This is an adaptation of a paper written by Matt Goolding in December 2022, submitted to the University of Groningen as part of the Studying International Politics as a Social Science course in the pre-master programme for MA International Relations.
Was the invasion of Iraq in 2003 presented by George. W. Bush as an act of limited war?
This article uses qualitative discourse analysis methods to investigate whether the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition was presented to the public as an act of limited war. Speeches and presidential letters by George. W. Bush in March 2003 are analysed for themes relating to the intended objectives, means, and scope of military action. The data is viewed through the lens of established scholarly definitions of limited war.
This research finds that despite common characterisations, the invasion of Iraq was not coherently presented as an act of limited war at the time.
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On 17 March 2003, George W. Bush addressed the public to warn of an unfolding crisis in Iraq: ‘Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed. The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security.’ (Bush, 2003).
The assault began 48 hours later.
Whether or not Bush truly believed that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the reason given by Bush and his administration for US military intervention in Iraq was outlined in crystal clear terms; Hussein’s regime threatened national and international security, and it needed to be overthrown.
These existential concerns had been presented to Congress the previous September alongside a request for broad executive authority (Purdum & Bumiller, 2002). This was rejected by Congress and replaced by permission reflecting the language of limitation: restraint, appropriateness, and self-defence—only authorising action against continued threats in the context of UNSC resolutions (148 Cong. Rec. H7189, 2002). Legally, it was supposed to be a limited war, waged with limited means, and in the pursuit of limited objectives.
Neither Bush nor his successor, Barack Obama, stayed within the confines of Congress’s provision. It goes without saying that the invasion of and occupation of Iraq was a grave error in every sense of the word—causing immense human suffering and further destabilising the region. While acknowledging this most serious factor, I should note in advance that this article isn’t written to judge the morality, legality, or execution of the war.
Instead, I aim to reveal the conflicting themes present in government discourse at the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. We’ll see that on the one hand, the invasion was presented as restrained and controlled. And on the other, ‘complete and final victory’ (Bush, 2003) over Saddam Hussein was portrayed as essential for US and international security. It was an described as an existential threat to eliminate by any means necessary. as the US President said on 17 March 2003, ‘We will do everything to defeat it.’ (Bush, 2003) No limits.
The Iraq War is often described as a limited war (Stoker, 2019), and while this paper does not test the validity of this description, it does examine whether the invasion was presented by Bush in the terms of limited war.
Definitions and background to the ‘limited war’ concept
It is important to clarify key definitions before answering this research question.
First, I tend to use the term ‘invasion of Iraq’ and not ‘the Iraq War’. Justifications for the coalition’s presence in Iraq evolved over time, especially after WMD weren’t found. I’m not attempting to track these changes here. Instead, I investigate how Bush presented the act of invading Iraq.
The differing interpretations of what characterises a limited—or unlimited—war are central here. Limited war is a contentious concept that has generated significant debate. These debates relate to if or how we can define limited war, whether or not limited war is truly possible (especially between nuclear-armed states), and whether or not a limited war is desirable on a normative or functional basis (Larsen & Kartchner, 2014).
Here I will focus on the definitive debate.
The recent work of Donald Stoker (2019) is both a gateway and a destination. Stoker systematically dissects the established scholarly definitions of limited war. He concludes that it is only the political objective that matters when we are subjecting a war to critical analysis, not the military means employed in the pursuit of that political objective. Here we should acknowledge Osgood’s seminal work, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (1957). He defines limited war as one ‘in which the belligerents restrict the purposes for which they fight to concrete, well-defined objectives that do not demand the utmost military effort of which the belligerents are capable and that can be accommodated in a negotiated settlement.’ (Osgood, 1957, p. 1-2). He suggests that geographical scope, selective targeting, and ‘fractional commitment of human and physical resources’ are all characteristics (Osgood, 1957, p. 2).
