WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Wednesday that he deeply regretted his vote to go to war with Iraq in 2003…. “Do you know how I feel about that?” Reid asked during a sit-down interview in his office with The Huffington Post. “I’m sure this is no big surprise,” he said, pausing for ten seconds before continuing in a muted voice: “What a mistake…I should never have voted for that,” Reid went on. “But I accepted what [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell and the others said. But it took me just a matter of a few months to realize it was a bad mistake, and my record speaks for itself. I’ve spoken out against what was going on, not once, not twice, but lots of times. And I’m sorry that I was misled, but I was, and it was a mistake for me to vote for that war.”
Over the past 11 years, we’ve heard a lot of people in Congress issuing heartfelt mea culpas about their vote to authorize war in Iraq. While that’s well and good, it does nothing to address the heart of the crime committed. The Bush Adminstration- up to and including the President himself- lied copiously and often in order that they be granted the war In Iraq they so desperately wanted. Not only did the lies and disinformation succeed in purchasing Congressional approval for an immoral and illegal war, we’ve almost forgotten the young American soldiers who perished in Iraq. To say that George W. Bush and his minions have blood on their hands wouldn’t begin to describe the responsibility they bear. What happened in the run-up to the Iraq War was an arguably criminal and highly coordinated act of deceit and deception.
A strong argument could- and should- be made that Bush, Cheney, and others should have been tried in the Hague on war crimes charges. They invaded a sovereign nation on false pretenses. Not only did their immoral war result in the deaths of 4500+ young Americans and wounding/disabling of many thousands more, estimates show that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians perished. How can a nation with a claim to the moral high ground (and an international community with similar aspirations) continue to allow Bush and his minions to walk the Earth as free men?
For five years, I’ve listened to Conservatives holding forth about impeaching President Obama for “crimes” that don’t begin to approach the evil, murderous monstrosity of what the Bush Administration did in Iraq and in the run-up to the war. If not caving to the Conservative agenda is sufficient reason to impeach The Black Guy in the White House ©, why is being directly responsible for more than 100,000 deaths- Iraqi and American- not considered grounds for war crimes charges?
Oh, right…Bush and his minions are White Conservatives, which evidently means never having to say you’re sorry or worry about being held accountable for the blood on your hands. Hmm…I wonder what might have happened if the President and Vice-President responsible for starting the war In Iraq had been Democrats? Somehow I think they’d be wearing orange prison jumpsuits right about now.
Instead of accountability, we get Dick Cheney spewing forth about how President Obama is a fool and a traitor. Classy, eh?
