George W. Bush Gave The Order To Invade Iraq In 2003
Beginning with his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush began to publicly focus attention on Iraq, which he characterized as being a member of a "axis of evil" associated with terrorists and posing "a grave and growing danger" to U.S. interests due to its acquisition of WMDs. CIA files from the second half of 2002 said that Saddam Hussein intended to restart nuclear weapons projects, had failed to account for Iraq's biological and chemical weapons, and had some missiles with a longer range than permitted by UN sanctions. President Bush would soon come under heavy fire for allegations that the Bush administration misrepresented or overstated the threat and proof of Iraq's capability to produce WMDs.
Bush sparked a diplomatic crisis by pleading with the UN to uphold Iraq's disarmament demands in late 2002 and early 2003. The United States advised UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in November 2002 to leave the nation four days before the U.S. invasion, ignoring requests from Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei for more time to finish their work. The United States initially requested a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force, but it abandoned the request after facing vehement opposition from a number of nations. Political commentators had questioned and refuted the Bush administration's assertion that the War in Iraq was a component of the War on Terror.
George W. Bush announced the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with strong support from the American public, citing allegations that Iraq had WMDs and was home to Al Qaeda. the start of the Iraq War. A 2004 United States Senate study stated that the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was inaccurate, among other criticisms of the justification for the war.
Even though the initial invasion was short-lived, the ten-year War in Iraq caused the 2013–17 War in Iraq and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. In front of a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," President Bush triumphantly declared the United States' victory in Iraq on May 1, 2003, after an aircraft had landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
