The War in Iraq
After U.S. forces ousted Saddam Hussein, on May 1, 2003, President Bush addressed the nation from the USS Abraham Lincoln and proclaimed that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. However, civil war broke out between rival religious sects of Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. Many Iraqis viewed the United States as an occupying power despite efforts to reconstruct the war-torn nation and promote free elections. In an e-mail to friends in the United States, Wall Street Journal correspondent Farnaz Fassihi presents a frank assessment of the deteriorating conditions in Baghdad in September 2004.
George W. Bush | Declaration of Victory in Iraq, May 1, 2003
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. . . .
Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces. . . . America is grateful for a job well done. . . .
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a Government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.
The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, 2003, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), 410–13.
During this time Bush continued the policy of incarcerating suspected al-Qaeda rebels in the U.S. military base in Guantánamo, Cuba, without due process of the law. The facility housed more than six hundred men classified as “enemy combatants,” who were subject to extreme interrogation and were deprived of legal counsel. This policy changed somewhat when the Supreme Court, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), ruled that the military tribunals established by the president to prosecute Guantánamo prisoners were unconstitutional.
Farnaz Fassihi | Report from Baghdad, 2004
Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways, and tell stories that could make a difference.
Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people’s homes and never walk in the streets. I can’t go grocery shopping any more, can’t eat in restaurants, can’t strike a conversation with strangers, can’t look for stories, can’t drive in anything but a full armored car, can’t go to scenes of breaking news stories, can’t be stuck in traffic, can’t speak English outside, can’t take a road trip, can’t say I’m an American, can’t linger at checkpoints, can’t be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can’t and can’t. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second. . . .
Iraqis like to call this mess “the situation.” When asked “how are things?” they reply: “the situation is very bad.”
What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn’t control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country’s roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings, and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. . . . As for reconstruction: firstly it’s so unsafe for foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chunk has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.
Source: Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler, eds., Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present (New York: Dial Press, 2005), 758–60.
Interpret the Evidence
From President Bush’s perspective, what had the United States accomplished in Iraq?
How does Fassihi’s report challenge the Bush administration’s views on the Iraq War?
Put It in Context
How did the September 11 attacks influence the decision to invade Iraq?
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