New GOP talking point: it was the Democrats who lied us into war with Iraq

[Proud Liberal Dem]

43. The war happened for three main reasons IMHO:

1. Bush, Cheney, et. al desperately wanted the war no matter what- though nobody knows why exactly for sure other than them (though there were certainly plenty of benefits thereof, at least initially). With Congress in Republican hands and no major dissension among their ranks, there was nothing or nobody able or willing to stop him, which they might not have been able to do anyway. I had briefly hoped that Colin Powell- having cautioned against regime change in Iraq following GW1 (along with Bush's father and, ironically enough, Dick Cheney)- might talk Bush Jr. out of this bad idea but he ultimately folded and did what his boss wanted him to do- much to his disgrace. Once Powell signed on to the endeavor, I knew that the war was inevitable.

2. There was not much, if anything, anybody could do to stop Bush from doing what he wanted to do. Some Democrats may have voted for the IWR (what they were actually voting for is still debatable) but Bush could have still have easily ignored the defeat of the resolution in Congress and would've done what he wanted to do anyway even if it had failed. He wasn't willing to gamble on another UN vote to get formal international approval for the war and, hell, even the UN Weapons Inspectors were clear that they had not been able to find WMDs after searching the country for months and were still working when they were pulled out in the midst of the start of the invasion and neither of these things fazed him and his (mis-)administration one bit.

3. A lot of people were scared about something else really bad happening to them and were more easily able to be sufficiently spooked into going to war in the wake of 9/11. Few people, let alone politicians, could say with absolute crystal-clear certainty that Saddam Hussein did NOT have any WMDs and I'm sure that nobody in office wanted to be the person who opposed the war only to find out later they were tragically wrong- even if the odds of being wrong were slim to none. Dems like Hillary probably should have known better but even her husband was concerned that Saddam Hussein might still be holding on to a few WMDs since nobody had been in Iraq snooping around for at least 5 years.

It would have been better if Dems had spoken out more and withheld their *support* for the endeavor (if for no other reason than principle) but none of the Dems in Congress were chomping at the bit for the war AFAIK and would never have instigated it. That period of time from 2001-2006 were some of the darkest times for our democracy IMHO.