The 1998 Iraq Resolution

Victor Davis Hanson recalls some pre-Bush views in Congress on Saddam Hussein:

I didn’t think it was such a good idea in 1998 to go to war to remove Saddam Hussein, as the Congress, on Bill Clinton’s prompt, sort of authorized. At least that was the force of the 1998 resolution that “urges the president to take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs..."

Do we remember the rhetoric in those unhappy Clinton years, when Democrats were outdoing each other to threaten war to remove Saddam? Sen. Tom Daschle bragged that his vote for the resolution would “send as clear a message as possible that we are going to force, one way or another, diplomatically or militarily, Iraq to comply with international law.”

If there were any doubt what he meant, he added, “‘Look, we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?’ That’s what they’re saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we don’t have another option. We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily.”

How soon we forget. I think its called "selective amnesia".