An Axis of Evil, 2001–2003

Abstract

In 2001, George W. Bush became the 43rd president of the United States. Although the presidency began amid electoral controversy, everything changed with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Threats that had existed beyond the borders of the United States were suddenly on American soil and the fear of another attack changed the priorities of the administration. America was under attack. Buttressed by support from Congress, Bush went to considerable lengths in order to establish to the American people the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to US national security, and his emphasis on Saddam Hussein’s putative intentions to acquire weapons of mass destruction indicated his capabilities as Iraq’s leader firmly consolidated public support for Bush’s decision to go to war.

The argument for the war is one of solidarity with the oppressed. These ought to be the principles of the left. The people in the antiwar movement have fallen into confusion. They should be protesting Bush—but make sure that a genuine democracy rise in Iraq

—Paul Berman (quoted in Josh Tyrangiel, “Voice of Outrage,” Time, March 31, 2003)

In the image of his father, Time chose George W. Bush as person of the year in December 2000.¹ Bush had divided the nation and the results were for all to see when the Supreme Court had to eventually intervene to award the presidency to Bush, a startling difference from his father’s own path to the White House. With an entirely different generation of Bush in office, the question remained how this time round would be different. Already, Bush had established himself as a domestic leader, denouncing the Clinton administration’s domestic indiscretions and downplaying the significance of the Supreme Court challenge that had threatened his election victory. After all, Bush’s presidency meant that the Republican Party, exiled from the White House in 1992 when George H. W. Bush had lost his reelection bid to Bill Clinton, had returned to the executive command and now had the opportunity to conduct the domestic debate. With a Congressional majority in favor of the Republicans, the immediate contrast between father and son was stark in the domestic area, and Bush’s support was only growing. The trade-off for this focus on domestic policy came at the expense of foreign policy with Bush faltering on every major international decision from the onset of his presidency. However, Saddam Hussein would return, once again, to impose himself on an American president, eliciting a strong response from the younger Bush, who saw Saddam’s intentions as Iraq’s leader as an indication of his capabilities.

The 43rd President of the United States

George W. Bush was elected president in 2001. Bush’s campaign had focused on his personality to the detriment of policy, and it was said that he had run “on character and a promise of change, themes that resonated with many Americans given the scandals and controversies that reverberated throughout eight years of two Clinton administrations.”² The emphasis on the character of the leader, as opposed to the policies put forward by the leader, meant that Bush had to quickly reconcile his administration after the Supreme Court challenge and vindicate his election victory. Addressing Congress on February 27, Bush was adamant that the administration would leave its mark on US history, stating, “In the end we will be judged not only by what we say or how we say it, we will be judged by what we’re able to accomplish.”³ And it was clear that it was in foreign policy that Bush sought to exert US power. According to Bush, “America has a window of opportunity to extend and secure our present peace by promoting a distinctly American internationalism.” This meant confronting “terrorists who threaten with bombs to tyrants in rogue nation’s intent upon developing weapons of mass destruction.” This did not include, however, seeking out those who threatened US national security. Bush’s idea of promoting a distinct American internationalism would only emerge from the safety of an antiballistic missile (ABM) system, ignoring the entire legacy of the ABM treaty in the process.⁴

The ABM proposal received a lukewarm reception from Republicans, who wanted a more proactive foreign policy and the administration had an opportunity to assert its new authority when Iraq breached the conditions of the no-fly zone imposed over Iraq. Bush responded with air strikes against Iraqi targets, which he approved while in Mexico on a tour to reinvigorate the US relationship with Latin America. Richard Haass, who was now Director of Policy and Planning in the State Department, argued the air strikes were a distraction from Bush’s other priorities, explaining, in a rush for a proactive foreign policy stance, “the new administration was looking for a chance to signal that it was not going to be business as usual.”⁵ As a consequence, it had scuttled a positive foreign policy position in Mexico to grab at a sound bite from Iraq. However, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice understood the February air strikes differently to Haass, referring to Iraq as a “festering problem.” According to Rice, Iraq was a “preoccupation of the national security team” from the very beginning of the administration because Saddam Hussein, contrary to predictions at the end of the 1991 war with Iraq, had defied containment and remained in power. But Rice was quick to establish priorities, stressing that Bush’s main mission in 2001 was not to confront Saddam Hussein but to confront “the new and rising threat in al Qaeda and its extremist kin, full of bravado and revolutionary zeal, and to lead at the beginning of a new and dangerous historical epoch.”⁶ Despite inopportune timing, the air strikes had their supporters within the administration. Vice President Dick Cheney reassured Bush that “from his point of view it had been a good message, showing that we’d be tough on Saddam Hussein.”⁷ Such words of confidence from the vice president reassured Bush’s decision making.⁸

In defiance of the air strikes, and as evidence that Iraq had weathered its containment, Baghdad’s airport reopened its international terminals and reports were suggesting that the “air traffic, from about 20 nations so far, is a testament to a seismic shift in Iraq’s international status.”⁹ Although active, Congressional Republicans wanted more of Bush’s foreign policy planning toward existing foreign policy problems, leading to demands from Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), supported by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, for Bush to immediately address the problem of Saddam Hussein. According to Brownback, “we’re saying we don’t like this man in power, but we’re then not willing to go ahead and take steps to remove him.”¹⁰ Indeed, Bush had inherited a system of punitive air strikes that Clinton had embraced, and he appeared reluctant to change.

On May 1, Bush delivered a speech before the National Defense University in Washington to help elaborate on his administration’s defense policy. More important, the speech helped to illustrate the threats that faced the American people and how Bush hoped to protect US national interests. Bush began by describing a dangerous, less predictable, less certain world. “More nations have nuclear weapons,” reminded Bush, “and still more have nuclear aspirations.”¹¹ In order to guarantee US national security, Bush added that defense policy must be based “on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us.”¹² And the answer, to Bush, remained shackled by a thirty-year-old treaty restraining antiballistic missile research. This was one of only a few foreign policies that Bush’s team had announced during the election campaign. It was hoped that the administration could “push to get nuclear weapons and missile defense out of a ‘Cold War mentality.’”¹³

Although dismantling a thirty-year-old treaty was one way in which to demonstrate a commitment to renewing policy for the future, Richard Butler, former chairman of the United Nations Special Commission to Iraq (UNSCOM), argued that it was a step in the wrong direction. According to Butler, Bush assumed that US national security was threatened in a conventional way, whereas the real threat “presently posed to the United States by rogue states is recognised as being remote, if it exists at all, in the field of ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction.” Any attack on the United States, such as biological or chemical, by a rogue state would be “delivered on their behalf by terrorists, in a briefcase or a truck, to an American city. Iraq, for example, possesses such weapons, and now that its programs go uninspected Iraq is developing more of them.”¹⁴ Butler argued against resorting to populist policies that were consumed on a domestic platform and ignored practical realities abroad. On this measure, Butler was correct. Bush’s focus was on consolidating his domestic leadership, and any foreign policy that encouraged support of the administration at home took precedence over practicality.¹⁵

But it was not just Bush’s defense policy that Bush was appealing to a populist audience. In his first six months in office, Bush managed to create diplomatic waves across the world. By the end of June, Bush had refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, begun the process of dismantling the ABM treaty, resurrected missile defense as a proactive policy option, approved air strikes in Iraq, and supported the expansion of NATO. The decisions showed, to some, a refreshing brand of US unilateralism in diplomacy that refused multilateral consensus, while Charles Krauthammer, in the Washington Post, praised Bush, arguing, “the best unilateralism is velvet-glove unilateralism.”¹⁶

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld encouraged Bush’s strengthening unilateralism. However, despite Bush winning domestic support for what was portrayed as strong international leadership, Rumsfeld was quick to reinforce that there were threats that required immediate action:

Imagine what might happen if a rogue state were to demonstrate the capability to strike the U.S. or European populations with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction. A policy of intentional vulnerability by the Western nations could give this state the power to hold us hostage. This scenario leaves us with three choices in the face of aggression: acquiesce and allow the rogue to invade its neighbours; oppose it and put Western population centres at risk; or pre-empt its action.¹⁷

According to Rumsfeld, “the only thing we know for certain is that it is unlikely that any of us knows what is likely.” Very clearly, and very early in the administration’s tenure, the term “preempt” had entered the foreign policy lexicon.

