38 CLAIRE BRESCHARD
worldviews not only shape their understanding of conflict, but cultural references in
times of conflict have great impact on the perception of the enemy. As Mintz and
Wayne (2014: 336) explain, the decision to invade Iraq and the planning of the
operations was a classic ‘groupthink’ dynamic, dominated by a sense of moral,
religious and cultural superiority. Janis (1982: 9) defines groupthink as “a mode of
thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group,
when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically
appraise alternative courses of action”. Mintz and Wayne identify three categories
within the decision-making unit, the first two dominating the discussion: the assertive
nationalists, the neoconservatives, and the pragmatic internationalists (2014:336). As
a result of such a biased dynamic, the group completely ignored the cultural realities
in Iraq, processed information in a selective way, drew anticipated conclusions on
presumptions and rejected any external advice. As Marsden (2009) notes, the
religious component of the war in Iraq was underestimated with the Bush
Administration making countless references to the ideological and religious aspects of
the war. For example, George Bush allegedly informed then Palestinian Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas, that “God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them,
and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined
to solve the problem in the Middle East” (Marsden 2009: 81).
The use of religious vocabulary in Bush’s speeches not only affected the behaviour of
the Americans on the ground, but also influenced the conception that Iraqis had of
Americans (Marsden 2009). Alongside the coalition’s conception of peace and
democracy were ideas of moral, cultural and religious supremacy, which helps
understand the administration’s decisions and controversial behaviour of soldiers on
the ground. The ‘peace process’ did not look like one: barbwires, checkpoints, mass
arrests, internment, torture and starvation of the civilian population were the day-today life of the Ira qis (Ansari 2006: 140; Bonds 2014: 377). Moreover, although the
coalition was officially trying to build a legitimate Iraqi state governed by its own
rule of law, coalition soldiers were not subject to this law. Any crime that was
committed by a member of the international community was therefore not judged in
Iraq (if judged at all), an idea that Iraqis found in accordance with the general