Anders Fogh Rasmussen
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War in Iraq--Under Rasmussen, Denmark supported American foreign policies.

As Prime Minister, Rasmussen strongly supported the 2003 Iraq War. As in most European countries he faced considerable opposition, both in the parliament and in the general population. Subsequent opinion polls suggested the Danish population's opinion was split on the issue. One vocal protester managed to get into the Danish parliament during the period before the war, where he poured red paint on the prime minister while yelling "Du har blod på dine hænder" (literally: "You have blood on your hands&quot . A member of the Danish parliament for the socialist Red-Green Alliance, Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil, stated that it was a reaction she might have made under the circumstances, although she later denounced such behaviour. Denmark was one of only five countries to take part in the actual invasion operations (the others being the U.S, UK, Poland and Australia) though the contingent mainly consisted of two minor warships and staff and radio units that were never involved in actual combat. In the months after the initial phase of the war, Danish troops participated in the multi-national force stationed in Iraq. Approximately 550 Danish troops were stationed in Iraq from 2004 and into 2007, first at "Camp Dannevang" and later at "Camp Einherjer", both near Basra. When the contingent of troops left around August 2007, it was not replaced and Denmark shifted its focus to non-military support around Baghdad. The official reason provided is that the Iraqi government should now be able to handle security in the Basra area. Critics of Rasmussen argued that the withdrawal was motivated by decreasing domestic support for the war.

In 2004 Rasmussen's government came under attack based on questions of how much intelligence it had with regard to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The government held hearings, and was forced to publish classified reports it had consulted about the likelihood of banned weapons existing in Iraq. While the Blair and Bush administrations became the subject of criticism for extended periods because of their reliance on questionable intelligence, Rasmussen stayed clear of this controversy. This is probably largely because the motion passed by parliament (Folketinget) authorising the deployment of Danish troops states as the reason for the deployment Iraq's continued refusal to cooperate with UN inspectors in violation of the UN Security Council's resolution. The Danish deployment of troops was thus not formally based on a claim that Iraq had WMD's.

Rasmussen stated as one of the reasons to support a military intervention, "Irak har masseødelæggelsesvåben. Det er ikke noget vi tror. Vi ved det. Irak har selv indrømmet, at det har haft sennepsgas, nervegas, miltbrand, men Saddam vil ikke afregne. Han vil ikke fortælle os, hvor og hvordan de våben er blevet destrueret. Det ved vi fra FN's inspektører, så der er ingen tvivl i mit sind." (In English: "Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think, it is something we know. Iraq has itself admitted that it has had mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, but Saddam won't disclose. He won't tell us where and how these weapons have been destroyed. We know this from the UN inspectors, so there is no doubt in my mind.&quot .[citation needed]

The Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE) produced a classified report stating that it had no absolute proof of WMDs in Iraq. Rasmussen had access to this report and used it in other parts of his decision. Since the presence of substantial WMDs in Iraq was later refuted, Rasmussen has focused almost exclusively on the tyrannical nature of Saddam Hussein's regime.[citation needed] A former FE analyst, Major Frank Grevil, was sentenced to four months in prison for leaking the information to the press. Grevil argued that Rasmussen either lied about or misunderstood the content of the secret reports in his presentations to parliament. During Rasmussen's administrations, Denmark deployed troops to Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. All three missions met only minor political opposition. Rasmussen as a prime minister rejected insistent demands from the opposition for investigations into Denmark's involvement in the Iraq war, similar to the ones in the United States and the UK, on the grounds that the his government took arms against Saddam not because of possible arms possessed, but because of Saddam's failure to comply with UN resolutions.