what is the the conflict in Iraq about?

Question

I'm having a difficulty understanding what the situation is in Iraq. I've looked at a couple of websites but all I read are death tolls and bombings and stuff but I can't seem to find a site that will give me the situation from the beginning so as to fully understand the conflict, and everytime I ask on Yahoo Q'As I get smart remarks against bush pro bush so on so forth but no real explanation... if anybody could explain or point me in the right direction to websites that explain from the beginning... since current even'ts make little sense because I don't know the beginning.. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

G-gnomegrl, to fully understand the story behind the Iraq conflict, you need to go to 1979, during which Iran had a revolution, where the Khomeini overthrew one of the closest US allies in the region (The Shah).

Shortly afterward, the US felt the need to stop Iran from exporting its Shiite revolution across the borders to neighboring countries, so we provided (along with the Saudi and the Kuwaiti) the material support to launch a war against Iran (in fact, Don Rumsfeld was the US Special Envoy to Saddam). The war was supposed to be very brief and decisive, considering the overwhelming Iraqi superiority. Things didn't turn out as planned (Isn't it always the case?) , and the conflict lasted over 9 years (1980-1988). The consequences were very dire for both countries, especially Iraq.

Saddam felt that he was betrayed, and asked for his war debts (close to $350 billion with the damages to its economy) to be wiped off (including US$14 billion loaned by Kuwait). A debt, which contributed to Saddam's 1990 decision to invade.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 after an "implicit" ok from the Bush administration that the "US has no opinion on the border disagreement with Kuwait.” The US quickly realized that Saddam would be sitting on the world largest supply of oil, which could jeopardize the global economy if decided to no play by the rules we set, so we quickly build a coalition and attacked Iraq.

This war is referred to as the first Gulf War. The consequences were devastating, and Iraq was left in a crippled economy. However, many experts said that we didn't finish the job, since we never removed Saddam's regime, opponents said that the mission was to liberate Kuwait, and to stop there. We additionally, left a series of economic and political sanctions to ensure that Saddam would repay Kuwait back, and that he would not do the same thing again.

Fast track to after 11 Sept 2001, and the administration decided that Iraq was in possession of and was attempting to produce, and wanted to develop weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam had ties to terrorists and harbored Al Qaeda.

We started to build a case with the UN to form a coalition to attack Iraq. That failed miserably, since even our Arab neighbors knew that there was no link to Al Qaeda, especially, since the Baatist Regime was a secular regime, and that Saddam abhorred any kind of religious ties.

We decided to go to war alone (only the British and a handful of small contingents of allies supported us on this). The theory (described as the Bush Doctrine) conceived by the New Conservatives (newcon) was simple, a successful intervention in Iraq would soon result in a “dominoes effect” that would result in toppling the regimes of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many other regimes in the middle east that we deemed not friendly enough.

Needless to say that things didn’t go as planned (deja vue?). We didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction and there was no link to Al Qaeda. We later on found that the Bush Administration “Cooked” the intelligence reports that said that Iraq tried to acquire Uranium from Niger, Africa (Debunked by Ambassador Joseph Wilson, they even tried to undermine him by publicly identifying his wife as a CIA undercover Operative in a syndicated newspaper column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003). We made terrible mistakes in the war, which have caused us 3080 dead and 22,834 wounded US servicemen, close to 655,000 Iraqi casualty (numbers actually varies from 60,098 (Iraqi Body Count) to over 150,000 (Iraqi Health Ministry) to over ½ million (the Lancet Survey of Mortality) to over 100,000 (our own estimate).

Now, after the Bush administration lost the mid-term election in November 2006, they realized that there is a huge resistance to the ongoing Iraqi war, and that’s when President Bush decided that a change of course is due, and decided to launch the Iraqi Study Group (presided by former James Baker and former Senator Lee Hamilton). Additionally, he appointed a new Defense secretary (Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld), and relieved General John Abizaid with General William Fallon. He additionally ordered a surge of 21,000 US troops (usually described as “the New Way Forward” as opposed to the old policy of “State The Course”) to secure Baghdad and to try to stop the violence in Iraq.

I hope this answers your question. If you have any questions, please post an edit to your initial question, and I’ll follow up on it.

Answer 2

As you already know, the situation isn't entirely clear.

I believe we first went over for three reasons: Sept. 11 / Osama, "Weapons of Mass Destruction", and Hussein. We got Hussein, there was no link between the country and Al Qaeda, and the WMD didn't exist.

We are now trying to establish a "stable democracy"... but that is the most I have heard.

Answer 3

Its all about getting rid of the Tyrant Hussein...and..taking control of Iraq and its vast undevelopped ( and develloped ) oil feilds...can you say Haliburtin and untendered contracts ??...

and...very nice staging ground to invade Iran next..

these of course are the opinion of this author and in no way reflective on the Yahoo company...unless you count Bush as a yahoo...

Answer 4

here are a couple of websites that might help you out. I believe that we were lead into this war on false premises on WMD's ...

Answer 5

Oil.

Answer 6

Job security for me.

Answer 7

Its about wiping out radical individuals who, willy-nilly, want to see Americans and other westerners die.

Answer 8

oil, terrorists or whatever. get out. dont go there.