapons of mass destruction, the government should not have resorted to such open invasion but to less violent means.

The invasion took place, and it seems quite clear now that the invasion and the entire war that has continued to this day was unjust to begin with. The War in Iraq is unjust because there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not do anything to provoke an invasion or serve as a threat to US securities or the borders of any nation in the Middle East. Saddam commanded a weakened military force which also did not show any type of threat. Saddam Hussein knew that if he were to deploy any WMDs, Iraq would suffer with heavy retaliation. Saddam has no motive in using WMDs, unless...