Before we go blaming Congress for flip flopping, let's review the authorization they gave Bush to invade Iraq. Two critical benchmarks were not met that Bush had to for the authorization to be valid. One, Bush was to go back to the UN security council before he used our military. When Bush got caught spying on the offices of the different countries on the security council, he ignored that requirement. Second, Bush flatly lied when he claimed Saddam would not let the weapons inspectors back in. They were in Iraq when Bush made this claim. If blame goes to Congress, it's for not holding Bush to the standards they had authorized.
The Congress was given a white washed report on the threat posed by Iraq, full of dubious claims the intelligence community disagreed with. I don't pardon those who trusted the administration implicitly or felt threatened by the right wing bullies in the media. They should have stood up and done the right thing, that is, ask the tough questions. We see now the danger of a rubber stamp congress and an abusive executive branch. But let's not forget there were several people who did not give the president authorization to use force against Iraq. Unfortunately not many are running for president right now. One can only hope they learned from their mistakes.
It's also important to remember the American public and Congress expected the White House and pentagon to have an exit strategy. A plan for the aftermath. This idea that we should have known that this would take a long time isn't a fair criticism. The responsibility for the failure and deterioration into civil war falls squarely on the shoulders of the chicken hawks who failed to consider the results of their reckless actions. The reconstruction was handed over to 30 something Federalist society free market morons. The economic ideology prevalent in the neo-con movement, that the private sector solves all problems, was given a chance to work. It failed miserably. The military was disbanded and sent home armed. Ammo dumps and stores of weapons were left open to looters. These were not the responsibilities of congress. We were told by Rumsfeld that the news was showing the same guy looting over and over again. Then, that there was no insurgency, that freedom was messy. A civil war between sectarian groups was denied for almost a year. Contractors and hired guns infiltrated our military and guided the torture policies from the highest levels of government, sadly this was by design. Again, congress had no idea what was being done in our name. Remember the incident of the burning hum vee, the bodies being dragged out and hung from a bridge. Those were contractors acting without military approval. This is significant in that the decision to allow non-military personnel to run around a country we had just liberated from a brutal dictator acting as if they were soldiers has had disastrous consequences. These contractors have no code. They are not required to adhere to a military code of conduct. In fact the Bush administration has assured that they are not legally bound by laws. Again, congress had nothing to do with this. Congress also did not authorize the use of white phosphorous that sticks to human beings as it burns their flesh. An internationally banned substance that our troops were being ordered to use.
The vast majority of Democrats voted against warrantless wire tapping. It was the blue dog, or conservative Dems that went along with virtually all the Republicans. The freshmen Democrats have been consistent in opposing the Bush administration and gives me hope that perhaps the party and the political process can be saved. Regardless of the authorization to make legal what was illegal in Bush's assault on our civil liberties, it's still un-constitutional. And the specter of a Democrat in the White House will surely compel the neo-conservative Supreme Court to acknowledge that.
Congress did not authorize torture techniques that have become recruitment tools for our enemies. They did not authorize secret rendition flights to countries like Syria. And they did not initially authorize the un-Constitutional practice of spying on American citizens, data mining of our phone calls and emails, or the indefinite detention of persons the President alone saw fit to call "enemy combatants." There is plenty of blame to toss around for the mess that is Iraq, the rise in global terror as a result and the view the rest of the world has towards us. The bulk of it however goes to the commander in chief. George W. Bush should be dragged to an international court and tried for war crimes. To try and lay the blame on congress is disingenuous.