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• U.S. Department of State

Summary

In his January 29, 2002 State of the Union message, President Bush characterized Iraq as part of an "axis of evil," along with Iran and North Korea. The President identified the key threat from Iraq as its development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and the potential for Iraq to transfer WMD to the terrorist groups it sponsors. In recent statements, the President and other senior officials have said the United States will ensure that Saddam Hussein is not positioned to pose a major and imminent threat to U.S. national security. The President's subsequent statements have left observers with the clear implication that, unless Iraq allows full and unfettered access to all sites by U.N. weapons inspectors, the United States will take military action to achieve the ouster of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein and his Ba'th Party regime. Regime change has been official U.S. policy since October 1998. Even before that, U.S. efforts to oust Saddam have been pursued, with varying degrees of intensity, since the end of the Gulf war in 1991. These efforts primarily involved U.S. backing for opposition groups inside and outside Iraq, some of which are now receiving increased U.S. political and financial support. According to several experts, past efforts to change the regime floundered because of limited U.S. engagement, disorganization of the Iraqi opposition, and the efficiency and ruthlessness of Iraq's several overlapping intelligence and security forces. Previously, major U.S. military action to change the regime had been ruled out as too costly and risky and not necessarily justified by the level of Iraq's non-compliance. Most experts believe that, should the Bush Administration decide to take action to overthrow Iraq's regime, nothing short of the direct use of U.S. armed force would guarantee Saddam's downfall. Advocates of military action believe that U.S. action would lead to a regime that forswears WMD, respects the human rights and economic well-being of its people, and serves as a model for broader democratization in the Arab world. Others believe that the Iraqi military is seriously weakened after a decade of sanctions and would likely be quickly defeated or defect. Opponents of military action maintain that there is little international support for unilateral U.S. military action to change Iraq's regime, that doing so could destabilize the Middle East and hinder the broader war on terrorism, and that action could lead to numerous U.S. casualties and a long-term presence in Iraq. Others believe that the threat from Saddam's regime is manageable through means currently in place, such as containment, or through stepped-up covert action. Some believe the United States should focus its efforts, in concert with other members of the U.N. Security Council, to obtain Iraq's compliance with long-standing U.N. requirements, such as the mandate that Iraq fully cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.

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