The role of President George W. Bush (Bush 43), including the Vulcans, the case for war, UN Resolution 1441, the Powell UN address, the absence of a second resolution, and the decision for invasion

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain how President George W. Bush ("Bush 43") moved the United States from post-9/11 containment to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Strong answers integrate the Bush administration team (the Vulcans), the WMD intelligence case, the UN diplomatic effort, the Powell address, the failure of the second resolution, and the 17 March 2003 ultimatum.

The answer

Bush 43 and his team

George Walker Bush (born 6 July 1946) was the 43rd President of the United States, sworn in on 20 January 2001 after the contested November 2000 election (resolved by Bush v Gore on 12 December 2000). His pre-presidential experience was business (oil and the Texas Rangers baseball franchise) and the Texas governorship 1995-2000.

The campaign foreign-policy team, organised by Condoleezza Rice and called the "Vulcans", shaped administration thinking. Key positions:

• Vice President Dick Cheney. Combined operational seniority with hawkish instincts. The most influential VP in US history.
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Brisk, dismissive of bureaucratic objections.
• Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. The intellectual centre. Leading neoconservative.
• National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Stanford political scientist, Russia specialist. Tonally moderate but loyal to Bush.
• Secretary of State Colin Powell. The moderate; carried Bush 41's reluctance into the new administration.
• CIA Director George Tenet. Holdover from Clinton. Eager to recover from 9/11 reputational damage.

From containment to confrontation

Through 2001 and most of 2002 the formal US policy was UN-authorised containment of Iraq. Internally the administration moved progressively towards regime change.

The Downing Street memo (the British minutes of a 23 July 2002 meeting between Tony Blair, his advisers, and intelligence chiefs), leaked in 2005, recorded Sir Richard Dearlove saying after Washington meetings: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The WMD case

The administration's public case centred on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Cheney VFW speech (26 August 2002). "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Rice on CNN (8 September 2002). "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Congressional vote (10-11 October 2002). The Iraq War Resolution passed House 296-133 and Senate 77-23.

National Intelligence Estimate (1 October 2002). Stated "Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction programs" and was "reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." The NIE had significant dissents footnoted but obscured.

Powell UN address (5 February 2003). A 76-minute presentation with intelligence on mobile biological weapons labs, aluminium tubes for centrifuges, al-Qaeda links, and Iraqi obstruction. Powell's reputation lent enormous credibility. The intelligence was largely false. The "Curveball" source for the mobile bio labs was an Iraqi defector who had fabricated his account.

The UN sequence

UNSCR 1441 (8 November 2002). Passed 15-0 after eight weeks of negotiation. Gave Iraq a "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations." Welcomed UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors back.

Critically, the resolution did not contain explicit authorisation of force. The US and UK argued "serious consequences" implied authorisation; France, Russia, and China publicly insisted any use of force required a new resolution.

Iraqi declaration (7 December 2002). The 12,000-page Iraqi declaration claimed Iraq had no WMD.

Inspections (27 November 2002 to 18 March 2003). Hans Blix's UNMOVIC and Mohamed ElBaradei's IAEA conducted around 700 inspections. They found no active WMD programs. Blix's 14 February 2003 report noted Iraqi cooperation was "active" though imperfect.

Failed second resolution. The US, UK, and Spain circulated a draft second resolution. Securing 9 of 15 votes was difficult: France (Chirac 10 March 2003 veto pledge), Russia, China, Germany were against. The draft was withdrawn on 17 March 2003.

Domestic and international opposition

The 15 February 2003 global anti-war protests brought an estimated 6 to 10 million people onto streets in over 600 cities. London (around 1 million), Rome (around 3 million), Madrid (around 1 million), Sydney (around 250,000), Melbourne (around 200,000).

Some major governments aligned with France: Germany (Schroeder), Belgium, Canada. Others supported Bush: Britain (Blair), Spain (Aznar), Italy (Berlusconi), Poland, the Czech Republic.

The "Coalition of the Willing" eventually included 49 declared supporters; combat participation came from the US, UK, Australia, and Poland.

The Bush ultimatum

Bush addressed the nation from the Cross Hall of the White House on 17 March 2003 at 20:00 Eastern time:

"All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours."

Saddam did not leave. Operations began 20 March 2003 at 05:34 Baghdad time with cruise-missile and stealth-bomber strikes against Dora Farm.

The 2008 finding

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II Report (June 2008) found that "in making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even nonexistent." The Iraq Survey Group's Duelfer Report (September 2004) found no stockpiles of WMD. The WMD case had been wrong.

Timeline

Historiography

Bob Woodward (Plan of Attack, 2004; State of Denial, 2006) is the standard inside-the-administration journalism.

Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor (Cobra II, 2006) is the operational planning standard.

George Packer (The Assassins' Gate, 2005) is the major reflective journalism.

Mark Danner (essays collected as The Secret Way to War, 2006) examined the Downing Street memo.

How to read a source on this topic

Sources commonly include the 5 February 2003 Powell UN address, the 17 March 2003 Bush Cross Hall address, the Downing Street memo, and the NIE.

First, note the date relative to the invasion.

Second, weigh post-war revelations. The Duelfer Report (2004), the Robb-Silberman Commission Report (2005), and the Senate Intelligence Committee Phase II Report (2008) all found the intelligence had been wrong.

Common exam traps

Treating the WMD case as fabricated. The intelligence was wrong but most of the administration believed it.

Forgetting the British role. Tony Blair, not Bush, insisted on the UN route.

Misdating the WMD admission. The Duelfer Report came in October 2004, after the war.

In one sentence

President George W. Bush, advised by the Vulcans (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice) and pressed by Powell and Blair to seek UN cover, moved the United States from containment to regime change in Iraq through the WMD case of August-October 2002, the Iraq War Resolution of 11 October 2002, UN Security Council Resolution 1441 of 8 November 2002, Powell's 5 February 2003 UN address using intelligence later shown to be largely false, the failure to secure a second resolution against French opposition, and the 17 March 2003 48-hour ultimatum that launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on 20 March 2003.