What per say are the reasons surrounding the US invasion of iraq? In
other words, what historical transgressions (both in the recent and
past)helped to shape the incentive for the US to invade the country of
iraq? If possible i'd apprecaite references that were academic in
nature (i.e. journals, academic articles, etc.) I am trying to avoid
the mass media in my research.

OIL!!!
Iraq is not a threat to us. Many memebers of a group are war crazed
individuals who planned a takeover of countries of the mideast in the
early 1990s; well before 9/11. Wolfowitz, Pearle and Cheney were a
few. The name of this group is called "Project For A New American
Century."
Bush has constantly interwoven the events of 9/11 with the threat of
terrorism(Al-Qaeda) with the long gone "weapons of mass destruction"
that supposidly Saddam had ready to use on us. It has been lies, lies
and more lies with this disgusting regime of bush. As a result,
between 60 and 70& of Americans have been duped into believing Sadaam
was behind 9/11.There is NO CONNECTION whatsoever.
Sadaam and bin-Laden have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
bin-Laden is a religious nut and Sadaam is a fascist nut. Sadaam had
contempt for bin-Laden also due to class differences, Sadaam being
from the working class and bin-Laden from the wealthy aristocracy.
The contracts to clean up Iraq were not open to bidding and were
rewarded to a subsidiary of Halleburton, which the "vice" president
served as CEO of and some feel that there still are connections to.
It is either 10 or 20& of the Iraqi oil fields that have not been
explored and bush wants to satisfy a portion of our population who
refuse to conserve oil. Those who value Hummers that get 9 miles to
the gallon should send their kids to the killing fields of Iraq.
President bush wants to spend our money to develop a zip code system
for Iraq and a health care system too; don't you think that Americans
deserve good health care before Iraqi citizens?
WAR for Hummers and Halleburtin???
Disgusting.

If you want an interesting alternative to the mass media (or a balance
for the bias), check out:

http://www.fair.org

"Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting".  A media watchdog.  There's quite
a bit of stuff on IRAQ there.

_Carl.