The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

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INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER OUTLINE
32.1 /2/
32.2 /(
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32.4 #
On the morning of September 11, 2001, hopes that the new century would leave behind the
con`icts of the previous one were dashed when two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of New
York’s World Trade Center. When the _rst plane struck the north tower, many assumed that the crash was a
horri_c accident. But then a second plane hit the south tower less than thirty minutes later. People on the
street watched in horror, as some of those trapped in the burning buildings jumped to their deaths and the
enormous towers collapsed into dust. In the photo above, the Statue of Liberty appears to look on helplessly, as
thick plumes of smoke obscure the Lower Manhattan skyline (Figure 32.1). The events set in motion by the
September 11 attacks would raise fundamental questions about the United States’ role in the world, the extent
to which privacy should be protected at the cost of security, the de_nition of exactly who is an American, and
the cost of liberty.
32
The Challenges of the Twenty-First
Century

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32.1 The War on Terror
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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As a result of the narrow decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in
Bush v. Gore
, Republican George W. Bush was
the declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election with a majority in the Electoral College of 271 votes to
266, although he received approximately 540,000 fewer popular votes nationally than his Democratic
opponent, Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore. Bush had campaigned with a promise of “compassionate
conservatism” at home and nonintervention abroad. These platform planks were designed to appeal to those
who felt that the Clinton administration’s initiatives in the Balkans and Africa had unnecessarily entangled the
United States in the con`icts of foreign nations. Bush’s 2001 education reform act, dubbed No Child Left
Behind, had strong bipartisan support and re`ected his domestic interests. But before the president could sign
the bill into law, the world changed when four American airliners were hijacked and used in the single most
deadly act of terrorism in the United States. Bush’s domestic agenda quickly took a backseat, as the president
swiftly changed course from nonintervention in foreign affairs to a “war on terror.”
9/11
Shortly after takeoff on the morning of September 11, 2001, teams of hijackers from the Islamist terrorist
group al-Qaeda seized control of four American airliners. Two of the airplanes were `own into the twin towers
of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Morning news programs that were _lming the moments after
the _rst impact, then assumed to be an accident, captured and aired live footage of the second plane, as it
barreled into the other tower in a `ash of _re and smoke. Less than two hours later, the heat from the crash and
the explosion of jet fuel caused the upper `oors of both buildings to collapse onto the lower `oors, reducing
both towers to smoldering rubble. The passengers and crew on both planes, as well as 2,606 people in the two
buildings, all died, including 343 New York City _re_ghters who rushed in to save victims shortly before the
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towers collapsed.
The third hijacked plane was `own into the Pentagon building in northern Virginia, just outside Washington,
DC, killing everyone on board and 125 people on the ground. The fourth plane, also heading towards
Washington, crashed in a _eld near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers, aware of the other attacks,
attempted to storm the cockpit and disarm the hijackers. Everyone on board was killed (Figure 32.3).
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That evening, President Bush promised the nation that those responsible for the attacks would be brought to
justice. Three days later, Congress issued a joint resolution authorizing the president to use all means
necessary against the individuals, organizations, or nations involved in the attacks. On September 20, in an
address to a joint session of Congress, Bush declared war on terrorism, blamed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden for the attacks, and demanded that the radical Islamic fundamentalists who ruled Afghanistan, the
Taliban, turn bin Laden over or face attack by the United States. This speech encapsulated what became
known as the Bush Doctrine, the belief that the United States has the right to protect itself from terrorist acts
by engaging in pre-emptive wars or ousting hostile governments in favor of friendly, preferably democratic,
regimes.
CLICK AND EXPLORE
Read the text of President Bush’s address (http://openstax.org/l/15Bush911) to Congress declaring a “war on
terror.”
World leaders and millions of their citizens expressed support for the United States and condemned the deadly
attacks. Russian president Vladimir Putin characterized them as a bold challenge to humanity itself. German
chancellor Gerhard Schroder said the events of that day were “not only attacks on the people in the United
States, our friends in America, but also against the entire civilized world, against our own freedom, against our
own values, values which we share with the American people.” Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization and a veteran of several bloody struggles against Israel, was dumbfounded by the
news and announced to reporters in Gaza, “We completely condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey
my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration.”
CLICK AND EXPLORE
In May 2014, a Museum dedicated to the memory of the victims was completed. Watch this video
32.1 • The War on Terror 879

The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-1
(http://openstax.org/l/15CBSstory) and learn more about the victims and how the country seeks to remember
them.
GOING TO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
When it became clear that the mastermind behind the attack was Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian
national who ran his terror network from Afghanistan, the full attention of the United States turned towards
Central Asia and the Taliban. Bin Laden had deep roots in Afghanistan. Like many others from around the
Islamic world, he had come to the country to oust the Soviet army, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
Ironically, both bin Laden and the Taliban received material support from the United States at that time. By the
late 1980s, the Soviets and the Americans had both left, although bin Laden, by that time the leader of his own
terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, remained.
The Taliban refused to turn bin Laden over, and the United States began a bombing campaign in October,
allying with the Afghan Northern Alliance, a coalition of tribal leaders opposed to the Taliban. U.S. air support
was soon augmented by ground troops (Figure 32.4). By November 2001, the Taliban had been ousted from
power in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, but bin Laden and his followers had already escaped across the Afghan
border to mountain sanctuaries in northern Pakistan.
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IRAQ
At the same time that the U.S. military was taking control of Afghanistan, the Bush administration was looking
to a new and larger war with the country of Iraq. Relations between the United States and Iraq had been
strained ever since the Gulf War a decade earlier. Economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations,
and American attempts to foster internal revolts against President Saddam Hussein’s government, had further
tainted the relationship. A faction within the Bush administration, sometimes labeled neoconservatives,
believed Iraq’s recalcitrance in the face of overwhelming U.S. military superiority represented a dangerous
symbol to terrorist groups around the world, recently emboldened by the dramatic success of the al-Qaeda
attacks in the United States. Powerful members of this faction, including Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, believed the time to strike Iraq and solve this festering problem was
right then, in the wake of 9/11. Others, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, a highly respected veteran of the
Vietnam War and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were more cautious about initiating combat.
The more militant side won, and the argument for war was gradually laid out for the American people. The
immediate impetus to the invasion, it argued, was the fear that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs): nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons capable of wreaking great havoc. Hussein had in
fact used WMDs against Iranian forces during his war with Iran in the 1980s, and against the Kurds in northern
Iraq in 1988—a time when the United States actively supported the Iraqi dictator. Following the Gulf War,
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The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-2
inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency had in fact
located and destroyed stockpiles of Iraqi weapons. Those arguing for a new Iraqi invasion insisted, however,
that weapons still existed. President Bush himself told the nation in October 2002 that the United States was
“facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the _nal proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the
form of a mushroom cloud.” The head of the United Nations Monitoring, Veri_cation and Inspection
Commission, Hanx Blix, dismissed these claims. Blix argued that while Saddam Hussein was not being entirely
forthright, he did not appear to be in possession of WMDs. Despite Blix’s _ndings and his own earlier
misgivings, Powell argued in 2003 before the United Nations General Assembly that Hussein had violated UN
resolutions. Much of his evidence relied on secret information provided by an informant that was later proven
to be false. On March 17, 2003, the United States cut off all relations with Iraq. Two days later, in a coalition
with Great Britain, Australia, and Poland, the United States began “Operation Iraqi Freedom” with an invasion
of Iraq.
Other arguments supporting the invasion noted the ease with which the operation could be accomplished. In
February 2002, some in the Department of Defense were suggesting the war would be “a cakewalk.” In
November, referencing the short and successful Gulf War of 1990–1991, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told
the American people it was absurd, as some were claiming, that the con`ict would degenerate into a long,
drawn-out quagmire. “Five days or _ve weeks or _ve months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than
that,” he insisted. “It won’t be a World War III.” And, just days before the start of combat operations in 2003,
Vice President Cheney announced that U.S. forces would likely “be greeted as liberators,” and the war would be
over in “weeks rather than months.”
Early in the con`ict, these predictions seemed to be coming true. The march into Baghdad went fairly
smoothly. Soon Americans back home were watching on television as U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi people worked
together to topple statues of the deposed leader Hussein around the capital. The reality, however, was far more
complex. While American deaths had been few, thousands of Iraqis had died, and the seeds of internal strife
and resentment against the United States had been sown. The United States was not prepared for a long period
of occupation; it was also not prepared for the inevitable problems of law and order, or for the violent sectarian
con`icts that emerged. Thus, even though Bush proclaimed a U.S. victory in May 2003, on the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln
with the banner “Mission Accomplished” prominently displayed behind him, the celebration
proved premature by more than seven years (Figure 32.5).
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Lt. General James Conway on the Invasion of Baghdad
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2$P
DOMESTIC SECURITY
The attacks of September 11 awakened many to the reality that the end of the Cold War did not mean an end to
foreign violent threats. Some Americans grew wary of alleged possible enemies in their midst and hate crimes
against Muslim Americans—and those thought to be Muslims—surged in the aftermath. Fearing that terrorists
might strike within the nation’s borders again, and aware of the chronic lack of cooperation among different
federal law enforcement agencies, Bush created the Of_ce of Homeland Security in October 2001. The next
year, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, creating the Department of Homeland Security, which
centralized control over a number of different government functions in order to better control threats at home
(Figure 32.6). The Bush administration also pushed the USA Patriot Act through Congress, which enabled law
enforcement agencies to monitor citizens’ e-mails and phone conversations without a warrant.
MY STORY
882 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
Access for free at openstax.org.
The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-4
FIGURE 32.6 /#.G0E.EG
G"G..G0E.EG
E
The Bush administration was _ercely committed to rooting out threats to the United States wherever they
originated, and in the weeks after September 11, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) scoured the globe,
sweeping up thousands of young Muslim men. Because U.S. law prohibits the use of torture, the CIA
transferred some of these prisoners to other nations—a practice known as rendition or extraordinary
rendition—where the local authorities can use methods of interrogation not allowed in the United States.
While the CIA operates overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the chief federal law enforcement
agency within U.S. national borders. Its activities are limited by, among other things, the Fourth Amendment,
which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Beginning in 2002, however, the Bush
administration implemented a wide-ranging program of warrantless domestic wiretapping, known as the
Terrorist Surveillance Program, by the National Security Agency (NSA). The shaky constitutional basis for this
program was ultimately revealed in August 2006, when a federal judge in Detroit ordered the program ended
immediately.
The use of unconstitutional wire taps to prosecute the war on terrorism was only one way the new threat
challenged authorities in the United States. Another problem was deciding what to do with foreign terrorists
captured on the battle_elds in Afghanistan and Iraq. In traditional con`icts, where both sides are uniformed
combatants, the rules of engagement and the treatment of prisoners of war are clear. But in the new war on
terror, extracting intelligence about upcoming attacks became a top priority that superseded human rights and
constitutional concerns. For that purpose, the United States began transporting men suspected of being
members of al-Qaeda to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for questioning. The Bush
administration labeled the detainees “unlawful combatants,” in an effort to avoid affording them the rights
guaranteed to prisoners of war, such as protection from torture, by international treaties such as the Geneva
Conventions. Furthermore, the Justice Department argued that the prisoners were unable to sue for their
rights in U.S. courts on the grounds that the constitution did not apply to U.S. territories. It was only in 2006
that the Supreme Court ruled in
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
that the military tribunals that tried Guantanamo
prisoners violated both U.S. federal law and the Geneva Conventions.
32.1 • The War on Terror 883
The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-5
32.2 The Domestic Mission
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
GF
X LG

