This is my assigned blog topic of the week, I chose to do this out of a list of Iraq-involved topics.Why did we invade Iraq in the first place?The U.S. and Iraq had hard feelings for each other, dated back to the early 70's, but more specifically the 90's in which the Persian Gulf War took place. The US and UK often inspected Iraq to assure the prevention of dangerous weapons being developed. They also had to enforce the Iraqi No-Fly Zones, as their military helicopters often offended these boundaries. They did this because they felt they must have a policy of "containment" on Iraq. We wanted to remove the Saddam command, and made it a foreign policy as part of the "Iraq Liberation Act" (1998). When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the US became more aggresive towards Iraq, calling for complete execution of the Iraq Liberation Act. No formal motion occured until the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in which Bush began what he calls the "War on Terrorism."
Saddam HusseinPreparing for the WarThe Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division (SAD) was the first US force team to enter Iraq. They raided in July 2002, which preceded the initial invasion. This group and the US Army Special Forces combined to create a joint team, whose purpose was to defeat Ansar al-Islam, who had ties to al-Qaeda. Other SAD teams conducted air strikes intending to kill Suddam Hussein. Although these attempts failed to exterminate Suddam, they did cut off his ability to command and control his forces.In the February of 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, when asked to address the possible invasion of Iraq, had stated to the United Nations General Assembly that the United States had evidence to believe that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons that might lead back to al-Qaeda. This resolution was turned down, so the United States and its supporters continued with the invasion, at the dismay of the UN.On March 17th of 2003, Bush gave Suddam and his two sons a 48-hour ULTIMATUM (great word), to surrender and leave Iraq. Despite this, the US bombed Iraq a day before the deadline was to expire. The United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, Australia, and Denmark all joined, leading to the IRAQ WAR
The post-Saddam Iraqi FlagWhat is my opinion on the war, you may ask? I think we did what we should've done, and I like how we are slowly retreating. I'm not going to talk about the actual War in Iraq; I'll leave that to the professionals.
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