Biden Admits He Voted For Iraq War In Spite Of Not Believing Saddam Had WMD’s

Via American Action News:
 

joe biden (at 0.35): “i didn’t believe (saddam) had nuclear weapons, i didn’t believe he had those weapons of mass destruction”

wait…what the FUCK?pic.twitter.com/Z9LFxnJ402

— Aisha Ahmad (@aishaismad) March 10, 2020

While implying that his vote for the authorization of the use of military force against Iraq was a mistake, former Vice President Joe Biden offered a perplexing explanation for his decision.

Biden told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell he gave then-President Bush the green light to use the United States Armed Forces against Sadaam Hussein’s regime in Iraq even though he didn’t believe Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Biden’s revelation is particularly surprising given the crux of the argument for going into Iraq was predicated on the assumption Sadaam Hussein had WMDs.  

What’s worse is that Biden, Delaware’s then-senior senator, passionately argued in favor of preemptive military action against Iraq for that very reason.

Biden’s confidence, and that of other Democrats, Republicans, and the intelligence community helped rally the American public to unite behind the march to war.
 

Here he is gleefully watching the US go to war with Iraq. pic.twitter.com/0Dy6zeDstf

— Reed S. Albers (@ReedSAlbers) March 10, 2020

Before the insurgency emerged after the overthrow of Saddam’s dictatorship, it was fashionable to criticize the first Bush administration for not pushing coalition forces into Baghdad in 1991.

In a 1998 Senate hearing, Biden explicitly stated that the only way to disarm Iraq was “taking Sadaam down.”
Hussein was justifiably in America’s crosshairs for years over continued human rights abuses and flagrantly violating United Nations Security Council Resolutions after the first Gulf War. Yet it slowly became clear after the 2003 invasion, the policymakers didn’t take into account the threat of guerilla warfare or the challenges of democratization, to say nothing of the intelligence failure.  

Though the invasion of Iraq was swift and decisive, U.S. casualties mounted in the ensuing occupation and insurgency. Four thousand four hundred and ninety-six American service members ultimately perished.

As did hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

And Joe Biden now claims he knew all along Saddam Hussein never had WMDs.