X 
X L#&
X $"-866>
By the time George W. Bush became president, the concept of supply-side economics had become an article of
faith within the Republican Party. The oft-repeated argument was that tax cuts for the wealthy would allow
them to invest more and create jobs for everyone else. This belief in the self-regulatory powers of competition
also served as the foundation of Bush’s education reform. But by the end of 2008, however, Americans’ faith in
the dynamics of the free market had been badly shaken. The failure of the homeland security apparatus during
Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing challenge of the Iraq War compounded the effects of the bleak economic
situation.
OPENING AND CLOSING THE GAP
The Republican Party platform for the 2000 election offered the American people an opportunity to once again
test the rosy expectations of supply-side economics. In 2001, Bush and the Republicans pushed through a
$1.35 trillion tax cut by lowering tax rates across the board but reserving the largest cuts for those in the
highest tax brackets. This was in the face of calls by Republicans for a balanced budget, which Bush insisted
would happen when the so-called job creators expanded the economy by using their increased income to
invest in business.
The cuts were controversial; the rich were getting richer while the middle and lower classes bore a
proportionally larger share of the nation’s tax burden. Between 1966 and 2001, one-half of the nation’s income
gained from increased productivity went to the top 0.01 percent of earners. By 2005, dramatic examples of
income inequity were increasing; the chief executive of Wal-Mart earned $15 million that year, roughly 950
times what the company’s average associate made. The head of the construction company K. B. Homes made
$150 million, or four thousand times what the average construction worker earned that same year. Even as
productivity climbed, workers’ incomes stagnated; with a larger share of the wealth, the very rich further
solidi_ed their in`uence on public policy. Left with a smaller share of the economic pie, average workers had
fewer resources to improve their lives or contribute to the nation’s prosperity by, for example, educating
themselves and their children.
Another gap that had been widening for years was the education gap. Some education researchers had argued
that American students were being left behind. In 1983, a commission established by Ronald Reagan had
published a sobering assessment of the American educational system entitled
A Nation at Risk
. The report
argued that American students were more poorly educated than their peers in other countries, especially in
areas such as math and science, and were thus unprepared to compete in the global marketplace.
Furthermore, test scores revealed serious educational achievement gaps between White students and students
of color. Touting himself as the “education president,” Bush sought to introduce reforms that would close these
gaps.
His administration offered two potential solutions to these problems. First, it sought to hold schools
accountable for raising standards and enabling students to meet them. The No Child Left Behind Act, signed
into law in January 2002, erected a system of testing to measure and ultimately improve student performance
in reading and math at all schools that received federal funds (Figure 32.7). Schools whose students performed
poorly on the tests would be labeled “in need of improvement.” If poor performance continued, schools could
face changes in curricula and teachers, or even the prospect of closure.
884 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
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The second proposed solution was to give students the opportunity to attend schools with better performance
records. Some of these might be charter schools, institutions funded by local tax monies in much the same
way as public schools, but able to accept private donations and exempt from some of the rules public schools
must follow. During the administration of George H. W. Bush, the development of charter schools had gathered
momentum, and the American Federation of Teachers welcomed them as places to employ innovative
teaching methods or offer specialized instruction in particular subjects. President George W. Bush now
encouraged states to grant educational funding vouchers to parents, who could use them to pay for a private
education for their children if they chose. These vouchers were funded by tax revenue that would otherwise
have gone to public schools.
THE 2004 ELECTION AND BUSH’S SECOND TERM
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans had rallied around their president in a gesture of patriotic loyalty,
giving Bush approval ratings of 90 percent. Even following the _rst few months of the Iraq war, his approval
rating remained historically high at approximately 70 percent. But as the 2004 election approached,
opposition to the war in Iraq began to grow. While Bush could boast of a number of achievements at home and
abroad during his _rst term, the narrow victory he achieved in 2000 augured poorly for his chances for
reelection in 2004 and a successful second term.
Reelection
As the 2004 campaign ramped up, the president was persistently dogged by rising criticism of the violence of
the Iraq war and the fact that his administration’s claims of WMDs had been greatly overstated. In the end, no
such weapons were ever found. These criticisms were ampli_ed by growing international concern over the
treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and widespread disgust over the torture
conducted by U.S. troops at the prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, which surfaced only months before the election
(Figure 32.8).
32.2 • The Domestic Mission 885
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In March 2004, an ambush by Iraqi insurgents of a convoy of private military contractors from Blackwater USA
in the town of Fallujah west of Baghdad, and the subsequent torture and mutilation of the four captured
mercenaries, shocked the American public. But the event also highlighted the growing insurgency against U.S.
occupation, the escalating sectarian con`ict between the newly empowered Shia Muslims and the minority of
the formerly ruling Sunni, and the escalating costs of a war involving a large number of private contractors
that, by conservative estimates, approached $1.7 trillion by 2013. Just as importantly, the American campaign
in Iraq had diverted resources from the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where U.S troops were no closer
to capturing Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
With two hot wars overseas, one of which appeared to be spiraling out of control, the Democrats nominated a
decorated Vietnam War veteran, Massachusetts senator John Kerry (Figure 32.9), to challenge Bush for the
presidency. As someone with combat experience, three Purple Hearts, and a foreign policy background, Kerry
seemed like the right challenger in a time of war. But his record of support for the invasion of Iraq made his
criticism of the incumbent less compelling and earned him the byname “Waf`er” from Republicans. The Bush
campaign also sought to characterize Kerry as an elitist out of touch with regular Americans—Kerry had
studied overseas, spoke `uent French, and married a wealthy foreign-born heiress. Republican supporters
also unleashed an attack on Kerry’s Vietnam War record, falsely claiming he had lied about his experience and
fraudulently received his medals. Kerry’s reluctance to embrace his past leadership of Vietnam Veterans
Against the War weakened the enthusiasm of antiwar Americans while opening him up to criticisms from
veterans groups. This combination compromised the impact of his challenge to the incumbent in a time of war.
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Urged by the Republican Party to “stay the course” with Bush, voters listened. Bush won another narrow
victory, and the Republican Party did well overall, picking up four seats in the Senate and increasing its
majority there to _fty-_ve. In the House, the Republican Party gained three seats, adding to its majority there
as well. Across the nation, most governorships also went to Republicans, and Republicans dominated many
state legislatures.
Despite a narrow win, the president made a bold declaration in his _rst news conference following the election.
“I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” The policies on which he
chose to spend this political capital included the partial privatization of Social Security and new limits on
court-awarded damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. In foreign affairs, Bush promised that the United
States would work towards “ending tyranny in the world.” But at home and abroad, the president achieved few
of his second-term goals. Instead, his second term in of_ce became associated with the persistent challenge of
pacifying Iraq, the failure of the homeland security apparatus during Hurricane Katrina, and the most severe
economic crisis since the Great Depression.
A Failed Domestic Agenda
The Bush administration had planned a series of free-market reforms, but corruption, scandals, and
Democrats in Congress made these goals hard to accomplish. Plans to convert Social Security into a private-
market mechanism relied on the claim that demographic trends would eventually make the system
unaffordable for the shrinking number of young workers, but critics countered that this was easily _xed.
Privatization, on the other hand, threatened to derail the mission of the New Deal welfare agency and turn it
into a fee generator for stock brokers and Wall Street _nanciers. Similarly unpopular was the attempt to
abolish the estate tax. Labeled the “death tax” by its critics, its abolishment would have bene_tted only the
wealthiest 1 percent. As a result of the 2003 tax cuts, the growing federal de_cit did not help make the case for
Republicans.
The nation faced another policy crisis when the Republican-dominated House of Representatives approved a
bill making the undocumented status of millions of immigrants a felony and criminalizing the act of employing
or knowingly aiding undocumented immigrants. In response, millions of immigrants, along with other critics
of the bill, took to the streets in protest. What they saw as the civil rights challenge of their generation,
conservatives read as a dangerous challenge to law and national security. Congress eventually agreed on a
massive build-up of the U.S. Border Patrol and the construction of a seven-hundred-mile-long fence along the
border with Mexico, but the deep divisions over immigration and the status of up to twelve million
undocumented immigrants remained unresolved.
32.2 • The Domestic Mission 887
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INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER OUTLINE
32.1 /2/
32.2 /(
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32.4 #
On the morning of September 11, 2001, hopes that the new century would leave behind the
con`icts of the previous one were dashed when two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of New
York’s World Trade Center. When the _rst plane struck the north tower, many assumed that the crash was a
horri_c accident. But then a second plane hit the south tower less than thirty minutes later. People on the
street watched in horror, as some of those trapped in the burning buildings jumped to their deaths and the
enormous towers collapsed into dust. In the photo above, the Statue of Liberty appears to look on helplessly, as
thick plumes of smoke obscure the Lower Manhattan skyline (Figure 32.1). The events set in motion by the
September 11 attacks would raise fundamental questions about the United States’ role in the world, the extent
to which privacy should be protected at the cost of security, the de_nition of exactly who is an American, and
the cost of liberty.
32
The Challenges of the Twenty-First
Century

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32.1 The War on Terror
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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As a result of the narrow decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in
Bush v. Gore
, Republican George W. Bush was
the declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election with a majority in the Electoral College of 271 votes to
266, although he received approximately 540,000 fewer popular votes nationally than his Democratic
opponent, Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore. Bush had campaigned with a promise of “compassionate
conservatism” at home and nonintervention abroad. These platform planks were designed to appeal to those
who felt that the Clinton administration’s initiatives in the Balkans and Africa had unnecessarily entangled the
United States in the con`icts of foreign nations. Bush’s 2001 education reform act, dubbed No Child Left
Behind, had strong bipartisan support and re`ected his domestic interests. But before the president could sign
the bill into law, the world changed when four American airliners were hijacked and used in the single most
deadly act of terrorism in the United States. Bush’s domestic agenda quickly took a backseat, as the president
swiftly changed course from nonintervention in foreign affairs to a “war on terror.”
9/11
Shortly after takeoff on the morning of September 11, 2001, teams of hijackers from the Islamist terrorist
group al-Qaeda seized control of four American airliners. Two of the airplanes were `own into the twin towers
of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Morning news programs that were _lming the moments after
the _rst impact, then assumed to be an accident, captured and aired live footage of the second plane, as it
barreled into the other tower in a `ash of _re and smoke. Less than two hours later, the heat from the crash and
the explosion of jet fuel caused the upper `oors of both buildings to collapse onto the lower `oors, reducing
both towers to smoldering rubble. The passengers and crew on both planes, as well as 2,606 people in the two
buildings, all died, including 343 New York City _re_ghters who rushed in to save victims shortly before the
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towers collapsed.
The third hijacked plane was `own into the Pentagon building in northern Virginia, just outside Washington,
DC, killing everyone on board and 125 people on the ground. The fourth plane, also heading towards
Washington, crashed in a _eld near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers, aware of the other attacks,
attempted to storm the cockpit and disarm the hijackers. Everyone on board was killed (Figure 32.3).
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That evening, President Bush promised the nation that those responsible for the attacks would be brought to
justice. Three days later, Congress issued a joint resolution authorizing the president to use all means
necessary against the individuals, organizations, or nations involved in the attacks. On September 20, in an
address to a joint session of Congress, Bush declared war on terrorism, blamed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden for the attacks, and demanded that the radical Islamic fundamentalists who ruled Afghanistan, the
Taliban, turn bin Laden over or face attack by the United States. This speech encapsulated what became
known as the Bush Doctrine, the belief that the United States has the right to protect itself from terrorist acts
by engaging in pre-emptive wars or ousting hostile governments in favor of friendly, preferably democratic,
regimes.
CLICK AND EXPLORE
Read the text of President Bush’s address (http://openstax.org/l/15Bush911) to Congress declaring a “war on
terror.”
World leaders and millions of their citizens expressed support for the United States and condemned the deadly
attacks. Russian president Vladimir Putin characterized them as a bold challenge to humanity itself. German
chancellor Gerhard Schroder said the events of that day were “not only attacks on the people in the United
States, our friends in America, but also against the entire civilized world, against our own freedom, against our
own values, values which we share with the American people.” Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization and a veteran of several bloody struggles against Israel, was dumbfounded by the
news and announced to reporters in Gaza, “We completely condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey
my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration.”
CLICK AND EXPLORE
In May 2014, a Museum dedicated to the memory of the victims was completed. Watch this video
32.1 • The War on Terror 879

