Targeting Iraq, part 1 : planning, invasion, and occupation, 1997-2004.

"Targeting Iraq, Part 1: Planning, Invasion, and Occupation, 1997-2004 is a collection of 2,141 records, many only recently declassified, documenting U.S. policy toward Iraq from 1997 through mid-2004. Included is material from President Bill Clinton's second term, when the overthrow of Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, became official United States policy, documents covering the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and information on the 18 months of direct U.S. occupation. The latter ended during the summer of 2004, when Iraqis technically regained their sovereignty and the Coalition Provisional Authority, set up by the U.S. to administer Iraq, was dissolved. The collection includes documents from the State and Defense Departments reflecting debates within both the Clinton and the Bush administrations about how best to achieve American objectives in Iraq, and discussions from the Bush presidency about tactics for winning congressional, United Nations, foreign, and domestic support for the United States' decision to invade Iraq. Included are examples of the intelligence reporting that underlay U.S. allegations that Iraq had active chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons programs, and that Saddam Hussein was operationally linked to global terrorists, including the militant Islamist leader Osama bin Laden. Also available within the collection are examples of assessments championing these claims, and contradictory analyses arguing that the allegations were not confirmed by available evidence.... Documents dating from March 2003 onward reflect frequently changing strategies to respond to the many reversals and setbacks encountered after the invasion that the United States had not anticipated. These included rising, increasingly violent opposition to the continuing presence of American troops, sectarian conflict, rampant looting, the collapse of Iraq's physical infrastructure and civil society, and massive displacement of the civilian population. Also included are reports of human rights abuses committed by American forces, culminating in exposure of the systematic torture of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. Other documents discuss attacks on Iraq's museums and libraries and the sustained destruction of its antiquities and archaeological heritage, attributable in considerable part to the actions or the inaction of occupying coalition forces. Documents dating from mid-2003 through mid-2004 provide background on attempts to ensure consolidation of long-term objectives in Iraq by a United States under pressure from Iraqis and from the United Nations to end the occupation and restore Iraq's sovereignty.... Although the majority of the primary documents in this collection are of United States government origin, also incorporated are notable materials from the United Kingdom. Most of the latter documents became available through two official British investigations: the Chilcot inquiry reviewing overall policy toward Iraq and the Hutton inquiry examining the circumstances that led to the death of biological weapons expert David Kelly. The British documents show concern about the paucity of intelligence supporting the allegations that the George Bush and Tony Blair administrations were citing to justify war, and about the lack of United States planning for post-invasion Iraq. The documents also reflect the view of British government legal experts, not reversed until the very eve of war, that invading Iraq without explicit United Nations authorization would be a violation of international law."

Online resource; title from collection home page (viewed September 20, 2017)