Bernard Brodie (1959) argues that due to the destructive power and prevalence of nuclear weapons, and the risk of annihilation, limited war is something ‘quite new’ (Brodie, 1959, p. 311). In Brodie’s view, limited war is primarily the domain of the great powers where the decision to engage in the alternative—i.e., total unrestricted warfare—is materially available (Stoker, 2019). He criticises the definition of limited war as one with limited objectives only, pointing to World War One as an example where the aims were limited but the belligerents did not practise restraint (Brodie, 1959, p. 313). While he agrees that we ‘cannot have limited war without settling for limited objectives’ (Brodie, 1959, p. 313), Brodie argues that ‘we shall have to work very hard to keep it limited’ and thus we must focus on the means of achieving objectives, e.g. ‘the avoidance of strategic bombing of the major enemy’ (Brodie, 1959, p. 314).
Lawrence Freedman (1994) argues that the criteria for identifying a limited war are threefold, i) geographical scope, ii) ends or objectives, and iii) means, i.e. the restrained use of military capabilities (Freedman, 1994, p. 201). As I’ll outline in more detail later, I see this definition as the most useful for the question in hand.
Thomas Schelling, a contemporary of Osgood and Brodie, emphasises the role of tacit bargaining in setting limits in warfare. For him, the binary use or non-use of certain weapons or tactics is crucial for limiting a war in the absence of any explicit negotiation between foes (Schelling, 1960).
Michael Cannon (1992) posits that a new vision of ‘restrained’ warfare emerged in the 1950s in the context of the threat of a ‘total’ nuclear conflict with the USSR. He evaluates perspectives on ‘the process of limiting wars and their effects’ (Cannon, 1992, p. 97), and echoes Brodie in arguing that one of the ‘major constraints necessary’ to keep a war limited is ‘a willingness to settle for goals representing a considerable degree of compromise with the enemy’ (Cannon 1992, p. 74, Brodie, 1959, p. 308). Henry Kissinger is mentioned in Cannon’s work, whose book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, established the concept of limited nuclear war—the idea that nuclear warfare escalation could be controlled and that nuclear weapons could be deployed tactically (Vardamis, 1978, p. 89).
Jeffrey Larsen and Kerry Kartchner suggest that a nuclear war may be considered limited in ‘one or more of multiple dimensions’ (Larsen & Kartchner, 2014, p. 5) including the numbers and types of nuclear weapons used, the scope and geographical area, the duration, the targets chosen, and the objectives—‘pursuing an outcome that is something less than the complete annihilation of the other side's armed forces or its government.’ (Larsen & Kartchner, 2014, p. 5). They summarise; ‘Limited nuclear war is a conflict in which nuclear weapons are used in small numbers and in a constrained manner in pursuit of limited objectives.’ (Larsen & Kartchner, 2014, p. 6). The question of whether a ‘limited nuclear war’ is possible is an alluring sidetrack, but not the focus of this paper. Suffice it to say that what connects all these accounts is that they accept the means used as limited war criteria. They value the conduct of war, for example ‘the levels of force and the types of forces employed’ (Cannon, 1992, p. 97), and see limited war as being in contrast to the alternative ‘total’, ‘general’, or ‘absolute’ war—a concept popularised by Clausewitz (Stoker, 2019).
In contrast, Stoker argues ‘wars cannot be defined by the means, because this is a nebulous, subjective factor and thus does not pass the test of building upon solid ground’ (Stoker, 2019, “Total War” and Other Terms That Mean Nothing section, para. 6). He argues, convincingly, that the political objectives sought provide solid ground from which we can assess a war. I am sympathetic to Stoker’s approach to measuring the limitedness of a war retrospectively, but in the act of justifying and presenting military action to a public, I argue political leaders do not stick to objectives. They communicate intentions for the means (e.g. troop volumes) and also outline scope in terms of geography, duration, and intended targets.
