Were politicians who voted for the Iraq War "mistaken"?

[yurbud]

I just saw a story where Harry Reid said he was "misled" and "mistaken" in his vote for the Iraq War, which has more or less been the mantra of those Democrats who voted for it.

Likewise, the Bush administration at most claim they were "mistaken" about the intelligence on Iraq--not that they pressured analysts to change their reports and even used some pure lies.

However, even if most or all of what the Bush administration said about Iraq had been true, Iraq would still have been no threat to us or even to Israel.

Everyone in Congress in 2002 was old enough to remember the Cold War, when both the United States and Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the other (and the rest of the world) several times over, but neither fired the first shot for fear of being wiped out by the retaliation.

Why then would some country with a SMALLER nuclear arsenal launch a nuke at us or even give a nuke to terrorists to detonate here, knowing that at best, they might take out a city or two here, but our retaliation would wipe their country off the map?

Likewise, Israel has hundreds of nukes, and could easily burn any of her neighbors off the map if they were nuked.

To believe otherwise is to believe you live in an action movie or cartoon, and few politicians are that stupid.

Some in Congress actually laid this out before the war, but most of the media wouldn't give them the time of day.

Do you think that Democrats who voted for the Iraq War really believed Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States?

7 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	YES. They are empty suits that believe exactly what they are paid to and nothing else.
	0 (0%)
	NO. They agreed with the real goals of the war or at least were paid to agree with them.
	4 (57%)
	NO. They were either blackmailed or feared having a "no" vote used against them in the election the following month.
	0 (0%)
	Some agreed with real reasons, some bribed, some were afraid.
	3 (43%)
	OTHER (please explain)
	0 (0%)
	I'm George W. Bush, and you can buy a copy of my beautiful nude paintin' of Jeff Gannon at a Walmart near you.
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Fred Sanders]

1. They were seduced by the media and could not risk not being in the war cult created by the media.

Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks for daring to speak truth to power?

Remember the color coded terrorist alerts dreamed up to keep the nation fearful and not question the clear lies?

My explanation for voting Other.

[quinnox]

2. A combination, some believed the lies, most did it for political reasons,

and some were just dumb.

[Autumn]

3. If I knew, they fucking knew. Millions of us knew, they were complacent

and they went to war.

[Squinch]

9. ^^^^This. Their political careers were more important to them than the inevitable loss of life

that would occur in a senseless war. If we knew, they knew, and they voted "yes" anyway.

[mike_c]

4. any way we paint it, those who voted yes on the IWR are complicit in crimes against humanity....

Every single one of them.

[KittyWampus]

5. the Dems were between a rock and a hard place. That may mean they were cowardly.

I won't use the word cowardly myself, but I understand those who would.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. How could US politicians agree to go in when some inspectors wanted to continue searching for WMDs?

It wasn't an open and shut case and there still was doubt being expressed. Several countries weren't convinced of our faulty intelligence. George Bush promised to the American people on television that he would go back to the UN Security Council for an up or down vote and then he never did (in fact, he bugged the offices of the member countries to get an idea of how they would vote). How could US politicians vote to go into Iraq with out even knowing how the rest of the world felt?

[yurbud]

12. it wasn't faulty--it was cooked on purpose

PBS's FRONTLINE did a very good episode on this, talking with CIA and defense intelligence analysts about what they told the Bushies and what the Bushies did with the fairly accurate information they got--namely, they lied about it.

[karynnj]

15. Your timeline is wrong - the answer is that vote happened BEFORE Bush opted not to go back to the UN

and the inspectors had done their work.

The inspectors went in in Fall 2002 after the vote in October 2002. The inspectors had NOT been in Iraq since they left in 1998 before Clinton bombed Iraq in retaliation to their plot to kill GHWB.

The inspectors were in until they were told to leave by Bush in March 2003.

I think you are not alone with your timeline. The media has done an excellent job over time conflating October 2002 and the Bush decision to invade in March 2003.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

17. Well I never expressed a timeline

I never stated that the vote for war took place after Bush promised to go back to the UN. I think however that no US representative of the people should have voted for war and at least should have abstained until the UN decided to sanction war. As for inspectors, in 2002 people like Scott Ritter were calling for restraint and he went on record saying he was 98% sure Saddam could not have developed the types of weapons he was being accused of stockpiling based on Ritter's knowledge of what Saddam had just a few years before and based on his US intelligence sources.

[karynnj]

18. You asked why they voted when inspectors wanted to continue investigating

There had been no inspectors in since 1998 - and Between 1998 and the end of when Clinton was President, Ritter had actually made the opposite argument that when they were in before they were thrown out they found more than they expected before going in at the end of the first war and they needed to be back in. In 2002, you are correct that he did say it was unlikely - however, the problem is that 4 years was a long time.

There is no question that having inspectors in was a good idea. The problem is that the resolution did more than that - it preemptively gave Bush approval - there were listed conditions, but ir was Bush who had the role of deciding if it was needed. If you read the speeches, even those who voted "no" did not rule out that Saddam could have weapons of Mass destruction. Most of the Democratic yeses did not assume it was 100% certain that there were WMD, just that it could not be ruled out. The problem with the vote was that they were saying that there was not yet anywhere near enough reason to go to war.

One large group of Democrats who voted yes were many of the Senators on the SFRC, they had worked on the alternative Biden/Lugar -- that Dean in September said he was for. When it was not the vote to go to the floor, they worked to try to pass several amendments and to get some changes in the resolution. Many of their speeches (especially Biden and Kerry) went through the history - they had forced Bush to go to both the Congress and to the UN. I suspect that they might have considered that there could be more leverage in getting the President to work with the international community. For a while, that might even have looked like it could happen - when the inspectors were in with very invasive inspections and the most countries were against the UN giving them a resolution to attack.