Despite Rumsfeld’s concerns over rogue states and their threat capabilities, there was some opposition within the American media to what was seen as a campaign to artificially inflate international threats. It was clear that Rumsfeld had Saddam Hussein firmly in his sights, especially with his description of a rogue state invading neighbors, and this was only confirmed by his deputy, Wolfowitz, having previously led a very public campaign against Saddam Hussein’s leadership. Shibley Telhami, in the Washington Post, observed somewhat presciently, “Saddam Hussein will continue to pose a threat to U.S. interests, but his spectre in Washington is much larger than the man himself. Inflating a third-rate power is self-defeating; it limits policy options and sets aside more important priorities.”¹⁸

But, by July, Bush made it clear that his initial foray into foreign policy was a sign of larger shifts and movements to come. In a speech at the World Bank, Bush elaborated three goals that were vital to his administration. First, there was the deliberate movement away from the ideas of the Cold War toward confronting new threats posed by rogue states, nuclear proliferation, and cyber terror. Second, there was an emphasis on promoting global economic growth “through a world trading system that is dramatically more open and more free.” And, third, was to “remove the huge obstacles to development,” and fight illiteracy, disease, and unsustainable debt. According to Bush, these goals made up “compassionate conservatism” on a global scale, an outgrowth of his domestic agenda for “compassionate conservatism” at home.¹⁹

The goals were ambiguous, and there were some calls in the American media for Bush to be more specific in regard to what constituted a rogue state. In the Wall Street Journal, Bush was encouraged to revisit US policy toward Iraq and “take swift and serious measures to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”²⁰ However, the calls from the American media for a more aggressive stance toward Iraq were in competition with advice from Secretary of State Colin Powell to renew Iraqi sanctions, regarded by Haass as one of only a few viable options. The other policies included “more intense military strikes when Saddam’s behaviour warranted [or the] prosecution of Saddam for war crimes.”²¹

The Wall Street Journal, picking up on the diverging opinions from both the State and Defense Department concerning Saddam Hussein, pushed with their calls for a strike against Saddam, reporting that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had already devised a plan for regime change in Iraq.²² The plan supported “the provisional and insurrectionary government of Iraq, the restoration of a safe haven in northern Iraq, the release of $1.6 billion in frozen Iraqi assets to assist the insurrection, a systematic air campaign to assist the insurrection and the positioning of U.S. ground forces to protect the insurrection ‘as the last resort.’”²³ Amid the mixed messages from the State and Defense Departments, and in conjunction with Bush’s ambiguous foreign policy stance, Bush’s approval ratings were fluctuating between 51 and 53%, with a majority of respondents stating that they disagreed with almost every major policy decision made by Bush.²⁴

Using Bush’s middling ratings in the polls, and in the hope that they might wield some influence from a minority position in Congress, Democrat House minority leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) warned Bush of isolating the United States from the international community, arguing that the trend of rejecting treaties outright had weakened the US “ability to pursue a broad range of global interests.”²⁵ Gephardt added, “one nation, acting alone, cannot possibly build a lasting strategic framework to which all other nations submit.” But Gephardt’s protestations fell on deaf ears and, although it had been a long eight months for Bush in foreign policy, the Republican majority in Congress ensured his agenda, both domestic and diplomatic, would proceed forward without obstruction.

An Attack on the United States

Powell , for his part, did his best to distract the criticism surrounding Bush’s foreign policy decisions in an interview with the Los Angeles Times on September 9. Powell explained, contrary to popular opinion, that the United States had not neglected any of its international responsibilities. Instead, Bush had embraced straightforward, no-nonsense choices that had hastened diplomacy and enabled more suitable policy options. According to Powell, this was effective policy making. However, it was Saddam Hussein who remained a central preoccupation for the interviewer, and Powell was asked “Do you really believe [Saddam] can be toppled, especially by the current opposition groups?” Powell put the lingering issue of Iraq into historical context, explaining, “Eleven years later Kuwait is safe. Iraq is a sad, desperate place; its infrastructure is collapsing. I do know that he will pass in due course, because he is on top of a failing way of running a country. Whether or not he can be toppled is not something I can predict.” Nevertheless, the interviewer pressed Powell for the administration’s stance on Saddam Hussein’s leadership. Powell, adding his own goal to Bush’s speech at the World Bank, retorted, “It is the U.S. goal to see change in the regime.”²⁶

Powell’s insistence that Bush was forging a strong international foundation for the United States was not entirely convincing. One former US diplomat, critical of the fickle diplomatic footing of the United States, argued, on the dawn of September 11, that this domestic and diplomatic dialogue was “only a beginning of understanding, not a discussion of policy. The public needs to know where the president intends to take the country internationally. He has told us much of what he is opposed to; he needs to lay out with some specificity what we are for besides missile defense and trade expansion.”²⁷ The administration did not have long to find its foreign policy position once reports that a civilian airliner had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York reached Bush.

A domestic shift was immediately evident, and criticism of Bush dispelled, after September 11 when terrorists hijacked civilian aircraft and crashed the planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia, and a field in Pennsylvania. Amid the repeated footage of the planes colliding with the towers and burning buildings whatever reasoning Powell had hoped to convey in his interview evaporated as it became clear that the United States was under attack. The impact of September 11 on the administration could not be understated. Rice later admitted, “I have always felt as if I operated in a king of fog, a virtual state of shock, for two days after 9/11.”²⁸ As for Bush, he was informed of the attacks while sitting in a classroom reading to a group of schoolchildren. He finished his task, collected his thoughts, and left to address the nation. Talking into the camera and reading from some scribbled notes, Bush explained that the United States had suffered an apparent terrorist attack and declared, “terrorism against our nation will not stand.” Bush later recalled that the line echoed his father’s denouncement of Iraqi aggression in 1990, writing, “Dad’s words must have been buried in my subconscious, waiting to surface during another moment of crisis.”²⁹ However, the American media was more concerned with who was responsible for the attacks, and how Bush was going to respond.

Diplomat L. Paul Bremer III demanded that Bush use this moment as an opportunity to take a stand. For too long the United States had “contented itself with merely identifying states which support terrorism without their facing any serious consequences. The U.S. must deliver a clear ultimatum to those states: Either you destroy the terrorist operations on your territory or we will.”³⁰ In the American media, there were already suggestions that Iraq was involved with the terrorist attacks, academic Laurie Mylroie stating that it was unfathomable that the suspected terrorist organization al-Qaeda could have undertaken the attacks alone. It was “far more likely [bin laden] operated in conjunction with a state – the state with which the U.S. remains at war, namely Iraq.”³¹ Mylroie was reiterating a discussion that had taken place at Camp David on September 14, where Wolfowitz had suggested to Bush, “the United States should go after Iraq.”³² However, by the end of September it was established that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was, in fact, responsible for the attacks and that he was based in Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban, who were in control of the country.

Despite the identification of Osama bin Laden as the leader responsible for organizing the attacks and despite the Defense Department being encouraged by the American media to launch a decisive attack of retribution, Powell was adamant that no decision had been made to confront particular states or regimes, explaining, “if there are states and regimes, nations, that support terrorism, we hope to persuade them that it is in their interest to stop doing that. But I think ‘ending terrorism’ is where I would leave it.”³³ This did not prevent pressure on the administration to establish war aims by the end of September. According to the Wall Street Journal, regardless of Iraq’s role “Saddam Hussein remains the greatest menace to the security of the civilized world [and] the prospect that he might use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in the future should concentrate the national mind. Deposing Saddam has to be considered as another war aim.”³⁴ The lingering presence of Saddam Hussein in the American media ensured he remained a high risk, imagined or otherwise, in foreign policy.

On September 20, Bush left no doubt who was responsible for the terrorist attacks when he addressed Congress. The attack was an act of war committed against the United States by the “enemies of freedom.” Singling out the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for harboring the leaders of al-Qaeda, Bush gave the ultimatum “deliver to the United States authorities all of the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land.” However, Bush was also clear that the terrorist attacks were the beginning of a new direction in US foreign policy. There would be no negotiation with any nation over terrorism as “every nation in every region now has a decision to make: either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”³⁵ But, far from satisfying the inquisitive needs of the American media for decisive action against those responsible for the attacks, Bush’s new stance hinted that he would also confront Saddam.