Therefore, I view Bush’s speeches primarily through the lens of Lawrence Freedman’s three criteria for identifying limited war: objectives, means, and scope—though I admit to deploying other reflections on each specific criterion alongside these.
What does the literature say?
The previous section of this paper reviews popular literature on the concept of limited war. However, it is also necessary to review literature discussing, (i) the presentation, or ‘framing’ of the invasion and/or the Iraq War, and (ii) limited war theory applied to, or in reference to, the Iraq War. On the topic of the framing of the conflict, there is no shortage of material examining how the Bush administration created the opportunity to intervene.
Paul Paolucci (2009), for example, exposes a conscious policy of information management, strategic ambiguity, omissions and misleading juxtapositions, false denials, intimidation of critics, and the hiding of true policy goals. He finds that ‘the media failed to stimulate debate and check government power, though there was no lack of available scandal to report.’ (Paolucci, 2009, p. 880).
Abid and Manan (2016) show how pre-war Iraq was ‘perceived as a hostile country with WMDs and ties to Al-Qaida’ in the context of Bush’s portrayal of ‘Us, liberators and salvagers, and Them, terrorists and dictators’—but after the invasion, Iraq was presented as ‘a democratic country and an example of successful democracy to all dictatorships in the region.’ (Abid & Manan, 2016, p. 723).
Chaim Kaufmann (2004) focuses on the Bush administration’s ‘threat inflation’ discourse in the buildup to war characterised by ‘1) claims that go beyond the range of ambiguity that disinterested experts would credit as plausible, (2) a consistent pattern of worst-case assertions over a range of factual issues that are logically unrelated or only weakly related-an unlikely output of disinterested analysis; (3) use of double standards in evaluating intelligence in way that favors worst-case threat assessments; or (4) claims based on circular logic.’ (Kaufmann, 2004, p. 8-9).
Richard. B. Miller (2008) categorises the Bush administration’s positioning of the need for war as ‘preemptive or preventive self-defense, law enforcement, and defense of human rights’ (Miller, 2008, p. 65). He finds that despite the rationale put forward by the Bush administration, the Iraq War lacked a just cause ‘for empirical and moral reasons’ (Miller, 2008, p. 65). Above all, what many scholars agree is that the invasion was consistently presented by the Bush administration as necessary, and the war as just (Fisher & Biggar, 2011).
This article will not revisit the justifications for the legitimacy of military action. That is a well-trodden road. Rather, as there has been comparatively little written about the stated objectives, means, and scope of the invasion, this is where my research focuses its attention.
It is sometimes claimed that the public was ‘sold a limited war’ (Higgins, 2019). This article contests that idea. Again, the question of whether the Iraq War was positioned as a limited war has not been categorically answered—and indeed, the idea that it was a limited war is pervasive—yet rarely substantiated.
One attempt is made by Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway (2011). They call the US’s 1798 ‘Quasi War’ against France as ‘the first limited war’ and cite contemporary judicial statements characterising it as a ‘partial war’ which is ‘limited in place, in objects, and in time’ (Ackerman & Hathaway, 2011, p. 453-454). This establishes their foundation for examining the Iraq War, where Bush ‘transformed a well-defined and limited war into an open-ended conflict operating beyond constitutional boundaries.’ (Ackerman & Hathaway, 2011, p. 447).
Sam Lebovic (2015) takes a leap in his account of limited war in the age of ‘total media’ in that the idea of the Iraq War as a limited war is assumed, or at least left unsubstantiated. Spencer D. Bakich offers us just one paragraph in Success and Failure in Limited War (2014) to define a limited war; ‘Despite the label, limited wars are big events. These wars, fought with restraint but at a high level of intensity, are a prominent feature of international political life.’ (Bakich, 2014, p. 1).
To some extent, all these accounts take the ‘limitedness’ of the Iraq War as a given.
