Iraq

After five years of war, the United States must withdraw its military forces from Iraq as quickly as possible in coordination with the Iraqi government and neighboring countries while helping to rebuild Iraq and to assist refugees. The United States should instead focus on Afghanistan, where the heart of the terrorist threat remains, and accept that we must remain engaged there for many years to come.

Fact Sheets

Apr 15, 2008 Tying U.S. Defense Spending to GDP: Bad Logic, Bad Policy

Feb 15, 2008 Why Congress Should Press the Case for No Permanent Presence in Iraq

Jan 29, 2008 A Permanent Presence? Dangers of a Long-Term U.S. Security Commitment to Iraq

CLW's Position

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was an unjustified use of military power to oust a brutal dictator, with the Bush Administration advancing as its primary justification the need to block Iraqi aspirations for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. After no weapons of mass destruction were found after the 2003 invasion, it was clear that the Administration distorted intelligence information to justify the war.

After five years of war, the United States must withdraw its military forces from Iraq as quickly as possible in coordination with the Iraqi government and neighboring countries while helping to rebuild Iraq and to assist refugees. The United States should instead focus on Afghanistan, where the heart of the terrorist threat remains, and accept that we must remain engaged there for many years to come.

In addition, the United States must consolidate an international alliance against the jihadists and other hostile stateless entities, provide complete care for wounded and injured American troops in combat and when they return, increase public understanding of the expanded nature of security in the new century, including energy security, and reform our military structures and strategies away from forces designed to fight massive world wars with big armored divisions, aircraft carrier task groups, and giant bomber bomber wings, to lighter, faster, more mobile forces in smaller units capable of quick surgical strikes and of operating as part of a national advisory corps to assist other nations threatened by insurgencies inimical to our interests.

History of Recent US-Iraq Relations

During the 1980s, the United States had warm relations with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. After hard-liner cleric Ayatollah Khomeini came to power during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the U.S. sought to check his power; Saddam Hussein, who had also recently risen to power in Iraq, was the seen as the natural choice.

By 1983, the U.S. feared that Iraq might actually lose its war against Iran (1980- 1988) and President Reagan sought to establish relations with Hussein. Following visits by Donald Rumsfeld in December 1983 and March 1984, the U.S. normalized its relations with Iraq (including removing it from the State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism), approved the sale of arms and dual use biological agents (ostensibly for research purposes), and offered Hussein financial credits that eventually made the country the third-largest recipient of U.S. assistance. Significantly, it also began providing Iraq with military intelligence which it later used to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons.

Even after eventually conceding that Hussein had in fact used chemical weapons against the Kurds and against Iran, the Reagan Administration still nevertheless strongly opposed sanctions or even cutting off financial assistance to Iraq. President George H.W. Bush then doubled the U.S. financial credits for Iraq the following year. Up to a week before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the first Bush Administration fiercely opposed legislation that would have conditioned assistance to Iraq on a commitment not to use chemical weapons and to stop genocide against the Kurds.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 was met with international condemnation and comprehensive United Nations sanctions. A U.S.-led coalition eventually forcefully ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait in January and February of 1991, although the sanctions remained in place until the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

The aftermath of that Gulf War was deemed unsatisfactory to neo-conservatives who advocated a hard-line policy. While Iraq was thrown out of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was left in power and his military remained largely intact.

Neo-conservatives who advocated eliminating Saddam Hussein from power during the Clinton years gained powerful positions in the Administration of George W. Bush. Immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq.

Other important motivations for the invasion: Iraq's substantial underground reserves of oil and the desire to impress other nations with America's unrivaled military and economic power. In the fall of 2002, President Bush requested authorization from Congress in part as an election ploy, and Congressional overwhelmingly went along.