[ksen]

I believe the problem is you have to have a country you are fighting in order to have a declaration of war.

True, but wasn't Iraq a country?

[SoConPubbie]

True. However, to me this is all a matter of semantics.

I really don’t care.

Bush did the right thing, I just wish that 1. He had been more forceful (There should not have been 2 Fallujah battles, 1 would have sufficed) and 2. that different people were initially running the show in Iraq.

[MNJohnnie]

Did not need to declare war on Saddam. He was in violation of the 1991 Ceasefire. That is all the legal justification we needed.

[Dead Dog]

Iraq is a country, and America is a country with at least 40% of it’s population bent on nonexistence.

[wideawake]

True, but wasn't Iraq a country?

We were not fighting a country, but an illegal dictatorship and its security apparatus.

[untrained skeptic]

True, but wasn't Iraq a country?

Yes, but we didn't really conquer Iraq or make it's people surrender.

We deposed it's ruler and then helped them replace him with a new, democratic government of their own.

I'm not sure what the legal implications are of declaring war versus authorizing the sue of force, but it does sound like a lot of political weasel words to me.

If you are using military force against another sovereign nation you are waging war in my opinion, so in my opinion we waged war, and Congress authorized waging that war despite being too cowardly to explicitly state that they were declaring war.

[Eva]

Iraq is of course a country, but it was only a battle in the War against (Islamic)Terror. Iraq only became a war in itself after the battle was won.

Hope that helps.