So these fine inquiring minds of a leading American newspaper are trying to tell me that a decision by Congress to authorize the use of force against Saddam's Iraq, in the light of a law that Congress passed and the prior president signed four years earlier that makes regime change in Iraq our official policy, was incomprehensibly twisted by the President into a war to change the regime in Iraq? Do these two writers really think the Congressional vote was about another round of pounding Iraq without actually going all the way?
Are the anti-war people truly arguing they were too dense to understand the debate we had in 2002? Truly I was stunned that this was the basis for their argument that we were misled into war.
So too is Christopher Hitchens (via Real Clear Politics):
But then there is the really superb pedantry and literal-mindedness on which the remainder of the case depends. This achieved something close to an apotheosis on the front page of the Washington Post on Nov. 12, where Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus brought complete gravity to bear. Is it true, as the president claimed in his Veterans Day speech, that Congress saw the same intelligence sources before the war, and is it true that independent commissions have concluded that there was no willful misrepresentation? Top form was reached on the inside page:
"But in trying to set the record straight, [Bush] asserted: 'When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support.'
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power."
A prize, then, for investigative courage, to Milbank and Pincus. They have identified the same problem, though this time upside down, as that which arose from the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, during the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1998. That legislation—which passed the Senate without a dissenting vote—did expressly call for the removal of Saddam Hussein but did not actually mention the use of direct U.S. military force.
Let us suppose, then, that we can find a senator who voted for the 1998 act to remove Saddam Hussein yet did not anticipate that it might entail the use of force, and who later voted for the 2002 resolution and did not appreciate that the authorization of force would entail the removal of Saddam Hussein! Would this senator kindly stand up and take a bow? He or she embodies all the moral and intellectual force of the anti-war movement. And don't be bashful, ladies and gentlemen of the "shocked, shocked" faction, we already know who you are.
Truly an astounding foundation upon which to base the false "Bush lied" charge.
Not that I want to suppress freedom of speech. But really, given the contradictory statements and beliefs of the loyal opposition over the last ten years on the subject of Iraq, Saddam, and WMD, they are fully capable of debating amongst themselves without bothering the rest of us.
I hope to make this my last post on the outrageous tactics the anti-war side is using to restart their endless debate over whether we should invade Iraq and end the Saddam regime. The President and his team are fully engaged in refuting this and I really hate to stray into politcal territory rather than just comment on foreign affairs and policy.
But Lord, they try my patience.