William Safire, who had been vocal during the 1991 Gulf War about George H. W. Bush’s failure to confront Saddam Hussein, was pleased that the United States was now targeting terrorists in Afghanistan, but blamed Powell for preventing the administration from turning its attention to Iraq. Safire was adamant that “Iraqi scientists today working feverishly in hidden biological laboratories and underground nuclear facilities would, if undisturbed, enable the hate-driven, power-crazed Saddam to kill millions.”³⁶ The support emerging from the American media, and the resuscitation of old fears surrounding Saddam Hussein’s capabilities, meant that there was a domestic consensus emerging that meant Bush would have support to do whatever he deemed necessary to protect the United States. This support was reflected in the polls that showed Bush at an 89% approval rating, with eight out of ten respondents admitting that they “will have to forfeit some of their personal freedoms to make the country safer.”³⁷

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks, Bush’s domestic agenda faded into the background as US national security became the primary concern. Rice described the new daily routine post-9/11 as “we began each morning with the President’s Daily Briefing. The session was now more operational, with both the CIA and FBI reporting on threats and efforts to disrupt them. This, in fact, complicated decision making, because the President had a tendency to ask policy questions that were prompted by intelligence information…I found myself constantly reminding the President that it would be up to his national security team to give him answers to the policy dilemmas raised by what he was hearing.”³⁸ Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Adviser to George H. W. Bush, offered his own advice to complement what Rice had already given the president privately. Scowcroft warned the president to be wary of all the voices that were advising him to act on emotion rather than planning. Scowcroft explained that in order to confront international terrorism, the president needed an international coalition. Scowcroft was adamant that “Success means a coalition, a broad coalition, a willing and enthusiastic coalition. That will take unbelievable effort and entail endless frustrations. But we did it in 1990 and we can do it again.”³⁹ Despite Scowcroft’s advice to build a sustainable response to terrorism, former CIA Director James Woolsey championed the Wall Street Journal’s campaign to see Iraq included as a target in a war on terror. Woolsey argued, “the degree of complexity and the sophistication of the attacks against us suggest that we have enough indications of possible state involvement for the government to be carefully and vigorously investigating.”⁴⁰ Furthermore, Saddam Hussein had “a festering sense of revenge for his humiliation of the Gulf War, and our conduct at, and after, the war’s end has given him added hope, he believes, for vengeance.” In the American media, Saddam Hussein and terror were synonymous.

Although Bush had struck a confident figure when he addressed Congress in September, detailing his intentions to pursue and persecute terrorists around the world, the administration underwent another security crisis when anthrax was discovered in letters delivered to government representatives in the beginning of October. As the news broke, the United States reverted back to the fear and panic that had enveloped the nation in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11. Bush later recalled, “millions of Americans were afraid to open their mailboxes. Office mailrooms shut down. Mothers rushed to the hospital to order anthrax tests for children suffering from the common cold. Deranged hoaxsters mailed packages laced with talcum powder or flour, which exacerbated people’s fears.”⁴¹ More important, the anthrax attacks showed the collective traumatic stress that was lurking just under the surface of the public image.

Once again, the American media was quick to conclude that Saddam Hussein was a suspect for orchestrating the anthrax attack. The accusation stemmed from a report in 1995 that confirmed the Iraqi regime had been in possession of anthrax. Former Chairman of UNSCOM Richard Butler was quick to discount Iraq as the origin of the anthrax, explaining that it was unlikely Iraq had refined anthrax into a more potent, resilient form required for the US attacks. According to Butler, the anthrax was equally likely to have been retrieved from the ruins of the Soviet Union biological weapons laboratories.⁴² Preliminary testing also suggested that the anthrax was a similar strain to what had been researched in US laboratories, leading to suggestions that the terrorist attack had a domestic origin.⁴³ But the evidence and reasoning from Butler was ignored. Despite the lack of any solid intelligence, or even motive, there were congressional calls that Saddam Hussein be held responsible. Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) demanded Bush detail plans for confronting Saddam Hussein, explaining:

Whether or not Saddam is implicated directly with the anthrax attacks or the horrors of Sept. 11, he is, by any common definition, a terrorist who must be removed. A serious effort to end Saddam’s rule over Iraq should begin now with a declaration by the administration that it is America’s policy to change the Iraqi regime, and with greater financial and tactical support of the broad-based Iraqi opposition.⁴⁴

However attractive Lieberman’s plans were for Bush, who was himself seeking retribution for the attacks buffeting the United States, the reality was that there was no real intelligence that could provide an answer for where the anthrax had emerged. Bush recalled, “we believed more attacks were coming, but we didn’t know when, where, or from whom.”⁴⁵ But, Saddam Hussein remained the most credible threat to the United States.

Weighing into the domestic debate over foreign policy in the wake of September 11 was former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who explained that a war on terror could not just target certain people or ideals, and that it would have to target states as well. According to Kissinger, Afghanistan was just the beginning of a broader campaign and he warned “against the temptation to treat cooperation on Afghanistan as meeting the challenge and to use it as an alibi for avoiding the necessary succeeding phases.”⁴⁶ The military model that was utilized in Afghanistan would have to evolve once Osama bin Laden was captured and the Taliban were deposed. Success would mean, “Preventive action is becoming imperative. States known to possess such facilities and to have previously used them must be obliged to open themselves to strict, conclusive international inspections with obligatory enforcement mechanisms. This applies to Iraq.”⁴⁷

Whereas Kissinger believed Iraq should become a target in the war on terror because of strategic interests, exiled Iraqi academic Kanan Makiya argued that the United States had an obligation to depose Saddam Hussein, as it was because of US foreign policy that Saddam Hussein had retained power in Iraq.⁴⁸ Makiya believed, “American policy, if redirected, can determine the future of that nation. It is, after all, a country that the United States went to the trouble of defeating militarily, only to stand aside as its citizens were slaughtered by the tyrant America had come to fight.”⁴⁹ The intervention in Afghanistan gave Makiya hope that the United States would seriously consider an intervention in Iraq, explaining that Iraq could become a bastion for the United States in the Persian Gulf as “a new kind of westward-looking political order” similar to Germany and Japan after World War II.⁵⁰

Although there were grand designs for the scope of US foreign policy in the wake of the terrorist attacks, Bush was clear in a press conference on November 26 that Afghanistan was the primary focus on the war on terror. But, he stressed that it was just the beginning and that the mission would take as long as was necessary. Bush went to lengths to define who the United States was at war against, explaining, “Well, my message is, is that if you harbor a terrorist, you’re a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist, you’re a terrorist. If you develop weapons of mass destruction that you want to terrorize the world, you’ll be held accountable.”⁵¹ Asked if this meant Iraq might be considered a target in a global war on terror, Bush stated, “Afghanistan is still just the beginning,” and warned Saddam Hussein that he would be required to readmit weapons inspectors into the country to verify that he did not pose a threat to the United States.

The operation in Afghanistan, for all its attention, achieved mixed results. Although there had been military victories as the Taliban government crumbled before the US military, the effort to capture Osama bin Laden was ongoing. In a press conference on December 10, Wolfowitz explained that “we’ve created conditions now where, I guess, you could say we have accomplished one major objective, which is the defeat of the Taliban government…But it remains the case that large numbers of al Qaeda terrorists, including senior leaders, as well as senior leaders of the Taliban, are still at large in Afghanistan.”⁵² Wolfowitz was confident that the success in Afghanistan was a positive step in the war on terror, refusing to acknowledge whether the operation had been stretched to incorporate more objectives, and stressed that the administration would remain focused on Afghanistan to ensure success.

