GOP Congressmen Admit Most Republicans Think Iraq War Was a Mistake

[mobydoug]

Rohrabacher and McClintock are spineless scum. They enthusiastically BACKED the invasion when it was politically expedient to do so......flag waving, etc. Now that the rivers of blood are spilled and the trillions spent and the coffers of the crony-capitalists are filled, they "take back" what they did. It's obscene. Let them offer their mealymouthed Monday morning quarterbacking to the mothers of the dead and hideously wounded.

[bevanamie]

cute .. like your clip .. keep it up =)

[ERlady]

I get the feeling Iraq was a mistake, not because it was the wrong thing to do, rather instead of striking it rich in oil, it drained our economy.

[blackyblackblack505]

Republicans.. Yup.

[snertster]

xavaquez,

Thanks for the info. I was not aware of that. It's good to see that all of the Republicans didn't go for the Bush/Cheney line.

[Textynn]

Now that the War Industrial Complex has raided the American coffers and got their spoils for private industry these jokers are going to sit around and act like they're sorry. They've been playing this game so long it's as tired and unbelievable as the old lying war mongers themselves. You can bet nobody they loved died in this war and you can bet their big fat bank accounts are bigger and fatter because of this war. LIARS PREDATORS SOCIOPATHS. Same shit different day.

[Textynn]

They always say it's a mistake after all the Military Industrial Complex has thoroughly robbed the country and the dead bodies are piled up. This lie is older than Methuselah and when are we going to stop pretending that Americans are anything but captive servants to the Elite that profit from these wars, start them, and send everybody, but their own, to get the goods for them. Are they sorry. They're are not. Any fool that believes that is dumber than a box of rocks.

[Positiveamerica]

Don't think it is a mistake, know it is and proceed to make things right. We are now going to spend more money and lives on a fruitless war when we should be investing in our economy. They still have bombings in Baghdad. It is not a matter of proving we're right. It is a matter of getting the US back on track and we can't do that as long as we are bogged down in the trenches. How beat up do people have to get before they get active and start protesting?

[Freethought42]

Proof that politicians will say ANYTHING when it comes to an election year.

[Zorine247]

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[eyetalia]

Republicans.. against healthcare because of costs.. healthcare that benefits millions of Americans, while they all supported throwing over a trillion dollars at propping up the government of ANOTHER country. This is exactly why I can't take them seriously. At the very least, be CONSISTENT. Not all Republicans are like that though, one I can respect is Ron Paul who is thoroughly consistent on his platform.

[snertster]

They say this NOW!!!!!!????

[xaviqaz]

@snertster Duncan always opposed war against Iraq

[trent2429]

It'll be interesting to see how antiwar these Republicans are when the rest of the Middle East starts demanding Euros for their oil.

[mostro135]

F psy crim bast...wh dev !!!!

[mostro135]

Fucking bastards,

Good thing my comments were not published.

[mostro135]

You sit there so proper and calm. Filthy trash. After creating hell on earth in a country that could not defend itself, the only ones you attack, and claim that it was a "horrible mistake". You are not human beings. You are the most dangerous psychopathic criminals on the face of the earth. Over a million dead Iraqis, millions displaced I truly hope their faces haunt you untill you commit suicide.

You are the evil of this world. The melanoma on the surface of the earth.

[mostro135]

A mistake?....A country destroyed, over a million deaths, other millions more displaced and you sit there laughing admitting it was a mistake and lamenting the money that was spent on your campaign of terror and destruction??

Fucking bastards, psychopathic criminals, repulsive criminal reptiles... that's what you are. As well as all of those that think like you.

Why does the world HATE you?

[rios9000]

well I guess that's the first step in the recovery from neoconservative warmonger to constitutional conservative. If there's any good that can come out of all this, hopefully we can get a rebirth of legitimate, libertarian leaning, anti-war conservative movement.

[patriciaredstone]

All I can say is, soooo ... when will they apologise for "unAmerican" "hate the troops" and "freedom fries" back.

[PJBurke92345]

Republicans -- like bubbagump007ss -- really love revising history to excuse themselves and their Idiot Leaders from taking any responsibility for their bungles and crimes. Both parties were NOT AT ALL "in full support of that war."

