The United States and Iraq have a pretty extensive history when it comes to conflict. The war in Iraq was a continuation of business unfinished by the Gulf War. More than ten years ago, President George Bush ordered U.S. troops into the Persian Gulf in response to Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Americans view the Gulf War with a great sense of closure; after all, we did win the liberation of Kuwait. However, Saddam Hussein views the war as a tactical defeat or a small battle lost. Saddam believes he won the war because he managed to outlast Bush’s time in power; endure international sanctions, protect his weapons of mass destruction programs, and live to fight another day. Iraqi forces were withdrawn from Ku

wait, but Saddam’s claims on the country and proclaimed regional domination were not. Saddam perceives the war with the United States as ongoing and therefore was constantly bolstering his power through development of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction all in preparation for the next battle. Americans for the most part, failed to perceive that the struggle with Iraq never ended, much as we failed to grasp before September 11th that Al Qaeda had declared, and was waging, a war against us. However, at the end of the Gulf war in 1991 the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq such as the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 661. These sanctions were to remain in place until several provisions of UNSCR 687 were followed through with and all weapons of mass destruction were destroyed. However, this did not happen and in 1991, the UN expressed grave concern over the humanitarian situation in Iraq at that time and proposed some measures that would allow a small amount of oil to be sold from Iraq. Only enough oil was to be sold to meet the population’s basic essential needs, any other sale for profit was strictly prohibited. Iraq refused all offers. Within the next five years the living conditions in Iraq plummeted. Iraq did not take advantage of this offer. There was widespread suffering, food shortages, an absence of essential medicines, and a general deterioration of essential social services. In 1996, the UN established the Oil-for-Food program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil for the purchase of goods essential for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people. At this point the UN and US national security objectives for Iraq were limitation of proliferation, reduction of weapons of mass destruction, containment, the removal of Saddam Hussein, regional stability, and sustainable international and domestic support. Clearly Saddam and his regime were not in compliance with the sanctions or in meeting the above objectives. Continual refusal to comply with the resolutions would ultimately lead the US into war with Iraq. The UN and US policy toward Iraq was outlined in a number of UN resolutions and the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. Iraq still did not follow all of the proscriptions put forth in the several resolutions from the UN. Economic sanctions in Iraq were not working. Although the sanctions had briefly contained Saddam’s military, were economic sanctions successful? No, economic sanctions failed to dislodge Saddam or any of his lieutenants from power within Iraq. Instead, ten years of economic sanctions created a humanitarian disaster in Iraq rivaling that of many third-world African countries. On top of that, almost five years of the oil-for-food program failed to stop any of this suffering. In reality, ten years of sanctions actually pushed a dictator closer to his people, posing a serious threat to American Iraqi interaction. The next step taken by the US and the UN was to send in UN weapons inspectors to search for this contraband that Saddam was seemingly hiding in Iraq. The weapons inspections continued for a very long intense period of time. Were they successful? The harsh reality is that all the international sanctions and weapons inspections were not successful. They failed to undermine the Iraqi regime and did not force Saddam to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programs. On the contrary, the sanctions worked to bolster Hussein’s reign rather than weaken it. The inspections were evaded through all of Iraq’s neighbors and allowed Saddam to be in control of a massive black market. Saddam used these black market earnings to reinforce the loyalty of his intelligence, security, and elite military forces to safeguard his regime. Saddam’s banning of inspection teams in 1998 signaled a b

Some topics in this essay:
American Iraqi, Gulf War, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Resolution UNSCR, Iraq People, President Bush, Liberation Act, David Kay, Americans Americans, mass destruction, weapons mass destruction, weapons mass, nuclear weapons, gulf war, saddam hussein, september 11th, al qaeda, war iraq, destruction programs, mass destruction programs, united nations, sanctions weapons inspections, nuclear weapons program, un weapons inspectors,