Reaping Benefits Or Reprocusions: The War In Iraq And Oparation Iraqi Freedom

Running head: Reaping benefits or reprocusions?

Andrew L. Sauls

University of Phoenix

RES110

Professor Patricia Carnabuci

10/18/2005

REAPING BENEFITS OR REPROCUSIONS: THE WAR IN IRAQ AND OPARATION IRAQI FREEDOM

The war in Iraq is quite possibly the most debated topic we have seen in years. Our country has become so divided

over this issue due in part to the fact there are as many reasons we should be at war as there are reasons we should not be at war. There are plenty of people who believe very strongly one way or the other while many Americans are still very torn. I will go over a few of the pros and cons on the issue of America at war in Iraq. No one denies the fact that while Suddam Hussain was in power he and his regime were characterized by repression, torture, execution, mass murder, systematic rape, and genocide. In order to make an educated decision on wether the U. S. was right to invade Iraq we should first try to understand exactly what the Saddam ragime was about. Saddam was known for his obsession with power and absolute control of everyone and everything around him. While being interviewed by Barbara Walters in 2004, an Iraqi woman named Al Suwalj said "If a man is dissident or if a man writes a letter or makes a joke about Saddam, his authorities would rape the man's wife infront of him." Al Suwalj went on to say, "I have seen the inside of Iraq prisons which display human meat grinders in which people were shredded and disposed of in a septic tank, while still alive" she also said there were chemical baths where people were "literally dissolved". We also know that Saddam is being tried for crimes against humanity and for killing 150 men in Dujail in 1982. ("The Shiite Massacre of 1982," 2005, p. A1) There aren't many Americans who dispute the fact that Saddam Hussain was a mad man who was a threat to everyone near him. The question is, did the U.S. have the right or the obligation to invade Iraq as a pre emptive move. Those on the side opposing the Iraq war have said that we only invaded Iraq for the control of their oil suggesting we have traded blood for oil. The Department of Defense and The Washington Post have released the estimated number of American soldiers killed in Iraq to be around 1,580 since the war began on 03/19/03. (Michael Ewens, 2005) Many Americans were willing to take the risk with our soldiers lives when we were told that Iraq posed an imenent threat to the U.S. President Bush told us at a speech in Ohio on October 7, 2002 "we've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States. The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high strength sluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. " On March 17, 2003 President Bush told Americans in an address to the nation "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised" For most Americans hearing our President tell us that we are in danger and that unless we invade Iraq we will continue to be in danger we all believed that President Bush was right and that we had no choice but to invade. President Bush then sent in U.S. special forces to search for weapons of mass destruction to provide primary justification of Operation Iraqi Freedom - none were found. U.N. Patrols then visited over 300 suspected sites of WMDs and still none were found. Pre emptive attacks on other nations are against what the U.S. stands for and those against the war say we have lost over 1,500 soldiers for a lie. We are occupying a country where there are still a lot of citizens that don't want us there. One Iraqi civilian, Hatem Mukhlis said that due to U. S. backing, "you don't expect Saddam's tribunal to go any better than anything else in Iraq" ("The Shiite Massacre of 1982," 2005, p. A1) The U.S. has also alienated other nations because of our invasion of Iraq. Some of these nations believe as do many Americans that we took over Iraq without sufficient evidence of a threat and that it would not have mattered if there was absolutely no proof we would have invaded regaurdless. America has become known as the "world police" and this understandably troubles other nations.

On the flip side of this issue there are just as many reasons the war could be considered justified. To start, some iraq war supporters combat the idea of blood for oil by saying as evan Maloney a documentary film maker said "if all we wanted was oil why didn"t we take it all in the first gulf war?" another pro war group known as Protest Warriors say, 'except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism, and communism... war has never solved anything." (PROTEST WARRIORS, 2005) We also know that Saddam was a major threat to the stability of the middle east and by removing him from power we will be able to remove many of our troops from other spots in the Arab world and deploy to other hot spots such as the Korean peninsula. The Saddam regime also has a history of 12 years of U.N. sanctions and resolutions that were not followed. The credibility and relevancy of the U.N. was on the line and what kind of message would we have sent other terrorist nations by just repeatedly setting sanctions and then just complaining when they were not followed. War supporters believe it was of extreme importance to actually follow through with U.N. policies. Most also believe Saddam deserves to pay for what he has done. Saddams campaign of ethnic cleansing and chemical attacks killing thousands of Kurds and the burying if approximately 1.5 million Shiite Muslims ("The Shiite Massacre of 1982," 2005, p. A1) simply should not be tolerated by the U.S. or any other nation.