But why did we need a "reason" to invade Iraq when we already had so many?
not as many as you claim.
First and foremost, the US has been at war with Iraq since the 1991 Gulf war. Since then, a ceasefire was declared but Iraq constantly violated the terms of the ceasefire. See this from Wikipedia:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a
United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously by the
United Nations Security Council on November 8, 2002, offering
Iraq under
Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out in several previous resolutions (
Resolution 660,
Resolution 661,
Resolution 678,
Resolution 686,
Resolution 687,
Resolution 688,
Resolution 707,
Resolution 715,
Resolution 986, and
Resolution 1284).
[1]
Resolution 1441 stated that Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to
weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate
Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops during the
1991 invasion and occupation. It also stated that "...false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations."
this also from wikipedia (
During the Presidency of
Saddam Hussein, the nation of
Iraq used, possessed, and made efforts to acquire
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Hussein was internationally known for his use of chemical weapons in the 1980s against
Kurdish civilians during and after the
IranIraq War. It is also known that in the 1980s he pursued an extensive
biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program.
After the 1990-1991
Persian Gulf War, the
United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi WMD and related equipment and materials throughout the early 1990s, with varying degrees of Iraqi cooperation and obstruction.
[1] In response to diminishing Iraqi cooperation with
UNSCOM, the
United States called for withdrawal of all UN and
IAEA inspectors in 1998, resulting in
Operation Desert Fox. The United States and the UK asserted that Saddam Hussein still possessed large hidden stockpiles of WMD in 2003, and that he was clandestinely procuring and producing more. Inspections by the UN to resolve the status of unresolved disarmament questions restarted from November 2002 until March 2003,
[2] under
UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which demanded Saddam give "immediate, unconditional and active cooperation" with UN and IAEA inspections.
[3]
By March 2003,
Hans Blix had found no stockpiles of WMD and had made significant progress toward resolving open issues of disarmament noting "proactive" but not always the "immediate" Iraqi cooperation as called for by
UN Security Council Resolution 1441. He concluded that it would take but months to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks.
[4] The United States asserted this was a breach of Resolution 1441 but failed to convince the UN Security Council to pass a new resolution authorizing the use of force due to lack of evidence.
[5][6][7] Despite being unable to get a new resolution authorizing force and citing section 3 of the Joint Resolution passed by the U.S. Congress,
[8] President Bush asserted peaceful measures couldn't disarm Iraq of the weapons he alleged it to have and launched a
second Gulf War,
[9] despite multiple dissenting opinions
[10] and questions of integrity
[11][12][13] about the underlying intelligence.
[14] Later U.S.-led inspections agreed that Iraq had earlier abandoned its WMD programs, but asserted Iraq had an intention to pursue those programs if UN sanctions were ever lifted.
[15] President Bush later said that the biggest regret of his presidency was "the intelligence failure" in Iraq,
[16] while the Senate Intelligence Committee found in 2008 that his administration "misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq".
[17])
It should also be noted that Iraq regularly fired upon our aircraft while they patrolled the no fly zone. Every incident was a violation of the ceasefire, an act of war and all the reason we needed to resume bombing. Bush in fact, only went to the UN and to Congress as a matter of diplomacy and support. Legally, he didn't need any more reason or even the permission of Congress.
if you could give a resource i would appreciate it.
As you can see, Bush didn't need 911 to bomb Iraq, all he needed to do was to cite their actions and their violation of the UN resolutions. Furthermore, Bush never even tried to tie Iraq to 911. The only link between the two is the indirect support for terrorism that Iraq gave openly and unabashedly.
this is a post from guardian.co.uk ( Leading Democrats yesterday reacted angrily to President George Bush's address to the nation, accusing him of "exploiting the sacred ground" of September 11 by attempting to link the Iraq war with the terrorist attacks.
In his prime-time speech at Fort Bragg military base, the president mentioned September 11 five times in 30 minutes as he argued that withdrawal from Iraq would leave the US open to more terrorist attacks.) here is more if you would like to read it. Bush 'exploited 9/11' in Iraq plea at guardian.co.uk
Blame for 911 always was placed on Bin Laden and al-queda. It was the anti-Bush people that tried to make 911 the reason for resuming the war with Iraq. Bush only claimed that they were a dangerous, destabilizing regime that was developing WMD and supporting terrorism.