Here's the vote breakdown:

House:

Republican: 215 Y - 6 N (97 - 3%)

Democrat: 82 Y - 126 N (39 - 61%)

Senate:

Republican: 48 Y - 1 N (98 - 2%)

Democrat: 29 Y - 21 N (58 - 42%)

Republicans drove that sorry bus, Bubba.

[grazon]

I also have a feeling Tom McClintock was a major supporter of the War when Bush was President.

[lanwehr2]

Clinton The Spinleless not going after Bennie Laden, when he had the opportunity in his lap, was the beginning of this becoming a terrible mess of a war. Bad decisions followed and continue to this day. So sad.

[ohgodmynutbladder]

Wow, how can they sit there and say this?

"Yep, theres no neo-cons in the Republican party, all of us are against the war in Iraq/costly nation building."

Ron Paul went to the 2008 Primary debates on a platform strictly AGAINST nation building, costly wars in general, and more specificly the war in Iraq, and the mainstream republicans laughed him off as a nut. They asked him why he wasn't running as a democrat.

This is nothing but them trying to save face, and its absurd.

[XCritonX]

@ohgodmynutbladder Your confusing Republican politicians with Republican voters. Bad decisions on the part of non-conservative President Bush has caused the current Tea Party movement. The conservative voters are threatening to leave if the Rs don't start focusing on domestic issues and get their head out of the sand (literally).

[chevydriver1123]

With the exception of Ducan who did vote against Iraq way back when, I take alot of these people who have "seen the light" with a grain of salt.

[pythos82]

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

[chevydriver1123]

The exact words of Jefferson.

[DaveC86]

all i see is three war mongering criminals trying to save face, they belong behind bars.

[BlatzAdict]

couldn't of said it better myself.. reminds me of a certain Mr Cheney who also spoke out against it before he became VP... then what. exactly.

[bamatecangel7]

A bunch of hindsight BS. I guess you could get a lot of people to rewrite the history of WWII also. We should have gone all in tho.. back up to the Gulf War, should never have called off the attack when we did at the so called "Highway of Death". Thanks to our little weanie Sec of State at the time, Colin Powell, who convinced Bush to stop the attack when we were only 45 mins from wiping out most of the Republican Guard. If we had done that, would we talking about this subj now?

[PJBurke92345]

@bamatecangel7

James Baker was Bush 41's Secretary of State, not Powell (who was Chairman

of the Joint Chiefs)... then the job went to Lawrence Eagleburger. The one who claimed, in a 1994 interview, to have decided against occupying Iraq was Cheney.

[bamatecangel7]

U R correct. My bad on what position Powell held at the time of his advise but nonetheless, the rest holds true. I was not then nor looking back at it now, in favor of taking Iraq in the first Gulf War but for taking the additional 30 mins or hour to remove the RepublicanGuard troops and material that just inside Iraq at the time we stopped our efforts. That was then and in retrospect, an error and Powell was the one who had Bush 41's ear on that point.

[UnderseaCaveman]

RON PAUL VOTED AGAINST....Amen!!

[bittergunowner12]

Ironically John Duncan Jr (R-TN) was the only one in this interview that voted against the Iraq War Resolution back in 2002.

[hitman2070]

Oh whatever.... Don't forget, ALL members of Congress are politicians... and almost all politicians have no backbone. If everything in Iraq went 1000 times better than we thought then these guys would be singing a different tune, so I don't particularly care what they say about anything.

[whoo689]

His "Leave us Alone coalition" doesn't include gays who don't want the gov't taking away their rights. it doesn't include women who don't want the gov't infringing on their bodies. It's really just a typical social and economically conservative grouping.

A REAL "leave us alone" coalition would be libertarian.

[chevydriver1123]

Social Conservatism is all about government in your lives with supporting tax payer money going to Israel in the name of "foreign aid".

[whoo689]

Grover Norquist deep down is really just a Republican, isn't he? All he talks is tax, tax, tax. Now, that's good, but focus on MORE than just taxes, for christ sake. Like CUTTING SPENDING, for a change, Grover?

As much as Norquist talks about cutting taxes and focuses on so few other issues as an activist, one would think he's a libertarian, but from all I've read and seen, he really leans more to the right, meetings like this notwithstanding.

[matahaari]

We were all lied to by virtually everybody in authority because they believed what was in their political best interest at the time. Anyone who voted for it and had reservations should relinquish any publicly provided privileges of a congressman.

