You left the following out and it's not Bush's War. It's Saddam's War. Saddam never once honored the 1991 surrender agreement (UNSCR 687) which included the complete verification of disarmament. And you left out that it is US Law to overthrow the Saddam Regime as signed into US law by then President Clinton under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
"CLINTON: Good evening.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people."
President Clinton
Oval Office Address to the American People
December 16, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
Awesome of you to post this Clinton quote.
America and the MSM need to remember that Clinton, Gore, Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, Pelosi, Hillary, the UN, Mubarek, et.al. all said Saddam had nuclear and chemical weapons and they all said he needed to be removed.
Bush was the only one that had the political courage and the strength of conviction to act on this obvious threat to the world.
Now all of the above are carping about Bush’s War, Bush lied, people died, the war is lost, blah, blah, blah..
I brought this up last week to a Moonbat who responded by saying “why do you keep bringing Bill Clinton up?” Who was George Tenent? Who said “Slam Dunk”? Who did nothing for eight years?
The '91 authority gave them [the current Bush Administration] authority to take military action. But they can't do it now because we're under these '98 restrictions on the inspections, which had been accepted. We need to be trying to deal with the substance, the product, which is the chemical and biological weapons and the nuclear program. But the process [is] needed to further international cooperation and do it within the context of trying to build the UN. Because if you just do the first without the second, the price would be truly extraordinary.Now, on the occupation thing, I have a slightly different take. [From the Atlantic cover "The Fifty-first State," which he is pointing at.] My view is that we ought to be there but it really ought to be as internationalized as possible. Just like we did in Kosovo. Including the Russians and OPFOR [opposing force] and whatever. Let everybody do it. Probably they ought to guarantee the oil contracts. But, I've reached the... and, maybe, I know that.... It's a funny thing when you're not in office anymore. You don't do the security briefings. You have to understand. It requires a little humility. In some ways your vision is clearer, because you see the big things clearer. But in other ways your vision is cloudier, because you may miss the exigencies of the moment. So whenever I offer a judgment I try to show some humility, because I know that some things I see more clearly than I did when I was in, but some things I'm quite sure I don't see as clearly.
But I'm pretty sure this is the right thing to do. Press ahead with this thing, try to.... We knew when we did the bombing in '98 that we hit all the known or suspected sites based on the intelligence we had, from all the people that were doing that work there. We knew at the time that we had set his program back a couple years. But sooner or later in the millennium the new Administration, whether it was Gore's or Bush's, would have to take this matter up again.
Inherited Clinton's mess.