The whole world begged Hillary to say no.

First of all, the war was based on lies and deception. For example, from the text of the resolution itself:

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Lies.

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

More lies.

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Lies and crackpot conspiracy theories.

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

Lies.

Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

Lies.

Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

Lies. Saddam and Bin Laden had nothing to do with each other.

a) Authorization.--The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--
          (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
          (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

In other words, the President could do whatever he wanted to. The relevant phrase says, "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary. Not the Congress. The President. It was for the President to decide when all peaceful means were exhausted.

People may ask at this point, well, why not put the blame on Bush where it belongs? Well, the problem is that even if Bush would have gone into Iraq without the passage of the AUMF, there was no need for Congress to go on record giving their consent to such an action. Hillary and her defenders may talk all they want about how she made it clear that her vote was not an endorsement of preemptive warfare. But that is not what the bill stated at all -- the bill gave the President a blank check to "use the Armed Forces as he determines to be necessary."

Another argument that Hillary supporters make is that they could not have known that the President was lying. Well, Obama could tell that the President was lying. Millions of people around the world knew the President was lying; there were some of the largest demonstrations in the world since the 1960's peace marches against the Vietnam War. That begs one question -- why could Barack Obama and millions of people like him see that the President was lying, and Hillary Clinton could not?

This all goes back to a question that I asked earlier in this debate -- who trusts the Bush administration more -- Obama or Clinton? The record is clear -- Obama is on the right side of this question. Hillary is on the wrong side.

This is not just about the vote itself, but the fundamental issues behind the vote. If someone robs your home, and you find out who the crook is, you don't go taking the law into your own hands and shoot that person up. You call the police and work within our legal system. And in the same respect, you don't take international affairs into your own hands -- you work within the UN. The problem is that the AUMF gave the President the ability to take the law into his own hands and be a vigilante. Hillary's protestations at the time that she did not want the President to engage in preemptive warfare is akin to Congress passing a law saying that we don't want you to murder someone, but if you do, we're not going to stop you. The latter is just as absurd as Hillary's protestations. If Hillary were serious about stopping the President from engaging in preemptive warfare, she would have offered an amendment that stated that the President could not go into Iraq without UN approval.

This is about the rule of law. But this is also a matter of the Constitution itself. The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war on our enemies. There is no provision anywhere in the Constitution that allows any branch of government to abdicate its responsibilities and pass the buck onto someone else. It is true that the President is the commander in chief of the Armed Forces. But it is the responsibility of Congress to decide when a state of war exists between us and another country.

There was a reason for that -- the reason for that is because the founders did not want one man letting his personal feelings and animosity get in the way of our foreign policy. War was a matter of sufficient gravity that collective deliberations were necessary and cooler heads were needed. The Constitution was designed to prevent exactly what happened -- a President deciding on his own to engage in a war based on personal revenge.

In war, truth is the first casualty. And any reasonable person could have seen for themselves that the President could not be trusted on Iraq -- he stated as early as 1999 that he wanted to finish the job of his father and get rid of Saddam because of the latter's attempt on the life of his father. It did not take rocket science or a look at the intelligence reports to tell that the President would be willing to lie to get his war with Saddam.

Maybe the President would have gone to Iraq anyway without the AUMF; his feelings of animosity towards Saddam were deep enough. But there was no need for Hillary or the rest of the "Democrats" in Congress to give their consent to this mad piece of military adventurism at a time when we needed to finish the job in Afghanistan and capture Osama Bin Laden. She said one thing, but her vote said another.