There are various rationales that have been used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraq War, and subsequent hostilities.
US secretary of state Colin Powell holding a model vial of anthrax while giving the presentation to the United Nations Security Council on 5 February 2003
A United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq
President George Bush, surrounded by leaders of the House and Senate, announces the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, 2 October 2002
Computer-generated image of an alleged mobile production facility for biological weapons, presented by Colin Powell at the UN Security Council. Absence of more substantial proof undermined the credibility of the speech on the international scene. Russian experts questioned the likelihood of such mobile facilities, which are extremely dangerous and difficult to manage.
al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Islamist jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-natio
Rationale for the Iraq War
…Agency, and other intelligence agencies put forward information which discredited evidence related to Iraqi weapons as well as alleged links to al-Qaeda. The Bush and Blair administrations provided secondary rationales for the war, such as the Saddam Hussein government's human rights record and promoting…
Al-Qaeda militant in Sahel armed with a Type 56 assault rifle, 2012
Osama bin Laden (left) and Ayman Al-Zawahiri (right) photographed in 2001
Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir interviewing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, 1997
Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian Islamic scholar and Jihadist theorist who inspired al-Qaeda