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The War on Terror became an international issue when President Bush stated, 'Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,' he said in a national address. 'Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.' The invasion of Iraq became one if not the most controversial international foreign policy decision made by the United States and the United Kingdom in recent history which was accompanied and triggered by The War on Terror. Up to this day, controversy and speculations lie around if this international action was just or falls under the category of Jus ad Bellum. Jus ad Bellum and just war theory as we discussed in our class can be summed up in the idea of the accounts of St. Augustine wherein it determines and judges whether a state may have an option to enter a war and fight the war which became a pivotal core of the modern international legal system. This is where the international community comes in and either supports or opposes an action made by a country to enter a war with one country. Jus ad Bellum surrounds the idea that for one state to declare war, a state must have a just cause, the correct intentions, have used and exhausted all other forms of diplomacy, and or have no choice other than to protect itself from an imminent attack or danger. Now that we've established what Jus ad Bellum means, let's focus and try to analyze the situation and the justifications of the United States and the United Kingdom for invading Iraq and their dictator leader, Sadam Hussein. The War on Terror precedented this attack because of the 9/11 attack which made the United States interested in the politics and geopolitical landscape in the Middle East. Due to prior events and actions, the United States government's most important national policy became to stamp out and eradicate 'global terrorism at its core'. Because of the gravity of the 9/11 attacks, the United States justified its attack on Iraq on that the very essence of a preemptive and preventive strike. They justified their action by foreshadowing the possibility of future strikes may use Weapons of Mass Destruction or more commonly known as (WMD). This became the grounds and justification used by the United States to engage in a physical campaign globally while using all their might to engage states, organizations, and or individuals who are either hosting, supporting, financing, or helping terrorism. Since the aforementioned clause, the first target of the United States became of that the allies of the attackers which was Al 'Qaeda, then they attacked Afghanistan and the Taliban because that was where the leader of Al 'Qaeda was hiding which was Osama Bin Laden. Then this became the first phase of the wars that precedented them.
It was clear to both the United States and United Kingdom governments then that there was an imminent threat coming from Iraq, for them to justify the invasion, the threat must be substantiated by the just war theory to fulfill the conditions and legality in the international community. Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom then stated in his speech, 'We must be prepared to act where terrorism of weapons of mass destruction threaten us' This convinced the parliamentary then to support this action and made the Iraqi invasion possible. Bush also added that the Iraqi regime then supported Al 'Qaeda and other terrorist groups to go against the United States. Although this was heavily opposed by other world powers like Germany, France, and Russia, the United States declared an end to the diplomacy ultimatum which triggered the invasion of Iraq.
Though the invasion of Iraq at that time was seen just because of the findings of the U.S. government than of their weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and their regime's crimes against humanity. Later findings would show that Iraq and Saddam Hussein did not have any WMDs in their personnel. An article from Washington Post stated, 'The intelligence community's assessments on Iraq's WMD stockpiles and programs turned out to be woefully wrong, largely because analysts believed that Iraq had kept on a path of building its programs rather than largely abandoning them after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.' They also stated that these bits of intelligence were used for political purposes to build support from the public to support a war that the Bush administration orchestrated.
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