Easy. Voting to give someone the authority to go to war, and actually taking the country to war on faulty or fabricated evidence are in entirely different universes. Voting for war authority was likely necessary as a bargaining chip against Iraq to get them to comply with inspections. That Bush took that as a blank check and skipped further diplomatic processes is entirely on his (and his administration's) shoulders.
> Voting for war authority was likely necessary as a bargaining chip against Iraq to get them to comply with inspections.
No, authorization for war action is not a "bargaining chip," it's an authorization to go to war for an extended period of time. The president can already invade any country for 60 days without needing Congress's blessing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
Obama used that power with Lybia. Of course, you can argue that you can invade a country or attack it for a longer period of time without actually breaching the War Powers Resolution, as Obama did: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16powers.html?...
How do you recall or condemn that type of action from a sitting president?
What evidence do you have that there was fabricated evidence to justify the war? I'm not saying it wasn't faulty, but all the parties has closed door access to all the intelligence to make a decision. Just because we don't like the decision retroactively doesn't mean it was done on purpose, but rather due to mistakes being made. Not to say that's more comforting, just that they are different things.
1. Cheney strongly pressured the CIA to discover a smoking gun for Iraq WMDs
2. CIA produced a document that they themselves questioned the authenticity of (the "yellow cake" purchase document)
3. Bush/Cheney ran with that, ignoring the caveats of the intelligence and trumpeting it as the smoking gun
4. Later discovered that the document was fabricated
So while I haven't seen any evidence that they were personally involved in fabricating the evidence, they fabricated the narrative that justified the war by interfering with the intelligence gathering and vetting process and ignoring their recommendations.
Claims that senators that voted for war are just as responsible because "they saw the same evidence" does not account for reality. Senators are shown evidence, they are not involved in the process of gathering and vetting that evidence. If this process is interfered with then the conclusions are worthless.
> Senators are shown evidence, they are not involved in the process of gathering and vetting that evidence. If this process is interfered with then the conclusions are worthless.
Senators can request additional information on the processes that is shares in closed doors. There is also the intelligence oversight committee that can investigate those actions and bring all the parties involved to actually testify.
The fact that not many members of Congress questioned what was presented ultimately rests solely on their shoulders, since they can choose to request more information and open inquiries.
