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Originally Posted by wingfanjim
However, remember the contentious way that the president came into office in 2000. He wouldnt' have had the political capital or the unity to go to war if 9/11 had not happened. Especially since foreign policy was generally considered an afterthought of the 2000 election. If you recall, the issues were almost primarily domestic issues (see social security and the "locked box"). The country was at peace with no apparent enemies in sight. However, 9/11 happens and all of a sudden we have an enemy again. We have threats, our sense of safety has been shattered. NOW you go to the newly frightened American people and tell them that our old enemy Saddam Hussein poses a threat to us too and he has weapons of mass destruction (not true) and he might be in cahoots with OBL (not true) and he's intefering with UN weapons inspectors (true) and the American people rally around the flag and say "GO TO WAR!". A scared, beleagured populace is capable of accepting many things (see Germans under the Nazis). Not to say that we have fallen to the level the Germans did at that time, but i am saying that a fearful populace is much more succeptable to suggestions such as war and violence than a confidant populace living in peace is. Iraq could NOT have happened without 9/11.
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Good points. And they threw in anthrax for good measure, since we were SURE that there were WMDs and chemical weapons in Iraq.