The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-1
(http://openstax.org/l/15CBSstory) and learn more about the victims and how the country seeks to remember
them.
GOING TO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
When it became clear that the mastermind behind the attack was Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian
national who ran his terror network from Afghanistan, the full attention of the United States turned towards
Central Asia and the Taliban. Bin Laden had deep roots in Afghanistan. Like many others from around the
Islamic world, he had come to the country to oust the Soviet army, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
Ironically, both bin Laden and the Taliban received material support from the United States at that time. By the
late 1980s, the Soviets and the Americans had both left, although bin Laden, by that time the leader of his own
terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, remained.
The Taliban refused to turn bin Laden over, and the United States began a bombing campaign in October,
allying with the Afghan Northern Alliance, a coalition of tribal leaders opposed to the Taliban. U.S. air support
was soon augmented by ground troops (Figure 32.4). By November 2001, the Taliban had been ousted from
power in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, but bin Laden and his followers had already escaped across the Afghan
border to mountain sanctuaries in northern Pakistan.
FIGURE 32.4 ([/#+GE#
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IRAQ
At the same time that the U.S. military was taking control of Afghanistan, the Bush administration was looking
to a new and larger war with the country of Iraq. Relations between the United States and Iraq had been
strained ever since the Gulf War a decade earlier. Economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations,
and American attempts to foster internal revolts against President Saddam Hussein’s government, had further
tainted the relationship. A faction within the Bush administration, sometimes labeled neoconservatives,
believed Iraq’s recalcitrance in the face of overwhelming U.S. military superiority represented a dangerous
symbol to terrorist groups around the world, recently emboldened by the dramatic success of the al-Qaeda
attacks in the United States. Powerful members of this faction, including Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, believed the time to strike Iraq and solve this festering problem was
right then, in the wake of 9/11. Others, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, a highly respected veteran of the
Vietnam War and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were more cautious about initiating combat.
The more militant side won, and the argument for war was gradually laid out for the American people. The
immediate impetus to the invasion, it argued, was the fear that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs): nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons capable of wreaking great havoc. Hussein had in
fact used WMDs against Iranian forces during his war with Iran in the 1980s, and against the Kurds in northern
Iraq in 1988—a time when the United States actively supported the Iraqi dictator. Following the Gulf War,
880 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
Access for free at openstax.org.

The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-2
inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency had in fact
located and destroyed stockpiles of Iraqi weapons. Those arguing for a new Iraqi invasion insisted, however,
that weapons still existed. President Bush himself told the nation in October 2002 that the United States was
“facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the _nal proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the
form of a mushroom cloud.” The head of the United Nations Monitoring, Veri_cation and Inspection
Commission, Hanx Blix, dismissed these claims. Blix argued that while Saddam Hussein was not being entirely
forthright, he did not appear to be in possession of WMDs. Despite Blix’s _ndings and his own earlier
misgivings, Powell argued in 2003 before the United Nations General Assembly that Hussein had violated UN
resolutions. Much of his evidence relied on secret information provided by an informant that was later proven
to be false. On March 17, 2003, the United States cut off all relations with Iraq. Two days later, in a coalition
with Great Britain, Australia, and Poland, the United States began “Operation Iraqi Freedom” with an invasion
of Iraq.
Other arguments supporting the invasion noted the ease with which the operation could be accomplished. In
February 2002, some in the Department of Defense were suggesting the war would be “a cakewalk.” In
November, referencing the short and successful Gulf War of 1990–1991, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told
the American people it was absurd, as some were claiming, that the con`ict would degenerate into a long,
drawn-out quagmire. “Five days or _ve weeks or _ve months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than
that,” he insisted. “It won’t be a World War III.” And, just days before the start of combat operations in 2003,
Vice President Cheney announced that U.S. forces would likely “be greeted as liberators,” and the war would be
over in “weeks rather than months.”
Early in the con`ict, these predictions seemed to be coming true. The march into Baghdad went fairly
smoothly. Soon Americans back home were watching on television as U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi people worked
together to topple statues of the deposed leader Hussein around the capital. The reality, however, was far more
complex. While American deaths had been few, thousands of Iraqis had died, and the seeds of internal strife
and resentment against the United States had been sown. The United States was not prepared for a long period
of occupation; it was also not prepared for the inevitable problems of law and order, or for the violent sectarian
con`icts that emerged. Thus, even though Bush proclaimed a U.S. victory in May 2003, on the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln
with the banner “Mission Accomplished” prominently displayed behind him, the celebration
proved premature by more than seven years (Figure 32.5).
FIGURE 32.5 +0..
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32.1 • The War on Terror 881

The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-3
Lt. General James Conway on the Invasion of Baghdad
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DOMESTIC SECURITY
The attacks of September 11 awakened many to the reality that the end of the Cold War did not mean an end to
foreign violent threats. Some Americans grew wary of alleged possible enemies in their midst and hate crimes
against Muslim Americans—and those thought to be Muslims—surged in the aftermath. Fearing that terrorists
might strike within the nation’s borders again, and aware of the chronic lack of cooperation among different
federal law enforcement agencies, Bush created the Of_ce of Homeland Security in October 2001. The next
year, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, creating the Department of Homeland Security, which
centralized control over a number of different government functions in order to better control threats at home
(Figure 32.6). The Bush administration also pushed the USA Patriot Act through Congress, which enabled law
enforcement agencies to monitor citizens’ e-mails and phone conversations without a warrant.
MY STORY
882 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
Access for free at openstax.org.
The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-4
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The Bush administration was _ercely committed to rooting out threats to the United States wherever they
originated, and in the weeks after September 11, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) scoured the globe,
sweeping up thousands of young Muslim men. Because U.S. law prohibits the use of torture, the CIA
transferred some of these prisoners to other nations—a practice known as rendition or extraordinary
rendition—where the local authorities can use methods of interrogation not allowed in the United States.
While the CIA operates overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the chief federal law enforcement
agency within U.S. national borders. Its activities are limited by, among other things, the Fourth Amendment,
which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Beginning in 2002, however, the Bush
administration implemented a wide-ranging program of warrantless domestic wiretapping, known as the
Terrorist Surveillance Program, by the National Security Agency (NSA). The shaky constitutional basis for this
program was ultimately revealed in August 2006, when a federal judge in Detroit ordered the program ended
immediately.
The use of unconstitutional wire taps to prosecute the war on terrorism was only one way the new threat
challenged authorities in the United States. Another problem was deciding what to do with foreign terrorists
captured on the battle_elds in Afghanistan and Iraq. In traditional con`icts, where both sides are uniformed
combatants, the rules of engagement and the treatment of prisoners of war are clear. But in the new war on
terror, extracting intelligence about upcoming attacks became a top priority that superseded human rights and
constitutional concerns. For that purpose, the United States began transporting men suspected of being
members of al-Qaeda to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for questioning. The Bush
administration labeled the detainees “unlawful combatants,” in an effort to avoid affording them the rights
guaranteed to prisoners of war, such as protection from torture, by international treaties such as the Geneva
Conventions. Furthermore, the Justice Department argued that the prisoners were unable to sue for their
rights in U.S. courts on the grounds that the constitution did not apply to U.S. territories. It was only in 2006
that the Supreme Court ruled in
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
that the military tribunals that tried Guantanamo
prisoners violated both U.S. federal law and the Geneva Conventions.
32.1 • The War on Terror 883
The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-5
32.2 The Domestic Mission
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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By the time George W. Bush became president, the concept of supply-side economics had become an article of
faith within the Republican Party. The oft-repeated argument was that tax cuts for the wealthy would allow
them to invest more and create jobs for everyone else. This belief in the self-regulatory powers of competition
also served as the foundation of Bush’s education reform. But by the end of 2008, however, Americans’ faith in
the dynamics of the free market had been badly shaken. The failure of the homeland security apparatus during
Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing challenge of the Iraq War compounded the effects of the bleak economic
situation.
OPENING AND CLOSING THE GAP
The Republican Party platform for the 2000 election offered the American people an opportunity to once again
test the rosy expectations of supply-side economics. In 2001, Bush and the Republicans pushed through a
$1.35 trillion tax cut by lowering tax rates across the board but reserving the largest cuts for those in the
highest tax brackets. This was in the face of calls by Republicans for a balanced budget, which Bush insisted
would happen when the so-called job creators expanded the economy by using their increased income to
invest in business.
The cuts were controversial; the rich were getting richer while the middle and lower classes bore a
proportionally larger share of the nation’s tax burden. Between 1966 and 2001, one-half of the nation’s income
gained from increased productivity went to the top 0.01 percent of earners. By 2005, dramatic examples of
income inequity were increasing; the chief executive of Wal-Mart earned $15 million that year, roughly 950
times what the company’s average associate made. The head of the construction company K. B. Homes made
$150 million, or four thousand times what the average construction worker earned that same year. Even as
productivity climbed, workers’ incomes stagnated; with a larger share of the wealth, the very rich further
solidi_ed their in`uence on public policy. Left with a smaller share of the economic pie, average workers had
fewer resources to improve their lives or contribute to the nation’s prosperity by, for example, educating
themselves and their children.
Another gap that had been widening for years was the education gap. Some education researchers had argued
that American students were being left behind. In 1983, a commission established by Ronald Reagan had
published a sobering assessment of the American educational system entitled
A Nation at Risk
. The report
argued that American students were more poorly educated than their peers in other countries, especially in
areas such as math and science, and were thus unprepared to compete in the global marketplace.
Furthermore, test scores revealed serious educational achievement gaps between White students and students
of color. Touting himself as the “education president,” Bush sought to introduce reforms that would close these
gaps.
His administration offered two potential solutions to these problems. First, it sought to hold schools
accountable for raising standards and enabling students to meet them. The No Child Left Behind Act, signed
into law in January 2002, erected a system of testing to measure and ultimately improve student performance
in reading and math at all schools that received federal funds (Figure 32.7). Schools whose students performed
poorly on the tests would be labeled “in need of improvement.” If poor performance continued, schools could
face changes in curricula and teachers, or even the prospect of closure.
884 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
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The second proposed solution was to give students the opportunity to attend schools with better performance
records. Some of these might be charter schools, institutions funded by local tax monies in much the same
way as public schools, but able to accept private donations and exempt from some of the rules public schools
must follow. During the administration of George H. W. Bush, the development of charter schools had gathered
momentum, and the American Federation of Teachers welcomed them as places to employ innovative
teaching methods or offer specialized instruction in particular subjects. President George W. Bush now
encouraged states to grant educational funding vouchers to parents, who could use them to pay for a private
education for their children if they chose. These vouchers were funded by tax revenue that would otherwise
have gone to public schools.
THE 2004 ELECTION AND BUSH’S SECOND TERM
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans had rallied around their president in a gesture of patriotic loyalty,
giving Bush approval ratings of 90 percent. Even following the _rst few months of the Iraq war, his approval
rating remained historically high at approximately 70 percent. But as the 2004 election approached,
opposition to the war in Iraq began to grow. While Bush could boast of a number of achievements at home and
abroad during his _rst term, the narrow victory he achieved in 2000 augured poorly for his chances for
reelection in 2004 and a successful second term.
Reelection
As the 2004 campaign ramped up, the president was persistently dogged by rising criticism of the violence of
the Iraq war and the fact that his administration’s claims of WMDs had been greatly overstated. In the end, no
such weapons were ever found. These criticisms were ampli_ed by growing international concern over the
treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and widespread disgust over the torture
conducted by U.S. troops at the prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, which surfaced only months before the election
(Figure 32.8).
32.2 • The Domestic Mission 885
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In March 2004, an ambush by Iraqi insurgents of a convoy of private military contractors from Blackwater USA
in the town of Fallujah west of Baghdad, and the subsequent torture and mutilation of the four captured
mercenaries, shocked the American public. But the event also highlighted the growing insurgency against U.S.
occupation, the escalating sectarian con`ict between the newly empowered Shia Muslims and the minority of
the formerly ruling Sunni, and the escalating costs of a war involving a large number of private contractors
that, by conservative estimates, approached $1.7 trillion by 2013. Just as importantly, the American campaign
in Iraq had diverted resources from the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where U.S troops were no closer
to capturing Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
With two hot wars overseas, one of which appeared to be spiraling out of control, the Democrats nominated a
decorated Vietnam War veteran, Massachusetts senator John Kerry (Figure 32.9), to challenge Bush for the
presidency. As someone with combat experience, three Purple Hearts, and a foreign policy background, Kerry
seemed like the right challenger in a time of war. But his record of support for the invasion of Iraq made his
criticism of the incumbent less compelling and earned him the byname “Waf`er” from Republicans. The Bush
campaign also sought to characterize Kerry as an elitist out of touch with regular Americans—Kerry had
studied overseas, spoke `uent French, and married a wealthy foreign-born heiress. Republican supporters
also unleashed an attack on Kerry’s Vietnam War record, falsely claiming he had lied about his experience and
fraudulently received his medals. Kerry’s reluctance to embrace his past leadership of Vietnam Veterans
Against the War weakened the enthusiasm of antiwar Americans while opening him up to criticisms from
veterans groups. This combination compromised the impact of his challenge to the incumbent in a time of war.
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Urged by the Republican Party to “stay the course” with Bush, voters listened. Bush won another narrow
victory, and the Republican Party did well overall, picking up four seats in the Senate and increasing its
majority there to _fty-_ve. In the House, the Republican Party gained three seats, adding to its majority there
as well. Across the nation, most governorships also went to Republicans, and Republicans dominated many
state legislatures.
Despite a narrow win, the president made a bold declaration in his _rst news conference following the election.
“I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” The policies on which he
chose to spend this political capital included the partial privatization of Social Security and new limits on
court-awarded damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. In foreign affairs, Bush promised that the United
States would work towards “ending tyranny in the world.” But at home and abroad, the president achieved few
of his second-term goals. Instead, his second term in of_ce became associated with the persistent challenge of
pacifying Iraq, the failure of the homeland security apparatus during Hurricane Katrina, and the most severe
economic crisis since the Great Depression.
A Failed Domestic Agenda
The Bush administration had planned a series of free-market reforms, but corruption, scandals, and
Democrats in Congress made these goals hard to accomplish. Plans to convert Social Security into a private-
market mechanism relied on the claim that demographic trends would eventually make the system
unaffordable for the shrinking number of young workers, but critics countered that this was easily _xed.
Privatization, on the other hand, threatened to derail the mission of the New Deal welfare agency and turn it
into a fee generator for stock brokers and Wall Street _nanciers. Similarly unpopular was the attempt to
abolish the estate tax. Labeled the “death tax” by its critics, its abolishment would have bene_tted only the
wealthiest 1 percent. As a result of the 2003 tax cuts, the growing federal de_cit did not help make the case for
Republicans.
The nation faced another policy crisis when the Republican-dominated House of Representatives approved a
bill making the undocumented status of millions of immigrants a felony and criminalizing the act of employing
or knowingly aiding undocumented immigrants. In response, millions of immigrants, along with other critics
of the bill, took to the streets in protest. What they saw as the civil rights challenge of their generation,
conservatives read as a dangerous challenge to law and national security. Congress eventually agreed on a
massive build-up of the U.S. Border Patrol and the construction of a seven-hundred-mile-long fence along the
border with Mexico, but the deep divisions over immigration and the status of up to twelve million
undocumented immigrants remained unresolved.
32.2 • The Domestic Mission 887
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INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER OUTLINE
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32.2 /(
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32.4 #
On the morning of September 11, 2001, hopes that the new century would leave behind the
con`icts of the previous one were dashed when two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of New
York’s World Trade Center. When the _rst plane struck the north tower, many assumed that the crash was a
horri_c accident. But then a second plane hit the south tower less than thirty minutes later. People on the
street watched in horror, as some of those trapped in the burning buildings jumped to their deaths and the
enormous towers collapsed into dust. In the photo above, the Statue of Liberty appears to look on helplessly, as
thick plumes of smoke obscure the Lower Manhattan skyline (Figure 32.1). The events set in motion by the
September 11 attacks would raise fundamental questions about the United States’ role in the world, the extent
to which privacy should be protected at the cost of security, the de_nition of exactly who is an American, and
the cost of liberty.
32
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Century

