The war in Iraq: Legal and political fallacies. pp. 13 - 61.

President George W. Bush went to war against Iraq by claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. They were never foud. Investigations since that time have highlighted a number of false claims by the administration, but the errors were not merely those of executive officials. Members of Congress failed to discharge their duties as an independent branch, and the media and many academics added to the hype for war. Both political parties have contributed to presidential wars. In the years after World War II, one finds a streing of misconceptions and false claims by Democratic administrations to foster wars. These institutional failings have done great damage to the US constitutional system, the functioning of representative government, democratic values, and the fundamental principle that the decision to go to war against another country is reserved to Congress, not the president.