Bush and Obama, Wars and Economy: Power and People in an Age of Limits and Loss 561Rumsfeld replied, however, “there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan
and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.” It was clear to Clarke that the
Bush administration was looking for a way to blame Saddam for 9/11, to
exploit the attacks to justify a war against Iraq and to overthrow the Iraqi
government. “I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection”
between Saddam and in al Qaeda, Clarke said, but “there’s absolutely no evi-
dence that Iraq was supporting al-Qa’ida.” In the short term, the Bush team
would go after Afghanistan first, beginning an intense air war in October
2001, less than a month after the 9/11 attacks and quickly ran the Taliban out
of power. But Iraq remained the top target and the administration continued
to set its sights on a war against Saddam. Throughout 2002, Bush prepared for
war against Baghdad. Like his father during the 1990-91 Gulf War, he tried
to get an international coalition to support an intervention, and went to the
U.N. for backing. Bush’s rationale was that Saddam had already developed
WMDs, especially chemical and biological weapons, and had a well-estab-
lished nuclear weapons program. Inspectors from the U.N and the IAEA–the
International Atomic Energy Agency–continued to report that there was no
evidence of such programs in Iraq, but the U.S. administration and media,
along with the British, who joined the American crusade, ignored the facts. In
the fall of 2002, the U.N. thus passed a resolution demanding that Saddam get
rid of an WMDs or nuclear weapons, and agreed to meet again in the follow-
ing year if he did not comply. For his part, Saddam continued to deny he had
any such weapons. Many influential politicians and experts at home were
warning against a war against Iraq at this time too, including several military
officers and even Brent Scowcroft, who had been the National Security
Advisor during the Gulf War and was the best friend of Bush’s father, the
president in 1991. Bush Jr. nonetheless continued to press for war, and in
February 2003, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, made a presentation at
the U.N. where he stated the “facts” of the Iraqi WMD program. Skeptical
observers joked that Powell would know—he still had the receipts from the
American shipments of weapons to Saddam in the 1990s. Still, the U.N.
would not consent to an invasion, so on March 19th, Bush went on national
television to announce that the U.S. by itself was invading Iraq to overthrow
the Saddam Hussein regime.
As in 1991, the initial phase of the war was easy, as American air power
rained down on Iraq. This time the land invasion was successful too, and