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32.1 The War on Terror
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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As a result of the narrow decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in
Bush v. Gore
, Republican George W. Bush was
the declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election with a majority in the Electoral College of 271 votes to
266, although he received approximately 540,000 fewer popular votes nationally than his Democratic
opponent, Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore. Bush had campaigned with a promise of “compassionate
conservatism” at home and nonintervention abroad. These platform planks were designed to appeal to those
who felt that the Clinton administration’s initiatives in the Balkans and Africa had unnecessarily entangled the
United States in the con`icts of foreign nations. Bush’s 2001 education reform act, dubbed No Child Left
Behind, had strong bipartisan support and re`ected his domestic interests. But before the president could sign
the bill into law, the world changed when four American airliners were hijacked and used in the single most
deadly act of terrorism in the United States. Bush’s domestic agenda quickly took a backseat, as the president
swiftly changed course from nonintervention in foreign affairs to a “war on terror.”
9/11
Shortly after takeoff on the morning of September 11, 2001, teams of hijackers from the Islamist terrorist
group al-Qaeda seized control of four American airliners. Two of the airplanes were `own into the twin towers
of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Morning news programs that were _lming the moments after
the _rst impact, then assumed to be an accident, captured and aired live footage of the second plane, as it
barreled into the other tower in a `ash of _re and smoke. Less than two hours later, the heat from the crash and
the explosion of jet fuel caused the upper `oors of both buildings to collapse onto the lower `oors, reducing
both towers to smoldering rubble. The passengers and crew on both planes, as well as 2,606 people in the two
buildings, all died, including 343 New York City _re_ghters who rushed in to save victims shortly before the
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towers collapsed.
The third hijacked plane was `own into the Pentagon building in northern Virginia, just outside Washington,
DC, killing everyone on board and 125 people on the ground. The fourth plane, also heading towards
Washington, crashed in a _eld near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers, aware of the other attacks,
attempted to storm the cockpit and disarm the hijackers. Everyone on board was killed (Figure 32.3).
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That evening, President Bush promised the nation that those responsible for the attacks would be brought to
justice. Three days later, Congress issued a joint resolution authorizing the president to use all means
necessary against the individuals, organizations, or nations involved in the attacks. On September 20, in an
address to a joint session of Congress, Bush declared war on terrorism, blamed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden for the attacks, and demanded that the radical Islamic fundamentalists who ruled Afghanistan, the
Taliban, turn bin Laden over or face attack by the United States. This speech encapsulated what became
known as the Bush Doctrine, the belief that the United States has the right to protect itself from terrorist acts
by engaging in pre-emptive wars or ousting hostile governments in favor of friendly, preferably democratic,
regimes.
CLICK AND EXPLORE
Read the text of President Bush’s address (http://openstax.org/l/15Bush911) to Congress declaring a “war on
terror.”
World leaders and millions of their citizens expressed support for the United States and condemned the deadly
attacks. Russian president Vladimir Putin characterized them as a bold challenge to humanity itself. German
chancellor Gerhard Schroder said the events of that day were “not only attacks on the people in the United
States, our friends in America, but also against the entire civilized world, against our own freedom, against our
own values, values which we share with the American people.” Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization and a veteran of several bloody struggles against Israel, was dumbfounded by the
news and announced to reporters in Gaza, “We completely condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey
my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration.”
CLICK AND EXPLORE
In May 2014, a Museum dedicated to the memory of the victims was completed. Watch this video
32.1 • The War on Terror 879

The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-1
(http://openstax.org/l/15CBSstory) and learn more about the victims and how the country seeks to remember
them.
GOING TO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
When it became clear that the mastermind behind the attack was Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian
national who ran his terror network from Afghanistan, the full attention of the United States turned towards
Central Asia and the Taliban. Bin Laden had deep roots in Afghanistan. Like many others from around the
Islamic world, he had come to the country to oust the Soviet army, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
Ironically, both bin Laden and the Taliban received material support from the United States at that time. By the
late 1980s, the Soviets and the Americans had both left, although bin Laden, by that time the leader of his own
terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, remained.
The Taliban refused to turn bin Laden over, and the United States began a bombing campaign in October,
allying with the Afghan Northern Alliance, a coalition of tribal leaders opposed to the Taliban. U.S. air support
was soon augmented by ground troops (Figure 32.4). By November 2001, the Taliban had been ousted from
power in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, but bin Laden and his followers had already escaped across the Afghan
border to mountain sanctuaries in northern Pakistan.
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IRAQ
At the same time that the U.S. military was taking control of Afghanistan, the Bush administration was looking
to a new and larger war with the country of Iraq. Relations between the United States and Iraq had been
strained ever since the Gulf War a decade earlier. Economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations,
and American attempts to foster internal revolts against President Saddam Hussein’s government, had further
tainted the relationship. A faction within the Bush administration, sometimes labeled neoconservatives,
believed Iraq’s recalcitrance in the face of overwhelming U.S. military superiority represented a dangerous
symbol to terrorist groups around the world, recently emboldened by the dramatic success of the al-Qaeda
attacks in the United States. Powerful members of this faction, including Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, believed the time to strike Iraq and solve this festering problem was
right then, in the wake of 9/11. Others, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, a highly respected veteran of the
Vietnam War and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were more cautious about initiating combat.
The more militant side won, and the argument for war was gradually laid out for the American people. The
immediate impetus to the invasion, it argued, was the fear that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs): nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons capable of wreaking great havoc. Hussein had in
fact used WMDs against Iranian forces during his war with Iran in the 1980s, and against the Kurds in northern
Iraq in 1988—a time when the United States actively supported the Iraqi dictator. Following the Gulf War,
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inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency had in fact
located and destroyed stockpiles of Iraqi weapons. Those arguing for a new Iraqi invasion insisted, however,
that weapons still existed. President Bush himself told the nation in October 2002 that the United States was
“facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the _nal proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the
form of a mushroom cloud.” The head of the United Nations Monitoring, Veri_cation and Inspection
Commission, Hanx Blix, dismissed these claims. Blix argued that while Saddam Hussein was not being entirely
forthright, he did not appear to be in possession of WMDs. Despite Blix’s _ndings and his own earlier
misgivings, Powell argued in 2003 before the United Nations General Assembly that Hussein had violated UN
resolutions. Much of his evidence relied on secret information provided by an informant that was later proven
to be false. On March 17, 2003, the United States cut off all relations with Iraq. Two days later, in a coalition
with Great Britain, Australia, and Poland, the United States began “Operation Iraqi Freedom” with an invasion
of Iraq.
Other arguments supporting the invasion noted the ease with which the operation could be accomplished. In
February 2002, some in the Department of Defense were suggesting the war would be “a cakewalk.” In
November, referencing the short and successful Gulf War of 1990–1991, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told
the American people it was absurd, as some were claiming, that the con`ict would degenerate into a long,
drawn-out quagmire. “Five days or _ve weeks or _ve months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than
that,” he insisted. “It won’t be a World War III.” And, just days before the start of combat operations in 2003,
Vice President Cheney announced that U.S. forces would likely “be greeted as liberators,” and the war would be
over in “weeks rather than months.”
Early in the con`ict, these predictions seemed to be coming true. The march into Baghdad went fairly
smoothly. Soon Americans back home were watching on television as U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi people worked
together to topple statues of the deposed leader Hussein around the capital. The reality, however, was far more
complex. While American deaths had been few, thousands of Iraqis had died, and the seeds of internal strife
and resentment against the United States had been sown. The United States was not prepared for a long period
of occupation; it was also not prepared for the inevitable problems of law and order, or for the violent sectarian
con`icts that emerged. Thus, even though Bush proclaimed a U.S. victory in May 2003, on the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln
with the banner “Mission Accomplished” prominently displayed behind him, the celebration
proved premature by more than seven years (Figure 32.5).
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32.1 • The War on Terror 881