For the moment, this focus remained true. Haass recalled that at no point was the Afghanistan operation purposely neglected in favor of shifting the war on terror to focus on Iraq. Haass noted, “the failure to capture or kill retreating al-Qaida and Taliban elements at the battle of Tora Bora was a failure born of tactics and overreliance on Afghan units and above all the ill-advised decision to limit the number and role of U.S. forces.”⁵³ However, this did not prevent rumors that Iraq was the next US target. In both the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza, who had already been declared as a noncredible intelligence source by the CIA, argued that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his “weapons of mass destruction” programs and hidden them throughout the country. Hamza insisted, “If intelligence estimates are correct the first tests [nuclear] could happen by 2005.”⁵⁴ In the public imagination, the threat presented by Saddam Hussein was now seen as credible, and inside the Pentagon, Rumsfeld was exploring possibilities for going to war with Iraq.⁵⁵

Iraq and the Axis of Evil

After all that had transpired in the final months of 2001, the State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, was an opportunity to reflect and refocus. Rice, and speechwriter Michael Gerson, expected Bush to push the message that the United States was planning “beyond the war on terror.” However, the language of the address, including the phrase “axis of evil,” conveyed a very different message.⁵⁶ Any hope that the United States had somehow progressed in the war on terror because of some success in Afghanistan was dampened as Bush explained, “our Nation is at war; our economy is in recession; and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers.”⁵⁷ Bush set out two objectives for the New Year—“First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world.” And the targets of those objectives were described as regimes of terror, found in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Bush argued, “States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” With the emphasis on the United States at war, confronting threats around the world, and preparing for ongoing attacks, Bush announced the largest increase in defense spending for twenty years.

Rumsfeld , in a press conference on January 24, had already alluded to the increased defense spending, justifying the cost as a necessary measure to modernize the US military.⁵⁸ However, the increased spending only exacerbated the impending recession that threatened to engulf the United States. Bush addressed these concerns head-on in the State of the Union address, promising, “our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term,” and passing the responsibility to Congress to make fiscally conservative decisions. But, more important than defense spending and economic concerns, Bush’s State of the Union address showed that the United States had found a mission, a cause that it could champion. Bush went on, “In a single instant, we realized that this will be the decisive decade in the history of liberty, that we’ve been called to a unique role in human events. Rarely has the world faced a choice more clear or consequential.”⁵⁹ Unlike his father, Bush was able to embrace the impending domestic budget crisis, thanks to the Republican majority in Congress and the domestic support he had consolidated in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

Because of the recent history between the United States and Iraq, and the domestic campaign against Saddam Hussein that never went away in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq stood out on the “axis of evil.” Iran and North Korea, although posing their own strategic challenges, lacked the history that was shared between the United States and Iraq. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, recalling her role from 1990, added her support behind Bush to confront Saddam. Thatcher suggested Bush do whatever was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power as he was a threat not only to the United States but also to the world. According to Thatcher, the only questions worth asking were “how and when, not whether, to remove [Saddam].”⁶⁰ Adding to Thatcher’s imposition on the American debate were attorneys Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin Jr., former Justice Department staff under Reagan and George H. W. Bush, who explained the legal justifications for deposing Saddam. According to the attorneys, the 1991 Gulf War “has never ended and additional action against Iraq would be fully justified based on pre-existing U.N. authorization.”⁶¹ Because the United Nations had verified that Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction, and because the United Nations could not now verify that those weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed, the United States could invoke “anticipatory self-defense” and mitigate the threat posed by Saddam. The attorneys argued, “these weapons clearly are for use, either by Iraq or by its terrorist surrogates, against the U.S. and its allies.”⁶² Far from the initial understanding that Saddam’s capabilities reflected his intentions, the observation was now reversed, and it was Saddam’s intentions that were seen to reflect his actual capabilities.

Despite this pressure, however, the administration gave no indication that Iraq was on the agenda. Cheney, in an address before the Council on Foreign Relations, only stated that it was imperative for the United States to move against all those who supported terrorism, promising that “we will work to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or allowing them to pass those weapons to terrorists.”⁶³ Rumsfeld, in a Defense briefing on February 12 about progress in Afghanistan, retorted when asked about evidence that suggested Iraq was involved with terrorists that “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”⁶⁴ But it was the obsession with Iraq in the American media, fueled by the ambiguity of the administration objectives and war on terror, which kept Iraq, and Saddam, firmly in the interest of the domestic audience.

It was a televised interview with Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair that kicked off a domestic campaign to rally support behind the administration’s tilt toward Iraq. Blair lent a degree of international support behind the administrations strong, unilateral rhetoric, similar to Thatcher’s support for George H. W. Bush in 1991.⁶⁵ He explained that Bush’s motives were true, and “Those who are engaged in spreading weapons of mass destruction are engaged in an evil trade, and it is important that we make sure that we take action in respect of it…the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq poses a threat, not just to the region, but to the wider world, and I think George Bush was absolutely right to raise it.”⁶⁶ Blair looked forward to meeting with Bush to discuss a plan of action that included Iraq as a second stage of the war on terror.

Blair’s declaration of support, ostensibly targeted at an American audience, put Congress on the back foot. Some congressional representatives were only now realizing that they had been waylaid in the process of the administration choosing military objectives and approving military action. Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) called on Bush to clarify what the next stage of the war on terror actually entailed, in the process earning the derision from other members of Congress.⁶⁷ Despite Daschle’s sincerity in asking for clarification from the president, he was in a minority, and there was indignation across both parties that the Senator might question the president’s actions in war. Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) explained in the Wall Street Journal that there was bipartisan support in Congress for the actions Bush had taken in the war on terror. Lieberman reassured that “Less than six months after the Sep. 11 attacks, our will to do what is necessary to protect our security must not start wavering. That certainly goes for Iraq, where we must deal decisively with the threat to America posed by the world’s most dangerous terrorist, Saddam Hussein.”⁶⁸ Lieberman’s support was echoed by Bush’s approval ratings that were still at 82%, with seven out of ten respondents approving US troops being used to confront terrorists overseas. This included a majority that approved of military force being used against Saddam on the condition of international support.⁶⁹

Bush confirmed in a press conference on March 13 that Iraq was now considered a threat to international peace and security, and the administration was having discussions about what action was necessary to confront this threat. Bush explained, “we will share our views of how to make the world safe. In regards to Iraq, we’re doing just that.”⁷⁰ According to Bush, “I am deeply concerned about Iraq, and so should the American people be concerned about Iraq, and so should people who love freedom be concerned about Iraq… [Saddam Hussein] is a problem, and we’re going to deal with him.”⁷¹ However, part of the commitment to confronting Iraq rested on the promise of consultation with allies, and Bush cultivated that image through an interview with the United Kingdom’s ITV television network, returning Blair’s favor.

Iraq remained a central subject for conversation, and the interviewer inquired as to whether Bush had plans to attack Iraq. Bush avoided a direct answer by stating that he had only “made up my mind that Saddam needs to go.” There were no plans, however, on how to accomplish that goal. Bush stressed that US policy was that Saddam Hussein should be removed from power and, further, it would be in the interest of the free world that this policy be supported.⁷² The open dialogue with the United Kingdom continued on April 6 when Bush met with Blair in Crawford, Texas. In the following press conference, and after commenting on the importance of the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, Blair added, “you know it has always been our policy that Iraq would be a better place without Saddam Hussein.” Blair, much like Bush, refused to comment on how that would be accomplished, but insisted that “you cannot have a situation in which he carries on being in breach of the U.N. resolutions and refusing to allow us the capability of assessing how that weapons-of-mass-destruction capability is being advanced.” Bush added, “Maybe I should be a little less direct and be a little more nuanced, and say we support regime change.”⁷³ It was clear, however, that both nations had begun down the path toward military action in Iraq.

Although Bush and Blair had avoided questions regarding military planning, the questions were not misplaced. Since February, Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks had been devising military options for confronting Iraq. A report leaked from the Department of Defense in the New York Times showed that preliminary research had concluded that a coup was unlikely to overthrow Saddam Hussein and a war waged through local proxies would be insufficient to change the regime. The report, however, stated, “senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year.”⁷⁴ And a key element of the planning suggested, “other than troops from Britain, no significant contribution of allied forces is anticipated.” The report helped make sense of Bush’s pursuit of British support and suggested a timeframe for armed action against Iraq.

