In the spring of 2003 the United States of America invaded the country of Iraq for the second time. The invasion occurred amongst a storm of controversy in regards to the justification for the incursion. Though the international community was in agreement that the oppressive dictatorship of Saddam Hussien needed to comply with UN resolution, they did not unanimously approve of direct military action to remove him from power. However, the United States acted unilaterally and invaded Iraq with out international consent. In the aftermath of the invasion the United States relations with other countries have been strained. In particular, the international community is questioning the rational and justification for the invasion. This statement begs the question: why did the United States participate in the invasion of Iraq?
             There exist many potential hypotheses that would explain the US involvement in the Iraqi invasion. However, two opposing and yet equally possible explanations have received a great deal of attention in the media. One school of thought conveys that the US action in Iraq was the result of a dependancy and desire to secure a reliable and inexpensive source of oil. The second school of thought claims that the action was the product of the United States desire to engage and expand the global community of democratic nations. This paper is a proposal for a research plan that seeks to examine the rational and justification for the US invasion o f Iraqi. Specifically, to determine if the US action was the result of oil or democracy.
             The research plan for this study will include a broad survey of the news media, US government documents, and international organization (UN) documents with particular attention paid to the subjects at hand. The critical test which will determine the validity of one hypothesis and reject the other is as follows. In warfare the most important objectives are the primary targets, they ar...