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Lt. General James Conway on the Invasion of Baghdad
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DOMESTIC SECURITY
The attacks of September 11 awakened many to the reality that the end of the Cold War did not mean an end to
foreign violent threats. Some Americans grew wary of alleged possible enemies in their midst and hate crimes
against Muslim Americans—and those thought to be Muslims—surged in the aftermath. Fearing that terrorists
might strike within the nation’s borders again, and aware of the chronic lack of cooperation among different
federal law enforcement agencies, Bush created the Of_ce of Homeland Security in October 2001. The next
year, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, creating the Department of Homeland Security, which
centralized control over a number of different government functions in order to better control threats at home
(Figure 32.6). The Bush administration also pushed the USA Patriot Act through Congress, which enabled law
enforcement agencies to monitor citizens’ e-mails and phone conversations without a warrant.
MY STORY
882 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
Access for free at openstax.org.
The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-4
FIGURE 32.6 /#.G0E.EG
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E
The Bush administration was _ercely committed to rooting out threats to the United States wherever they
originated, and in the weeks after September 11, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) scoured the globe,
sweeping up thousands of young Muslim men. Because U.S. law prohibits the use of torture, the CIA
transferred some of these prisoners to other nations—a practice known as rendition or extraordinary
rendition—where the local authorities can use methods of interrogation not allowed in the United States.
While the CIA operates overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the chief federal law enforcement
agency within U.S. national borders. Its activities are limited by, among other things, the Fourth Amendment,
which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Beginning in 2002, however, the Bush
administration implemented a wide-ranging program of warrantless domestic wiretapping, known as the
Terrorist Surveillance Program, by the National Security Agency (NSA). The shaky constitutional basis for this
program was ultimately revealed in August 2006, when a federal judge in Detroit ordered the program ended
immediately.
The use of unconstitutional wire taps to prosecute the war on terrorism was only one way the new threat
challenged authorities in the United States. Another problem was deciding what to do with foreign terrorists
captured on the battle_elds in Afghanistan and Iraq. In traditional con`icts, where both sides are uniformed
combatants, the rules of engagement and the treatment of prisoners of war are clear. But in the new war on
terror, extracting intelligence about upcoming attacks became a top priority that superseded human rights and
constitutional concerns. For that purpose, the United States began transporting men suspected of being
members of al-Qaeda to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for questioning. The Bush
administration labeled the detainees “unlawful combatants,” in an effort to avoid affording them the rights
guaranteed to prisoners of war, such as protection from torture, by international treaties such as the Geneva
Conventions. Furthermore, the Justice Department argued that the prisoners were unable to sue for their
rights in U.S. courts on the grounds that the constitution did not apply to U.S. territories. It was only in 2006
that the Supreme Court ruled in
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
that the military tribunals that tried Guantanamo
prisoners violated both U.S. federal law and the Geneva Conventions.
32.1 • The War on Terror 883
The_Challenges_of_the_Twenty-First_Century Image-5
32.2 The Domestic Mission
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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By the time George W. Bush became president, the concept of supply-side economics had become an article of
faith within the Republican Party. The oft-repeated argument was that tax cuts for the wealthy would allow
them to invest more and create jobs for everyone else. This belief in the self-regulatory powers of competition
also served as the foundation of Bush’s education reform. But by the end of 2008, however, Americans’ faith in
the dynamics of the free market had been badly shaken. The failure of the homeland security apparatus during
Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing challenge of the Iraq War compounded the effects of the bleak economic
situation.
OPENING AND CLOSING THE GAP
The Republican Party platform for the 2000 election offered the American people an opportunity to once again
test the rosy expectations of supply-side economics. In 2001, Bush and the Republicans pushed through a
$1.35 trillion tax cut by lowering tax rates across the board but reserving the largest cuts for those in the
highest tax brackets. This was in the face of calls by Republicans for a balanced budget, which Bush insisted
would happen when the so-called job creators expanded the economy by using their increased income to
invest in business.
The cuts were controversial; the rich were getting richer while the middle and lower classes bore a
proportionally larger share of the nation’s tax burden. Between 1966 and 2001, one-half of the nation’s income
gained from increased productivity went to the top 0.01 percent of earners. By 2005, dramatic examples of
income inequity were increasing; the chief executive of Wal-Mart earned $15 million that year, roughly 950
times what the company’s average associate made. The head of the construction company K. B. Homes made
$150 million, or four thousand times what the average construction worker earned that same year. Even as
productivity climbed, workers’ incomes stagnated; with a larger share of the wealth, the very rich further
solidi_ed their in`uence on public policy. Left with a smaller share of the economic pie, average workers had
fewer resources to improve their lives or contribute to the nation’s prosperity by, for example, educating
themselves and their children.
Another gap that had been widening for years was the education gap. Some education researchers had argued
that American students were being left behind. In 1983, a commission established by Ronald Reagan had
published a sobering assessment of the American educational system entitled
A Nation at Risk
. The report
argued that American students were more poorly educated than their peers in other countries, especially in
areas such as math and science, and were thus unprepared to compete in the global marketplace.
Furthermore, test scores revealed serious educational achievement gaps between White students and students
of color. Touting himself as the “education president,” Bush sought to introduce reforms that would close these
gaps.
His administration offered two potential solutions to these problems. First, it sought to hold schools
accountable for raising standards and enabling students to meet them. The No Child Left Behind Act, signed
into law in January 2002, erected a system of testing to measure and ultimately improve student performance
in reading and math at all schools that received federal funds (Figure 32.7). Schools whose students performed
poorly on the tests would be labeled “in need of improvement.” If poor performance continued, schools could
face changes in curricula and teachers, or even the prospect of closure.
884 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
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The second proposed solution was to give students the opportunity to attend schools with better performance
records. Some of these might be charter schools, institutions funded by local tax monies in much the same
way as public schools, but able to accept private donations and exempt from some of the rules public schools
must follow. During the administration of George H. W. Bush, the development of charter schools had gathered
momentum, and the American Federation of Teachers welcomed them as places to employ innovative
teaching methods or offer specialized instruction in particular subjects. President George W. Bush now
encouraged states to grant educational funding vouchers to parents, who could use them to pay for a private
education for their children if they chose. These vouchers were funded by tax revenue that would otherwise
have gone to public schools.
THE 2004 ELECTION AND BUSH’S SECOND TERM
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans had rallied around their president in a gesture of patriotic loyalty,
giving Bush approval ratings of 90 percent. Even following the _rst few months of the Iraq war, his approval
rating remained historically high at approximately 70 percent. But as the 2004 election approached,
opposition to the war in Iraq began to grow. While Bush could boast of a number of achievements at home and
abroad during his _rst term, the narrow victory he achieved in 2000 augured poorly for his chances for
reelection in 2004 and a successful second term.
Reelection
As the 2004 campaign ramped up, the president was persistently dogged by rising criticism of the violence of
the Iraq war and the fact that his administration’s claims of WMDs had been greatly overstated. In the end, no
such weapons were ever found. These criticisms were ampli_ed by growing international concern over the
treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and widespread disgust over the torture
conducted by U.S. troops at the prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, which surfaced only months before the election
(Figure 32.8).
32.2 • The Domestic Mission 885
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In March 2004, an ambush by Iraqi insurgents of a convoy of private military contractors from Blackwater USA
in the town of Fallujah west of Baghdad, and the subsequent torture and mutilation of the four captured
mercenaries, shocked the American public. But the event also highlighted the growing insurgency against U.S.
occupation, the escalating sectarian con`ict between the newly empowered Shia Muslims and the minority of
the formerly ruling Sunni, and the escalating costs of a war involving a large number of private contractors
that, by conservative estimates, approached $1.7 trillion by 2013. Just as importantly, the American campaign
in Iraq had diverted resources from the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where U.S troops were no closer
to capturing Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
With two hot wars overseas, one of which appeared to be spiraling out of control, the Democrats nominated a
decorated Vietnam War veteran, Massachusetts senator John Kerry (Figure 32.9), to challenge Bush for the
presidency. As someone with combat experience, three Purple Hearts, and a foreign policy background, Kerry
seemed like the right challenger in a time of war. But his record of support for the invasion of Iraq made his
criticism of the incumbent less compelling and earned him the byname “Waf`er” from Republicans. The Bush
campaign also sought to characterize Kerry as an elitist out of touch with regular Americans—Kerry had
studied overseas, spoke `uent French, and married a wealthy foreign-born heiress. Republican supporters
also unleashed an attack on Kerry’s Vietnam War record, falsely claiming he had lied about his experience and
fraudulently received his medals. Kerry’s reluctance to embrace his past leadership of Vietnam Veterans
Against the War weakened the enthusiasm of antiwar Americans while opening him up to criticisms from
veterans groups. This combination compromised the impact of his challenge to the incumbent in a time of war.
886 32 • The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
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Urged by the Republican Party to “stay the course” with Bush, voters listened. Bush won another narrow
victory, and the Republican Party did well overall, picking up four seats in the Senate and increasing its
majority there to _fty-_ve. In the House, the Republican Party gained three seats, adding to its majority there
as well. Across the nation, most governorships also went to Republicans, and Republicans dominated many
state legislatures.
Despite a narrow win, the president made a bold declaration in his _rst news conference following the election.
“I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” The policies on which he
chose to spend this political capital included the partial privatization of Social Security and new limits on
court-awarded damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. In foreign affairs, Bush promised that the United
States would work towards “ending tyranny in the world.” But at home and abroad, the president achieved few
of his second-term goals. Instead, his second term in of_ce became associated with the persistent challenge of
pacifying Iraq, the failure of the homeland security apparatus during Hurricane Katrina, and the most severe
economic crisis since the Great Depression.
A Failed Domestic Agenda
The Bush administration had planned a series of free-market reforms, but corruption, scandals, and
Democrats in Congress made these goals hard to accomplish. Plans to convert Social Security into a private-
market mechanism relied on the claim that demographic trends would eventually make the system
unaffordable for the shrinking number of young workers, but critics countered that this was easily _xed.
Privatization, on the other hand, threatened to derail the mission of the New Deal welfare agency and turn it
into a fee generator for stock brokers and Wall Street _nanciers. Similarly unpopular was the attempt to
abolish the estate tax. Labeled the “death tax” by its critics, its abolishment would have bene_tted only the
wealthiest 1 percent. As a result of the 2003 tax cuts, the growing federal de_cit did not help make the case for
Republicans.
The nation faced another policy crisis when the Republican-dominated House of Representatives approved a
bill making the undocumented status of millions of immigrants a felony and criminalizing the act of employing
or knowingly aiding undocumented immigrants. In response, millions of immigrants, along with other critics
of the bill, took to the streets in protest. What they saw as the civil rights challenge of their generation,
conservatives read as a dangerous challenge to law and national security. Congress eventually agreed on a
massive build-up of the U.S. Border Patrol and the construction of a seven-hundred-mile-long fence along the
border with Mexico, but the deep divisions over immigration and the status of up to twelve million
undocumented immigrants remained unresolved.
32.2 • The Domestic Mission 887

Subjects

U.S. History

Grade Levels

K12

Resource Type

PDF
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FIGURE 32.1 In 2001, almos t thr ee thousand people died as a r esul t of the Sep tember 11 at tack s, when membersof the t errorist group al -Qaeda hijack ed four planes as par t of a c oordinat ed at tack on sit es in Ne w York City andWashingt on, DC.

