Does war in Iraq benefit our domestic economy?

Introduction

President Bush recently announced a strategic global doctrine that justifies a "preemptive US strike" against any regime that is thought to possess weapons of mass destruction, but the CIA released a report that provided clear evidence that Iraq possesses less of a threat to the world now than at any other time in the past decade.

Discussion and Analysis

The report concludes that Iraq's chemical weapons "capability was reduced during the UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] inspection and is probably more limited now than it was at the time of the Gulf War". (Rubin 2009)

The creation of the chemical and biological weapons that existed before the UNSCOM inspection happened to be greatly facilitated by U.S. Company's sale of hardware to Iraq - sales that were approved during the 1980s, when the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both sided with Iraq in its war with Iran. The report also notes that all cases that Iraq used chemical weapons occurred on or before March 1998, primarily against Iranian troops in a war secretly supported by the United States, and that neither chemical nor biological weapons were used against the United States during or after the Gulf War.

The report also states that the CIA has no evidence that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons. Bush retorted to that finding by saying, "Although Saddam probably does not yet have weapons or sufficient material to make any; he remains intent on acquiring them. So if Bush's emphasis is on intent, not capability, there are dozens nations that the statement could be applied to, many of them run by dictators as malicious as Hussein, but they are not targets of Bush's wrath. (Fadel 2010)

Also, if Iraq were not to allow additional inspections, the CIA report makes clear that air strikes targeting specific suspected weapon facilities would make far more sense than a costly, risky, full-fledged invasion, which the Israelis' proved to be a successful tactic two decades ago when they demolished Iraq's French-built nuclear reactor. So basically, the United States' top intelligence agency is endorsing the past success of a peaceful, enforceable disbarment technique that America's allies and the United Nations support, while the President and his Cabinet repeatedly belittle it as a sham. The CIA report makes it obvious that there is no plausible national security reason for pursuing a war with Iraq at this time, other than the unpardonable imperial goal of controlling the world's oil supply, which is probably the reason why the President's speech to the nation was reduced to scaring Americans with dramatic tales of Hussein the Monster. (Shadid 2010)

President Bush also cited the link of al-Qaida with Iraq as a reason for war. Bush stated, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror". So this means that Bush cannot differentiate between a group of ultra-radical Islamic fundamentalists that carried out the attacks of September 11th, and an evil nationalist who, despite feverish efforts of the Bush Administration, ...