Category:Causes and prelude of the Iraq War

Articles related to the Prelude to the Iraq War (1991-2003). During the 1990s, the United States and the United Kingdom pursued a policy of containment towards Iraq. Containment encompassed a United Nations inspections regime that was tasked with disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, which was linked to an comprehensive embargo on that country. In addition, both the U.S. and the U.K. patrolled no fly zones that barred Iraqi aircraft from operating in northern and southern Iraq. However, by the end of the decade, containment eroded as relations became increasingly strained between the United Nations and Iraq, which ultimately culminated in the weapons inspectors being withdrawn from the country in late 1998. As containment eroded, beginning in the late 1990s neoconservatives argued for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and the democratization of Iraq. They justified overthrow on the basis that Ba'athist Iraq posed a direct threat to American security by threatening Middle East stability and secure access to oil with its weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and that the United Nations was an ineffective tool in confronting this threat. Neoconservative advocacy would lead to the passing of the Iraq Liberation Act in late 1998, making regime change in Iraq an official U.S. policy.