INTR ODUC TIONCHAP TER OUTLINE32.1 The W ar on T error32.2 The Domes tic Mis sion32.3 New Centur y, Old Disput es32.4 Hope and Chang e

On the morning o f Septemb er 11, 2001, hop es tha t the new c entur y would le ave behind theconflicts o f the previous one w ere dashe d when tw o hijack ed airliners crashe d into the twin to wers o f NewYork’s World T rade C enter . When the firs t plane s truck the nor th to wer, man y as sume d tha t the crash w as ahorrific ac cident . But then a sec ond plane hit the south to wer les s than thir ty minutes la ter. People on thestreet w atche d in horror , as some o f those trapp ed in the burning buildings jump ed to their de aths and the

enormous to wers c ollapse d into dus t. In the photo a bove, the Sta tue o f Lib erty app ears to lo ok on helples sly, asthick plumes o f smok e obscure the Lo wer Manha ttan skyline ( Figure 32.1 ). The ev ents set in motion b y theSeptemb er 11 a ttacks w ould raise fundamental ques tions a bout the Unite d Sta tes’ role in the w orld , the e xtentto which priv acy should b e protecte d at the c ost of security , the definition o f exactly who is an Americ an, andthe c ost of lib erty.32The Challenges of the T wenty-First

Century32.1 The W ar on T errorLEARNING OBJEC TIVESBy the end o f this section, y ou wil l be able t o:

•Discus s ho w the Unit ed Stat es responded t o the t errorist attack s of Sep tember 11, 2001•Explain wh y the Unit ed Stat es w ent t o war ag ains t Afghanis tan and Ir aq•Describe the tr eatment o f suspect ed terrorists by U.S. la w enf orcement ag encies and the U .S. militar yFIGURE 32.2 (credit “2004” : modification o f work b y Elaine and P riscil la Chan; cr edit “2013” : modification o f workby Aaron T ang; cr edit “2001” : modification o f work b y “D VIDSHUB”/Flickr)

As a result o f the narro w decision o f the U .S. Supreme C ourt in Bush v . Gore , Republic an Georg e W. Bush w asthe declare d the winner o f the 2000 presidential election with a majority in the Electoral C olleg e of 271 v otes to266, although he rec eived appro xima tely 540,000 f ewer p opular v otes na tionally than his Demo craticopp onent , Bill Clinton ’s vic e president , Al Gore . Bush had c amp aigne d with a promise o f “comp assiona teconser vatism ” at home and noninter vention a broad. These pla tform planks w ere designe d to app eal to those

who f elt tha t the Clinton adminis tration ’s initia tives in the Balkans and Afric a had unnec essarily entangle d theUnite d Sta tes in the c onflicts o f foreign na tions . Bush’s 2001 e duc ation ref orm act , dubb ed No Child LeftBehind , had s trong bip artisan supp ort and reflecte d his domes tic interes ts. But b efore the president c ould signthe bill into la w, the w orld chang ed when f our Americ an airliners w ere hijack ed and use d in the single mos tdeadly act o f terrorism in the Unite d Sta tes. Bush’s domes tic a genda quickly to ok a b ackse at, as the president

swiftly chang ed course from noninter vention in f oreign a ffairs to a “ war on terror .”9/11Shor tly a fter tak eoff on the morning o f Septemb er 11, 2001, te ams o f hijack ers from the Islamis t terroris tgroup al-Qae daseiz ed control o f four Americ an airliners . Tw o of the airplanes w ere flo wn into the twin to wersof the W orld T rade C enter in Lo wer Manha ttan. Morning new s programs tha t were filming the moments a fter

the firs t imp act, then as sume d to b e an ac cident , capture d and aire d liv e footage of the sec ond plane , as itbarrele d into the other to wer in a flash o f fire and smok e. Les s than tw o hours la ter, the he at from the crash andthe e xplosion o f jet fuel c aused the upp er flo ors o f both buildings to c ollapse onto the lo wer flo ors, reducingboth to wers to smoldering r ubble . The p asseng ers and crew on b oth planes , as w ell as 2,606 p eople in the tw obuildings , all die d, including 343 N ew Y ork City firefighters who r ushe d in to sa ve victims shor tly b efore the878 32 • The Chal leng es o f the T wenty -Firs t Centur y

Access for fr ee a t opens tax. org.

towers c ollapse d.

The third hijack ed plane w as flo wn into the P enta gon building in nor thern V irginia, jus t outside W ashington ,DC, killing ev eryone on b oard and 125 p eople on the ground . The f ourth plane , also he ading to wardsWashington , crashe d in a field ne ar Shanks ville , Penns ylvania, when p asseng ers, aware o f the other a ttacks ,attempte d to s torm the c ockpit and disarm the hijack ers. Everyone on b oard w as kille d (Figure 32.3 ).

FIGURE 32.3 Three o f the f our airliners hijack ed on Sep tember 11, 2001, r eached their tar gets. Unit ed 93,presumabl y on its w ay to des troy either the Capit ol or the Whit e House , was br ought do wn in a field aft er a s trug glebetw een the pas seng ers and the hijack ers.

Tha t evening , President B ush promise d the na tion tha t those resp onsible f or the a ttacks w ould b e brought tojustice. Three da ys later, Congres s issued a joint resolution a uthorizing the president to use all me ansnecessary agains t the individuals , org aniza tions , or na tions in volved in the a ttacks . On Septemb er 20, in anaddres s to a joint ses sion o f Congres s, Bush declare d war on terrorism , blame d al-Qae da le ader Osama binLaden f or the a ttacks , and demande d tha t the radic al Islamic fundamentalis ts who r uled Afghanis tan, the

Talib an, turn bin Laden o ver or fac e attack b y the Unite d Sta tes. This sp eech enc apsula ted wha t becamekno wn as the Bush Do ctrine , the b elief tha t the Unite d Sta tes has the right to protect itself from terroris t actsby eng aging in pre -emptiv e wars or ous ting hos tile g overnments in fa vor o f friendly , pref erably demo cratic,regimes .

CLICK AND EXPL ORERead the te xt ofPresident B ush’s addres s( ush911) to C ongres s declaring a “ war onterror .”World le aders and millions o f their citiz ens e xpres sed supp ort for the Unite d Sta tes and c ondemne d the de adlyattacks . Russian president Vladimir Putin characteriz ed them as a b old challeng e to humanity itself. German

chanc ellor Gerhard Schro der said the ev ents o f tha t day were “not only a ttacks on the p eople in the Unite dStates, our friends in Americ a, but also a gains t the entire civiliz ed world , agains t our o wn free dom , agains t ourown v alues , values which w e share with the Americ an p eople .” Yasser Ara fat, chairman o f the P ales tinianLiberation Org aniza tion and a v eteran o f sev eral blo ody s truggles a gains t Israel , was dumbf ounde d by thenew s and announc ed to rep orters in G aza, “ We completely c ondemn this v ery dang erous a ttack , and I c onvey

my condolenc es to the Americ an p eople , to the Americ an president and to the Americ an adminis tration .”CLICK AND EXPL OREIn Ma y 2014, a Museum de dicated to the memor y of the victims w as c omplete d. Watch this video32.1 • The W ar on T error 879( tory)and le arn more a bout the victims and ho w the c ountr y seeks to rememb erthem .

GOING T O W AR IN AFGHANIST ANWhen it b ecame cle ar tha t the mas termind b ehind the a ttack w as Osama bin Laden , a w ealth y Sa udi Ara biannational who ran his terror netw ork from Afghanis tan, the full a ttention o f the Unite d Sta tes turne d to wardsCentral Asia and the T alib an. Bin Laden had deep ro ots in Afghanis tan. Lik e man y others from around theIslamic w orld , he had c ome to the c ountr y to ous t the So viet arm y, which in vaded Afghanis tan in 1979.

Ironic ally, both bin Laden and the T alib an rec eived ma terial supp ort from the Unite d Sta tes a t tha t time . By thelate 1980s , the So viets and the Americ ans had b oth left , although bin Laden , by tha t time the le ader o f his o wnterroris t org aniza tion , al-Qae da, remaine d.

The T alib an refuse d to turn bin Laden o ver, and the Unite d Sta tes b egan a b ombing c amp aign in Octob er,allying with the Afghan N orthern A llianc e, a c oalition o f trib al le aders opp osed to the T alib an. U.S. air supp ortwas so on a ugmente d by ground tro ops ( Figure 32.4 ). By Novemb er 2001, the T alib an had b een ous ted frompower in Afghanis tan’s capital o f Kabul, but bin Laden and his f ollowers had alre ady esc aped acros s the Afghanborder to mountain sanctuaries in nor thern P akis tan.

FIGURE 32.4 Marines fight ag ains t Taliban f orces in Helmand P rovinc e, Afghanis tan. Helmand w as a c enter ofTaliban s trength. (cr edit: “D VIDSHUB”/Flickr)IRA QAt the same time tha t the U .S. militar y was taking c ontrol o f Afghanis tan, the B ush adminis tration w as lo okingto a new and larg er w ar with the c ountr y of Iraq . Relations b etween the Unite d Sta tes and Iraq had b een

straine d ev er sinc e the Gulf W ar a dec ade e arlier . Economic sanctions imp osed on Iraq b y the Unite d Nations ,and Americ an a ttempts to f oster internal rev olts a gains t President Saddam Hus sein ’s government , had fur thertainte d the rela tionship . A faction within the B ush adminis tration , sometimes la beled neo conser vatives,believ ed Iraq ’s rec alcitranc e in the fac e of overwhelming U .S. militar y sup eriority represente d a dang eroussymb ol to terroris t groups around the w orld , rec ently emb oldene d by the drama tic suc cess of the al-Qae da

attacks in the Unite d Sta tes. Powerful memb ers o f this faction , including V ice President Dick Chene y andSecretar y of Def ense Donald R ums feld, believ ed the time to s trike Iraq and solv e this f estering problem w asright then , in the w ake of 9/11. Others , like Secretar y of Sta te C olin P owell, a highly resp ecte d veteran o f theVietnam W ar and f ormer chair o f the J oint Chiefs o f Sta ff, w ere more c autious a bout initia ting c omb at.

