Question for Sensible Democrats regarding motives of President Bush?

Question

Thanks for any intelligent answers. I believe there are reasonable good people on both sides on the debate of Iraq. With that said here is my question:

In your judgement while evaluating the motives of President Bush on his decision to invade Iraq I would like hear from you of the posssible motives he harbors to do such a thing.

We all agree Saddam was a very bad man, rape rooms, torture chambers that would make the Nazi's cringe. He has used wmd's against his own people and his own people. 112 scientist that escaped Iraq all say he had or was working on massive WMD's, 67 nations went on record to say the same thing. If Bush knew all of this was a lie, he risked his name, his Presidency, his legacy for something he knew was a lie. He had to fool the world to believe something that he KNEW we would find out was a lie when we found NO WMD's.

Please explain in a rational way his possible motives for starting the war in Iraq?

Thanks for any responses!!

Answer 1

He went into Iraq for the reasons he stated...it turns out that he was wrong. But instead of admitting he was wrong, and jumped the gun, he decided to stay the course, employ a failed policy for 6 years, and still no admission of failure on ANY level. Next, he enjoyed a country united behind him (a country he blames for supporting HIS decision...a country whose population he has called 'terrorists' for not standing behind him. Yet, he still blames america for the 'division', not taking any accountability for himself. Now he wants to know why we lost our faith in him? When he states that if only he and Barney believe it that is good enough for him? He has thrown all of this in the face of the dems, and calls eberyone 'dems' who don't agree with him. He fires generls for not agreeeing with him. What is worse than a president who follows opinio polls, is one who only cares about himself and his policy, as failed as they have proven to be. All the while ringing up a national debt to cringe at (if you are conservative and wasting american soldier lives. We are not safer, or better off since he came on board, and it is costing us billions a week.

BTW, I am all for changing the reason to 'getting rid of Saddam' (although that wasn't the original reason). And that is why I think it is time to leave. We freed a country, and now we are occupying it. AGAIN, another failed policy

Answer 2

1. Though it may not be rational, there has been a lot said about Bush wanting to finish what his father never did finish. This was a personal thing between Bush and Saddam.
2. The obvious reason is that Iraq is an oil producing country and has a lot of oil reserves. US oil companies would get a better deal on Iraqi oil with a more friendly Iraqi government. France and Russia would have had a better deal than the US if we did not take out Saddam Hussein.
3. Bush thought that he could replace Saddam Hussein and the Baath party with a government that was more friendly to the US and US interests. This would allow a military presence in the region.

Answer 3

It is a fact that while George H.W. Bush was waging the Gulf war, Saddam had a contract put out on Bush I's life. I truly believe, in my heart of hearts, that the only reason we invaded Iraq in 2003 was because Bush I failed to capture Saddam and Bush II decided at the time he decided to run for President that he was going to hunt Saddam down and have him executed.

While I agree that Saddam's extermination was not in any way a bad thing for the world, I really feel like Bush II lost sight of what he should have been doing following 9/11. Iraq was not posing an immediate threat to our country. We had, however, just suffered an amazingly, stunningly horrible terrorist attack... and the people who funded and masterminded it are still at large. This is an egregious crime against the American people by our own President.

Answer 4

He wanted Saddam. Saddam is now dead. Now what?

The only ones that bought into the WMD's in Iraq were the US and Britain (shock!!). No other country believed they had them, but went along because the US was going in. They didn't want to lose aid or support by scoffing at the big bad US of A.

Money is a wonderful motivator. Notice how many "independent contractors" got contracts and jobs over in Iraq? And how many of them had Republican connections? Halliburton come to mind? People make lots of money in war times. They always have, and they always will. There is a lot of money to be made in dying.

I am more curious as to why Bush went into Iraq when he was advised AGAINST it by some pretty knowledgeable people (the military, Colin Powell - who by the way ended up out due to his disagreement with the invasion). It was a bad idea. Bush and his ilk knew it, and they did it anyways. The only rational reason is the money, because the objective of getting Saddam was already achieved. So now what is our objective? To prevent an inevitable civil war? That isn't the job of our military. That is the job of the country of Iraq. We are seen as the invaders, and we are the hated ones. Why fight and die for something the people don't find valuable enough to die for themselves?

Answer 5

You want Democrats to explain in a sensible way why Bush went to war with Iraq? I think you should have asked Republicans! You do know that Bush is Republican don't you? The reason Bush waged war on Iraq wasn't because of how poorly Saddam was hurting his own people! He hated Saddam because Saddam tried to kill George Bush Sr. He wanted to Finnish what his Father started. Going to Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11!

Answer 6

I think Bush said a very telling thing before the 2000 election, He said that his father had gained a lot of political capital in the first Gulf War and had squandered it, and that if he was elected President he wouldn't make the the same mistake -- that if he was in the same situation he would use his politcal capital and make sure he got everything passed that he wanted to. He wanted to fight a war, the PNAC people were pushing it 9/11 happened and gave him the opportunity he wanted.

His number one goal after that was to try a get social security eliminated, that was something he talked about when he was in college.

Sorry I don't buy all that stuff regarding the scientists and 67 countries, Hans Blitzer and other have refuted it.

He was nowhere near as bad as Hitler was he was a pissant amateur compared to the Nazi's. Make a Nazi cringe, No way. That statement is offensive -- not quite as bad as denying the holocast, but on that level.

Answer 7

Iraq sits on the second largest pool of oil on earth. Bush and Cheney are knee deep in the oil business and that includes support for oil drilling etc. Profit for oil companies, their buddies could be a reason.

Referring to Saddam Hussein Bush said something like this "He's the man that nearly killed my dad". Revenge could be a contributing factor.

To take the focus off a member of a family that has been friends and business partners with the Bushes for decades the Bin Laden family. Also the family of Saud. It was Osama Bin Laden who set up the group of mostly Saudis that attacked the US on 9/11.

There may be some other reasons not yet known but these are pretty damning in their own right.

Answer 8

The defectors were known to be lying. What the administration did was put forth the false stories of the defectors to the press and then when the press would call to verify them they would say "we heard that too" to make the stories seem to have some validity when they knew they were lies. The inspectors on the ground prior to the Bush attack were a major problem since they were confirming there were no WMD or WMD programs.

The rational was a PNAC pipe dream where Iraq would be the stagign ground for a wider war to control the areas oil and fuel a larger military machine to gain military hegemony.

The next step was to be Iran, but The Failure failed of course.

Closeted civilian think tank Republican homosexuals do NOT make good military plans, do they?

Answer 9

There were a lot of people - including myself - who sort of wondered why Bush Senior halted the desert war at the Iraq borders. I've read a bit about that decision and my present thought is that it was a prudent choice. It left Sadaam in power, but he certainly learned how easily U.S. planes could devastate Iraq and Iraq's infrastructure - power lines, communications, etc. etc. I don't think he wanted any more of that.

But, I'm sure that his son thought about it a lot, and after the apparent easy success in Afghanistan he got swell-headed with the "power" he controlled and decided to finish what Dad did not. It seemed to be something with which the history books could credit him.

Apparently he now believes that his victory must be absolute. He doesn't want to risk letting the Iraqi's themselves to finish it (or lose it).

Answer 10

There was no good reason. If you want to use the human suffering angle, then what about Darfur and South Korea. I supported Bush when he invaded Afghanistan, but there was absolutely no basis for invading Iraq. Even that I could have swallowed though, if he would have admitted now that it was a mistake. What makes me angry is not the fact that he made the mistake of invading, but that he insults the American people by pretending everything is going rosy over there.