I called it a stupid war at the time, so did many conservatives and republicans. So you found one instance where I agree with obama----------------great, lets all dance around the may pole.
How many Republicans voted against the Iraq war?
Six?
"what difference, at this point, does it make?" The point is that both parties authorized and funded it, including both clintons.
your tired talking points are bullshit, and even you know it.
Then again, who voted for the war knowing the "intel" was fake and who voted for it believing it was real? Does that not make a difference?
they all thought it was real, no one "knew" it was wrong. and, in fact it may have been correct that Saddam sent those WMDs to Syria before anyone got there. Syria did gas some of its own people, did they use Saddam's gas? Are you sure?
Bush new it was fake. It's impossible he didn't know it was fake.
Why would you have two "intelligence" agencies, one who gives you a true picture of what is out there, another which gives a completely diddled picture which just happens to support what you need in order to get war, and you completely ignore the first and you completely go with the second?
Why weren't people being told about the intelligence that was real? Bush KNEW about the real intelligence, he ignored it. Did Congress know about the real intelligence? I'm sure some did.
Bush got some guy up in front of the Senate, some guy was all he was. He HAD worked for the Iraqi nuclear program, he'd stopped working for them in about 1991, and he left the country in 1994. So, in 2003, 9 years AFTER he'd left the country, after years of sanctions and so on, the Bush govt decided this guy would be perfect to tell Congress all about what Iraq had. How did he know what Iraq had? He hadn't been working for their nuclear program for like 12 years. The simple answer is he didn't. He played along, he had his agenda, the Bush govt had their agenda, and everyone fell for it. The guy's name was "curveball". I wonder why.
CNN.com - Pentagon's prewar intelligence role questioned - Jul 11, 2004
"Roberts cited false information on Iraq that the Bush administration had taken from a source code-named Curveball.
"Curveball really provided 98 percent of the assessment as to whether or not the Iraqis had a biological weapon," Roberts said.
"Yet the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, knew of his background. He has a very troubled background."
Based on this source's claims, the administration argued that Iraq had biological weapons capability, Roberts said.
"That's the kind of flaw in intelligence and I think -- I won't say willful -- but the DIA should have shared that information with the CIA. And the CIA should have gone from there.""
So what the hell was the CIA doing?
Who knew what the CIA was doing? Bush did.
Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Section VII of the Committee's report focuses on the intelligence behind Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN on February 5, 2003. The report describes the process whereby the CIA provided a draft of the speech to the National Security Council (NSC), and then, at the request of the NSC, worked to expand the speech with additional material, especially regarding Iraq's nuclear program. The report also describes the subsequent review made by Colin Powell and analysts from the State Department with analysts from the CIA. In the speech, Powell said that "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." Despite this, the Committee concluded that "[m]uch of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell’s speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect.""
So Powell lied. Whether he lied because he knew what he was saying, or whether he lied because he didn't know what was going on is neither here nor there. He didn't vote for war. He merely was part of the Executive which DID KNOW.
Backed up by sources, well, the sources were wrong.
The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion | VICE News
For example.
The CIA said:
"Iraq "probably has renovated a [vaccine] production plant" to manufacture biological weapons "but we are unable to determine whether [biological weapons] agent research has resumed." The NIE also said Hussein did not have "sufficient material" to manufacture any nuclear weapons and "the information we have on Iraqi nuclear personnel does not appear consistent with a coherent effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.""
This is information that Bush was getting.
1) They didn't know if Saddam had resumed biological weapons research.
2) Could not manufacture nuclear weapons.
3) Probably (probably is one of those words which means they don't know) renovated a production plant, but they don't know.
So what did Bush say?
"But in an October 7, 2002
speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, then-President George W. Bush simply said Iraq, "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons" and "the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.""
1) Saddam DOES HAVE biological AND Chemical weapons. (They didn't know)
2) There's evidence that Saddam is reconstituting his nuke program. (They knew he wasn't)
3) They are using production plants to make these weapons (but they didn't know)
I mean, seriously.
You have the CIA diddling the facts, then you have Bush diddling what the CIA is telling him. If Bush didn't know, then he was a freaking moron, but those with power within his executive, people he controlled, knew what was going on, and knew this was a lie, and that he was telling Congress porkers.