The more militant side w on, and the argument f or w ar w as gradually laid out f or the Americ an p eople . Theimme diate imp etus to the in vasion , it argue d, was the f ear tha t Hus sein w as s tockpiling w eapons o f mas sdestruction ( WMDs ): nucle ar, chemic al, or biologic al w eapons c apable o f wre aking gre at ha voc. Hus sein had infact use d WMDs a gains t Iranian f orces during his w ar with Iran in the 1980s , and a gains t the K urds in nor thernIraq in 1988—a time when the Unite d Sta tes activ ely supp orted the Iraqi dicta tor. Following the Gulf W ar,880 32 • The Chal leng es o f the T wenty -Firs t Centur y

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insp ectors from the Unite d Nations S pecial C ommis sion and Interna tional A tomic Energ y Ag ency had in factlocated and des troyed stockpiles o f Iraqi w eapons. Those arguing f or a new Iraqi in vasion insis ted, however,that weapons s till e xisted. President B ush himself told the na tion in Octob er 2002 tha t the Unite d Sta tes w as“facing cle ar evidenc e of peril, we cannot w ait f or the final pro of—the smoking gun—tha t could c ome in theform o f a mushro om cloud .” The he ad o f the Unite d Nations Monitoring , Verific ation and Insp ection

Commis sion , Hanx Blix , dismis sed these claims . Blix argue d tha t while Saddam Hus sein w as not b eing entirelyforthright , he did not app ear to b e in p ossession o f WMDs . Despite Blix ’s findings and his o wn e arliermis givings , Powell argue d in 2003 b efore the Unite d Nations General As sembly tha t Hus sein had viola ted UNresolutions . Much o f his evidenc e relie d on secret inf orma tion pro vide d by an inf ormant tha t was la ter pro vento b e false . On March 17, 2003, the Unite d Sta tes cut o ff all rela tions with Iraq . Tw o da ys later, in a c oalition

with Gre at Britain , Australia, and P oland , the Unite d Sta tes b egan “ Operation Iraqi F reedom ” with an in vasionof Iraq .

Other arguments supp orting the in vasion note d the e ase with which the op eration c ould b e ac complishe d. InFebruary 2002, some in the Dep artment o f Def ense w ere sugg esting the w ar w ould b e “a cakewalk.” InNovemb er, ref erencing the shor t and suc cessful Gulf W ar o f 1990–1991, Secretar y of Def ense R ums feld toldthe Americ an p eople it w as a bsurd , as some w ere claiming , tha t the c onflict w ould deg enera te into a long ,drawn-out qua gmire . “Five da ys or fiv e weeks or fiv e months , but it c ertainly isn ’t going to las t an y long er than

that,” he insis ted. “It w on’t be a W orld W ar III. ” And , jus t days before the s tart of comb at op erations in 2003,Vice President Chene y announc ed tha t U.S. forces w ould lik ely “b e greete d as lib erators ,” and the w ar w ould b eover in “ weeks ra ther than months .”Early in the c onflict , these pre dictions seeme d to b e coming tr ue. The march into Ba ghdad w ent fairlysmo othly . Soon Americ ans b ack home w ere w atching on television as U .S. soldiers and the Iraqi p eople w orked

together to topple s tatues o f the dep osed leader Hus sein around the c apital . The re ality , however, was far morecomple x. While Americ an de aths had b een f ew, thousands o f Iraqis had die d, and the see ds o f internal s trifeand resentment a gains t the Unite d Sta tes had b een so wn. The Unite d Sta tes w as not prep ared for a long p erio dof occup ation; it w as also not prep ared for the inevita ble problems o f law and order , or f or the violent sectarianconflicts tha t emerg ed. Thus , even though B ush pro claime d a U .S. victor y in Ma y 2003, on the deck o f the US S

Abraham Linc olnwith the b anner “Mis sion A ccomplishe d” prominently displa yed behind him , the c elebra tionproved prema ture b y more than sev en y ears ( Figure 32.5 ).

FIGURE 32.5 President Bush giv es the vict ory symbol on the air craft carrier US SAbraham Linc olnin Ma y 2003,after American tr oops had c omplet ed the cap ture of Iraq’s capit ol Baghdad. Y et, b y the time the Unit ed Stat es final lywithdr ew its f orces fr om Ir aq in 2011, nearl y fiv e thousand U .S. soldiers had died.32.1 • The W ar on T error 881Lt. Gener al James Conw ay on the Inv asion of BaghdadLt. Gener al James Con way, who c ommanded the Firs t Marine Expeditionar y Force in Ir aq, ans wers a r epor ter’s

ques tions about civilian casual ties during the 2003 in vasion o f Baghdad.

““As a civilian in those earl y da ys, one definit ely had the sense that the high c ommand had e xpect ed somethingto happen which didn ’t. W as that a c orrect per ception? ”—We were told b y our int elligence folks that the enem y is carr ying civilian clothes in their pack s because , as soonas the shooting s tarts, the y’re going put on their civilian clothes and the y’re going g o home . Well, the y put ontheir civilian clothes , but not t o go home . The y put on civilian clothes t o blend with the civilians and shoot back at

us. . . .

“Ther e’s been some criticism o f the beha vior o f the Marines at the Diy ala bridg e [acr oss the Tigris Riv er int oBaghdad] in t erms o f civilian casual ties.”—Well, after the Thir d Bat talion, F ourth Marines cr ossed, the r esistanc e was not al l gone. . . . The y had jus t foughtto tak e a bridg e. The y were being c ount erattack ed b y enem y forces. Some o f the civilian v ehicles that w ound upwith the bul let holes in them c ontained enem y fight ers in unif orm with w eapons , some o f them did not. Ag ain,

we’re terribl y sorr y about the los s of any civilian lif e wher e civilians ar e kil led in a bat tlefield set ting. I wil lguarantee y ou, it w as not the int ent o f those Marines t o kil l civilians . [The civilian casual ties happened becausethe Marines] f elt thr eatened, [and] the y were ha ving a t ough time dis tinguishing fr om an enem y that [is violating ]the la ws of land w arfare by going t o civilian clothes , put ting his o wn people at risk. Al l of those things , I think,[had an] impact [on the beha vior o f the Marines], and in the end it ’s very unf ortunat e that civilians died. ”

Who in y our opinion bears primar y responsibility f or the deaths o f Iraqi civilians?

DOMESTIC SECURIT YThe a ttacks o f Septemb er 11 a wakened man y to the re ality tha t the end o f the C old W ar did not me an an end toforeign violent thre ats. Some Americ ans grew w ary of alleg ed possible enemies in their mids t and ha te crimesagains t Muslim Americ ans—and those thought to b e Muslims —surg ed in the a fterma th. Fearing tha t terroris tsmight s trike within the na tion ’s borders a gain, and a ware o f the chronic lack o f cooperation among diff erent

federal la w enf orcement a gencies , Bush cre ated the Offic e of Homeland Security in Octob er 2001. The ne xtyear, Congres s passed the Homeland Security A ct, cre ating the Dep artment o f Homeland Security , whichcentraliz ed control o ver a numb er o f diff erent g overnment functions in order to b etter c ontrol thre ats at home(Figure 32.6 ). The B ush adminis tration also pushe d the US A Patriot A ct through C ongres s, which ena bled lawenforcement a gencies to monitor citiz ens’ e -mails and phone c onversa tions without a w arrant .MY ST ORY882 32 • The Chal leng es o f the T wenty -Firs t Centur y

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FIGURE 32.6 The Depar tment o f Homeland Security has man y duties , including g uarding U .S. bor ders and, as thisorganizational char t sho ws, wielding c ontr ol over the Coas t Guar d, the Secr et Ser vice, U.S. Cus toms , and a mul titudeof other la w enf orcement ag encies .

The B ush adminis tration w as fierc ely c ommit ted to ro oting out thre ats to the Unite d Sta tes wherev er the yorigina ted, and in the w eeks a fter Septemb er 11, the C entral Intellig ence Ag ency (CIA) sc oure d the glob e,sweeping up thousands o f young Muslim men . Bec ause U .S. la w prohibits the use o f tor ture , the CIAtrans ferre d some o f these prisoners to other na tions —a practic e kno wn as rendition or e xtraordinar yrendition—where the lo cal authorities c an use metho ds o f interrog ation not allo wed in the Unite d Sta tes.

While the CIA op erates o verse as, the F ederal B ureau of Investigation (FBI) is the chief f ederal la w enf orcementagency within U .S. na tional b orders . Its activities are limite d by, among other things , the F ourth Amendment ,which protects citiz ens a gains t unre asona ble se arches and seizures . Beginning in 2002, ho wever, the B ushadminis tration implemente d a wide -ranging program o f warrantles s domes tic wiretapping , kno wn as theTerroris t Sur veillanc e Program , by the N ational Security Ag ency (NS A). The shaky c onstitutional b asis f or this

program w as ultima tely rev ealed in A ugus t 2006, when a f ederal judg e in Detroit ordere d the program ende dimme diately.

The use o f unc onstitutional wire taps to prosecute the w ar on terrorism w as only one w ay the new thre atchalleng ed authorities in the Unite d Sta tes. Another problem w as deciding wha t to do with f oreign terroris tscapture d on the b attlefields in Afghanis tan and Iraq . In traditional c onflicts , where b oth sides are unif orme dcomb atants , the r ules o f eng agement and the tre atment o f prisoners o f war are cle ar. But in the new w ar onterror , extracting intellig ence about up coming a ttacks b ecame a top priority tha t sup erse ded human rights and

constitutional c oncerns . For tha t purp ose, the Unite d Sta tes b egan transp orting men susp ecte d of beingmemb ers o f al-Qae da to the U .S. na val base a t Guantanamo Ba y, Cub a, for ques tioning . The B ushadminis tration la beled the detainees “unla wful c omb atants ,” in an eff ort to a void a ffording them the rightsguarantee d to prisoners o f war, such as protection from tor ture , by interna tional tre aties such as the Genev aConventions . Furthermore , the J ustice Dep artment argue d tha t the prisoners w ere una ble to sue f or their

rights in U .S. c ourts on the grounds tha t the c onstitution did not apply to U .S. territories . It w as only in 2006that the Supreme C ourt ruled in Hamdan v . Rums feldthat the militar y tribunals tha t trie d Guantanamoprisoners viola ted both U .S. federal la w and the Genev a Conventions .32.1 • The W ar on T error 88332.2 The Domestic MissionLEARNING OBJEC TIVES

By the end o f this section, y ou wil l be able t o:

•Discus s the Bush adminis tration ’s economic theories and tax policies , and their eff ects on the Americaneconom y•Explain ho w the f eder al government at temp ted to impr ove the American public education s ystem•Describe the f eder al government ’s response t o Hurricane K atrina•Identif y the causes o f the Gr eat R ecession o f 2008 and its eff ect on the a verage citiz en

By the time Georg e W. Bush b ecame president , the c oncept o f supply -side ec onomics had b ecome an ar ticle o ffaith within the R epublic an P arty. The o ft-rep eated argument w as tha t tax cuts f or the w ealth y would allo wthem to in vest more and cre ate jobs f or ev eryone else . This b elief in the self -regula tory powers o f comp etitionalso ser ved as the f ounda tion o f Bush’s education ref orm . But b y the end o f 2008, ho wever, Americ ans’ faith inthe dynamics o f the free mark et had b een b adly shak en. The failure o f the homeland security app aratus during

Hurric ane K atrina and the ong oing challeng e of the Iraq W ar comp ounde d the eff ects o f the ble ak ec onomicsitua tion .

OPENING AND CL OSING THE GAPThe R epublic an P arty pla tform f or the 2000 election o ffered the Americ an p eople an opp ortunity to onc e againtest the ros y expecta tions o f supply -side ec onomics . In 2001, B ush and the R epublic ans pushe d through a$1.35 trillion tax cut b y lowering tax ra tes acros s the b oard but reser ving the larg est cuts f or those in thehighes t tax brack ets. This w as in the fac e of calls b y Republic ans f or a b alanc ed budg et, which B ush insis ted

would happ en when the so -called job cre ators e xpande d the ec onom y by using their incre ased inc ome toinvest in busines s.

