The Iraq war has always been controversial in the months leading up to the war there were protests from anti-war campaigners all over the world with protesters aiming to stop Bush and Blair going to war. However despite growing international and domestic condemnation in March 2003 President Bush gave the order to invade(1) Iraq. The main reasons given for the invasion of Iraq were; weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam’s supposed links to terrorist organisations that posed a clear and present danger to America and her allays and that Saddam was a brutal dictator. I would like to say from the outset that I agreed with the war and I still do however like so many others I also believed that they lied to us about their reasons for invading.
Firstly I before I go into what I believe to be their real reasons for going to war were, it is right that I dismiss their official reasons. The big reason given at the time was that Saddam possessed WMD’s this was a fair assumption as Saddam did once run a Chemical weapons program and used it against his own people. His downfall however was removing the United Nations weapons inspectors. This move was in breach of United Nations Resolution 687(3) and therefore gave legal justification to the war. One of the weapons inspectors at the time Dr David Kelly said he found no evidence that Saddam had a active WMD program(2). What is most interesting however is the reason Saddam gave for getting rid of the weapons inspectors, he claims it was because he was worried that Iran would find out Iraq had no WMD program and appear week because he feared Iran more than America, giving the history between the two countries this would make scene(4). To date no WMD’s have been found in Iraq there has been evidence found of the old program but that was shut down after the first Gulf war and according to the CIA’s official report Saddam had no WMD’s (5).
Then of course there is the second claim that Saddam had connections to Terrorist organisations that posed a threat to America and her allays the big one being Al-Qaeda, this claim is totally false. It came about after a captive Al-Qaeda operative Ibn Al-sheikh Al-libi fed American intelligence agents with misinformation that Al-Qaeda had links to Saddam Hussein. This information was the bases that US intelligence officials used to show a connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. However it later transpired that Ibn A-sheikh Al-libi was lying because Al-Qaeda wanted to see Saddam toppled as much as the Americans did(6) . If that isn’t enough even Chaney has admitted there was no link between Saddam and 9/11(7) and my source is the former head of the CIA’s Alec Station.
As for the third reason, no one can deny that Saddam was a brutal dictator but he was not the only one. Why not invade Iran if it was about state sponsored terrorism, WMD’s and a brutal dictator Iran would have a much better case for war. Bush is said to have had aspirations to invade Iraq not even 24 hours after the planes went into the world trade centre. Although all intelligence at the time pointed to Al-Qaeda carrying out the attacks Bush asked his CIA director to “see if he was involved. I want to know any shred. Look into Iraq. Saddam” Rumsfeld even said on the day of the attacks that “Iraq is behind the attacks”(2). This suggests to me that the CIA were under pressure to find a link between the attacks and Saddam in a time when US intelligence should have been looking into Al-Qaeda Bush had them looking for excuses to invade Iraq.
So if it wasn’t really anything to do with WMD’s or terrorists then what was it? Well most people who were against the war say oil and I agree. It was about oil, money, the value of the dollar and President Bush finishing off where his father left of, allow me to explain.
In October 2000 the United Nations gave Iraq permission to trade its oil in the Euro as opposed to the dollar(8) Iraq was the only member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to do this. This move makes economic sense for both Iraq and OPEC, as more European counties import there oil form the Middle East (as Russia becomes less reliable) and move to the Euro it makes much more economic sense for Oil in the OPEC states to trade in the Euro. Because OPEC control most of the world’s oil, other oil exporting countries would be forced to change their oil exchanging currency to the Euro as it would be the most dominant trading currency if OPEC were to start using it. This move would also suit states such as Russia and China whom in recent years have became more hostile towards the Dollar, with European countries not surprisingly in favour as well. In other words this agreement would suit everybody apart from the Americans because it would mean other countries would have to hold significantly less Dollar reserves in favour of much more Euro reserves this would cripple the value of the dollar and with it destroy the American economy and along with it Americas stance as a Superpower.
Something had to be done before the other members of OPEC were to follow Iraq and trade in the Euro. The solution was what we saw on the news, America along with her allays invading Iraq. After the invasion the Coalition forces put in the new temporary unelected government of Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) they changed the way oil was traded back into the US Dollar before OPEC could judge how economically viable this was. As well as that the whole economic system was changed from a Socialist to Capitalist. Under the CPA Iraq’s national oil company was denationalised and the oil contracts were given out mostly to American and British firms effectively giving the Americans and British control over Iraq’s oil for the foreseeable future. Not only would this be incredibly profitable for these oil firms and their government it is also very easy and cheap to extract the oil in Iraq(10). The department of Energy said that “Iraq offers one of the world’s best long-term petroleum prospects, with substantial output potentially flowing from relatively few, high-yield wells.” And its most of it is controlled by American and British firms (11).
It is therefore my conclusion that the Iraq war was all about money, oil, the value of the dollar, and Bush resolving an old score. Saying that however I still agree with the war because Saddam was a horrid dictator, it was legal although it’s a rather flimsy defence it’s still a legal one, the way he took advantage of the oil for food program and lastly, for a purely selfish reason the stability of the Dollar. However it appears that despite Americas best efforts the days of the Dollar being the dominant global currency are coming to an end China and Russia have been calling for a new dominant global currency and OPEC have announced that they are now seriously considering switching to the Euro(12) if such a move comes to pass America could lose its credibility as the world’s only Superpower and face even more devastating economic troubles
Sources
1. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/19/sprj.irq.int.bush.transcript/
2. Inside British Intelligence by Gordon Thomas
3. http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070104217.html
5. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/
6. Michael F Scheure’s Introduction in the book Inside the Jihad by Omar Nasirir
7. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/01/cheney.speech/
8. http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/
10. http://www.trade.gov/static/iraq_oiloutline.pdf
11. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
12. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL0882239220080208
