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Ernesto Perez

Dr. Briones

English 1301-160

9 October 2022

Public Perception and the Iraq War

Since its beginning in 2003, the Iraq War has been one of the most controversial wars with

people all over the world having differing opinions on the conflict. The justification of the war

tends to be the most debated topic with many thinking that the war should have never happened

at all. While the war was initially immensely popular with many Americans feeling like the war

was justified retribution for the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The US initially justified the war by stating

that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a supporter of Al-Qaeda and that it was developing

weapons of mass destruction. After the fall of the Saddam regime, these justifications were found

to be false with there being no connection to the Saddam regime and Al-Qaeda nor were any

weapons of mass destruction found. Furthermore, while Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled

in 2003 and Saddam himself being executed in 2006, the war dragged on. It was not until 2011

that US troops withdrew from the nation. With the Saddam regime gone, the war shifted to

instead being an insurgency. As the occupation continued, American casualties only continued to

rise. Following the growing number of casualties, people began to question the morality of the

war and whether it was truly justified.

The initial support of the war came primarily with the 9/11 attacks, many Americans felt

a sense of anger towards the Arab world, and it was Iraq that took the brunt of this anger. Many

of those who supported the war sought to avenge the 9/11 attacks and much of this anger was

directed to Iraq and its identity as an Arab Muslim nation.

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Another viewpoint of the supporters of the Iraq war came from those who believed that the

United States had a moral obligation to change the Iraqi government into a more democratic one.

This was a view held primarily by neo-conservatives who viewed the United States as the sole

remaining superpower whose duty it was to protect universal American values. The toppling of

the Saddam regime was seen as morally just, as the spread of democracy was necessary. Those

who shared this view often sought to maintain the United States as the global hegemon that it

was and still is. Iraq was seen as a potential threat due to its large military and its large oil

reserves. These factors were seen as something that could potentially obstruct American interests

in the Middle East. The growing perceived threat of the Saddam regime along with its hostility to

the United States made many who had this view believe that a change of regime was necessary

in Iraq.

Those who support the war with much purer intentions would state that it was necessary for the

United States to topple Saddam’s regime for the people of Iraq to truly be free. There is no

debate that Saddam Hussein committed various atrocities to the people of Iraq. Many cheered the

fall of his regime as it paved way for a more democratic government to take over in Iraq. Those

who support the war in Iraq often point to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a positive

outcome of the war. Those who shared this view believed that the invasion of Iraq was necessary

to liberate the people of Iraq who had been oppressed by their authoritarian government.

While the Iraq war had its supporters, it most certainly had many people who opposed it.

Primarily people who opposed the war, did not see the war as justified. Many believed that the

war was primarily done so for imperialistic purposes and that the United States was invading a

sovereign nation that it had no reason to attack. These sentiments grew as the war dragged on

with many viewing it as a wasted effort. This was due to the rising casualties that the war had
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brought in which many in the public no longer saw the war as being worth it. This combined

with the growing cost of maintaining the war made it very unpopular in its later stages.

Furthermore, the initial justifications that the US government had provided of “weapons of mass

destruction” and the Saddam regime's connections to Al Qaeda were later found to be false. This

only led to further discontent in the public's perception of the war.

While many view the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime as a positive thing. There are those

who question whether the United States was truly justified in toppling his regime. While it is true

that he was a brutal dictator, this does not mean that it is morally justified for the United States to

overthrow his government and install a democracy in its place. Iraq was a sovereign nation, and

some argue that the United States had no right to invade a sovereign nation and to depose its

leadership regardless of how brutal that leadership may be. Furthermore, some would argue that

while toppling Saddam’s regime to punish his various human rights violations may be a morally

good thing, this was certainly not the reason for the invasion in Iraq. Prior to the Iraq war, the

United States was supportive of the Saddam regime even while being aware of the multiple

massacres happening at the time.

Lastly, when discussing the moral justification of the war, the ideas of the “just war” are often

discussed in context to the Iraq war. Just war theory states that while it is wrong to wage war, a

government has a duty to defend its people from imminent threats. When applying this to the

Iraq war, many find believe that the United States was not justified in its invasion of Iraq.

