"Calling" is indeed ambivalent and it was my choice of wording. Whereas PM Blair said, "I told the House [Parliament] on 16 November [1997] that if he [Sadam Hussein] again obstructed the work of the inspectors we would strike. No warning. No wrangling. No negotiation. no last minute letters." This seems a much stronger statement than a boilerplate call for suffrage.

[url]http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/12/17/981217-blair.htm[/url]

While Pres. Clinton said in June of 1997, that the United States would use, "...whatever options are neccessary." And reiterated that threat in the Summary of HR 4655 which, "Declares that it should be the policy of the United States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government."

[url]http://newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040623.htm[/url]

There are many things that can be argued about the war and that is as it should in any democratic society. But it is obvious that PM Blair not only was not blindly obedient but was actually ahead of the US in bellicose language and in securing the support of Parliament and in later watching Pres. Clinton receive that same support from some of the same people today that are engaged in misleading games of I-told-you-so!

I most certainly did not blame Pres. Clinton, in fact he supported the war until some of the blame for its failures started to come his way, but rather pointed out that implying that PM Blair and the UK were some kind of obedient tools of US policy flew in the face of the facts.

Such as that Blair had called for action against Iraq and Clinton had agreed while Pres. Bush was still in Texas and that as Joerg pointed out both Republican and Democratic congressmen in the US agreed with both presidents. And that on at least two separate times Blair had asked the Labour Party in Britain to officially support moves against Saddam as early as 1997. And as they did so the question would be also of why didn't Labour read any of these contrary reports about whether these weapons were still in Iraq.

I'm sure that, just as Sen. Clinton was shown to have not read the NIE, many politicians in the US and Britain did not do their homework and voted solely because the wind was strongest in the direction of war. With Joerg I would agree that it appears that both the Senate and the House was populated, as usual, by members more interested in their own incumbency than opposing the war.

So if, as many in Europe see, America's involvement in this war as being hip deep in garbage than there is plenty of blame to go around. Joerg raises an interesting point concerning the Democrats brief control of the Senate due to some party switching. The Democrats ran the Senate from June of 2002 until the end of the 106th Congress in Jan. 3, 2003. The vote authorizing the President to move against Iraq was voted and signed on Oct 11,2002 which would absolutely require Democratic Party support as a bill could only be introduced if the Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Daschle, wanted to do so. The Democrats were not out of power at this time but ran the committees that held sessions on this resolution. There are hundreds of parliamentary manuevers that could have delayed or stopped the war but neither party chose to do so.

If I wanted to blame Pres. Clinton I probably would for not acting sooner considering the multiple Iraqi violations of the US and UN treaties. Clinton's feckless foreign policy attempts at that time were mainly in an attempt to shift the focus away from his impeachment and near conviction. His actions served merely to delay the increasingly likelihood of war with Iraq since the US started withdrawing support for Saddam's regime in 1987. But he is merely a footnote while both parties and the President that authorized force and used it are responsible.