Outlining my research design and methods
This is an interpretative, qualitative discourse analysis of 18 speeches delivered by George. W. Bush in March 2003. Sources were downloaded from The White House archive and uploaded into qualitative analysis software, Delve. I operationalised Freedman’s three criteria of limited war when structuring my category codes; objectives, means employed, and scope.
The material was meticulously analysed to identify and code statements relating to each category, which were then reassessed to identify specific subcategories.
A two-tier view of objectives emerged from this analysis:
Practical (military-political) objectives, pertaining to ‘what needs to be done’—e.g. disarmament, and;
Ideological objectives, pertaining to broader goals—e.g. ensuring freedom and security.
In coding the means employed I recorded statements about troop volumes, weapons, or tactics; intensity, restraint, and/or levels of force (to be) used. I sought portrayals of how the military action is (to be) conducted.
Finally, in coding the (intended) scope of military action, I identify four categories:
Geographical
Duration
Selective targeting (Osgood, 1957), and;
Levels of sacrifice, which I suggest is a vital expectation for any leader to set when committing a state’s military to war.
Here it must be acknowledged that using Freedman’s three criteria as ‘a lens’ risks omitting statements that do not fit the mould, and/or the shoehorning of certain statements into certain categories.
In this sense, it could be argued that my research is not wholly ‘grounded’ because it puts a set of definitions about limited war to operational use.
However, it is important to note two things:
This is primarily a descriptive account; it does not seek to generalise or build broader theory, and;
The central research question emerged from a grounded curiosity about how the Iraq invasion was presented at the time. The lack of coherence in this message subsequently emerged as a theme once initial research had begun.
Furthermore, the primary goal of this research is not to vindicate any particular definition of limited war. I am ambivalent to this. Instead, I aim to describe how the Iraq invasion was presented.
Indeed, if we were to accept Stoker’s alternative definition (political objectives alone describe whether a war is limited) the same conclusive arguments remain.
Quantitative methods were also used to support my qualitative data-gathering, and this is reflected in my discussion in the form of word frequency metrics. Of course, word frequency has little meaning without understanding the social context of those words, and therefore each numerical value featured here has been verified as relevant to this account through manual qualitative investigation.
In terms of data collection, I have limited my sources to Bush’s speeches and presidential letters during March 2003 that are recorded in The White House archive.
This is a snapshot in time but I argue that it is a crucial period for two key reasons:
Before the UN weapons inspectors’ 7 March report, the stated goal was peaceful disarmament. Military action was presented as a ‘last resort’ (Bush, 2003). Here we see military action escalating from possible, to inevitable, to ongoing. Bush is urgently tasked with justifying and contextualising it in the moment.
March 2003 is a time of uncertain outcomes. Thus, we are party to Bush’s presentation of the ‘ideal’ objectives, means, and scope.
For reasons of brevity, I omit statements made by other leading figures such as Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. These would undoubtedly make for interesting reading, as would the comparison of prominent discourses in each of the coalition nations. But for now, I’ll only be focusing on the words of the US President within a tight timeframe.
Analysis and discussion: was the invasion of Iraq presented by George. W. Bush as an act of limited warfare?
1. Objectives
Let’s first look at stated objectives as they emerged from the material, in two tiers:
Ideological objectives and;
Practical objectives
When it comes to ideological objectives, Bush’s speeches during March 2003 contain themes of ‘liberation’ (liberty, liberation) which features 36 times in 18 speeches, ‘peace’ (peace, peaceful) which features 76 times, freedom (freedom, free) which features 71 times, and ‘security’ (security, secure) which features 47 times. Curiously, the theme of ‘democracy’ is not central to Bush’s discourse in March 2003. Variations on this theme (democracy, democratic) only appear 6 times, although Bush makes regular pejorative reference to Hussein as a dictator—the theme (dictator, dictatorship, tyrant, tyranny) appearing 40 times.
