Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction example essay topic

The responsibilities of a presidential administration to the United States should be easily defined, but in many instances have come to be uncertain. There are two wars over the last century that have compromised the American reputation, as well as the integrity of our people. On these two occasions the intentions of our president have been something different than publicized to the country. The United States as a whole was deceived by two particular leaders and their administration. Through propaganda, selective speech, and exaggerated evidence, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush manipulated the support of the nation for their bold military actions and personal agendas. In August of 1964 there was an alleged attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats against the United States navy while they were stationed in the Tonkin Gulf reporting intelligence information to South Vietnam.

This attack was said to have occurred with no provocation from the United States. President Lyndon Johnson and his advisers decided upon immediate retaliation with air attacks. Johnson went further in asking Congress to pass a resolution that would authorize further military action. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed by Congress on August seventh. This has been described by historians as a "blank check" for the Johnson and Nixon administrations (Nelson, 452). It gave the president great authority over decisions made about the war in Vietnam.

Both Johnson and Nixon cited the Tonkin Gulf Resolution many times during their terms to justify further military action in Southeast Asia. In 1968, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee performed investigations that revealed that Johnson had been deceptive in gaining the support of Congress. Records and testimonies showed that the U.S. ship attacked that August day in 1964 was actually in North Vietnamese territory gathering sensitive information. It was also revealed that the administration was aware that an attack was possible while in these waters (Nelson, 452).

There were also further revelations of the deception of President Johnson. In 1995, Vo Nguyen Giap, a retired Vietnamese general met with former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. In this meeting, Giap repeatedly denied that the Tonkin Gulf attack had ever happened. Also, in 2001, a taped conversation between Lyndon Johnson and McNamara exposed Johnson's own doubts that the attack had ever occurred weeks after he had convinced congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (Nelson).

The purpose of the Vietnam War was to stop communist expansion and to protect South Vietnam from attacks by North Vietnam and rebels within South Vietnam who hoped to unite the two countries under communism (Nelson, 488). This war was one of the most excruciating experiences in American history. It left us wounded and deflated as a superpower. Americans' view of their country after a loss and embarrassment like this one was now ruined. No one president is entirely responsible for the development of this war, but Johnson was the first to send combat troops to Vietnam.

Years later, after learning the deception of the Johnson administration, blame may be placed more upon Johnson and his manipulation of Congress and the public by publicizing a threat to our security that never existed. The administration took advantage of Congress and exaggerated or simply created an attack on the U.S. as an excuse to use military action on North Vietnam. Daniel Ellsburg, a government insider and a State Department civilian during the Vietnam War, stole, copied and published the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were a top secret study of the U.S. decision making in Vietnam. Ellsburg worked closely with the presidential administration during the war and was sent to Vietnam for two years to observe the war and evaluate the "pacification" of the countryside (Ellsburg, V ). Immediately after returning from Vietnam he began to do everything in his power to free the United States from this war and educate Americans on what was really happening overseas.

In photocopying the Pentagon Papers, he gave up his career, knowing that there would be federal punishment. These papers were a study that revealed a considerable degree of miscalculation, bureaucratic arrogance, and deception on the part of policymakers. In particular, it found that the U.S. government had persistently resisted full disclosure of increasing military involvement in Southeast Asia, including air strikes over Laos, raids along the coast of North Vietnam, and offensive actions by U.S. marines had taken place long before the American public was informed. After the publication of these papers it was apparent that the presidential administrations during the Vietnam War were incredibly deceptive and manipulative. Secret intentions and ambitions were sought after without the knowledge of Americans.

In more current events, President George W. Bush led us into war with Iraq in March 2003. Most Americans would agree with the Bush administration that the Iraqi regime is "evil". In regards to a war with Iraq, Americans tended to be uncertain. The Bush administration needed to sell the cause of the war and show that it was pertinent to our safety and future to go into Iraq. The presidential administration made it clear that Iraq posed a serious threat to not only the United States, but the world, because they were in possession of and developing more weapons of mass destruction.

His administration also spoke of a contract between Iraq and al Qaeda. This contract could be used to send weapons to Osama bin Laden and his followers to use against the United States. The accusations against Iraq and their threat to the United States were very strong and boldly stated. The administration claimed to have hard evidence that they had such weapons and that is was our duty to find them. In 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney simply said, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction". The day before the war against Iraq officially began, President George W. Bush stated, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised".

(Counter Punch) It was never presented as suspect, but as fact. These weapons were in fact present in the Iraqi regime, according to these statements and many more made before, and during the war. Over the course of the war, the search for these weapons of mass destruction grew very bleak. Americans grew suspicious of our government's real motives in sending our troops to the Middle East.