The abrupt shift in attitude of the United States and the United Kingdom toward a confrontation with Iraq was obvious to Hans Blix, the new chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). The beginning of 2002 had shown that Iraq was now a major US focus, and by the end of March it was apparent that armed action was considered the only option to confront Saddam Hussein. Although there were calls for renewed international weapons inspections in Iraq, Blix wondered whether they would just be used to justify armed intervention.⁷⁵ After all, Rumsfeld had already questioned the efficacy of weapons inspections in a press conference in April, explaining, “for the most part anything [the weapons inspectors] found was a result of having been cued to something as a result of a defector giving them a heads-up.”⁷⁶ The administration’s skepticism of weapons inspections was escalated when it was reported that Wolfowitz had encouraged a CIA investigation into Blix’s role as the director of the IAEA throughout the 80s and 90s, in order to find any inconsistencies in his tenure as a weapons inspector.⁷⁷

There was a concentrated campaign in June to educate the American public of the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld, in a speech to allies in the Persian Gulf about US military operations, maintained that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and “they continue to develop them, and they have weaponized chemical weapons…they’ve had an active program to develop nuclear weapons. It’s also clear that they are actively developing biological weapons. I don’t know what other kinds of weapons would fall under the rubric of weapons of mass destruction, but if there are more, I suspect they’re working on them, as well.”⁷⁸ Rice, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, added that Iraq was a legitimate threat “not because you have some chain of evidence saying Iraq may have given a weapon to al-Qaeda…But it is because Iraq is one of those places that is both hostile to us, and, frankly, irresponsible and cruel enough to make this available.”⁷⁹ Congress, refusing to be left behind, added bipartisan support of an earlier presidential order that had authorized the CIA to take covert action to topple the Iraqi dictator. House minority leader Representative Richard Gephardt (D-MO) explained that the order was “trying to bring about a change of regime, because they have continued to flout U.N. resolutions and international law. I think it is an appropriate action to take. I hope it succeeds in its quest.” House majority leader Representative Richard K. Armey (R-TX) added that the order was “justified by Iraq’s support for terrorist groups that threaten the United States and other countries.”⁸⁰ Politically, Bush was receiving the domestic consensus on Iraq that his father had failed to generate.

Even in the American media there was implicit support for Bush’s stance against Iraq. In an editorial in the New York Times in July, the editors stressed that they were confident Saddam Hussein had hidden weapons of mass destruction and that he had intent to use them. However, “what is urgently needed now is informed and serious debate.”⁸¹ Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took the opportunity to ask Bush to go into more detail about possible plans for military intervention in Iraq, but was careful not to question whether Bush should intervene—only what he planned to do in the aftermath. Biden confided that Bush always joked with him: “you agree with me on Saddam, why don’t you agree with my methods?” To which Biden would respond, “Mr. President, there’s a reason why your father stopped and didn’t go to Baghdad. He didn’t want to stay five years.”⁸² Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added his support behind Biden, as the pair published three questions for Bush in the New York Times. First, what threat was posed by Iraq and how immediate was the danger; second, what were the options to confront the Iraqi threat; and, third, when Saddam Hussein is gone, what would be the remaining American responsibilities? The pair explained, “given Iraq’s strategic location, its large oil reserves and the suffering of the Iraqi people, we cannot afford to replace a despot with chaos. We need to assess what it would take to rebuild Iraq economically and politically.”⁸³ The debate had seemingly skipped the discussion stage and was already on to planning for the future. Bush, for his part, reinforced his intention to depose Saddam Hussein, stating again in a press conference on July 8, “it’s the stated policy of this Government to have regime change. And it hasn’t changed. And we’ll use all tools at our disposal to do so.”⁸⁴

There were dissenting voices in the American media. Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, speaking from their experience confronting Saddam Hussein in 1991, used the American media to try and convince Bush to reconsider confronting Iraq. Haass described Scowcroft’s effort as “nothing less than a ‘throw yourself in front of the train’ effort to derail the momentum toward a war that Brent judged to be both unnecessary and ill advised.”⁸⁵ In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Scowcroft wrote that Saddam was “unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address.” Scowcroft was concerned that a military intervention in Iraq would distract the United States from the war on terrorism, and that there was little evidence “that the United States itself is an object of [Saddam’s] aggression.”⁸⁶ Baker, separately, expressed in an op-ed published in the New York Times a more understanding view of the administration’s desire to use force to depose Saddam. However, Baker believed that “we should try our best not to have to go it alone, and the president should reject the advice of those who counsel doing so. The costs in all areas will be much greater, as will the political risks, both domestic and international, if we end up going it alone or with only two other countries.” The political dimensions of any conflict that might develop between the United States and Iraq were of considerable concern and Baker added, “we should frankly recognize that our problem in accomplishing regime change in Iraq is made more difficult by the way our policy on the Arab-Israeli dispute is perceived around the world. Sadly, in international politics, as in domestic politics, perception is sometimes more important than reality.”⁸⁷ However, the diplomatic nuances of any possible conflict between the United States and Iraq were obscured by the administration’s campaign to highlight the perceived threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Scowcroft’s op-ed, although failing to persuade the administration to re-evaluate its current path, did earn the displeasure of Rice.⁸⁸ However, it was Cheney who retorted in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on August 26. Cheney explained, “we now know Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we’ve gotten this from first hand testimony from defectors, including Saddam’s own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam’s direction.”⁸⁹ The reality was that “armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a seat at a top 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies, directly threaten America’s friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”⁹⁰ With our help, added Cheney, “a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again.”⁹¹ The key to Cheney’s reasoning was the insistence that Saddam Hussein ‘could’ threaten the United States. Cheney had stated the complete reversal of Baker and Scowcroft’s reasoning for confronting Saddam Hussein in 1991. Because Saddam had the intention to threaten the United States, therefore he had the capabilities to do so, and had to be stopped.

Bush rode the momentum generated by Cheney’s speech, continuing to justify the increasingly militant US posture in remarks at press conferences. One such occasion was on September 2, alongside Blair, when Bush explained, “as you know, our Government in 1998 – action that my administration has embraced – decided that this regime was not going to honor its commitments to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton administration supported regime change. Many members of the current United States Senate supported regime change. My administration still supports regime change. There’s all kinds of ways to change regimes…we owe it to future generations to deal with this problem.”⁹² According to Bush, it was a long-standing policy of the United States to depose Saddam Hussein.

Despite Bush’s confidence in his administration’s plans, his approval rating had been steadily decreasing throughout the year. By early September, Bush had an approval rating of 63%, with only 37% of respondents expressing confidence that Bush would make correct decisions. However, 61% supported a preemptive attack on Iraq.⁹³ Increasing this domestic support was Bush’s address at the United Nations General Assembly on September 12. The speech was applauded for redefining US international objectives, but was focused on Iraq. Baker was satisfied that Bush had embraced the United Nations and, after the speech, wrote “the question is no longer why the United States believes force is necessary to implement resolutions involving Iraq, but why the United Nations, after years of inaction, does not now agree.”⁹⁴ However, Baker was certain, “win or lose, going to the United Nations will also help the president win the support of the American people and, therefore, of Congress, which is politically desirable, if not legally necessary, for any major military action.”⁹⁵ The appeal to the United Nations, however, was also a move to secure further evidence of the presumed threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Baker’s optimism turned out premature as the Bush administration released a revised National Security Strategy (NSS) on September 17. Just as the words “axis of evil” had caught the attention of observers when Bush had given his State of the Union address in January, so too did the word “preemption.” Reframing the way in which the United States defined the nature of threats causes immediate repercussions for how Iraq was construed in the American media, and the focus was now on the “imminent” nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.⁹⁶ However, the NSS went a step further, confirming that regime change was a strategy for confronting international threats.