Bush does make explicit the objective to ‘support a transition to democracy in Iraq’ (Bush, 2003) and for ‘development of a free-market democracy in Iraq’ (Bush, 2003). However, he advocates for a level of restraint, saying the US ‘has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq's new government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people. Yet we will ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another.’ (Bush, 2003).
When we look at the stated practical objectives, the central theme is ‘disarmament’. We see variations on ‘disarm’ (disarm, disarming, disarmament, disarmed) feature 95 times during March 2003. This is the most recurring theme present, featuring in every speech used in this dataset, echoing language used in the UN Security Council Resolution 1441—the oft-cited ‘final opportunity’ offered to Iraq to comply with (UNSC, 2002).
Another central theme in Bush’s practical objectives is ‘regime change’—the removal of Hussein from power. This theme also emerges in every transcript. For example, leaving no ambiguity, Bush says: ‘We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people.’ (Bush, 2003) and ‘Saddam Hussein will be removed, no matter how long it takes.’ (Bush, 2003). In total, ‘regime change’ as a practical objective theme appears 53 times across 18 speeches in various forms: for example, removing Saddam from power, freeing/liberating the people of Iraq, and ending dictatorship.
Are these limited objectives?
By itself, ‘disarmament’ could be considered a limited objective by all definitions. However, in Bush’s own words, disarmament could not occur without regime change: ‘If we go to war, we will disarm Iraq. And if we go to war, there will be a regime change’ (Bush, 2003) and ‘no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power.’ (Bush, 2003).
The stated objective here is to depose the Iraqi regime by force, with disarmament as the outcome.
This, according to Stoker’s definition (echoing Clausewitz’s view that wars are either to overthrow the enemy or to attain bargain positions for negotiations) (Bellinger, 2020), cannot be considered a limited objective because ‘wars are fought for regime change or something less than this’ (Stoker, 2019, Are We At War? section, para. 10). Furthermore, in light of Hussein’s ‘12 years of denial and defiance’ (Bush 2003), Bush is uncompromising: ‘Against this enemy, we will accept no outcome but complete and final victory’ (Bush, 2003). Compromise is a key component of limited war for Freedman, Brodie, and Cannon. Although the term ‘final victory’ (Bush, 2003) is nebulous, the theme of compromise, negotiation, or settlement is not present in any of Bush’s discourse after the UN report on 7 March. On the contrary, Bush had ‘one objective in mind: That's victory.’ (Bush, 2003).
2. Means employed
If we now look at means employed to achieve the objectives, analysis shows Bush as being ambiguous. Troop numbers are not explicitly mentioned in March, and nor are the types of weapons in the field. However, on 17 March, Bush says ‘the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so.’ (Bush, 2003). He also confirms the US to be ‘meeting the danger today with our Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines.’ (Bush, 2003) and says on 22 March that it ‘will not be a campaign of half-measures’ (Bush, 2003).
Bush labels the invasion as a ‘massive ground assault’ which is the start of a ‘broad and concerted campaign’ (Bush, 2003). I argue that this ‘massive ground assault’ using the ‘full force’ of the US combined forces, committed to ‘no half-measures’ in the pursuit of ‘final victory’—i.e. the deposition of the Iraqi government—is in no way reflective of limited means. It is undoubtedly the language of an unlimited war.
Statements such as ‘Every measure will be taken to win it.’ and ‘The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it’ (Bush, 2003) may be vacuous and hyperbolic in the real world, but they indicate that Bush was keen to frame a successful invasion as an all-means-necessary endeavour.
During March, Bush makes 17 references to US forces protecting ‘innocent’ civilian lives, claiming that US troops show ‘kindness and respect to the Iraqi people’, going to ‘extraordinary lengths to spare the lives of the innocent.’ (Bush, 2003). He contrasts this with the behaviour of Iraqi troops: ‘Iraqi civilians attempting to flee to liberated areas have been shot and shelled from behind by Saddam's thugs.’ (Bush, 2003).
