The invasion of Iraq 2003

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Powell claimed that Iraq had mobile laboratories on trucks and railway wagons for making biological weapons. He also claimed that Iraq was hiding banned weapons from the UN inspectors, using satellite photographs and recordings of intercepted Iraqi telephone calls as evidence.

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Source A opposes the invasion plans because de Villepin argues that inspections are working and should be given more time, so the use of force 'was not justified'. He also warns that war would make the Middle East more unstable and divide the world, which rejects the American and British argument that removing Saddam would make the world safer. His reference to France as an 'old country' was a reply to Donald Rumsfeld, who had sneered at France and Germany as 'old Europe' for opposing war.

The provenance shows how serious this opposition was. De Villepin was speaking for France, a permanent member of the Security Council with a veto, on the day Hans Blix reported that no weapons had been found. The applause shows that many members agreed. In March France made clear that it would veto any resolution authorising force, so the USA and Britain abandoned the second resolution and invaded without it.

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Source B is useful because it shows the specific nuclear claims that the Bush administration used to build its case for war: that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa and aluminium tubes for making nuclear weapons. Its provenance makes it useful in a particular way. The State of the Union address is one of the most important speeches a President makes, broadcast to the whole nation, and in January 2003 Bush was trying to win support for war, as he had not yet won a second UN resolution. The fact that he relied on 'the British government' shows how closely the USA and Britain worked together to make the case. However, because the speech was meant to persuade, it shows what the government wanted Americans to believe rather than what was true. In July 2003 the White House admitted that the uranium claim should not have been included, after the former diplomat Joseph Wilson revealed that he had found no evidence for it.

Source C is useful because it directly tests the claims in Source B. ElBaradei reported that the IAEA had found no evidence of a revived nuclear programme, that the tubes were probably for conventional rockets and that the Niger documents were 'not authentic'. Its provenance gives it strong authority: ElBaradei led the UN's nuclear agency, whose inspectors had been in Iraq since November 2002, and as an international body it had no interest in starting a war. Its limitation is that the inspectors had worked for only three months, and Iraq had hidden its nuclear programme before 1991, so the USA and Britain could argue that Iraq might still be concealing something.

Overall, the sources are most useful together. Source B shows how the nuclear claims were used to justify war, and Source C shows that they were challenged by experts before the invasion, which helps to explain why France and Russia refused to support a second resolution. Later evidence supports Source C: the Iraq Survey Group found in 2004 that Iraq had ended its nuclear programme in 1991. So Source C is more reliable about Iraq's actual weapons, while Source B is more useful for understanding the US government's case.

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The coalition overthrew Saddam's regime in about three weeks: the invasion began on 20 March 2003 and Baghdad fell on 9 April. Superior technology was a major reason for this speed, but I think it worked so well mainly because Iraq's forces were already weak and unwilling to fight.

The coalition's technology gave it enormous advantages. It had complete control of the air, and from 21 March the 'shock and awe' campaign used precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles to destroy government buildings, communications and command centres in Baghdad. Satellites, surveillance aircraft and drones allowed commanders to see Iraqi movements, and night-vision equipment meant the coalition could fight round the clock. American Abrams and British Challenger 2 tanks were far superior to Iraq's ageing tanks. Modern communications allowed the fast, coordinated advance from Kuwait, and the armoured 'thunder runs' into Baghdad on 5 and 7 April showed that Iraqi forces could not stop American tanks.

However, Iraq's military weakness was just as important. Its army had lost much of its equipment in the 1991 Gulf War, and twelve years of sanctions had left it short of spare parts and modern weapons. Patrols over the no-fly zones had already worn down its air defences. Many of its soldiers were conscripts with low morale who deserted or went home rather than fight, so the army largely melted away. Saddam's strategy also made defeat easier. He distrusted his own generals and organised his forces to prevent a coup rather than to fight an invasion, and he seems to have expected a long air campaign like 1991, or that France and Russia would prevent a war altogether.

The coalition's planning and the attitudes of Iraqis also helped. The plan stressed speed, bypassing cities to strike at Baghdad and give Saddam no time to organise, and British forces secured the south while the Americans advanced. In the north, Kurdish peshmerga fought alongside US special forces and helped take Kirkuk and Mosul. Many Iraqis, especially the Shia and Kurds who had suffered under Saddam, had no wish to fight for him. Where Iraqis did resist, such as the Fedayeen at Nasiriyah, the advance was slowed, which shows that technology alone did not guarantee success.

Overall, I partly agree. Technology explains why the coalition could win with a much smaller force than in 1991 and with very few casualties: about 170 coalition troops had been killed by 1 May. But technology worked so effectively because Iraq's forces were hollow, poorly led and unwilling to defend Saddam. The most important reason for the speed of victory was therefore the weakness of Saddam's regime, which coalition technology exploited. The quick military victory also proved misleading, because technology could not win the peace, as the Insurgency soon showed.