Initially, this imminent threat to the United States was found in the WMD that Saddam’s regime

had been developing. When no WMD were found however, this hurt the justification of

imminent threat that the United States had developed in its reasoning. Following this logic, many
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find that it was instead Saddam who was justified in defending Iraq from a foreign invader as a

sovereign state.

While the Iraq war was primarily seen as a conflict between the United States and Iraq,

the coalition was made up of various nations including The United Kingdom, Australia, and New

Zealand. Naturally, the people in these nations had their own opinions on the war with many

people supporting the war. Following the 9/11 attacks, there was a growing public fear of

terrorism in many nations. This growing fear was what encouraged many in other nations to

support the war in Iraq as it was seen as part of the war on terrorism.

Of course, not all nations were as supportive of the invasion of Iraq with even some

traditional American allies such as France opposing the war in Iraq. France is a notable nation

that opposed the war as it viewed the US justifications for the war as wrong.

In conclusion, despite US troops pulling out in 2011, the Iraq war continues to be one of the most

controversial wars in our nation's history. There are those who support it and those who oppose

it. The moral justifications of the war are hotly debated to this day and will continue to be

debated for years to come.

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Annotated Bibliography

Antic, Miljenko. “Iraq War (2003-): Was It Morally Justified?” Politička misao 46.1 (2009): 88–

113. Print.

Becker, Per. “Vulnerability and Nationalism: The Support for the War Against Iraq in Five

Established States.” Nations and nationalism 15.2 (2009): 340–360. Web.

The article provides different viewpoints from five different nations on the support for

the Iraq war. The article focuses primarily on the US, Great Britain, Australia, France, and Spain

and how aggressive ideas are able to develop in these nations. It uses the Iraq war for its research

and the public support that it had early on. These nations were chosen as the article chooses to

focus on western developed nations that had some differing opinions of the war. The article takes

note of the support that the public had in these nations along with the roles that the governments

took in the war. The article also provides very good background information for the situations

that these five nations found themselves in at the time. The article was written by Per Becker,

who is a professor at the University of Lund, giving the article its credibility.

Bieler, Andreas, and Adam David Morton. “Axis of Evil or Access to Diesel?: Spaces of New

Imperialism and the Iraq War.” Historical materialism: research in critical Marxist theory

23.2 (2015): 94–. Web.

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The article attempts to explain the reason for the Iraq war as something that came from

capitalism and imperialism. The author seems very opinionated and has a communist bias, but it

serves as another viewpoint that can be utilized. The author connects the claim by analyzing

information and connecting it to various theories. The authors of the article are Andreas Bieler

and Adam David Morton, both are professors at the University of Nottingham and seem to be

knowledgeable in this area, making the source reliable. The source is useful as it provides

another viewpoint that differs from the previous sources.

Gelpi, Christopher, et al. “Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq.”

International Security, vol. 30, no. 3, 2005, pp. 7–46. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4137486. Accessed 6 Oct. 2022.

This article provides some detailed research into how the American public was able to

support the war despite the number of casualties. More importantly the author manages to

measure and attribute the factors that affect how many casualties the public is willing to tolerate

for there to be support of the war. The article supports itself by finding a correlation between the

number of casualties in the war and the support that the public had for the war. The article’s data

is useful as it provides another view that people may have on the Iraq war, as casualties are

something that will usually lower the public support of a war.The author of the article is

Christopher Gelpi who is a well-known figure in political science and is a political science
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professor at Ohio State University. This lends a good amount of credibility to the research from

the article.

Klarevas, Louis J, Christopher Gelpi, and Jason Reifler. “Casualties, Polls, and the Iraq War.”

International security 31.2 (2006): 186–198. Web.

