9/11, hawkish administration members, mistaken intelligence reports, and an utterly sensationalist fourth estate (looking at you judy miller) created the perfect storm for the Iraq war. But at the end of the day the burden is still on the president to make the rational decision. I don't think Bush lied about the WMDs per se, he was certainly misled. But once the war drums were beat by Cheney and Wolfowitz (whose policy goals included regime change in Iraq as far back as the 90s and the Iran Iraq war respectively) we all heard a serious lie. And as always, the media saw the potenital for more sensationalism and ran with it. I'm talking of course about this. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/15/bush.alqaeda/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50679-2004Jun17.html Point is, there is a lie we can directly connect to the beginning of the Iraq war from Bush himself. I don't however, think the omission of this statement would have stopped the war from happening so it may be a moot point.
