In 2004, at the Baghdad Operations Center in Iraq, it was the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that had the chance to interview Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein before he was transferred over to the authority of the newly implemented Iraqi government. The responsibility for conversing with Saddam fell to FBI agent George Piro, and that Piro relished the opportunity to press the fallen dictator for insight into his style of leadership and process of decision-making for all those decades Saddam held on to power. But what Piro wanted most, and what the US government was adamant had been a fact, was information from Saddam that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism, justifying the perceived threat he posed to international security.
In one casual conversation, Piro pressed Saddam for the reason he was so obstinate toward the United Nations weapons inspections. According to Saddam, the reluctance to open Iraq up to weapons inspectors was a regional move, not because of the threat posed by the United States toward Iraq, but because of the threat posed by Iran. Saddam explained that while the United Nations dismantled Iraq’s military capabilities and crippled its economy with sanctions throughout the 1990s, Iran continued to advance technologically. Saddam confided in Piro, “Iraq would have been extremely vulnerable to an attack from Iran, and [Iraq] would have sought a security agreement with the United States to protect it from threats in the region.”1 Although Saddam admitted that a security arrangement with the United States would have been improbable, he understood Iraq could not succeed in a war against the US military.
In another conversation, Piro alleged that Saddam was working with terrorists. However, Saddam dismissed Piro’s claims and was adamant that he had never cooperated with “zealots.” When asked by Piro why he would not align himself with those he had described as the enemies of the United States, Saddam replied, “the United States was not Iraq’s enemy.” According to Saddam, had he wanted “to cooperate with the enemies of the United States,” he would have approached “North Korea, which he claimed to have a relationship with, or China.”2 It was not the United States that Saddam described as an enemy, only that there were US policies that were in conflict with Iraqi interests.3
These casual conversations were released in 2009, and they illustrate a side of Saddam Hussein that is largely absent from, and at odds with, the accepted history that illustrates the United States going to war with Iraq in 1991 and 2003. This history became further confused when Saddam Hussein insisted, in another conversation with Piro, that he was fascinated by the United States and “was interested in understanding the American culture, and did so by watching American movies.”4 This portrait of a fallen dictator, who had remained a prominent fixture in the politics, policies, and everyday conversation of the United States for just over a decade, did not reinforce the image that had been portrayed by successive US presidencies. In fact, this portrait raised questions that were largely absent from the accepted history of the United States going to war with Iraq.
What Piro found in these casual conversations was a defeated, broken man who was still concerned with his own personal aspirations and the intrigues of regional politics. There was no trace of the evil dictator that had been portrayed throughout the American media. Nor was there any evidence of the international threat that had provoked the United States to go to war with Iraq twice in the space of a decade. On the other hand, these casual conversations demonstrate that anticlimactic conclusion of the United States going to war with Iraq. Although the violent conflict was far from over, the purpose for why the United States was in Iraq in the first place had ceased to exist—nevertheless, the consequences of the United States going to war with Iraq continue to reverberate across the Middle East, and Iraq remains in a quagmire of civil strife due chiefly to the inconclusive and half-hearted attempts from the United States at unravelling the mess they created.
But, these casual conversations are also an opportunity to revisit why the United States went to war with Iraq at all. So, we can begin with a simple premise. If Saddam Hussein was not the enemy of the United States that he was made out to be, but instead a dictator obsessed with his regional interests, and with a window that faced Hollywood, what made George H. W. Bush in 1991 and George W. Bush in 2003 decide to go to war with Iraq in the first place?
One approach to answering this question is through a process of comparing the contemporary histories of two American presidents, and how they construed the threat posed by Saddam Hussein domestically in the United States, and diplomatically on the international stage. These histories can be split into contrasting frames that emphasize the domestic and diplomatic origins of the decisions to go to war with Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Far from an arbitrary distinction, the contrasting frames deliberately juxtapose each presidential decision in order to illustrate the similarities and differences shared between the presidents as they grappled with competing internal and external factors in their foreign policy decision-making. These frames begin with George H. W. Bush in 1989, and focus on the issue of Saddam Hussein at domestically and diplomatically up until the beginning of violent conflict in 1991. Likewise, the following frames sustain the same focus on Saddam Hussein, beginning with George W. Bush becoming president in 2001 and ending with the beginning of violent conflict in 2003. By necessity, these frames contain historical boundaries. However, one must choose a beginning and an end, and for the purposes of this comparative history, these frames, and their boundaries, offer a structure through which to understand why George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush chose to go to war with Iraq.
