I checked to see if this was diaried already, and then it occurred to me: this is one of those things that needs to be diaried as frequently as possible.
In fact, you don't even have to read anymore of this diary. Go to Leading to War, watch the free video, and pass the site on.
If you're still here and curious about the site, just know that there is more than a video. There's also information detailing how the Bush Administration lied about the reasons for going to Iraq, manipulated the public into supporting the invasion, used linguistical gymnastics to cover their ass and played our intelligence agencies like a base fiddle.
Bush. Cheney. Rumsfeld. Rice. Powell. All of them are complicit. They all had the ability to stop this from happening, but they did nothing; in fact they encouraged it.
Keep this in mind when you see old clips of Bush joking about not finding WMDs or recent clips of him joking about his corrupt Administration. Or when Cheney says that he never implied that there was a connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Or when Rice pulls the "Saddam was an evil man card" while dictators just as bad continue to run other nations.
Whenever someone tells you that no one could have calculated our current situation, show them this site. Remind them that Bush Administration swore up and down that they had everything under control. Remind them that the Bush Adminisration said that the war would pay for itself. Remind them that phrases like "greeted as liberators" and "slam dunk" were used to described our perceived success, and the formula of "smoking gun = mushroom cloud" was being tossed around as a consequence of doing...well, what Bush's father had done and what Clinton had done (hmm...wonder why there wasn't any "Saddam needs to go!" outcry from the neo-cons back then?).
If you feel sad, mad or frustrated at the horror stories coming from both our troops and the unfortunate citizens of Iraq, if you're tired of hearing people talk like this whole mess is the equivalent of spilling grape juice on a white shirt, if the sight of burned bodies, tortured prisoners or flag-drapped flags bothers you, then pass this site on.
Keep the pressure on.