Reply #24: And what part of my posts don't you understand? [View All]

[pnwmom]

Yes, we knew he was determined to attack Iraq.

So this was our choice: craft a compromise IWR in October and allow some Democrats to join with the Republicans to approve it.

Or, vote en masse as Democrats to defeat the compromise bill.
Then, in January, with new Republican majorities in Congress, we could watch Bush submit a new war resolution and get it passed without needing a single Democratic vote. And this version of the war resolution would have given him a blank check to attack anywhere in the Middle East, and possibly even Greece or parts of Asia.

Some people are wishing we had defeated the Oct. IWR, so we could all sit around and say, "I told you so." The problem with that is, if Bush had had the war resolution he really wanted -- the one Hagel described -- we'd be even worse off than we are now. . . hard as that may be to imagine.

On edit: I see now where the confusion came in. When I said that nowhere in the IWR was he authorized to attack anywhere in the Middle East, I meant:

The IWR that was passed allowed him to attack Iraq (under certain conditions) but not to attack anywhere else in the Middle East.
On the other hand, the war resolution that Bush had wanted would have allowed him (according to Hagel) to attack anywhere in the Middle East . . . and beyond!