That is not to say that histories concerning the US decision to go to war with Iraq have not already been constructed and discussed. In fact, it can be difficult to wade through the myriad of analysis that populates the literature on US contemporary foreign policy in Iraq. However, there lacks a history of going to war with Iraq in 1991 and 2003 that compares each decision equally and within the same historical context, that of the end of the Cold War and of presidential continuity. Among the analysis that already exists there are attempts at comparing and contrasting George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, albeit through different approaches—from international relations (IR) theory, military history, and ideological framing.5 Likewise, there are disparate attempts at focusing on specific aspects of the decision to go to war, such as domestic or diplomatic dimensions, that disregard the comparative nuance within the history in order to focus on details. Here one can find studies focused on public opinion and the wars in Iraq, and collections of essays from policy makers reflecting on their decisions in the wake of the Cold War.6 Similarly, there are popular histories and memoirs that remember from different aspects, and with sometimes differing accounts, the events that transpired across both administrations. Popular accounts exist by well-known journalists, such as Bob Woodward or James Mann, and almost all of the leading figures in both Bush administrations have published their own memoirs. These accounts help to add personality to the often dry and dusty process of policy making, and help to remind us of the human dimension of politics. However, this history differs by piercing through disparate attempts at retelling the same events by bringing together a more cohesive, and insightful, history of the decision to go to war with Iraq in 1991 and 2003.
Just as there is a distinction made in how the history is framed when looking at the US relationship with Iraq, so too is there an onus on the source material that is used to populate that historical frame. Because the frames used in this history focus on the domestic and diplomatic origins of the decision to go to war, the source material is by necessity selective. Although this practice of selective source material might be a controversial aspect of any historical narrative, it is justified in the broader comparative history, as the selectivity of the source material concerns keywords and context, rather than the discretion of the historian. This distinction between domestic and diplomatic decision-making is also aligned with the competing interests faced by the president, whether implicitly acknowledged through the actions and priorities of a president, or more explicitly addressed by decision makers in their efforts to explain the operation of policy in a global context. More important, these frames create a perspective, or lens, through which the history is rendered. But this is subject of its own historiographical debate, the scope of which is beyond this simple history.7
It is required, however, to distinguish what this history utilizes as source material to populate these frames and make sense of this history. This is especially important in order to establish qualitative boundaries. In order to understand the issue of Saddam Hussein at home, and the domestic origins of the decision to go to war with Iraq, the source material is derived from the ongoing reporting of Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the American newsprint media, in particular the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times, and the corresponding public correspondence of the president and his administration as they attempt to rationalize foreign policy under the competing interests of Congress and the American public. The focus of this source material is on the media response to breaking news, the op-ed commentary that helps craft the popular understanding of foreign policy issues, and the interaction of politicians and leaders, with their own agendas, and the public more broadly. As such, the frame can be crowded with many voices, each with their own opinions, but from such a diverse and deep well of sources there do emerge the domestic origins of the decision to go to war with Iraq.
Contrastingly, in order to understand the diplomatic origins of the decision to go to war with Iraq, an entirely separate set of source materials is utilized to illustrate the history. Here, the emphasis rests on declassified source material from the National Security Archive at George Washington University and the George H. W. Bush Archives at College Station, Texas, which helps to establish presidential decision-making away from the public domain. However, in order to fully realize the diplomatic aspects of the decision to go to war with Iraq, it is necessary to include the numerous United Nations Security Council monitoring reports and debates concerning Iraq. It is in these United Nations archives that a fuller picture of US diplomacy emerges as the projection of Saddam Hussein as a risk to peace and security is shown to exist well beyond the national borders of the United States.
Through the contemporary histories, popular accounts and memoirs are utilized when appropriate to help add character and depth to the historical narratives. But, their use is minimized where possible. Although useful, especially because each personal narrative adds character, the sheer number of accounts and extent of their personalized histories can crowd out the source material that is the primary focus of the frame.
As a result of these historical frames, there does emerge a central argument emphasizing that perception of Saddam Hussein as an unacceptable risk to the peace and security of the United States, in both the domestic and diplomatic origins of the decision to go to war with Iraq. From the contemporary history it becomes clear that how both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush viewed Saddam Hussein as a threat influenced why both presidents decided to go to war with Iraq. But, through comparison, it also becomes clear that each president reached the same conclusion with very different reasoning.
The contemporary history of the United States going to war with Iraq begins with George H. W. Bush in 1989, and the first frame of the contemporary history focuses on the domestic origins in the United States of the war in Iraq in 1991.8 The overwhelming impression that emerges from this frame is that Bush was constrained in his conduct of foreign policy due to the pressures of domestic politics, especially the continuity that was established by stepping up from the vice presidency under President Ronald Reagan. From the outset of his presidential term, Bush attempted to reconcile domestic affairs in the same way he would conduct foreign policy, through deliberation and appeals to negotiations and compromise, eased by the sleight of hand that accompanied effective diplomacy. However, Bush soon understood that domestic concerns were often irrationally opposed to strategic interests and would conflict and impede foreign policy options. Although obfuscating and avoiding the issues that were raised by the American media regarding Iraq and, in particular, Saddam Hussein throughout 1989 and into 1990, Bush’s immediate decision to denounce and oppose Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait in August 1990 was seen by Americans to be a step in the right direction. But Bush, through his separation of domestic...