Iraq War and the war on terror



The Iraq War, along with the War in Afghanistan, was described by President of the United States George W. Bush as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here."

"War on terror" discourse dominated US media outlets for several post-9/11 years. In 2003, majority of Americans believed Iraqi-links to 9/11 conspiracy theory, which facilitated the Bush administration's agenda for the invasion of Iraq. Throughout the 2000s, political consensus in United States juxtaposed Iraq within the framework of the "war on terror". Despite the emergence of dissent to the consensus in the late 2000s; Republican politicians, candidates and advocacy groups continued to paint the Iraq-centric strategy as the solution to the "9/11 problem".

As the conflict dragged on, members of the U.S. Congress, the American public, and even U.S. troops have questioned the connection between the Iraq War and the fight against terrorism. Multiple leading intelligence experts have argued that the war in Iraq actually increased terrorism. The ensuing conflict in Iraq has seen prolonged American involvement in the country against multiple terrorist and non-terrorist groups.

Framing of Iraq War
The National Strategy of Combating Terrorism published by the US government in 2003 pitted a dualistic "us vs them" narrative, defining America's enemy as "terrorism". In a presidential letter to the Speaker of House of Representatives delivered a day after the launch of the Iraq invasion, Bush claimed that Ba'athist Iraq harboured and supported terrorists that carried out the September 11 attacks. The National Security Strategy of 2006 associated terrorism with rogue regimes across the world which "hate the United States and everything for which it stands". Throughout the Iraqi insurgency, the US government depicted Iraq as a crucial frontline to eliminate the "geographic base" of the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 attacks.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Republican strategy was based on exaggerating the Iraqi 9/11 conspiracy theory and presenting the Iraq war as a major front in the "war on terror". Rival presidential candidate John Kerry also agreed with this narrative, criticizing the Bush administration's pitfalls for not organizing a "smarter, tougher, more effective war on terror". So pervasive was the propaganda that the military campaigns were often compared to the Second World War and the US president linked Hurricane Katrina with the "war on terror" efforts. However, after repeated failures in the Iraq war and rising war-weariness, these narratives became controversial within the United States starting from the late 2000s. Despite acknowledging that Ba'athist Iraq had no links to 9/11 attacks in 2007, the Bush administration continued to justify the prolongation of the Iraq War in the post-9/11 framework, claiming that a defeat in Iraq would make the United States "vulnerable" to external threats.

According to the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center, Saddam Hussein had a long history before the invasion of giving money to families of suicide bombers in Palestine. As part of the justification for the war, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein also had ties to al-Qaeda, and that his overthrow would lead to democratization in the Middle East, decreasing terrorism overall. However, reports from the CIA, the U.S. State Department, the FBI, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as the investigations of foreign intelligence agencies found no evidence of an operational connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda.

Various intelligence experts have asserted that the Iraq war only served to exponentially increase terrorism. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna frequently refers to the invasion of Iraq as a "fatal mistake." London's conservative International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for jihadists, and that the invasion "galvanized" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there. The U.S. National Intelligence Council concluded in a January 2005 report that Iraq had overtaken Afghanistan as the primary training ground for the next generation of jihadist terrorists. The council's chairman, Robert L. Hutchings, said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity." And the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which outlined the considered judgment of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement." According to Mohammed Hafez, "Since 2003, the number of suicide bombings in Iraq has surpassed all those of Hamas in Israel, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka combined."

Al-Qaeda
In October 2003, Osama bin Laden announced: "Be glad of the good news: America is mired in the swamps of the Tigris and Euphrates. Bush is, through Iraq and its oil, easy prey. Here is he now, thank God, in an embarrassing situation and here is America today being ruined before the eyes of the whole world." Al-Qaeda commander Seif al-Adl gloated about the war in Iraq, indicating, "The Americans took the bait and fell into our trap." A letter thought to be from al-Qaeda leader Atiyah Abd al-Rahman found in Iraq among the rubble where al-Zarqawi was killed and released by the U.S. military in October 2006, indicated that al-Qaeda perceived the war as beneficial to its goals: "The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness ... indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest.".

ISIS
From 2011, the conflict in Iraq shifted into the fight against the Islamic State. From 2011 to 2013, this insurgency was marked by the rapid rise of the Islamic State of Iraq, escalating dramatically during the War in Iraq (2013–2017). This conflict continues as part of a low-level insurgency from the Islamic State since 2017.

Public opinion
At the outset of the war, the U.S. Congress and public opinion supported the notion that the Iraq War was part of the global war on terror. The 2002 congressional resolution authorising military force against Iraq cited the U.S. determination to "prosecute the war on terrorism", and in April 2003, one month after the invasion, a poll found that 77% of Americans agreed that the Iraq War was part of the war on terror. Much of the organized violence encountered by the U.S. military was framed by the metaphor of a crusade, or total conflict, that was taken up by the terrorists. In 2004, an Army War College report said the war diverts attention and resources from the threat posed by Al Qaeda and called for downsizing the war on terror and focusing instead on the threat from Al Qaeda.

As the military and civilian death toll has mounted, the Iraqi insurgency has shifted to what many observers have labeled a civil war, and the politics of Iraq have remained unstable, many politicians and citizens from the United States and across the world have begun pushing for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq. Throughout the 2000s, US media outlets, politicians and wider public viewed the military operations in Iraq as an integral part of the "war on terror". In spring 2007, surveys showed a majority of Americans in support of a timetable for withdrawal. While up to 70 percent of Americans in one survey favored withdrawal, most preferred to leave gradually over 12 months, and 60 percent stated that the U.S. had a moral obligation to the Iraqi people. In addition to voicing concerns over the human and financial costs of the war, supporters of withdrawal argue that the U.S. presence fosters ongoing violence by providing a target for al-Qaeda. It also allows Iraqi political leaders to avoid reaching a power-sharing agreement. The withdrawal will induce Iraq's neighbors to become more involved in quelling violence in the country and will relieve the strain on the U.S. military. The withdrawal debate has brought comparison of Iraq and Vietnam wars.

After the 2006 midterm congressional elections, Congress pushed to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, in part based on the argument that Iraq was a distraction, as opposed to a part of, the war on terror. Likewise, a January 2007 poll found that 57% of Americans felt that the Iraq War was not part of the war on terror. By June 2007, polls revealed that only 30% of Americans supported the war. On July 12, 2007, the House passed a resolution by 223 to 201, for redeployment [or withdrawal] of U.S. armed forces out of Iraq. The resolution required most troops to withdraw from Iraq by April 1, 2008.