Mike Levin: “the rationale for the Bush administration's going to war in Iraq has been one of shifting sands. The first reason given…”

“the rationale for the Bush administration's going to war in Iraq has been one of shifting sands. The first reason given for the action in Iraq was that it was necessary because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be wrong. Then the rationale was the threat of nuclear weapons from Iraq's alleged purchase of uranium from Africa, which also was not true and was seriously questioned within the Bush administration before the military action. Then it was said that there was a linkage between the Iraqi regime and the perpetrators of 9/11, a claim that has never been found to be true. The evidence is that al Qaeda did not have a presence in Iraq until after the President ordered military action in Iraq. The Republicans try to paint Democratic opposition to the administration's Iraq policies as a reflection of refusal to use force. That is absolutely not true. It is a question of under what conditions and circumstances. That was at the heart of the debate over Iraq before the action was taken. In 2002, a majority of Democrats voted for an alternative resolution allowing the President to undertake military force in Iraq, but only after first attempting a multilateral approach to dealing with Saddam Hussein through the Security Council, just as the first President Bush did in 1991. What Democrats rejected was implementation of an approach emphasizing the use of unilateral, pre-emptive military action by the U.S.…”