In 2003, President George W. Bush launched a preemptive invasion of Iraq based on faulty and manipulated intelligence. The administration claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and was connected to al-Qaeda. Neither assertion turned out to be true. Yet, under the banner of national security, Operation Iraqi Freedom was unleashed, marking one of the most disastrous foreign policy decisions in modern U.S. history.

Despite warnings from international allies and former weapons inspectors, the Bush administration insisted on going to war. What followed was a prolonged, bloody occupation that destabilized the region, led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, cost the U.S. trillions of dollars, and directly contributed to the rise of ISIS.

No WMDs were ever found.

Bush’s defenders argued the removal of Saddam was a good thing. But the method—unilateral aggression based on false pretenses—destroyed America’s credibility abroad. It soured relations with long-standing allies and fostered deep mistrust at home. Domestically, it turned into an expensive quagmire that further polarized the American public and militarized U.S. foreign policy for decades.

The fallout from Iraq haunts us still.

Editor’s Note:

It is hard to overstate how grotesquely irresponsible this war was. The decision to go to Iraq is a modern example of what we saw in Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin—a disturbing pattern of deceit and overreach by those in power. George W. Bush’s legacy will forever be stained by this war.

It is especially bitter knowing this: the government knew better. Intelligence was cherry-picked, doubts were ignored, and a country was plunged into chaos to fulfill ideological fantasies. Iraq had no link to 9/11. But we went anyway.

And now, the architects of that war write books, appear on cable news, and act as if they did the world a favor.

Sidebar: Echoes of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964 served as the pretext for escalating the Vietnam War—another conflict built on manipulated intelligence. In that case, the Johnson administration used a murky naval engagement to convince Congress to authorize sweeping military powers. Like Iraq, the full truth emerged only after irreversible damage was done.

The parallels between the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the Iraq War Authorization are chilling: questionable threats, manipulated intelligence, and eager leaders ready to launch a war. These are not just historical coincidences; they are cautionary tales.

APA Citation

Paterson, P. (2008). The truth about Tonkin. Naval History, 22(1). Retrieved from https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2008/february/truth-about-tonkin