In his first State of the Union address to the nation on January 29, 2002, President Bush presented both his justification and plans for the war on terror and made it clear that the war against the terrorists was just beginning.

States like these (North Korea, Iran, and Iraq), and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

These statements have since been referred to as the “axis of evil” charge. The president denounced North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as dangers to the rest of the world and warned that the United States would wage war against countries developing weapons of mass destruction. There were parts of his address that were later found to be untrue; for example the president stated, “Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants.”

On May 14, 2002, the United Nations Security Council replaced sanctions on Iraq with “smart sanctions.” “Smart sanctions” were meant to allow food, medical supplies, and goods into the country while restricting any trade that could be used for military purposes. These sanctions were designed to force Iraq to comply with United Nations resolutions about weapons of mass destruction. At the time, it was estimated by the United Nations that the sanctions had resulted in the deaths of over 1 million Iraqi civilians.