http://www.nationalreview.com/node/418538/print Were We Right to Take Out Saddam?
Public opinion veers with every change in current conditions in Iraq.
By Victor Davis Hanson — May 19, 2015
Probable Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush got himself into trouble by sort of, sort of not, answering the question whether he would have supported going into Iraq in 2003 — had he known then what we know now.
Republican candidates vied in attacking Bush’s initial confusion about answering the question. Most reiterated that they most certainly would not have invaded Iraq, regardless of what they know now or thought they knew then. Politically, it appears to be wiser to damn the decision to invade Iraq and to forget the circumstances that prompted the war — and the later political environment that ended the American presence.
Unfortunately, our country seems to be suffering from collective amnesia.We apparently have forgotten a number of crucial points:
1. Who authorized the war?
The war was pushed by the Bush administration, but it was authorized by both Houses of Congress, with a majority of Democrats (29 to 21) joining Republicans in the Senate (49 to 1). The authorizations of October 2002 sailed through, with especially enthusiastic rhetoric from Senators Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid, and Jay Rockefeller, who all had the same access to U.S. and foreign intelligence that the Bush administration did.
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