The article serves as a response to one of the other articles that I have used here, and it

offers more insight into the correlation between public support and the number of casualties from

the Iraq War. The author uses data from surveys to view the opinions of the public and this data

is connected to the hypothesis of the article. The author of the article is Louis J. Klarevas, who,

as the article states, is a clinical assistant professor at the University of New York. Along with

this, the author of the previous article, political scientist Christopher Gelpi is also credited in the

article, lending it even more credence.

Kull, Steven, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis. “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War.”

Political science quarterly 118.4 (2003): 569–598. Web.

The article provides a lot of information as to how the American public were able to

accept the Iraq war, despite much of the public having showed many reservations about the

invasion. The article uses a variety of polls to analyze the sudden shift in opinion that the public

had. The article provides a good amount of data, and it shows what exactly people who
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supported the war thought about it. The study was conducted by various officials from PIPA,

(Program of International Policy Attitudes), and this lends much credibility to the article and its

research.

Liberman, Peter, and Linda Skitka. “Vicarious Retribution in US Public Support for War Against

Iraq.” Security studies 28.2 (2019): 189–215. Web.

The main point of the author of this article is that many of the people who were in favor

of the Iraq war, viewed the nation in a belligerent manner as Iraq was associated with the Arab

Muslim world that many Americans viewed with hostility after the 9/11 attacks. The author uses

a variety of past research to make connections to the point throughout the article. The source

provides a good amount of insight into how Americans who supported the war felt about it,

despite there being no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. The article is written by

various Peter Lieberman, a political science professor for Queens College and the Graduate

Center of the City University of New York and is a very well-known researcher. This lends a

great amount of credibility to the article.

Masters, Daniel, and Robert M. Alexander. “Prospecting for War: 9/11 and Selling the Iraq

War.” Contemporary security policy 29.3 (2008): 434–452. Web.

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The article focuses primarily on foreign policy and uses the public support that people

had for the Iraq War to reach its point. The article connects the public’s response to the Iraq war

by using Prospect theory on foreign policy. The article makes the point that the people were far

more receptive to the war when there was the inflation of threat. In short, the article believes that

connecting the Saddam regime to terrorism and by increasing the public’s fear of terrorism, there

would be much more support for the war. The source is especially useful as it delves into the

psyche of what some supporters of the Iraq war may have thought when giving their support to

the war. The article is written by Daniel Masters and Robert M. Alexander and was published in

Contemporary Security Policy, giving the article some credibility.

Mral, Brigitte. “The Rhetorical State of Alert before the Iraq War 2003.” Nordicom review 27.1

(2006): 45–62. Web.

While the article may not give many accounts of public opinion, it certainly gives a great deal of

information about the tactics that the American government used to raise public support for the

Iraq war. Using this information is useful to understand more as to why some supported the Iraq

war. The article takes an analytical look at the rhetoric that was used by the American

government in order to justify the Iraq war to the American public. The author reaches her

conclusion by analyzing what the US government and media used to justify the war to the public.

The article was written by Brigitte Mral who is a professor of rhetoric at the University of

Göttingen in Germany. Her expertise in this subject gives a good amount of credibility to the

article.
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Porter, Elisabeth. “No Just War: Political Reflections on Australian Churches’ Condemnation of

the Iraq War.” The Australian journal of politics and history 52.3 (2006): 471–488. Web.

The article provides an analysis of three different reasonings that three different religious

leaders had for their opposition to the Iraq War. While the opinions in the article are not that of

Americans, they are still nonetheless good viewpoints, and the article provides a good analysis of

these viewpoints through the “just war” theory. The article is written by Elisabeth Porter who is a

professor at the University of South Australia. This gives the article and it’s research a good

amount of credibility in the subject.

Voeten, Erik, and Paul R. Brewer. “Public Opinion, the War in Iraq, and Presidential

Accountability.” The Journal of conflict resolution 50.6 (2006): 809–830. Web.

This article gives insight into how people hold leaders accountable for their decisions.

The author uses various surveys to take people’s opinions on the subject of the Iraq war. The

research in this article provides some good data on public opinion of the war in Iraq. The author

of the article is Erik Voeten, a political scientist who conducts much research in this field. The

credentials of the author lend a good amount of credibility to the article.

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