Retaining the focus on the imminent threat posed by Iraq, Rumsfeld, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, outlined the case against Saddam Hussein. Reciting the litany of resolutions that Iraq had ignored over a period of eleven years, Rumsfeld concluded, “no terrorist state poses a greater and more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”⁹⁷ Powell , who had appeared before the House International Relations Committee, reinforced Rumsfeld’s testimony. Powell added, “from the very beginning…we’ve viewing this as a liberation”⁹⁸ and that the administration understood the implications of intervening in Iraq, promising that the United States “would have obligations to see it through.”⁹⁹

But, the United Nations threatened to scuttle Bush’s gathering momentum toward military action in Iraq. Bush had to dismiss reports that the renewed United Nations weapons inspections would prove Iraq did not pose a threat to the international community. Bush viewed the move by Saddam Hussein to suddenly resume weapons inspections as the latest ploy to lead the international community astray, and Bush promised, “one of the jobs of the United States has is to remind people about not only the threat but the fact that his defiance has weakened the United Nations.”¹⁰⁰ By the end of September it was clear that Bush was moving toward a decision to confront Saddam. In a press conference, following a meeting with congressional leaders in late September and before a resolution was sent to Congress to authorize the use of force against Iraq, Bush explained that “Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX – nerve gas – or, someday, a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally. We refuse to live in this future of fear. Democrats and Republicans refuse to live in a future of fear.”¹⁰¹ With a nod of Congressional approval, Bush could put in motion plans to confront Saddam Hussein.¹⁰²

Authorizing the Use of Force

In October, Bush approached Congress to vote on using force to confront Saddam. Appealing to Congress before the international community showed how diametrically opposite Bush was to his father and reflected their individual strengths as president. After a meeting with Congressional leaders on October 1, Bush was confident that a resolution would pass through both the House and Senate with little opposition. Bush explained to reporters, “We’ll continue to work with the Members of Congress. But I don’t want to get a resolution which ties my hands, a resolution which is weaker than that which was passed out of the Congress in 1998.”¹⁰³ Bush continued the next day to build a bipartisan case for confronting Saddam Hussein when he announced the agreement between Congressional leaders on a joint resolution. Bush stressed, “We know the designs of the Iraqi regime. In defiance of pledges to the U.N., it has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons. It is rebuilding the facilities used to make those weapons,” and “Countering Iraq’s threat is also a central commitment on the war on terror. We know Saddam Hussein has longstanding and ongoing ties to international terrorists.” According to Bush, then, “America’s leadership and willingness to use force, confirmed by the Congress, is the best way to ensure compliance and avoid conflict.”¹⁰⁴

In a final push to consolidate Congressional support, Bush followed his earlier statements with an address to the nation on October 7, just before the joint resolution was introduced to Congress. In the address Bush stressed that Iraq stood alone from other international threats because “it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbour, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States.” According to Bush, the United States knew “that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas,” and “surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons.” Only adding to these concerns were Iraq’s ballistic missile capabilities, Saddam Hussein’s links to international terrorist groups, and Iraq’s unconfirmed nuclear weapons manufacturing capability. Bush, with certainty, claimed, “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”¹⁰⁵

By the time Bush had addressed the nation on October 7, the Senate had already begun to debate the authorization of the use of force to confront Saddam Hussein. Despite the confidence of Congressional leaders that there was bipartisan support for the president, there still existed dissent in the Senate. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who had spoken out against George H. W. Bush’s decision in 1991 to go to war with Iraq, argued against the consensus of the Senate, asking what had changed in the last year that had elevated Saddam Hussein into an imminent threat that required an immediate response from the United States. Byrd claimed, “When the President and his advisers are pressed for clarity, they have responded with evasive and confusing references to the dangers of terrorism which they now seem to think has more to do with Saddam Hussein than Osama bin Laden.” Byrd was appalled that Congress was willing to provide Bush with a blank check to conduct war despite the lack of substantiated evidence implicating Saddam Hussein in terrorism, and warned the Senate, “The President’s military doctrine will give him a free hand to justify almost any military action with unsubstantiated allegations and arbitrary risk assessments, and Congress is about to rubberstamp that doctrine and simply step out of the way.”¹⁰⁶ However, despite Byrd’s measured appraisal of the resolution, he was very much in the minority. After all, it was in the same session that Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) added, “as one who fought in China [during World War II] I see the next Hitler in Saddam Hussein.”¹⁰⁷

On October 8, as the debate continued, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) expanded his justifications for supporting the resolution to authorize the use of force. Referring to Byrd’s question, Lieberman retorted:

Why not earlier? Why not over the course of the last decade, when Saddam Hussein, to our knowledge, continued to build up his weapons of mass destruction and the most dangerous and threatening means to deliver them on targets near and far, constantly ignoring and violating resolutions of the United Nations, growing more ominous a threat to his neighbors and to the world?

In fact, argued Lieberman, Bush’s push to confront Saddam Hussein was merely the realization of a military conflict that the United States had been involved in since 1991.¹⁰⁸ Senator John McCain (R-AZ) added to Lieberman’s rationalization by stressing that Bush was not forcing the issue to confront Saddam Hussein, that it was Saddam Hussein himself who was forcing the United States into action, and Bush was not resorting to war as a first option, but as a last option.¹⁰⁹ Senator John Kerry (D-MA), speaking the following day, summarized the position of the Senate succinctly when he added, “When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable.”¹¹⁰ Unlike the situation in 1991, the support in the Senate for the use of force against Saddam Hussein was overwhelming and framed around Saddam’s intentions, rather than his capabilities.

In the House of Representatives, the debate was just as broad. However, with the Republican majority, there was little chance that Bush would face much opposition to the joint resolution. The debate fell along the same lines as in the Senate, with some representatives arguing the merits of waiting for United Nations inspections to take place, while others worried that Bush was given too much authority to wage war. In one case, Representative Paul Ryan (D-WI) cited former CIA intelligence analyst Kenneth Pollack’s The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq as definitive evidence as to why Bush should be authorized to use force against Saddam Hussein. Ryan described Pollack as “a former analyst on Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency who served on the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration [and] one of the foremost experts on Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime.”¹¹¹ The reliance on such an account of the Iraqi threat only highlighted how insular the debate was within the United States.

As a result of the overwhelming pressure placed on Congress by both the administration and the American media, Bush received an affirmative vote. In the Senate, the resolution was passed by a margin of 77-23. In the House, the margin was 296-133. In an announcement that marked the signing of the resolution, Bush remarked that it was the first step in eradicating an international threat and “confronting the threat posed by Iraq is necessary, by whatever means that requires. Either the Iraqi regime will give up its weapons of mass destruction, or for the sake of peace, the United States will lead a global coalition to disarm that regime.”¹¹² Using the Congressional vote as a springboard, Bush detailed US demands that would allow Iraq to avoid a military confrontation, including the resumption of weapons inspections under stricter US conditions. This time, Iraqi scientists were to be allowed to leave the country for interviews with inspectors and Saddam Hussein had to publicly cut all ties to international terrorists. These demands, stressed Bush, were nonnegotiable, and it was up to the United Nations Security Council to see them satisfied.

Mohammed Aldouri, Iraq’s Ambassador to the United Nations, had a right of reply to the Congressional debate by writing his own op-ed in the New York Times. Aldouri argued Bush was impatient, stressing, “we are not asking the people of the United States or of any member state of the United Nations to trust in our word, but to send the weapons inspectors to our country to look wherever they wish unconditionally…we could never make this claim with such openness if we did not ourselves know there is nothing to be found.”¹¹³ However, Aldouri’s complaints came too late and even Mohammed El-Baradei, chairman of the IAEA, questioned the accuracy of Bush’s intelligence on Iraq in the Washington Post. El-Baradei explained that the IAEA had, in the past, “neutralised Iraq’s nuclear program. We confiscated its weapon-usable material. We destroyed, removed or rendered harmless all its facilities and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons production. And while we did not claim absolute certainty, we were confident that we had not missed any significant component of Iraq’s nuclear program.”¹¹⁴

Despite Aldouri’s and El-Baradei’s concerns, the American public remained unconvinced that Iraq did not pose a threat, and Senator John McCain reiterated his endorsement of military action against Iraq. McCain countered, “The feckless pursuit of accommodation with regimes that scorn our reasonableness and revile our purpose is no substitute for a policy that matches the menace posed to America with the means and the will to confront it.” Driving home the argument, McCain more specifically addressed El-Baradei’s complaints, stating, “our determination to confront Saddam Hussein openly and with all necessary means demonstrates a freedom to act against an enemy that does not – yet – possess nuclear weapons.”¹¹⁵

With the American media allowing a delayed debate play out across its pages regarding the use of force against Iraq, the New York Times reported that Wolfowitz was overseeing an intelligence unit in the Pentagon that was focusing its analysis on Iraq. Although the unit was not officially recognized, Wolfowitz justified the unit’s existence as “a phenomenon in intelligence work, that people who are pursuing a certain hypothesis will see certain facts that others won’t, and not see other facts others will…the lens through which you’re looking for facts affects what you look for.”¹¹⁶ Haass later wrote that intelligence had lost its way with regard to Iraq, explaining, “not once in all my meetings in my years in government did an intelligence analyst or anyone else for that matter argue openly or take me aside and say privately that Iraq possessed nothing in the way of weapons of mass destruction. If the emperor had no clothes, no one thought so or was prepared to say so.”¹¹⁷ However, the very existence of the intelligence unit in the Pentagon highlighted the extent of the administration’s efforts at procuring intelligence that implicated Iraq—the very definition of scouring intentions for capabilities.

