After 9/11, what Bush said, and the United States Congress agreed with, and the people of the United States agreed with, was that we had to stop terrorism no matter what it took.
Actually, I don't think that is the case. First, neither of us are certain what "the people of the United States agreed with." That will be tested in the future. My own seat of the pants thought about it, to match your seat of the pants thought, is that we agreed to a self defense argument and it was thus fairly specific to Al Q and 9-11. Not a generalized "get the terrorists" campaign that we hear from some places within the Bush administration. But, again, that gets tested by its future.
However, what the congress agreed to can be checked. I've just read a short little book on John McCain by Elizabeth Drew (not a bad book, a very quick read, but certainly not one to buy) in which she notes that McCain and someone else in the congress made certain that resolution was limited to groups responsible for the 9-11 attacks, though the Bush administration had asked for a larger blanket.
I haven't read the resolution and am on the go much of today so won't be looking for it. You seem to be quite good at finding stuff via google. Could you check on the actual wording of the resolution.
As for attacking Iraq as part of the 9-11 campaign, I've made myself as clear as I know how. We should if they were. But we have no believable evidence they were.
There are other justifications for an attack on Iraq and I have different misgivings about them. |
