Jeb probably just handed 2016 to Hillary

[karynnj]

33. Exactly - you state better what they voted for than anything I remember from the last decade

"First of all, the resolution Hillary and so many other Democrats voted for authorized an invasion, SHOULD IT PROVE NECESSARY,"

Not to mention, Bush, like many on the left and right, also conflate what was known in October 2002 and what was known in March 2003, when GWB started the invasion. When Bush called for the invasion in March, inspectors were already saying that they had not found WMD and Iraq was cooperating in allowing invasive inspections and even destroying their best missiles that were found to go too far when not loaded with warheads. The ONLY pressing need to invade given was that it would soon be too hot for our soldiers to invade!

In October, no investigators had been in for 4 years and it was likely that the sanctions regime would be ended internationally. Many people, especially Biden and Kerry, both on SFRC, called in summer 2002 for Bush to work with the UN and to consult Congress - and NOT use the 2001 authority to attack Iraq. Biden, in the 2008 race spoke of the concern about sanctions ending as a concern that drove many Democrats. The IWR called for working with the UN, which Bush started to do after the vote then abandoned when he saw he did not have the support of France and Germany. It also called for Iraq to allow invasive inspections.

Imagine that Bush had done what many Democrats, both against and for the IWR, were advocating for and used the fantastic option handed to him - that he was uninterested in because his goal was NEVER what he said it was. Imagine how strong he would have been in 2004 if - instead of going to war - he got a long term agreement to continue monitoring Iraq, while lifting the sanctions that had done so much damage over more than a decade. He could then have declared that his invasive inspections eliminated things like the missiles actually destroyed for having too long a range and that they eliminated the possibility that Iraq still had chemical weapons, while showing they had no nuclear weapons. ( Had the same authority in October 2002 been asked for by a President Kerry or a President Biden etc, there is no doubt in my mind that this is what they would have done. )

While still being a wartime President, Bush could have contrasted his monitoring Iraq with the horrible toll the sanctions had had under Clinton. (They started under GHWB, but he could have easily argued that they were never intended to be permanent.) How could any Democrat run against him for successfully doing what they called on him to do?

Note that NOT going to war with Iraq would have avoided so many negatives - no war, no increased debt, no Abu Ghraib. He would have run on being strong after 911, attacking Afghanistan to control AQ, and he would have had Iraq as an example of peacefully limiting a threat (even if partly falsely created) and run on the tax cuts (the Democrats had insured they extended to everyone - even though the biggest share of gain going to the 1%) and the drug benefit for Medicare. Bush could have stolen many issues that are usually Democratic.

To me, it is sad that the left was so angry over the IWR that they HELPED move part of the blame from Bush to the Congress for a decision he alone made. At this point,I have spoken to many intelligent people who are surprised when I tell them the vote was in October, the invasion in March -- as many have a false memory that directly connects the two - placing the vote and the decision at the same point in time -- as Jeb Bush does EXPLICITLY in this comment that they had the same intelligence. This ignores that HRC's vote occurred before the inspectors were in -- and Bush had the results of about 5 months of work by people like Hans Blix and El Baredi (IAEA) done after the vote.