A fateful day, Oct. 16, 2002

Use of force authorized.

"Our goal is not merely to limit Iraq's violations of Security Council resolutions, or to slow down its weapons program. Our goal is to fully and finally remove a real threat to world peace and to America. Hopefully this can be done peacefully. Hopefully we can do this without any military action. Yet, if Iraq is to avoid military action by the international community, it has the obligation to prove compliance with all the world's demands. It's the obligation of Iraq."
WhiteHouse.gov

But was there anything Saddam could do to avoid the war? Revelations in the recently leaked Downing Street Memo (the minutes from a high-level meeting in the UK a few months earlier) , and other secret UK documents, expose the truth.

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force. -Downing Street Memo

In retrospect, Saddam did alot to avoid a military conflict. In Feb. 2003 he even extended an offer to Bush for a debate . That debate never happened, but alot of us wonder how things would be different if it had. Knowing what we know now, Saddam would have won that debate. Alot of lives could have been saved. But our wonderful president wanted nothing of it. His "bad intelligence" would have been exposed.

Bottom line: No American wants to be misled or flat out lied to by his/her elected leader. The fact that the misleading involved going to war and resulted in the death of countless thousands of people (and shows no signs of ending), makes it the worst thing a president can do. Americans need to hold their leaders responsible for such grave actions. When they say "War is the last resort", demand that they mean it.