The cuts w ere c ontro versial; the rich w ere g etting richer while the middle and lo wer clas ses b ore aprop ortionally larg er share o f the na tion ’s tax burden . Betw een 1966 and 2001, one -half o f the na tion ’s inc omegaine d from incre ased pro ductivity w ent to the top 0.01 p ercent o f earners . By 2005, drama tic e xamples o fincome ine quity w ere incre asing; the chief e xecutiv e of Wal-Mar t earne d $15 million tha t year, roughly 950times wha t the c omp any’s average as sociate made . The he ad o f the c onstruction c omp any K. B. Homes made

$150 million , or f our thousand times wha t the a verage construction w orker e arne d tha t same y ear. Even asproductivity climb ed, workers’ inc omes s tagnated; with a larg er share o f the w ealth , the v ery rich fur thersolidifie d their influenc e on public p olicy . Left with a smaller share o f the ec onomic pie , average workers hadfewer resourc es to impro ve their liv es or c ontribute to the na tion ’s prosp erity b y, for e xample , educ atingthemselv es and their children .

Another g ap tha t had b een widening f or y ears w as the e duc ation g ap. Some e duc ation rese archers had argue dthat Americ an s tudents w ere b eing left b ehind . In 1983, a c ommis sion es tablishe d by Ronald R eagan hadpublishe d a sob ering as sessment o f the Americ an e duc ational s ystem entitle dA Nation a t Risk . The rep ortargue d tha t Americ an s tudents w ere more p oorly e duc ated than their p eers in other c ountries , esp ecially inareas such as ma th and scienc e, and w ere thus unprep ared to c omp ete in the glob al mark etplac e.

Furthermore , tes t scores rev ealed serious e ducational achiev ement g aps b etween White s tudents and s tudentsof color . Touting himself as the “ education president ,” Bush sought to intro duce ref orms tha t would close thesegaps.

His adminis tration o ffered tw o potential solutions to these problems . First, it sought to hold scho olsaccounta ble f or raising s tandards and ena bling s tudents to meet them . The No Child Left Behind A ct, signe dinto la w in J anuar y 2002, erecte d a s ystem o f tes ting to me asure and ultima tely impro ve student p erformanc ein re ading and ma th a t all scho ols tha t rec eived federal funds ( Figure 32.7 ). Scho ols whose s tudents p erforme dpoorly on the tes ts w ould b e labeled “in nee d of impro vement .” If p oor p erformanc e continue d, scho ols c ould

face chang es in curricula and te achers , or ev en the prosp ect o f closure .884 32 • The Chal leng es o f the T wenty -Firs t Centur yAccess for fr ee a t opens tax. org.

FIGURE 32.7 President Bush signed the No Child L eft Behind Act int o law in Januar y 2002. The act r equir es schoolsystems t o set high s tandar ds for students , plac e “highl y qualified” t eachers in the clas sroom, and giv e militar yrecruit ers c ontact inf ormation f or students .

The sec ond prop osed solution w as to giv e students the opp ortunity to a ttend scho ols with b etter p erformanc erecords . Some o f these might b echar ter scho ols, ins titutions funde d by local tax monies in much the sameway as public scho ols, but a ble to ac cept priv ate dona tions and e xempt from some o f the r ules public scho olsmus t follow. During the adminis tration o f Georg e H. W . Bush , the dev elopment o f char ter scho ols had g athere dmomentum , and the Americ an F edera tion o f Teachers w elcome d them as plac es to emplo y inno vative

teaching metho ds or o ffer sp ecializ ed ins truction in p articular subjects . President Georg e W. Bush no wencoura ged states to grant e ducational funding v ouchers to p arents , who c ould use them to p ay for a priv ateeducation f or their children if the y chose . These v ouchers w ere funde d by tax rev enue tha t would other wisehave gone to public scho ols.

THE 2004 ELEC TION AND BUSH’S SECOND TERMIn the w ake of the 9/11 a ttacks , Americ ans had rallie d around their president in a g esture o f patriotic lo yalty,giving B ush appro val ra tings o f 90 p ercent. Even f ollowing the firs t few months o f the Iraq w ar, his appro valrating remaine d his toric ally high a t appro xima tely 70 p ercent. But as the 2004 election appro ache d,opp osition to the w ar in Iraq b egan to gro w. While B ush c ould b oast of a numb er o f achiev ements a t home and

abroad during his firs t term , the narro w victor y he achiev ed in 2000 a ugure d poorly f or his chanc es forreelection in 2004 and a suc cessful sec ond term .

ReelectionAs the 2004 c amp aign ramp ed up , the president w as p ersis tently dogg ed by rising criticism o f the violenc e ofthe Iraq w ar and the fact tha t his adminis tration ’s claims o f WMDs had b een gre atly o verstated. In the end , nosuch w eapons w ere ev er found . These criticisms w ere amplifie d by gro wing interna tional c oncern o ver thetreatment o f prisoners a t the Guantanamo Ba y detention c amp and widespre ad dis gust over the tor ture

conducte d by U.S. tro ops a t the prison in Abu Ghraib , Iraq , which sur faced only months b efore the election(Figure 32.8 ).32.2 • The Domes tic Mis sion 885FIGURE 32.8 The firs t twenty cap tives w ere processed at the Guantanamo Ba y det ention camp on Januar y 11,2002 (a). F rom lat e 2003 t o earl y 2004, prisoners held in Abu Ghr aib, Iraq, w ere tortured and humiliat ed in a v arietyof ways (b). U .S. soldiers jumped on and beat them, led them on leashes , made them pose nak ed, and urinat ed on

them. The r elease o f phot ographs o f the abuse r aised an out cry around the w orld and gr eatly diminished the alr eadyflagging suppor t for American int ervention in Ir aq.

In March 2004, an ambush b y Iraqi insurg ents o f a c onvoy of priv ate militar y contractors from Blackw ater US Ain the to wn o f Fallujah w est of Ba ghdad , and the subse quent tor ture and mutila tion o f the f our c apture dmerc enaries , sho cked the Americ an public . But the ev ent also highlighte d the gro wing insurg ency a gains t U.S.

occup ation , the esc alating sectarian c onflict b etween the newly emp owered Shia Muslims and the minority o fthe f ormerly r uling Sunni , and the esc alating c osts of a w ar in volving a larg e numb er o f priv ate contractorsthat, by conser vative es tima tes, appro ache d $1.7 trillion b y 2013. J ust as imp ortantly , the Americ an c amp aignin Iraq had div erted resourc es from the w ar a gains t al-Qae da in Afghanis tan, where U .S tro ops w ere no closerto capturing Osama bin Laden , the mas termind b ehind the 9/11 a ttacks .

With tw o hot w ars o verse as, one o f which app eared to b e spiraling out o f control , the Demo crats nomina ted adecorated Vietnam W ar v eteran , Mas sachuset ts sena tor J ohn K erry (Figure 32.9 ), to challeng e Bush f or thepresidency . As someone with c omb at experienc e, three Purple He arts, and a f oreign p olicy b ackground , Kerryseeme d lik e the right challeng er in a time o f war. But his rec ord o f supp ort for the in vasion o f Iraq made hiscriticism o f the incumb ent les s comp elling and e arne d him the b yname “ Waffler ” from R epublic ans. The B ush

camp aign also sought to characteriz e Kerry as an elitis t out o f touch with regular Americ ans—Kerry hadstudie d overse as, spoke fluent F rench , and marrie d a w ealth y foreign-b orn heires s. Republic an supp ortersalso unle ashe d an a ttack on K erry’s Vietnam W ar rec ord, falsely claiming he had lie d about his e xperienc e andfraudulently rec eived his me dals . Kerry’s reluctanc e to embrac e his p ast leadership o f Vietnam V eteransAgains t the W ar w eakened the enthusiasm o f antiw ar Americ ans while op ening him up to criticisms from

veterans groups . This c ombina tion c ompromise d the imp act o f his challeng e to the incumb ent in a time o f war.886 32 • The Chal leng es o f the T wenty -Firs t Centur yAccess for fr ee a t opens tax. org.

FIGURE 32.9 John K erry ser ved in the U .S. Na vy during the Vietnam W ar and r epresent ed Mas sachuset ts in the U .S.

Senat e from 1985 t o 2013. Her e he gr eets sailors fr om the US SSampson . Kerry was sworn in as P resident Obama’ sSecr etar y of Stat e in 2013.

Urged by the R epublic an P arty to “ stay the c ourse ” with B ush , voters lis tene d. Bush w on another narro wvictor y, and the R epublic an P arty did w ell o verall , picking up f our se ats in the Sena te and incre asing itsmajority there to fifty -five. In the House , the R epublic an P arty gaine d three se ats, adding to its majority thereas w ell. Acros s the na tion , mos t governorships also w ent to R epublic ans, and R epublic ans domina ted man ystate legisla tures .

Despite a narro w win , the president made a b old declara tion in his firs t new s conferenc e following the election .

“I earne d capital in this c amp aign , politic al capital , and no w I intend to sp end it .” The p olicies on which hechose to sp end this p olitic al capital include d the p artial priv atization o f Social Security and new limits oncourt-awarde d dama ges in me dical malpractic e lawsuits . In f oreign a ffairs , Bush promise d tha t the Unite dStates w ould w ork to wards “ ending tyrann y in the w orld .” But a t home and a broad, the president achiev ed fewof his sec ond-term g oals. Ins tead, his sec ond term in o ffice became as sociated with the p ersis tent challeng e of

pacifying Iraq , the failure o f the homeland security app aratus during Hurric ane K atrina, and the mos t sev ereeconomic crisis sinc e the Gre at Depres sion .

A Failed Domestic AgendaThe B ush adminis tration had planne d a series o f free -mark et ref orms , but c orruption , scandals , andDemo crats in C ongres s made these g oals hard to ac complish . Plans to c onvert So cial Security into a priv ate-mark et mechanism relie d on the claim tha t demographic trends w ould ev entually mak e the s ystemuna fforda ble f or the shrinking numb er o f young w orkers, but critics c ountere d tha t this w as e asily fix ed.

Privatization , on the other hand , thre atene d to derail the mis sion o f the N ew De al w elfare a gency and turn itinto a f ee g enera tor f or stock brok ers and W all Street financiers . Similarly unp opular w as the a ttempt toabolish the es tate tax . Labeled the “ death tax ” by its critics , its a bolishment w ould ha ve benefit ted only thewealthies t 1 p ercent. As a result o f the 2003 tax cuts , the gro wing f ederal deficit did not help mak e the c ase f orRepublic ans.

The na tion fac ed another p olicy crisis when the R epublic an-domina ted House o f Representa tives appro ved abill making the undo cumente d status o f millions o f immigrants a f elon y and criminalizing the act o f emplo yingor kno wingly aiding undo cumente d immigrants . In resp onse , millions o f immigrants , along with other criticsof the bill , took to the s treets in protes t. Wha t the y sa w as the civil rights challeng e of their g enera tion ,conser vatives re ad as a dang erous challeng e to la w and na tional security . Congres s ev entually a gree d on a

mas sive build-up o f the U .S. Border P atrol and the c onstruction o f a sev en-hundre d-mile -long f ence along theborder with Me xico, but the deep divisions o ver immigra tion and the s tatus o f up to tw elve millionundo cumente d immigrants remaine d unresolv ed.32.2 • The Domes tic Mis sion 887