Why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003? It's incredible — in the literal sense of the term — but 20 years later we don't really know. All that news coverge, all the books, and still the reasons are opaque.

Times journalist Max Fisher suggests an answer. Many, many people in the Bush orbit wanted a war against Saddam, but for different reasons. So they settled on WMDs as a kind of common coin. From there momentum grew and grew.

#uspol

https://nytimes.com/2023/03/18/world/middleeast/iraq-war-reason.html?unlocked_article_code=tkxXCWJR70TFX2o4I-z_37n47GMhfNdi4A76CcxabrG8t6mk_3bnY3GVKTCNYYsOW_Il-oxxrdpuErQGJTD58oxwhw3UeWf-_lxPeoz0BZcSfYlVPFswvVG4-jgmLRGZnZ9j3h9SLHfQ4KjowLS2C71GQHo_35KX_CnsGORoL37CCuN_ThtVy_kpECVI2YUeTrttX72QEx-88i_5__SV900y941OsBoKpAMF_ksnYWmCPQPIQ1THXIGTExJqZdbPBYzXF98h13kIYrNjm0AoFZ1Hz9sUWAaj85BFVIuLGYnrfC7KfF7BbJhCpuU5nSzkJlqryHtqA41sFiOLr9GuMzrL&smid=url-share

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20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?

Two decades after the Bush administration said it wanted to disarm weapons of mass destruction and free Iraqis, the debates rage on about who knew what when, and which motive mattered most.

The New York Times

@jayrosen_nyu

#warInc

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

and oil.

and rebuilding.

and puppet government.