What if Democratic member of Congress voted against Iraq War in 2002?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
What if the Democratic minority in congress took a principled stand and en masse voted against the 2002 authorization of force? The senate could have stopped it given that there was 1 Republican that voted against it and the GOP did not have a majority there.
 
29 of the 50 Democrats in the Senate voted for the resolution. That a few more might vote against it is plausible. That all 50 (including Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller...) would do so is not.
 
Had all the Democrats voted against war in the House, and the republican vote was unchanged the Bill to go to war would have been defeated, by 1 vote.
 
This is a massive change. The run up to the Iraq war would have to be dramatically different. In real life most Democratic senators voted for the war. Something pretty big is going to have to change to alter things from "mostly in favor" to "united in opposition".
 
Had all the Democrats voted against war in the House, and the republican vote was unchanged the Bill to go to war would have been defeated, by 1 vote.

We are talking about changing the votes, not of a handful of Democratic Representatives, but of 82--almost two-fifths of House Democrats. This is extremely implausible when you consider that in those days the House Democratic delegation still had a lot of conservative southerners, and quite a few liberals--especially from New York--also voted yes. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455 For goodness sake, Carolyn Maloney voted Yes!
 
You would have to change the fact 70% of the public at the time supported toppling Saddam and if you change that you just stopped the war period.
 

CalBear

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You would have to change the fact 70% of the public at the time supported toppling Saddam and if you change that you just stopped the war period.

^^^

This.

The Bush Administration sold the American people a bill of goods (including me, I bought into the whole WMD argument) and the people were strongly in support.

This was only 3 weeks before the 2002 election. At least 15 of the Democrats who voted Yes would have lost their seats, or been in serious danger of doing so had they changed to a No.
 
Then how come in most other countries the war wasn't as popular?

The U.S. and the UK were the only two countries whose planes were being shot at trying to enforce the No Fly Zone for many years up to that point and other countries hadn't just been attacked and Saddam decided in 2001 as well it would be a great idea to rap himself in the cloak of 911 publicly to poke America further in the eye.

Polling report keeps alot, but not all polls going back to the 1990s on Iraq. Before 911 a bare majority supported toppling Saddam with ground troops after 911 and Saddam's idiot response, combined with not letting back in the inspectors or really doing anything differently unlike Iran, Libya, etc. it grew to the mid to upper 70s. One poll though not on their list I don't think in November 2001 had it at 80% and it settled to the 70% range for the most of 2002.

http://www.pollingreport.com/

The only time before 911 it hit into the 70% range for toppling Saddam with ground troops was in 1993 after the news of the assassination plot came out.

U.S. Strikes Iraq for Plot to Kill Bush

U.S. Navy ships launched 23 Tomahawk missiles against the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service yesterday in what President Clinton said was a "firm and commensurate" response to Iraq's plan to assassinate former president George Bush in mid-April.

The attack was meant to strike at the building where Iraqi officials had plotted against Bush, organized other unspecified terrorist actions and directed repressive internal security measures, senior U.S. officials said.

Clinton, speaking in a televised address to the nation at 7:40 last night, said he ordered the attack to send three messages to the Iraqi leadership: "We will combat terrorism. We will deter aggression. We will protect our people."

Clinton said he ordered the attack after receiving "compelling evidence" from U.S. intelligence officials that Bush had been the target of an assassination plot and that the plot was "directed and pursued by the Iraqi Intelligence Service."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/timeline/062793.htm

The support in the UK for toppling Saddam at the start of 2003 was actually similar to the pre-911 support numbers in the US.
 
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We are talking about changing the votes, not of a handful of Democratic Representatives, but of 82--almost two-fifths of House Democrats. This is extremely implausible when you consider that in those days the House Democratic delegation still had a lot of conservative southerners, and quite a few liberals--especially from New York--also voted yes. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455 For goodness sake, Carolyn Maloney voted Yes!

Oh I understand that, I was just explaining that had all the Democrats voted against the bill would have been defeated, as an answer to the WI.
 
Oh I understand that, I was just explaining that had all the Democrats voted against the bill would have been defeated, as an answer to the WI.

Keep in mind some democratic members of even the Senate were more hawkish on Saddam then most Republicans. Lieberman would be case and point of that.

If all democrats vote no it would mean the political winds are such a good chunk of the Republicans will be voting no as well. How could that happen? Not easily and not without a POD at least a decade beforehand.

Even if Saddam pulled a Gaddafi after 911 and decided to work with the CIA and play ball with the U.N. regarding weapons inspections without the 90s era games of not letting inspectors into this site or that then booting them I don't see zero democrats voting for an AUF against him given how much he was hated by that point.

