It wasn't the Democrats in congress, it wasn't Bill Clinton, it wasn't John Kerry, it wasn't Tony Blair, and it wasn't the UN. It was George Bush and the assclowns that he listens to. They own that decision and it was one of the single worst tactical blunders in the history of America. This is the first thing people should mention when it comes to discussing the lead-up to the war in Iraq--"sure Clinton said Saddam was bad, but lets not forget who kicked the inspectors out just as they were disproving the WMD mythology". Nobody else would have done that. Nobody.
The intelligence may have been faked, hyped, spun, or whatever but that whole discussion is really secondary. What matters first and foremost is that the inspections were working and George Bush halted them to launch Shock and Awe.
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Why did he do that? Does he regret that move? What was the hurry? If the whole goal was to disarm Iraq (as Bush said many times in the lead-up to the war) why shut down the inspections at the very moment they were starting to show Iraq already was disarmed? Most of us know the answer because we know the timeline by heart--war was predetermined. Most Americans, however, don't know the real sequence of events. They think Saddam was not cooperating at the time of the war (not sure where they got that silly idea). People forget what really happened because Shock and Awe worked--on the US media. They stopped all discussion of "what the hell is Bush thinking" and switched into 24 hour "we kick ass" mode. This crucial piece of the story has all but disappeared. I am not sure why Kerry never brought this up--but there are other places to discuss that.
The point is that there was uncertainty about how dangerous Saddam was. In a post 9.11 world this uncertainty had to be dealt with--thus the (now often regreted) vote. Democrats, and most sentient beings, figured war would only be necessary if the inspections found WMDs or if Saddam didn't cooperate. Nobody anticipated what actually happened--cooperation by Saddam, inspections that found no evidence of WMDs, followed by....War. That sequence of events only makes sense if war was predetermined. We don't need commisions or debates or discussions or anything else--the facts demonstrate that Bush was going to war no matter what. Once that point is clearly established, then the discussion of fabricated intelligence will really hit home with the American people. Lets not put the cart before the horse--remember who kicked the inspectors out!