Saddam Hussain was the dictator of Iraq. He came to power in 1979 and ruled up to 2003. Along with Iraq’s alleged development of weapons of mass destruction, another justification for waging war against Saddam Hussain was a purported link between Saddam Hussain’s government and terrorist organizations, in particular Al-Qaeda.
Apart from the above reason given by the USA, there was also one hidden reason to attack Iraq. The reason was the US petro-dollar. The petro-dollar is a US dollar paid to oil-exporting countries in exchange for oil. The dollar is the pre-eminent global currency. As a result, most international transactions, including oil, are priced in dollars. Oil exporting nations receive dollars for their exports and not their own currency.
The United Nations security council imposed comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq on August 6, 1990, just after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The economic sanction imposed on Iraq made it economically fragile. Saddam Hussain wanted to come out of this situation. So, around 2000 A. D. Saddam Hussain had tried to make oil deals with a few European countries secretly. Under this oil deal, Saddam Hussain had to supply crude oil to European countries. In return, Iraq would get the foodgrains and medicines from the European countries. If this deal had happened, it would have reduced the importance of the petro-dollar. The USA also feared that this idea might have been followed by other oil-exporting countries. This might further damage the importance of the dollar in the future. To avoid all this, the USA had opened a war front against Saddam Hussain and finally captured him in 2003.
