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The Iraq war was entered mainly because President Bush believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Saddam was not being compliant with the United Nations who was to run investigations and searches to find out if it was true. Although it may have seemed suspicious that Saddam was not eager to have inspectors in his country, it is understandable. The US would not want other countries or inspectors from the UN in its boarders looking through its technology and secrets. It is understandable that Iraq did not as well. However, this is just one justification for the Iraq war, and the first. It is important to look at the other reasons which are the weapons of mass destruction already mentioned, that Saddam was a brutal dictator and needed to be removed from power, and the insistance that Iraq had connections to terrorism.

Look at the facts about the WMD. There was evidence, plenty of evidence, that Iraq was developing WMD. There was an overwhelming amount actually. [1] However, before the war, Iraq let the inspectors in and they found nothing. The UN passed a resolution for Iraq to disarm, and it did so. Iraq gave all of its information on its WMD programs to the UN in accordance with the resolution passed. While Iraq was trying to comply, the US was building its case for war with Iraq. [2] At this time, a war could have been avoided if the US would have let the UN handle things diplomatically. Then, when the war is started, and goes on and on - no weapons turn up. The reason for starting this war was false, and was being handled without war. The start of the war was completely unjust.

The second reason often given to justify this war is that Saddam was a brutal dictator and the war has done good by removing him from power. It is true that Saddam did some horrible things, such as gassing his own people and killing off political opponents, however, he did some good things as well, such as being a key figure in modernizing Iraq. He made the government more secular and less religious, doing things like giving more freedom to women and made the law so that it was not run as Muslim law. With the backing of the United States he went to war with Iran over a territory dispute, but also to stop the spread of Iran's radical muslim spread (as opposed to Iraq's secular way of running things). The war with Iran was long and hard, and during this time Saddam gassed his own people, the Kurds. However, a forgottn fact is that the Kurds had sided with Iran, and were traitors to Iraq in the war. They were the enemy. Hundreds of thousands died (up to a possible million) in this war and this is where Saddam gets his brutal dictator status from. However, it is not much different than what the US is doing right now - going to war and so far hundreds of thousands have died. More importantly, Saddam's war was 8 years long, and if the war the US has in Iraq goes that long, it's possible it will have killed just as many. Using this justification it would then be fair for another country to overthrow the US government - doubtful this would be acceptable to anyone and it was not acceptable in Iraq's case either. [3]

Finally, Iraq was said to have connections to terrorism. The 9/11 commission found this to be false. Saddam had no connections to Al Qaeda. [4]

[1] October 2002 evidence of WMD programs in Iraq - https://www.cia.gov/cia/report s/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
[2 ] UN resolution news - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor ld/middle_east/2560617.stm
[3] Iraq/Iran war - http://www.zmag.org/zmag/artic les/ShalomIranIraq.html
[4] Iraq links to terrorism - http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun 16.html

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