| This paper investigates the relationships between the unintended consequences of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and its decreasing legitimacy in the American public. Articles from the Foreign Desk Section of the New York Times are used as a proxy to assess the war's legitimacy, while general reporting of the war in the paper is used to determine why the war's legitimacy has declined. The findings suggest three unintended consequences of the continued military occupation are having significant impacts on the war's legitimacy: increasing American and Iraqi fatalities, escalating domestic Iraqi insurgency, and lack of humanitarian assistance being provided to Iraqi civilians. In addition, original justifications for the war have been exposed as fraudulent including the threat Iraq posed to the U.S. and other nations because of their claimed possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction and ties to terrorism. Combined, these unintended consequences have caused a decrease in the war's legitimacy for New York Times journalists. New York Times journalists' opinions are shown to track trends in public opinion polls suggestion generalizability. |
