Essay Sample: The United States Should Not Have Gone to War with Iraq

One of the most protracted armed conflicts to ever happen in the 21st century is the Iraq War. The invasion of Iraq by the United States in March 2003 would turn out to be one of the bloodiest and controversial wars ever fought in the history of man. This would be the war that would utilize highly advanced weaponry and technology than any other war had before. There were so many reasons given by the Congress that pushed the United States into fighting and toppling Saddam Hussein's government. However, looking back, there are more than enough convincing reasons to support the idea that New York should never have gone to war with Baghdad.

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The invasion was too costly for the United States. In fact, the US is still suffering from economic aftershocks of the Iraq War. The US invasion of Iraq is reported to have cost a whopping $1.06 trillion in direct costs and a further $7.9 trillion in debts. This is the costliest war ever fought during the 21st century. The resources used during the invasion of Iraq were too much and should have been used to improve the US economy. The country should now be flooded with institutions of learning and should be having a working affordable health care system had it not be for the invasion of Iraq. This unreasonably expensive war should never have been fought.

There was no justification for going to war with Iraq. The Congress cited the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centers as one of the main reasons for going to war with Iraq. Surprisingly, there was no link between the terrorist attack and Iraq. There was not even a hint of the Iraqi threat, and yet the Congress voted overwhelmingly in support of a foreign war. There were better options that should have been explored before anyone could think of attacking a sovereign state. In fact, the invasion of Iraq can better be termed as having been an act of aggression and not self-defense. War should always be the last recourse of self-defense.

Hundreds of thousands of people perished during the US-Iraq war. Conservative estimates point out that between 150,000 and 450000 people lost their lives in the course of the war. This was one of the bloodiest conflicts as far, and credible estimates put the number of US citizens who died during the war to be more than 20,000 people. This is very sad as many families of US servicemen are still in grieve over their loved ones up to date. Thousands were also maimed. The massive loss of lives experienced during this bloody conflict is lamentable and should never have happened.

Iraq did not pose a clear and imminent danger to any concerned party- not to its citizens or any other country. The White House stated that one of its intentions of attacking Iraq would be to eliminate any of Saddam Hussein's intentions to use weapons of mass destruction. This was a white lie fed to the public by the top brass in the Bush administration. Everybody knew the fact that Saddam did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. During the 1990's, Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program had been dismantled and its long-range missile destroyed in UN inspection. In fact, Iran did not present any threat to warrant a military invasion. The war with Iraq was as a result of one of the gravest mistakes ever made in US history and should never have happened at all. It cost the United States and the world too much grieve that should have been avoided.