The official 2002 Congress authorization for the use of military force against Iraq specifically mentions that the USA is just defending itself because Iraq attempted to assassinate the President of the United States of America in 1993 and they harbored Al Qaeda, who commited September 11 attacks. Are these claims based on truth?
Cannot speak to the claim that they harbored Al-Qaeda, but the claim that they attempted to assassinate H.W. Bush in the 90s is completely false. I learned this a few years ago in a history class with a great professor who knew his shit (not sure of his exact politics, but definitely seemed to be a principled leftist of some sort). It was glorified gossip fed to W. Bush to encourage him to lead the charge to invade…W. Bush wasn’t smart in the realm of politics and governance. What he chose to do was mostly decided by whoever was the last person to speak with him before he entered the room, lol. Regarding the invasion of Iraq and the war on terror, it’s worth noting that he literally called it a “crusade.” Can’t name a source to “prove” that Iraq never planned to assassinate H.W. Bush, but just on its face it’s blatantly ridiculous. Materially it would be beneficial for Iraq if America ceased to exist or was heavily destabilized, sure, but assassinating Bush wouldn’t accomplish that, as the VP would just take his place. Surely the Iraqi government is smart enough to understand that?
Tl;dr: take anything the American government says with a grain of salt.
Materially it would be beneficial for Iraq if America ceased to exist or was heavily destabilized, sure, but assassinating Bush wouldn’t accomplish that, as the VP would just take his place
Do you have anything where I can read more analysis about what exactly and how beneficial certain actions would be for Iraq? Is there even such an analysis?
No, I don’t. Maybe someone has written about it, though. But shouldn’t the analysis be obvious? America and American hegemony are detrimental to every country that’s not a part of the imperial core. They would all be better off in an America-less world.