I am not defending a "yes" vote. I am arguing that there is a genuine difference between what was 100% known in March 2003 and what was known in October 2002. To my knowledge the only two "Yes" Senators who spoke out against rushing to war were Kerry and Harkin. (Kerry spoke out that we should not "rush to war" and he spoke of more diplomacy being possible and that the inspections needed to be completed. Further he said it would not be a war of last resort. Harkin spoke against his vote. )

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. And they did vote when some inspectors wanted to continue the inspections

Scott Ritter was one that I mentioned, who was in favor of inspectors returning to inspect and complete the work that had been interrupted and who was not convinced Saddam had WMD and urged restraint. I'm not a weapons expert but if I had been in politics I would have given some credibility to what an expert like Ritter was suggesting, that based on what he had last known and according to his recent US intelligence sources, there was a 98% chance Saddam could not have suddenly acquired the WMD he was accused of having in a few short years. Your description of the resolution that "it preemptively gave Bush approval" is correct. The fault of the US Congress was in trusting Bush when he could not be trusted. They should have waited for a UN authorization. Why then have a UN or pretend to respect it as an entity? At least abstain from voting until the international organization of which you are a member state clarifies their position. Bush lied to the American people, something that enrages me to this day when he promised on camera to go back to the UN for a vote, come what may and then failed to live up to his word.

[mylye2222]

34. I do think some were afraid of what BushMafia could have done to them, if they protested too loudly.

[Zorra]

7. US Senators can't be expected to be as intelligent, perceptive, and informed about domestic and

international affairs as DU liberal leftists are.

[ZombieHorde]

8. I voted "other."

I don't know what they were really thinking or feelings, but I strongly suspect it was close to this option: "NO. They agreed with the real goals of the war or at least were paid to agree with them."

[HooptieWagon]

10. Pure political calculus, no conscience.

They thought the war would last a couple weeks, in a huge US victory, and be very popular. So they wanted on the bandwagon, without troubling themselves over minor details like intelligence.

Sen Bob Graham (on Sen Intel Cmttee) stood on the floor and begged the other Senators to read the classified NIE. Only a handful bothered to do so, and all of them voted against the war.

[Journeyman]

11. No politician was "mislead." Each made a conscious political decision to support a crime . . .

They weighed the options and on balance decided that pandering to the country's baser desires was preferable to making a stand for a moral imperative. Anyone who says else wise is lying.

[KG]

13. if your fave dem politico voted for the IWR, they weren't really voting for war, the were voting

for, um, uh.....

[MohRokTah]

14. None of the above. eom

[pansypoo53219]

16. georgee got the vote RIGHT BEFORE THE ELECTION & it was 9/11 over & over. DUH!

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Somebody had to push your last choice

Well done.

On a serious answer, if I knew it was ahem problematic without access to classified documentation...the we were misled is the excuse of cowards, even if there was some of that.

Talking to a US senator before we got into the media game I know there were a few...ahem...threads and creative frightening intel. And with what we know of NSA activities...my advise to these idiots is...open the closets wide open and let those skeletons go free. Until then those skeletons will still hold force.

[yurbud]

20. so blackmail

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. There was some of that, yes

It was strongly hinted at over coffee. When the NSA revelations came, ah clarity.

And we did say that about liberating those poor skellies to plenty of giggles, nervous and all. But it is hardly the only and unique explanation. Future graduate history students will have lots of fun.

[yurbud]

24. I have always suspected that's why there's so many closeted gays in the GOP

You can control someone with something to hide.

An honest to god true believer might follow their conscience or their professed ideology when it is most inconvenient to those who consider themselves the owners of said politician, like with corporate welfare, bailouts, looking the other way for corporate crimes, or starting wars that have nothing to do with the safety of the United States.

[hrmjustin]

22. I think some voted for the war because of political reasons and others did it because they thought

it was right.

I call Senators Schumer and Clinton, and my congressman at the time to vote against it and I called to complain when they voted for the war.


People can make mistakes and I can forgive them. For Bush and Cheney I can find no forgiveness.

[yurbud]

25. those who voted for the war have as much blood on their hands as Bush and Cheney

[hrmjustin]

26. Yes they do but I can forgive those who admit they were wrong.

[yurbud]

30. even if they apologize with a lie? "I was misled" absolves them of any guilt

A real apology would be "I was afraid of the political fallout if I didn't vote for it," or "My donors on Wall Street, the banks, or oil companies wanted x, y, and z from Iraq and thought war was the only way they could get it. I was wrong to do their bidding and participate in the lies deaths of thousands of our troops and over a million Iraqis."

[hrmjustin]

31. Well I doubt we will get that.

I can forgive if they zdmit tgey were wrong.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

27. At the time if you were against the war you were considered bad

The political climate was very different then.

[randys1]

28. Who voted against the war?

That would be a nice list to see...

I remember a few names, including Obama, right? Or Obama wasnt in the senate yet.



Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Jon Corzine (D-NJ)
Mark Dayton (D-MN)
Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Russell Feingold (D-WI)
Robert Graham (D-FL)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
James Jeffords (I-VT)
Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)
Debbie St

not sure in the house

http://usiraq.procon.org/view.additional-resource.php?resourceID=001987

but lots of them

[retread]

29. I don't see craven.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Yes. In the same way that salesmen are "Mistaken" about the efficacy of hair growth products.

And, for the same reasons.

[Exposethefrauds]

33. No the scumbags knew exactly what they were doing

And they need to be exposed for their actions.

They want a forgiveness they can go to Arlington cemetery and ask those they killed for forgiveness.