As a flow on effect from the support Bush was receiving over Iraq, the Republicans secured the midterm elections in early November, maintaining their majority and overall presence throughout Congress. The Congressional election campaign had politicized national security and questioned the judgment of Congressional members who had openly challenged Bush. In a news conference following the election results, Bush refocused his attention on pressuring the international community to fall behind the United States in the preparedness to the use of force in Iraq. Bush explained, “the only way in my judgement to deal with Saddam Hussein is to bring the international community together to convince him to disarm. But if he’s not going to disarm, we’ll disarm him in order to make the world a more peaceful place.”¹¹⁸ Bush stressed that the United Nations had to step up to its responsibilities and ensure that Iraq’s defiance did not go unanswered, stating, “it’s very important the U.N. be a successful international body because the threats that we face now require more cooperation than ever.” However, reminded Bush, the key to upholding the United Nations’ responsibilities was that any resolution regarding Iraq had to agree on “serious consequences.”¹¹⁹ This was the code for the use of force.

On November 8, Bush received part of his demands when a resolution passed through the United Nations Security Council that codified the demands of the United States into a new weapons inspection regime. Bush described the resolution as a final test, stating, “Iraq must now, without delay or negotiations, fully disarm, welcome full inspections, and fundamentally change the approach it has taken for more than a decade.” However, Bush emphasized that the United States was not beholden to the resolution, warning, “The United States of America will not live at the mercy of any group or regime that has the motive and seeks the power to murder Americans on a massive scale.”¹²⁰ Although the resolution lacked explicit authorization for the use of force and, instead, only warned that action would be taken in the case of “material breach,” Secretary of State Powell was satisfied that it had given the weapons inspectors the regime they needed to verify Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction. According to Powell, “this is not just a matter between Iraq and the United States, but between Iraq and a united world.” However, Powell also warned Iraq that there should be no doubt that the United States would not “shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.”¹²¹ For Bush, the decision to intervene in Iraq had already been made.

A sign that the administration was preparing to go to war was when Bush insisted that the sixty-five delegates who comprised the exiled Iraqi government meet for a conference with the purpose of reaching a consensus on support for Bush’s actions. However, the conference was not a success with a number of delegates leaving the final session, claiming, “The conference had been ‘cooked’ from the start by the United States.” Reports suggested, “American officials [were] on hand to monitor the conference, cajoling its leaders in private to meet the goals set by Washington while ensuring that they did not overstep the American-drawn boundaries.” And the only conclusion that emerged from the conference was that the exiled government agreed that “the United States leave governance of a post-Hussein Iraq to Iraqis and [reject] an American proposal to install a temporary United States military government.”¹²²

As a result of the conference, some debate was renewed over how to best administer a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. An op-ed by Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) warned that the United States probably would have to remain in Iraq to ensure stability. The representatives wrote, “coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill.”¹²³ Despite any desire the Iraqi exiles had harbored to see the United States leave Iraq immediately after an intervention, it was unlikely to occur in reality.

Going to War with Iraq

The protests against a war with Iraq that greeted Bush in January 2003 did little to influence the escalating US military presence in the Persian Gulf. The protests did, however, highlight a grassroots discontent at the actions of both the administration and Congress. According to reports, “tens of thousands of protestors representing a diverse coalition for peace” had gathered for blocks in Washington, DC.¹²⁴ The New York Times remarked in an editorial that “Mr. Bush and his war cabinet would be wise to see the demonstrators as a clear sign that noticeable numbers of Americans no longer feel obliged to salute the administration’s plans because of the shock of Sept. 11 and that many harbor serious doubts about his march to war.”¹²⁵ Addressing the slight dip in support from the American media, Rice countered with an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Why We Know Iraq Is Lying.” Rice stressed, “There is no mystery to voluntary disarmament. Countries that decide to disarm lead inspectors to weapons and production sites, answer questions before they are asked, state publically and often the intention to disarm and urge their citizens to cooperate.” Iraq had been afforded ample opportunity to declare their weapons of mass destruction, and the documentation Iraq had provided to the Security Council so far failed “to account for or explain Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from abroad, its manufacture of specific fuel for ballistic missiles it claims not to have, and the gaps previously identified by the United Nations in Iraq’s accounting for more than two tons of the raw materials needed to produce thousands of gallons of anthrax and other biological weapons.”¹²⁶

Rice’s op-ed was part of a broader public campaign to reinforce support for Bush, a media strategy that Rice later described as a mistake. Rice recalled that in the rush to address any argument against Bush’s stance against Saddam, the intelligence community began distributing incomplete information and “as a result of this practice, these intelligence ‘nuggets’ became too much of the focus of the arguments about the dangers of Saddam. The entire case came to rest on those isolated intelligence statements about his program.”¹²⁷ This became particularly obvious when Bush gave his State of the Union address later that month.

On January 28, Bush reinforced the case against Iraq. According to Rice, “the President knew that we were likely headed to war and wanted to give as detailed an assessment to the American people as possible.”¹²⁸ Bush began by reciting the successes of the war on terror, explaining, “more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.”¹²⁹ Despite these successes, Saddam Hussein was still a continuing threat, “A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth [and] will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.” Reciting a litany of intelligence “nuggets,” Bush stated that the United States believed Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce biological and chemical weapons, and the technology needed to deliver them. Furthermore, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” and “intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes suitable for nuclear weapons productions.” The final intelligence “nugget” was Bush’s assertion that “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida.” Rice later regretted not intervening in the preparation of the State of the Union address, explaining, “Knowing the uncertainties that always attend intelligence and how it is especially true in intelligence that the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts, I should have resisted.”¹³⁰ But, Bush went on confidently, promising, “if Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.”¹³¹ Even despite the intelligence paraded in the State of the Union address, domestic support began to waver.

Bush’s approval rating was hovering around 56%. But, there was still popular support for military action against Iraq, albeit under some caveats. Around 65% of respondents supported a military strike if the United Nations Security Council authorized the use of force, with only 30% supporting a unilateral attack. If Secretary of State Powell could produce definitive evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at the United Nations Security Council, then the support rallied up to 72%.¹³² On February 5, Powell did just that, presenting the US case against Iraq to the United Nations. Haass, who had been involved in the preparation of the presentation, argued, “by the end, all involved felt confident of what was in the text….People were exhausted, but the exhaustion was mixed with satisfaction, as the individuals I knew best believed they had prevailed in insisting on intellectual honesty, with the result that what Powell would say to the Security Council and the world would be accurate.”¹³³ The result of the presentation to observers, both at home and abroad, was that it was a home run.

Bush had no doubts as to the tenacity of Powell’s presentation, thanking him in a speech the following day for “his careful and powerful presentation of the facts.”¹³⁴ However, the purpose of Bush’s follow-up to Powell’s presentation was to demand an ultimatum of both the United Nations Security Council and Iraq. Bush made it clear that Powell’s presentation would be the last time the administration parade what they believed were the facts and, according to Bush, Saddam Hussein had made his decision not to cooperate with weapons inspectors with his November declaration. Bush explained, “now the nations of the Security Council must make their own [choice]…Having made its demands, the Security Council must not back down when those demands are defied and mocked by a dictator.”¹³⁵ Either the United Nations Security Council falls in behind Bush or the United States would proceed forward unilaterally.

