The Legality of the US Invasion of Iraq

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In early 2003, the threat of Saddam Hussein and the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq captured the attention and concern of the world. One nation decided to illegally act on these unsubstantiated claims, invading the country, violating the UN Charter and breaking several international laws in the process. The penalizations that were subject to the invading country, the United States, were never carried out. The United State’s role and influence over the UN and the Security Council, along with the nature of the unenforceable, politics and power-based international laws, allowed them to escape sanctions after their invasion of Iraq. The United States did not have a legitimate reason for invading, and their ability to repudiate international law would be unacceptable for any other country. Their decision to invade Iraq was one based on money and politics, and the US should be subject to penalties just as any other nation would have to face after unnecessarily waging war on a nation.
March 19th, 2003 marked the official start to the US invasion of Iraq. Prior to this, there had been a lot of tension and conflict building up in the Middle East. Just months prior, President George W. Bush said in his state of the union address, coined a term for three countries that were seen as potentially dangerous and threaten the peace of the world. He called them the Axis of Evil, and it consisted of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, with Iraq being the major topic of discussion. He said that Saddam Hussein was carrying weapons of mass destruction and further developing chemical and nuclear weapons. He claimed that they had already used on civilians, “leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children”. He painted a grues...

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"Iraq War Illegal, Says Annan." BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation, 16 Sept. 2004. Web. 15
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Scherrer, Christian P. Invasion of Iraq, the U.N., U.S. Unilateralism and Crimes against Humanity.
Hamburg: n.p., 2003. World Uranium Weapons Conf. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
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Wingfield, David R. "Why International Law Supports the Invasion of Iraq: A Short History on UN
Declarations of War." Policy Options May 2003: 37-40. Institute for Research on Public Policy.
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