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Volume 40, Issue 13
April 22, 2003
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April 22, 2003
U.S., Iraq history provides insight into current
disputes
By Kimberly Hosey
Mesa Legend
Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended, but why did it begin?
“A lot of students are very concerned, but a lot of them just don’t
have all the information,” said MCC political science instructor
Brian Dille.
Saddam Hussein began his involvement with the Baath Party around 1958
and took control of it in 1979.
About a year after he had control of the party Hussein invaded Iraq’s
neighbor, Iran.
The conflict over territorial disputes dragged on for eight years and
cost more than 1 million lives.
Hussein was already working on another military project-weapons of mass
destruction.
Iraq worked on a nuclear reactor, which was planned for use “against
a Zionist enemy.”
Israel, afraid Iraq would attack them after they were finished with Iran,
bombed the Iraqi plant.
Dille stated that it is important to realize that the United States supported
Iraq and Saddam at this time.
“The United States’ preoccupation with Iran explains a lot of
our policy in that region,” Dille stated, “We supported Saddam
in the 1980’s because we felt Iran was worse. A lot of our history
centers around us trying to control Iran.”
In 1982 the U.S. removed Iraq from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Some believed that the action was to justify taking Iraq’s side,
rather than because Iraq no longer sponsored terrorism.
Israel had hindered Hussein’s nuclear ambitions, but he continued
development of chemical weapons.
Iraqi aircraft began dropping mustard gas on Iranian troops in 1983.
Iranian forces repelled much of the invasion, and the Iran-Iraq war finally
ended in 1988, but had devastated both countries.
Hussein, now with billions of dollars in foreign debt, began appealing
to his Arab neighbors for help.
Failing that, he started making accusations and demanding money.
He accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi oil and demanded compensation and
on Aug. 2, 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The U.S. responded to the invasion in early 1991 (Operation Desert Storm)
and forced Hussein out of Kuwait.
Many Shiites and Kurds rebelled against the Baath Party, but the United
States forces withdrew and Hussein managed to crush the rebellion and
retained his iron grip on the Iraqi people for 12 years.
Hussein signed a formal cease fire on April 6, 1991 that ended the Persian
Gulf War; he also accepted a UN resolution requiring him to destroy weapons
of mass destruction and allow weapons inspectors to monitor the disarmament.
However, July 30 of the same year weapons inspectors reported that Iraq
has concealed much of its nuclear and chemical weapons programs.
The report pointed out Iraq’s attempts to thwart weapons inspectors,
a sentiment that was to become common over the next decade.
On June 27, 1992, after accusing Iraq of attempting to assassinate President
George H. W. Bush, the United States launched cruise missiles on Baghdad.
The next several years involved the largest peacetime bombing campaign
since WW II.
“It got so routine that the news would just report, ‘We bombed
Iraq again today,’” Dille said. “There is some deep resentment
of the U.S. in the Arab world.”
A seesawing between Iraq’s cooperation and defiance with the UN and
the United States took place in the years following.
Operation Desert Fox was launched by the United States and Britain on
Dec. 16 1998. The mission of intensive air strikes, focused on command
centers, missile factories, and airfields.
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002 President George W.
Bush identified Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, as an “axis
of evil.”
He vowed that the United States “will not permit the world’s
most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive
weapons.”
On September 2002, Bush addressed the United Nations, challenging it to
swiftly enforce its own resolutions against Iraq or the U.S. would have
no choice but to act on its own against Iraq.
The resolution was unanimously approved by the UN on Nov. 8; this document
imposed tough new arms inspections on Iraq and precise, unambiguous definitions
of what constitutes a “material breach,” of the resolution.
UN inspectors returned to Iraq at the end of 2002 after four years.
Iraq submitted a declaration on its chemical, biological and nuclear activities,
claiming it had no banned weapons.
Weapons inspectors discovered 11 undeclared empty chemical warheads in
Iraq in January 2002.
Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address announced that the president
was ready to attack Iraq even without a UN mandate.
The U.S., Britain, and Spain proposed a new resolution stating Iraq’s
failure to perform and authorizing military force.
France, Germany, and Russia countered with an informal resolution that
military force should be used only as a “last resort” and that
there is “a real chance to the peaceful settlement of this crisis.”
After failing to gain enough support in the UN Security Council, the United
States did not to call for a vote on the resolution. All the diplomatic
efforts ceased on March 17, 2003 and Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
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