Should We Have Gone to War in Iraq Persausive Essay

Operation Iraqi Freedom How many people do you know that have fought in the United States most recent war? This war was called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Many people have family members that fought in this war, or maybe a neighbor. The Iraq war was started shortly after 9/11 when the United States felt that Iraq leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of Mass Destruction. (WMD’s) With the rumor that Iraq had WMD’s President Bush felt the US military had to go on the offense to assure the safety of the country. With that in mind I agree with going to war in Iraq.
Also, Saddam Hussein was also rumored to be supporting and housing terrorists and members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Finally, Saddam Hussein committed many acts of violence against the Iraqi people that he reigned over with an iron fist. Although many people don’t feel that we should have gone to war in Iraq because some Iraqi people didn’t want the troops there, and because many troops were killed, I feel that war in Iraq was the right thing to do so that people throughout the world and the United States could be kept safe.
First, Saddam Hussein was thought to be aiding various terrorist groups that don’t like the United States very much. Many people in President Bush’s cabinet and administration felt that Saddam Hussein was aiding the terrible terrorist group Al-Qaeda, which was the terrorist group responsible for the thousands of deaths in the US on 9/11. With no financial evidence of aiding Al-Qaeda, there is evidence of Saddam helping other terrorist groups. It has been reported that Hussein would give money to the families of Palestinians killed in conflict.

He was known to give up to $25,000 to the families of suicide bomber, which many of these bombers were working for militants groups like Hamas. The United States could not let someone who was supporting terrorism stay in power. Second, the United States had to go to war with Iraq, to get Saddam Hussein out of power after the many violent acts he committed over his reign in Iraq. One of these terrible acts of violence was after an assassination attempt on Hussein’s life. While riding through the city of Dujail, an attempt on Hussein’s life was made by Shiite militants.
Saddam Hussein decided that he need to wipe out the entire city of Dujail, which had 148 residents, including dozens upon dozens of children. These were the crimes that Saddam Hussein brought up on and eventually executed for. Hussein’s worst acts came in the years 1986-1989. In these years his administration called for an extermination of any living thing in the northern Kurdish region. In this time Hussein killed 182,000 Kurds using chemical weapons to kill many of them. As you can see the United States could no longer have this man ruling an entire country.
Finally, rumored WMD’s were the biggest reason the United States decided to go to war. After many years of the UN searching for these weapons Iraq decided not to let inspectors into the country anymore. The Bush administration took these signals as Iraq and Hussein not wanting the UN to find the weapons of mass destruction. Before the invasion, and before inspectors were banned from Iraq, rocket warheads, 50 liters of mustard gas, and 50 missiles were decommissioned. These things gave Bush administration a strong feeling that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMD’s from the rest of the world.
Although no WMD’s were found during the war, I still feel that going into Iraq was the right decision. There was no way we could let there be rumors about Saddam Hussein having WMD with what he has done to people with them in the past. Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator that killed many people with chemical weapons. When he was rumored again to have weapons, the Bush administration decided it was time to act against Hussein. They had to make sure the evil dictator didn’t have any WMD’s.
In doing this the Bush administration and the brave soldier of the US military protected the lives of many people in the Middle East and maybe the lives of many here in the United States. “The War Crimes of Saddam Hussein. ” Civil Liberties at About. com – Your Guide to Civil Liberties News and Issues. Web. 31 Dec. 2011. http://civilliberty. about. com/od/internationalhumanrights/p/saddam_hussein. htm “Rationale for the Iraq War. ” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 31 Dec. 2011. .http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War#Human_rights