Why has Bush spent so much time and money on Iraq when it was nothing to do with 9/11?

Question

I've never understood this. 9/11 had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, but somehow it was billed as the part of the "War on Terror" as though the two were connected.

Answer 1

Couple of reasons:

1) 9/11 established pretext to rid the world of brutal dictator and finish the job from Operation Desert Storm
2) World's intelligence community believed Iraq was building WMD - and al Queda seemed like willing distribution network for Iraq's WMDs
3) Establishing liberal Western style democracy in the heart of world's most volatile region was supposed to transform region - allowing participation in government through voting rather than violence -
4) War in Iraq would suck-in Islamic-Terrorists - making it the epicenter of the war (rather than say, Iowa).

"This war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. The primary focus of U.S. forces in Iraq today is erecting a decent, legitimate, tolerant, pluralistic representative government from the ground up. I don't know if we can pull this off. We got off to an unnecessarily bad start. But it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad and it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our best shot."
Thomas Friedman, NYTimes...

Answer 2

The links between 9/11 and Iraq are non-existent.
Therefore we are being lied to, and the Government is following its own private agenda, while supplying a bunch of lies to pacify the public
9/11 was a hoax.
A more logical explanation of what happened on 9/11, and the manufacturing of terrorism is available at the site below.

Answer 3

You are having a hard time letting this go because you sense that something might be seriously wrong. Don't worry about it. There are people a lot smarter than you or I who have these things all figured out. It's not going to make much sense to us because we are a different sort of people, you and I. We are far inferior to him and his buddies.

First of all, the money he spends over there is not his. It comes out of the pockets of our children (because they will pay the high taxes needed to pay off the huge national debt), but a lot of the money goes IN to the pockets of his friends and family. That's just one of the advantages of being able to allocate public funds. More importantly, it's one of the many reasons for being there.

Plans to do Iraq were in place long before 911. If anything, 911 just played right into his hand and gave him the opportunity to do pretty much whatever he wanted, as long as he could point the finger at terror as an excuse to re-form the world into something he was more comfortable with.

He has good advisors and they coach him into making decisions that will ensure that his "Group" will remain in power long after he is out of office. We should all be so lucky to have so many bright fellows on our side!

The American military machine is a huge beast and he just seems to understand that it needs to be operational and functioning or else it will just stagnate and become more obviously useless and foolish. It's just a sad fact of life that it needs to feed on the corpses of large populations of innocent civilians to remain in top shape. It's just one of those unavoidable unpleasantries they tell us about.

This is a religious war. Our religions tell us who is good and who is evil so that we know who to kill without having to think about it too much. Soldiers won't kill as effectively if they don't think the person they are killing is evil. So you can say he is a very good motivator of troops who uses terror to get 'em marching. So you see, it IS part of the war on terror if you can MAKE it a part of the war on terror. It's all in the mind, but it helps if you can scare the media into being on your side.

You also have to understand that his religious beliefs are a little bit out there. He believes that Israel is "God's chosen people", and he thinks that America is an extension of Israel rather than the other way around. It is very convenient that the natural enemy of the jew is the arab because he has a lot to gain by crusading against the arabs. It's not just oil, it's the power to take the oil and anything else that might be needed.

Humans just have this crazy desire to be powerful. You can't blame him, we all have it to some extent.

Answer 4

honestly Brush Senior suggested that going into Iraq might want to be as smart as a "dinosaur going right into a tar pit". yet Bush Junior needed a conflict to call his own so he skipped over that suggestion. Iraq had no guns of mass distruction. Iraq had no longer something to do with 9/11.

Answer 5

The reasons are many and convoluted, but I heard an interesting point in an interview with a pundit (and forgive me if I forgot who it was) who said, "We invaded Iraq to show that we *could*, to send a message to the Middle East." It sounds simplistic, and yet somehow sound.

And it's sad to see how many people (here and other places) still believe that Sadam financed the 9/11 terrorists, especially in light of the Senate report just released today. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060908/ap_on_go_co/iraq_report

Answer 6

Total diversion tactics :
Couldn't get Bin Laden
Had to do something,so why not mislead the world in thinking Iraq
is a threat and further the task of the armament lobyist of the US
at the same time. War =Money
Plus you have got the fear-factor to control the crowds !!!!
With that HE WAS ELECTED TWICE !!!!!! !
Buck Fush !

Answer 7

I was watching the news on 9/11. And Bin Ladens group were one of the first to publically deny their involvement.

Answer 8

Big reason - Saddam Hussein tried to get Bush Sr assassinated. So its personal vendetta. Plus the oil. If things went as were anticipated, the oil price would be $20 per barrel.

Answer 9

Because they are bad, but it also makes you think he is doing something about the 9/11 victims. Most Americans don't know who or where the cowards came from & are happy thinking bush is taking care of it..even though it is our young men & women over there doing it.

Answer 10

He wanted to get saddam because iraqi agents tried to assasanate his father (FACT) oh yeh and the oil