text: what started the civil war, and what started today's war in iraq?   the issue of states' rights, specifically the "right" of certain states to continue the practice of slavery when it was abolished nationally, started the civil war.  hundreds of reasons are given for the actual cause, including the oversimplified issue of the south's right to seceed from the union, but there would never have been an issue with secession if the south's slavery market had not been threatened.  we're talking millions of dollars here, which is like billions today.  slavery, despite what you'll read, was the root cause.  the iraq war was started because false intelligence was given to the united states congress that the iraqi government was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.  later, when it was discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction, president bush changed his justification for the war to "freeing the iraqi people"; however, the wmd threat (which was not in existence) was the original reason.  it has yet to be determined whether or not the president and/or members of the cia deliberately misled congress into allowing the deployment of us troops in iraq.