[joedoufu]

Two reps from California and one from Tennessee are hardly representative of all House Republicans, and even if they were, who cares about the opinions of less than 200 highly disappointing politicians? I can't see much value to this video except as political porn for libertarians and Paulnuts...

[capitalist4life]

Grover Norquist is great, but he is a CFR member.

[jp3711nc1]

I have a question for all the democrats and Republicans now who thought Iraq war was a mistake. Why did you vote for it?

There Answer I was lied to.

Remember if they where lied to then why did they did they say the same thing in 1999 when Clinton and Gore was in office?

[Nexus974]

@jp3711nc1

Their answer may be they were lied to, but that is a lie.

They were for it because it at the time because it was popular...they are against it now because it's unpopular.

[bubba007ss]

Lets face it both parties were in full support of that war when it first began The democrats seen they could use it as leverage against the republican party so they used manipulation tactic's much like they are doing now with health care, and other bills that they are forcing on the American people . Both parties said lets go to war mister president and every one gave the democrats a free pass on the issue. John Kerry came out in full support of the war at the beginning

[jp3711nc1]

@bubba007ss They called Republicans Fear mongers.

[ViciousAnimus]

So it was a mistake to capture and ultimately put an end to a dictator's vicious reign on his own people? Yeah, I guess doing the 'right thing' and freeing people from tyranny is just too inconvenient for other peoples' lives who live 100x luxuriously compared to one Iraqi family.

[scott01019]

@ViciousAnimus Yes it was a mistake. The Iraqi people hate us. They did not view us as liberators at all, rather they viewed us as exactly what we were: an invading army.

But anyways by your logic if it is justified to invade a country in order to "put an end to a dictator's vicious reign", which country would you like to invade next? Because many countries in the world have corrupt governments. So I guess we must "liberate" them all right?

[GOPsithlord]

@scott01019 It depends on what Iraqis. What's more you're arguing "what country should we invade next" is something of a slippery slope.

[scott01019]

@GOPsithlord I was not the one arguing "what country should we invade next". I was pointing out that exact fallacy in ViciousAnimus' argument, because that is what his logic implies.

[ViciousAnimus]

It doesn't matter if Iraq hates us or not. We're not trying to be heroes. My point is we should be giving SUPPORT to many countries with corrupt governments in LIBERATING themselves. And we can't continue to live in isolated selfishness. I mean I'm not saying we should take everything we have to give it to everyone else, but to DO nothing WON'T make things better.

[arcanekrusader]

@ViciousAnimus Yes, it was. Illegal and totally immoral. 1 million people were killed, the iraqi people are no better off (there lives were made far worse by sanctions and DU than anything saddam did anyway) all to get rid of a man who would have died soon or already be dead through natural causes by now. And the economy would probably not be in such a bad state to boot! Too inconvenient? Lay off the Kool-Aid pal.

[ViciousAnimus]

No better off? Our presence right now is the ONLY thing stopping from every other dictator in the region from swooping down on them and raping/pillaging even more innocent people. As I just said: is evil ever going to be stopped when good men CONTINUE to do nothing? Are we to bow down to such people for the sake of our own survival?

No, we can't save every innocent person, but to ignore what is in front of us is truly ignorant.

[glennd7962]

Uhh, I never signed up for the U.S. to fix the problems of the world. We can't afford it and if it's not a strategic national defense issue, it isn't worth a single American life. Let the Iraqis figure it out for themselves.

[ViciousAnimus]

No one's talking about policing the world, but this attitude that we shouldn't give a damn about anyone but ourselves is ridiculous. Our response to Germany in WW2 was AFTER Hitler had begun killing and conquering other countries. Are we only to deal with dictators only if they try to take over other countries? Are we to ignore such threats just because these dictators are only doing it to their OWN people? Is evil ever going to be stopped when good men CONTINUE to do nothing?

[aallppiinnee]

I don't agree with you, but I don't think your comment is worth -6.

[Betty5150]

So Ron isn't the only one.

[MarmaladeINFP]

Of course, everyone agrees in retrospect that the Iraq war was a mistake because it cost much money & many lives. Many agree it was a tactical mistake with an ongoing war in Afghanistan. What Republicans won't admit is that Bush lied & the war was unjustified/immoral. Republicans are fine with admitting the war was wrong & some are willing to admit Bush was wrong, but no Republican will accept moral responsibility for having supported a war that was clearly unjust even at the time.