1114 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
opposition to specific American policies— toward Israel, the Palestinians, and
the region’s corrupt and undemocratic regimes.
Charges quickly arose that the United States was bent on establishing itself
as a new global empire. Indeed, September 11 and its aftermath highlighted
not only the vulnerability of the United States but also its overwhelming
strength. In every index of power— military, economic, cultural— the United
States far outpaced the rest of the world. Its defense budget exceeded that of
the next twenty powers combined. The United States was the only country
that maintained military bases throughout the world and deployed its navy on
every ocean. It was not surprising that in such circumstances many American
policymakers felt that the country had a responsibility to impose order in a
dangerous world, even if this meant establishing its own rules of international
conduct.
Confronting Iraq
These tensions became starkly evident in the Bush administration’s next ini-
tiative. The Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein had survived its defeat in
the Gulf War of 1991. Hussein’s opponents charged that he had flouted United
Nations resolutions barring the regime from developing new weapons.
From the outset of the Bush administration, a group of conservative policy-
makers including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz were determined to
oust Hussein from power. They insisted that the oppressed Iraqi people would
welcome an American army as liberators and quickly establish a democratic
government, allowing for the early departure of American soldiers. This group
seized on the opportunity presented by the attacks of September 11 to press
their case, and President Bush adopted their outlook. Secretary of State Colin
Powell, who believed the conquest and stabilization of Iraq would require
hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and should not be undertaken
without the support of America’s allies, found himself marginalized in the
administration.
Even though Hussein was not an Islamic fundamentalist, and no known
evidence linked him to the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Bush admin-
istration in 2002 announced a goal of “regime change” in Iraq. Hussein,
administration spokesmen insisted, must be ousted from power because he had
developed an arsenal of chemical and bacterial “weapons of mass destruction”
and was seeking to acquire nuclear arms. American newspaper and television
journalists repeated these claims with almost no independent investigation.
Early in 2003, despite his original misgivings, Secretary of State Powell deliv-
ered a speech before the UN outlining the administration’s case. He claimed