Abstract
This chapter begins with the interrogation of Saddam Hussein by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2004, consisting of interviews and casual conversations with FBI agent George Piro in Saddam Hussein’s prison cell. The dialogue between Saddam and Piro reflects American attempts to reason why it was in Iraq—from accusations that Saddam had rebuilt weapons of mass destruction to suspicions that Iraq was harboring terrorists. But one question emerges clearly from the interrogation of Saddam: Why exactly did the United States go to war with Iraq in 1991 and 2003? The answer can be found in two presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and how they interpreted Saddam Hussein’s capabilities as an Iraqi leader versus his intentions.
A favorite theory of mine—to wit, that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often.
—Mark Twain (The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back Into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil [Harper Brothers, 1903], 64)
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- 1.
U.S. Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation casual conversation with Saddam Hussein, Session 2, Baghdad Operations Center, June 11, 2004.
- 2.
U.S. Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation casual conversation with Saddam Hussein, Session 4, Baghdad Operations Center, June 28, 2004.
- 3.
Saddam Hussein’s strategic view of the United States at the outset of the 1991 conflict is the subject of research by Hal Brands and David Palkki, who argue that Saddam Hussein was ready for war with the United States, who he regarded as pushing imperialistic foreign policies in the Middle East. See Hal Brands, David Palkki, “‘Conspiring Bastards’: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic View of the United States,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 36, No. 3 (2012): 627.
- 4.
U.S. Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation casual conversation with Saddam Hussein, Session 1, Baghdad Operations Center, May 13, 2004.
- 5.
There are a number of existing accounts that explore the motivations of the United States going to war with Iraq, but none go into any depth in order to compare the wars in 1991 and 2003. For additional literature, see Sarah E. Kreps, Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions After the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2011); Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Alexander Thompson, Channels of Power: The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq (Cornell University Press, 2009); Michael F. Cairo, The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East (The University Press of Kentucky, 2012).
- 6.
See Ole R. Holsti, American Public Opinion on the Iraq War (University of Michigan Press, 2011); John Mueller, Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War (The University of Chicago Press, 1994); Ed. Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffery W. Legro, In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 (Cornell University Press, 2011).
- 7.
The domestic and diplomatic distinction is one that is made often in US diplomatic history and emphasizes the imposition of national priorities on international efforts. Historian Thomas Schwartz offers one good example of the potential of domestic politics affecting American foreign policy in a journal article published in Diplomatic History. Schwartz focused on Presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson and argued, “domestic partisan politics, the struggle for power at home, has played, and no doubt continues to play, a substantial role in the making and direction of American foreign policy” (173). Schwartz added that “In recognizing the significance of electoral politics in the history of US foreign relations, one recognizes a complex and developing story, with the same mixture of idealism and realism, internationalism and parochialism, generosity and selfishness that make up the American people” (p 190). See Thomas Alan Schwartz, “Henry,… Winning an Election Is Terribly Important: Partisan Politics in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 33, Issue 2 (2009). On public opinion and foreign policy, see also Ralph B. Levering, “Public Opinion, Foreign Policy, and American Politics Since the 1960s,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 13, Issue 3 (1989): 383–393; Melvin Small, “Public Opinion,” in ed. Michael J. Hogan, Thomas G. Paterson, Explaining American Foreign Relations (1st edition, Cambridge University Press, 1991), 166–67; Melvin Small, Democracy & Diplomacy: The Impact of Domestic Politics on U.S. Foreign Policy, 1789–1994 (The John Hopkins University Press, 1996).
- 8.
The foreign policies of the George H. W. Bush administration have been subject of revision by historians, fueled, in part, by the release of interviews with members of the administration at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. See The George H. W. Bush Oral History Symposium, Miller Center at the University of Virginia, 2011. This is in addition to Diplomatic History hosting a retrospective of George H. W. Bush’s foreign policies. See Jeffrey A. Engel, “A Better World…But Don’t Get Carried Away: The Foreign Policy of Bush Snr Twenty Years On,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2010); Bartholomew H. Sparrow, “Realism’s Practitioner: Brent Scowcroft and the Making of the New World Order, 1989–1993,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2010); Nicholas J. Cull, “Speeding the Strange Death of American Public Diplomacy: The Bush Snr Administration and the U.S. Information Agency,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2010). Timothy Naftali, also, articulates a concise biography of George H. W. Bush that reflects his strengths as a foreign policy president. See Timothy Naftali, George H. W. Bush (Times Books, 2007).
- 9.
Melvyn Leffler has been at the forefront of the history of George W. Bush’s presidency and, by following the memoir material emerging from Bush’s administration, has published his preliminary efforts at exploring Bush’s foreign policies in Diplomatic History. See Melvyn Leffler, “The Foreign Policies of the George W. Bush Administration: Memoirs, History, Legacy,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 230, No. 03 (2013). This scholarly effort coincides with already published popular history. See Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (Simon and Schuster, 2004); Patrick Tyler, A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009); Terry H. Anderson, Bush’s Wars (Oxford University Press, 2011).
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Siracusa, J.M., Visser, L.J. (2020). Capabilities and Intentions. In: Going to War with Iraq. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30163-7_1
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