This, as we now know, was not an accurate assessment (Hedges & Al-Arian, 2009), but concern for the Iraqi people was regularly presented by Bush as a feature of American restraint—and indirectly implies that the most indiscriminate destructive weapons will not be used.
I expected to discover strong themes of precision and accuracy in these speeches—evidence of Bush presenting a ‘surgical’ approach to warfare using limited means. However, this is not present at all in the discourse.
To summarise: Bush does not present much in the way of detail regarding means employed by US forces. He makes sweeping statements about using force without compromise. These statements are certainly not restrained in nature, yet they tend to offer little substance or depth. The care for civilians could however be perceived as an example of restraint because of the potential alternative; total indiscriminate destruction.
3. Scope
Clearly, the objective Bush presents is for Iraq to disarm, and he makes no mention of any targets outside Iraq’s borders. However, he does suggest that the Iraqi people can ‘set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.’ (Bush, 2003)—and states that the US goal is peace ‘for all the peoples of the Middle East.’ (Bush, 2003). Any ‘scope creep’ to the region is related to ideological objectives, but they are sparse and without substance or specificity.
Targeting is not a major theme in the discourse, perhaps for reasons of operational security. However, on 19 March, Bush announces that ‘Coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war.’ (Bush, 2003). He also communicates limits on who the targets are: ‘Our enemy in this war is the Iraqi regime, not the people who have suffered under it.’ (Bush, 2003). Paired with the stated aim of protecting civilian lives, this suggests limitation both in terms of scope but also in terms of means employed.
In terms of duration, at no point in March does Bush indicate that the invasion is the start of a short war. In fact, at every opportunity (13 times in March) he cautions against this assumption. Statements such as ‘The fighting is fierce and we do not know its duration.’ (Bush, 2003), ‘The path we are taking is not easy, and it may be long.’ and ‘It is evident that it's going to take a while to achieve our objective.’ (Bush, 2003) are typical of the messaging around duration—though he does also make clear that American troops will leave ‘as soon as their work is done’ (Bush, 2003).
Finally, what did the public expect in terms of the scope of their sacrifice?
Bush does not provide specifics. He talks in sweeping terms about sacrifice without explicitly mentioning casualties; for example, ‘War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice.’ (Bush, 2003).
What is clear is this: the US public is not expecting to mobilise for a ‘total war’ economy. They are not being warned about a tangible change to their everyday lives. In this sense, the invasion of Iraq is presented as a limited military—rather than societal—endeavour; evidenced when Bush says, ‘Our entire nation appreciates the sacrifices made by military families.’ (Bush, 2003).
Conclusion and final comments
Overall, I argue that the invasion of Iraq was not coherently presented as an act of limited war, regardless of which definition we accept as the most convincing.
The objectives were fundamentally unlimited and non-negotiable; full disarmament via regime change. The means, too, did not contain clear limitations. Bush did not claim that it was a ‘fractional commitment of human and physical resources’ (Osgood, 1957, p. 2). Quite the contrary—he emphasised the use of ‘full force and might’ of the military (Bush, 2003).
We can infer from Bush’s stated concern for Iraqi civilians that the use of the most destructive and indiscriminate weapons (i.e. nuclear weapons) were off the table. This could be perceived as real restraint, but social norm constraints would arguably make ‘breaking the nuclear taboo’ (Stoker, 2019) so consequential as to render it a non-option.
The scope was presented as geographically limited, although no tangible limits were placed on duration. Expectations of ongoing sacrifice were stoked, yet limited to the military and their families. The theme here is a lack of coherence and consistency.
For Bush, the coalition was to be all-powerful and unlimited in pursuit of victory, yet also exemplary of American justice and restraint.
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This essay was written by Matt Goolding in December 2022.
Many thanks to Dr. Tjalling Halbertsma, Director International of the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Groningen, for his guidance and feedback on this essay.
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