Understand Bush's Foreign Policy Approach

To understand the Bush’s foreign policy approach, one must be able to understand Bush’s foreign policy team in order to understand why certain approaches were taken regarding foreign policy. Dick Cheney was vice president during the Bush administration. Cheney was not new to Washington as he had served as chief of staff under President Gerald Ford and Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush ( ). Cheney had also represented Wyoming in Congress ( ). Cheney during his time in Congress had voted more conservatively. Cheney had later become the face of the neoconservative in the White House ( ). Neoconservatism is the political ideology of conservatism along with political individualism ( web). Neoconservatism believe that the
Bush believed that America’s role in the Middle East involvement should be reduced ( ). This would all change after September 11th 2001. September 11th would have a huge affect on the president and the American people. On this day, four aircrafts were hijacked. Two had flown into the Twin Towers in New York City causing the towers to collapse. The third plane had hit the Pentagon in Washington D.C. In an attempt to gain control of the plan from the hijackers, the third plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people had died during the attacks on September 11th. This attack was the first attack on American soil along with it being the most deadliest terrorist attack in American history ( ). Bush’s foreign policy had changed to a more strong American approach overseas ( ). As a result of these attacks Congress had passed the Senate Joint Resolution 23 which allowed for the president to use force against “those nations, organizations, or persons, he determines planned, authorized ,committed or aided terrorist attacks” ( ). The USA PATRIOT act was also passed. This act allowed for smaller civil liberty protections as the government was allowed to essentially spy on anyone was suspected of being a terrorist or involved with terrorist organizations. Eventually the Department
Some such as Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted to remove Hussein while others such as Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that removing Hussein would have “risk and complexities” (220 ). Being so divided Bush and his administration brought the idea of weapons and mass destruction to the United Nations. On November 8, 2002, the UN Security Council found Iraq in material breach of a previous UN resolution which stated that Iraq had to disarmed its weapons of mass destruction (220 ). Iraq had allow for the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into their country to be able to inspect the disarmament of the weapons ( 220). President Bush and his administrators grew tired of waiting on the UN Security Council and had issued Iraq an ultimatum that Saddam Hussein and his son had to leave Iraq within 48 hours or the United States would take military action(222). On March 20th of 2003, the United States launched an attack on Iraq. Although the war had went fairly well for the United States in the beginning by the summer of 2003, with the rising death toll and the weapons of mass destruction still unfound, many began to question the intelligence that had supported the war (222). The Iraq