US+Invasion+of+Iraq-+Before+the+Invasion+Began

After the Gulf War, the US and its’ allies decided to use a “containment policy” towards Iraq in the form of sanctions, put in place by the UN Security Council, no fly zones, and weapons inspections by UN forces. When removing Hussein became a major focus of UN policy, resolutions and acts were passed to try to establish democratic ideas in Iraq. The US and UK began Operation Desert fox to stop Hussein’s forces from being able to produce weapons. After September 11, the “War on Terror” began in the US, which was not solely focused on al Qaeda, but also on Iraq, in the form of preventive action, later nicknamed the “Bush Doctrine.” Politicians were at this time still unsure if immediate invasion of Iraq was necessary. The UK and other US allies were in favor of intervention while France and Germany were skeptical and wanted to continue with weapons inspections. Despite resistance from NATO and many other countries, in October 2002, US Congress passed a “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq” which gave the president power to use any tactics against Iraq. At this point in time 85% of Americans thought that Hussein had WMD’s and wanted to uncover those weapons and 77% wanted the US to take military action to remove Hussein from political office. Colin Powell addressed the UN in February of 2003 to try to gain support for a UN authorization of an invasion of Iraq. He presented information, which later proved to be false, that Hussein had ties with al Qaeda and would have access to producing chemical and biological weapons. Even with support from Poland, the UK, Italy, Austria and a few other countries, many NATO members still were in favor of diplomacy over military action. On February 15th, worldwide anti-war protests broke out in over 800 cities which attracted over 7 million people.