You would have to have a POD to the end of the first Gulf War were Saddam behaves himself and the No Fly Zone ends up being terminated by say mid 1995 or better never happens in the first place along with no weapons inspections. By the late 90s and certainly the end of 2001 its far too late.

Why?

Iraq hails attack on US

The entire world - almost - has reacted with horror to the news of Tuesday's terrorist attacks against the United States - the entire world except for Iraq.

As condolences poured in from everywhere - even from Libya and Iran - Iraq rejoiced, saying the terror attacks were a "lesson for all tyrants and oppressors" and the fruit of American crimes. "America burns," read the headline of the country's official al-Iraq newspaper, which declared: "the myth of America was destroyed with the World Trade Center in New York."

Elsewhere in the Gulf, newspapers were unanimous in their condemnation of the attacks, but al-Iraq wrote: "It is the prestige, arrogance and institutions of America that burn." The paper said it would be difficult for the US to find the perpetrators of the attack, since America has made so many enemies. "Thousands if not a million or billion hands were behind these attacks," it said. "Brutal America, suffering from illusions of grandeur, has inflicted humiliation, famine and terrorism on all of the world's countries and today it reaps the fruits of its arrogant and stupid policy," said an official Iraqi statement.

The official statement, read on television Tuesday night, said: "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity. "The statement said the attack was, among others, a result of America's support of Israel. "The destruction of the centres of American power is the destruction of American policy, which has veered from human values to align itself with the Zionist world, to continue to massacre the Palestinian people."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1540216.stm

hussein_poster_911sm.jpg


Still even Gaddafi behaved himself quite well for a number of years after 911. It didn't change the fact the West even in 2011 hadn't forgotten about what he did in the 1980s and I suspect he was punished for that more then anything that was happening in the time. If it was really just about helping people why the lack of interest in doing the same for the Syrians who were being butchered at the same time or right after?

It was a combination of current and historical factors at play with why the U.S. with some European allies attacked Gaddafi. For Saddam it was a combination of factors as well some that went back to the 90s and some that were more current.
 
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Then how come in most other countries the war wasn't as popular?

9/11. Yes, of course I know Saddam wasn't behind it, but the point is that it led to a greater fear of Mideast-based alleged weapons of mass destruction in the US than in (say) most of Europe.
 
9/11. Yes, of course I know Saddam wasn't behind it, but the point is that it led to a greater fear of Mideast-based alleged weapons of mass destruction in the US than in (say) most of Europe.

Saddam was also the only leader of his day to authorize the use of gas on civilians.

Combine that with him deciding to rap himself in the cloak of 911 and his Back to Faith insanity like writing a Blood Koran and inviting jihadists in to fight America in 2002 when the U.S. is still mulling over to invade or not to invade and you better understand why America at least in 2002 thought that guy might give chemical or biological weapons to terrorists.

The U.S. was thinking in late 2001 and 2002 about how the next 911 or worse a state sponsored terrorist attack could occur and Saddam lets just say unknowingly played into the fears of the time. I would not exactly say the fears were entirely unfounded given the religious radicalism Saddam was cultivating inside the Sunni community in Iraq would help empower the next generation of Sunni leaders first Zarqawi and then al-Baghdadi. But, I still don't think Saddam even in his demented state would have directly handed jihadists chemical weapons.
 
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Unlikely the Democrats would have voted no as a bloc.

All of the Capitol Hilll Democrats who had presidential ambitions--Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry, and Lieberman--voted to authorize the war. They believed that a "no" vote would tar them as "weak on national security". (Most Democrats had voted against authorizing the first Gulf War; the resolution passed the Senate with only 52 votes.)

In addition, with the 2002 midterms approaching, the Democratic leadership wanted to get Iraq off the agenda and shift the debate to domestic issues.
 

BooNZ

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The U.S. was thinking in late 2001 and 2002 about how the next 911 or worse a state sponsored terrorist attack could occur and Saddam lets just say unknowingly played into the fears of the time. I would not exactly say the fears were entirely unfounded given the religious radicalism Saddam was cultivating inside the Sunni community in Iraq would help empower the next generation of Sunni leaders first Zarqawi and then al-Baghdadi. But, I still don't think Saddam even in his demented state would have directly handed jihadists chemical weapons.

Zarqawi was a Jordanian who moved to Iraq after the commencement of the Iraq war. Al Baghdadi was a low level civilian when he was detained by the US administration for a number of months in 2004. Those Cretins were a product of regime change, not Saddam.
 
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