Powell’s presentation had broader ramifications for the administration. After all, Powell was chosen to deliver the presentation deliberately because he was seen as a reasonable, rational actor in the administration. According to Haass, “People around the country and the world trusted him…Many outsiders were clearly taking their lead from him.”¹³⁶ And after Powell gave his speech, the American media relayed a momentous amount of international support to the American public, offering a full spectrum of support for Bush’s actions so far. Angela Merkel, leader of the opposition party in Germany, expressed her support for the United States. This was despite Germany’s Prime Minister Joscha Schroeder’s lack of support for Bush. Merkel declared that Germany was committed to the United States and explained that there were two factors apparent in Powell’s speech—“first, the danger from Iraq is not fictitious but real. Second, working not against but jointly with the United States, Europe must take more responsibility for maintaining internal pressure on Saddam Hussein.”¹³⁷

Writing an equally supportive op-ed was East Timor’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Ramos-Horta, who had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1996. Ramos-Horta compared the situation in Iraq to that of East Timor’s fight for independence from Indonesia, and explained that “Many families were entirely wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it. The United States and other Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid. Others were accomplices through indifference and silence. But all redeemed themselves.” In 1999, a global peacekeeping force finally came to East Timor and helped establish independence. Ramos-Horta wondered why Iraq should not be offered the same chance at liberation, criticizing the antiwar movement and arguing that if they succeeded in stalling action against Saddam, they would have to accept that they “helped keep a ruthless dictator in power and explain itself to the tens of thousands of his victims.”¹³⁸

Even Australian Prime Minister John Howard wrote of his support for Bush. According to Howard, intervening in Iraq was the correct decision as “the potential cost of doing nothing is clearly much greater than the cost of doing something.” Howard promised that Australia would be allied with the United States in eradicating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.¹³⁹ Despite pledges of international support, there was still a swelling of dissent. In New York, there had been between 100,000 and 400,000 demonstrators protesting against a war with Iraq, whereas in London there were 500,000–750,000 in Hyde Park. There were even more protests scattered among the capitals of the world.¹⁴⁰

Just as there was an outpouring of international support in the American media, so too was there a unified front among the major newspapers. In the wake of Secretary of State Powell’s presentation, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “the Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable. It proves that Saddam is defying the will of the U.N. one more time, hiding his weapons in the hope that the world will again lose its will to stop him.”¹⁴¹ The Wall Street Journal had had a consistent editorial stance since before September 11, 2001, and added, “we do not want to gamble – and no American President can afford to gamble – the future of U.S. security on the hope that Saddam will not link arms with al Qaeda or other terrorists.”¹⁴² However, the New York Times was slightly more hesitant to back Bush, adding that the newspaper’s support for military action was conditional. The New York Times explained that it was disconcerting that the United Nations Security Council could not find a consensus on the situation in Iraq. The newspaper believed that Bush should encourage other powers in the Security Council to “approve a resolution setting a date for Iraq to comply with disarmament demands or face the likelihood of united military action.”¹⁴³ Commenting directly on Powell’s presentation, the New York Times was unpersuaded but supported armed intervention under particular circumstances.

It was clear on February 26 that there would be no more debate over confronting Saddam Hussein militarily. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Bush began detailing his vision for a post-Saddam Iraq, explaining, “a free Iraq would [benefit] the Iraqi people themselves…their lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein, but Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us.” Moving beyond the objective of simply disarming Iraq, Bush argued, “the nation of Iraq, with its proud heritage, abundant resources, and skilled and educated people, is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.” More important, deposing Saddam Hussein could help spread democracy throughout the Middle East and even “begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state.”¹⁴⁴ The American Enterprise Institute speech had been the last chance for Bush to justify the administration’s efforts to confront Saddam Hussein and Rice later explained that Bush’s description of a post-Saddam Iraq was meant to establish the broader context for American action. “Somehow all that Saddam had done and what he meant to stability in the Middle East was getting lost in the discussion.”¹⁴⁵ It was not just about weapons of mass destruction and US national security, but about freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

Speaking with the press a few days before weapons inspectors gave their reports to the Security Council on March 8, Bush gave a tepid attempt at reassuring the American media that the United States was open to a diplomatic solution in Iraq. Bush’s central argument that hinted at the inevitability of war was his assertion, “Saddam Hussein has had 12 years to disarm. He is deceiving people…he’s trying to buy time.” The United States regarded Iraq a threat, and Bush insisted that his job was to protect the American people. Asked if the United States would be seen as defying the United Nations should there be a confrontation without Security Council approval, Bush responded, “I’m confident the American people understand that when it comes to our security, if we need to act, we will act, and we really don’t need United Nations approval to do so…as we head into the 21st century, Mark, when it comes to our security, we really don’t need anybody’s permission.”¹⁴⁶

Bush’s disregard of the United Nations Security Council played well with the American media, and the domestic audience, who embraced Bush’s patriotism. El-Baradei, however, disagreed with Bush’s assessment and took the time to clarify the progress of IAEA inspections in the Wall Street Journal. El-Baradei argued that Bush had deliberately misrepresented the inspection process, explaining:

The IAEA’s inspectors have systematically examined the contents and operations of all Iraqi buildings and facilities that were identified through satellite surveillance as having been modified or newly constructed since December 1998, when inspections were brought to a halt. They have determined the whereabouts and functionality of Iraq’s known “dual-use” equipment – that is, equipment that has legitimate industrial uses, such as precision machining, but that could also be used for the high-precision manufacture of components relevant to a nuclear-weapons program.

El-Baradei added, “throughout the past three months, Iraqi authorities have provided access to all facilities without conditions and without delay and have made documents available in response to inspectors’ requests.” El-Baradei was confident enough to claim, “to date, we have found no substantiated evidence of the revival in Iraq of a nuclear-weapons program – the most lethal of the weapons of mass destruction.”¹⁴⁷ Although El-Baradei’s op-ed was meant to cast doubt over the claims made by Bush about the immediate threat posed by Saddam Hussein, it did nothing to provoke a response in the American media.

By March 16, a joint press conference with President Bush, Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso of Portugal, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, and Prime Minister Tony Blair was held as the leaders met in Azores, Portugal, to discuss plans to confront Iraq. The conference came after the United Nations Security Council had dismissed a final effort at approving the use of force against Iraq. Defying the international community, Bush went ahead as planned with his few allies, and stressed in the press conference: “Iraq’s liberation would be the beginning, not the end, of our commitment to its people…Iraq has the potential to be a great nation…we’re committed to the goal of a unified Iraq, with democratic institutions of which members of all ethnic and religious groups are treated with dignity and respect.”¹⁴⁸ Blair and Aznar, so it appeared, agreed.

But the final address to the nation came on March 17, when Bush finally declared diplomatic efforts were a failure and that the United States would respond to Iraq accordingly. Bush stated clearly, “the United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me as Commander in Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.”¹⁴⁹ Bush’s decision did not allow for any more time to be spent on diplomatic overtures, demanding, “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.” Bush argued, again, that going to war with Iraq was a chief objective in the war on terror and “responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense; it is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming of Saddam Hussein now.”¹⁵⁰ Across the United States, Bush was already experiencing increased support as Americans rallied around the president. News poll figures showed that 61% of respondents agreed that the United States should attack Iraq, and Bush’s approval rating climbed from 54% to 62%, with six in ten Americans believing that Bush had adequately explained the risks involved in a war with Iraq.¹⁵¹ The most startling poll just before Bush went to war with Iraq, however, was in the New York Times, where 57% of Americans polled were under the impression Saddam Hussein “helped the terrorists in the Sept. 11 attacks.”¹⁵²

Bush was from the outset of his presidency far more competent domestically than his father. This was demonstrated in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, when Bush rallied the nation and set forth his vision for a war on terror. It was here that the decision to go to war to depose Saddam Hussein began in earnest. Despite his skills as a leader domestically, Bush faltered diplomatically, and he had to rely on a domestic campaign that focused on Saddam Hussein to propel his foreign policy. Before the terrorist attacks, Bush’s administration had earned a reputation for fickle foreign policy decisions. After the terrorist attacks, however, Bush’s foreign policy found purpose in the war on terror and, after neutralizing the threat posed by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein took center stage. Domestically, Saddam Hussein was reviled within the media, and his continued leadership was a point of contention for Congress and the American people. Bush’s war on terror offered a policy solution to Saddam’s undesirable leadership and gave justification for armed intervention in Iraq. Bush’s pursuit of terror, buttressed by the support from Congress, evolved into war with Iraq. But it was the emphasis on Saddam Hussein’s intentions as opposed to his capabilities as Iraq’s leader that led Bush to war with Iraq in March 2003.