If there had been such clear cut evidence that the weapons existed, where were they? In 2003, Secretary of State, Colin Powell stated, 'Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. ' (AlterNet) Weapons of such a large capacity should not have been hard to find, considering the administration had so much evidence that they existed.

As the war progressed there were countless news reports in the media announcing discoveries of "suspected Iraqi chemical and biological weapons". None of these claims could be confirmed. It was later revealed that the military troops did not have the proper technology to even distinguish nerve gases from pesticides (World Socialist). Not one biological or chemical weapon has been found while in Iraq, despite the incessant claims of the Bush administration before the war that such weapons existed. It seems that the claims made against Iraq were a fraud in order to hide its real intentions of entering the country. President Bush and his advisers stated publicly that the war was in retaliation for terrorism against the United States occurring on September 11, 2001.

A document called Rebuilding America's Defenses: strategies, forces, and resources for a new century was written in September of 2002. This document, written a year before September 11th, outlines the ambitions of the Bush administration. It states the U.S. wanted global supremacy and to play a more permanent role in Gulf security. The oil reserves in Iraq proved to be a worthy cause for occupation of the country by U.S. troops. If the United States could control Iraq's oil reserves, it could also control the industrial development of China, Japan, Australia, and Europe (The Age). This kind of power could prove vital to the U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney began the case for the invasion of Iraq as early as 1997, four years before the attack on the World Trade Center.

Ian Lustick, a professor at University of Pennsylvania and Middle East expert said, "What happened was 9/11, which had nothing to do with Iraq but produced an enormous amount of political capital which allowed the government to do anything it wanted as long as they could relate it to national security and the Middle East". (Philly Daily News) According to Lustick, September 11th not only was unrelated to Iraq, but also our "retaliation" had been planned long before the planes were hijacked on that horrific morning. Recently President George W. Bush and his top advisers have announced that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. After all of the "facts" they publicized to Americans, they admitted that they had been wrong.

Before we entered Iraq there was little evidence that such weapons existed and they still made these claims. Now that no weapons have been found, the administration's top advisors deny that any such claims were made. In an appearance on Face the Nation on CBS, Donald Rumsfeld was caught in a lie. After no weapons of mass destruction were found, he claims that the administration never stated that there was an immediate threat on the United States. His interviewer begins to argue with him and Rumsfeld says, "If you have any citations, I'd like to see them". Immediately, quotes directly from Rumsfeld's mouth months before are recited back to him stating, "No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq".

When the evidence is shown to Rumsfeld that he did once say this, among other statements, he is left speechless and unable to refute it. There is much evidence to the deception of the Bush administration during the war with Iraq. The example set by other presidents, such as Lyndon Johnson, may have inspired the Bush administration to further mislead the people of the United States so as to achieve means unknown to the country. Both administrations may have felt it was in the country's best interest to deceive us for the time being to accomplish ends that would benefit our country. No matter their possible "good" intentions, the leader of the nation betrayed the people who rely on him most.

Lyndon Johnson's deceptions did not end in good fortune much like the intentions of Bush may be leading us into unwanted territory. When the administrations hide things from the country, Americans do not know what is being done in their name. They cannot support or protest the actions made by the military or government, because they do not possess all of the facts. To con in such a way is horribly wrong and misguiding. Americans, as well as the members of other nations, have the right to be aware of actions taken in their name.

The actions of both the Johnson and Bush administration mirror each other in the way that the country was lied to and it caused a long and hard period in history. On both occasions our names have been smeared and our reputations ruined. They both represent the reason why many countries have begun to resent and lose respect for the United States. These actions have caused us to look like power hungry, arrogant intruders around the world. The deception of the government needs to be terminated.

The foreign policy and actions of the United States needs to be made public. Citizens need to be made aware of the government's intentions, so as to create a wider support group or to give us the right to protest and stop actions they do not agree with. Work Cited Bunch, William. "Invading Iraq not a new idea for Bush clique". Philly Daily News.

27 January 2003. Davidson, Kenneth. "The Real Reasons America is Invading Iraq". The Age. 20 March 2003. Ellsburg, Daniel.

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. Martin, Patrick. "What happened to Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction'?" International Committee of the Fourth International. 22 April 2003. Nelson, Michael.

The Presidency A to Z. Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1998. Scheer, Christopher. "Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq". Alternet. 27 June 2003. ".

Weapons of Mass Destruction: Who Said What When". Counter Punch. 29 May 2003.