Shortly after the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, President Bush seemed to be intensely dedicated to find those responsible for the attacks, and give them what they had coming to them. Fingers were pointed at Afghanistan, Al- Quaida, Osama bin Ladin; it seemed to America that anyone of Middle Eastern descent, Muslim, Arabic, or otherwise, were guilty by association of race. Then, somehow, the President made the “War on Terror” a part of the domestic and foreign policy of the United States. In the paranoia that swept the nation, the blame for the attacks seemed to be forgotten, as the President focused on a new threat in his War on Terrorism: Iraq.

On March 20, 2003, American Forces invaded Iraq on the premise that the country had weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq was a threat.  The nation was under the impression that it was right for America to destroy the stockpiles of weapons held in Iraq, and for the freedom of the citizens forced into oppression under the rule of Saddam Hussein.  America felt tough, like it was the Superman of the world.  That ego was even further boosted on April 9, 2003, when U.S. forces secured Baghdad and declared that the regime of Saddam Hussein was over. On May 1, 2003, President Bush arrived on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and announced to the country that the major combat operations in Iraq had ended. Behind him waved a banner that stated in bold red, white, and blue, “Mission Accomplished.”

Was the war truly over, though? It was actually far from the truth. The media portrayed everything that seemed to be going right in Iraq. It didn’t even seem like a war. It was liberation. Behind the scenes, though, American troops were dying. News stations were told not to show the coffins of the dead with the flag draped over them, because it seemed as though it had a negative effect on the morale of the country. Meanwhile, the number of dying soldiers passed hundreds, then later, thousands. The insurgency was blazing hot, and then came the terrorists.

Terrorists filtered into the country that had no government. Attacks on civilians and Iraqi police mounted through series of bombings early in 2004. The Army responded by attacking Fallujah in April 2004. There have been recent reports that the military used a chemical agent, white phosphorus, on the attacks on Fallujah. The U.S. military denies the use of chemical arms, stating that white phosphorus is a conventional weapon. It burnt women and children, citizens of Iraq, through their clothing and their skin down to their bones. The Geneva Convention banned the use of white phosphorus, but according to the MSN report, a U.N. official stated that the U.S. “did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention.”

Some Democrats in the Senate are even questioning the start of the war in Iraq now, and how the President plans to get out. What is the real objective in the war in Iraq? There has not been evidence that the stockpiles of weapons President Bush believed that Iraq had even existed, nor has there been any real connection in Iraq with the attacks on September 11, 2001. The President’s justification of the War on Terror in Iraq was based off of these two things, then somehow included the liberation of Iraqi citizens. When the U.S. military is in Iraq injuring the same people they were supposed to help, what alibi does the government have to lean on?  What are the thousands of American soldiers supposed to do as they wait for a government in Iraq to be established, surrounded by possible threats?  They are forced to wait and occupy in a war that should not have begun, and may never end.