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Originally Posted by peragro
...In any case, the national policy according to the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was to overthrow Saddam; of course they had plans for it, so did Clinton. The act was unanimously supported in both houses of Congress - even by the Reps and Senetors who claim Iraq was no threat to us today - neat trick that, since that means Bush would have been manipulating data as the Governor of Texas. Clinton's quote at the bottom of the page is from an address he gave in support of the ILA...
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That's a nice summary, but it leaves out several key points.
First, five years passed between the passage of that legislation and the time of our invasion. Did we learn nothing about his WMD during those five years?
Second, I don't think the Act contemplated an essentially unilateral invasion against the wishes of just about everybody in the region. Bush has acknowledged this point with his false claims that the invasion was a last resort.
Third, that many in Congress believed that Saddam was a threat does not justify the Bush administration's lies and exaggerations about that threat. I have no sympathy for Kerry and other Democrats who complain that they were mislead into voting for the war. They didn't have full access to all the intelligence that W had, but they had plenty. Plus, they knew that W and his people are a bunch of liars. Couldn't they see that they were being sold a bill of goods? Bush mislead us into war, but he did it by misleading the American people, not Congress. Once Kerry and his ilk saw that the country had bought into Bush's sales job, they figured that the smart thing for them to do was play along.
Fourth, invading without planning for the post-war period appears to be Rumsfeld's idea. I don't think we can blame Bill and Hillary for that.