On the recordMarch 29, 2023
the United States invaded Iraq following congressional authorization exactly 20 years ago, March 19 and 20, 2003. In that war, nearly 4,500 Americans lost their lives and more than 31,000 American troops were wounded--some grievously--who will carry that wound for the rest of their lives. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed. I rise thinking about all of them as we come close to a vote to declare these wars are over. It wasn't too long into the war when criticism of the decision to go to war began. There is no criticism of the heroism of the American troops who served ably, who did so well, who protected their colleagues, who protected civilian life the best they could. But there began to be criticism of the rationale for the war. Two of the rationales for this war were that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That was very convincing to many colleagues here. It turned out not to be true. And another of the rationales that was occasionally advanced was that Iraq had participated in the 9/11 attack. That proved not to be true. So much of the analysis of the Iraq war, looking backward over 20 years and lessons learned, has focused upon the rationales advanced that turned out not to be true. But there was another challenge; and today is an effort, in many ways, to try to fix that challenge. And the challenge was this: We rushed into it. There were 4,500 who died; 31,000 who were wounded, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.…
