The first reason is that the long painful chapter of the Viet Nam era was finally ending. This is my generation and the very last thing I wanted was any return to the horrific bungling of events into which we put our brave fighting men and women. In fact we had a precious moment in time where a lasting peace was in our grasp. Too many senators forgot too quickly about the tragedy of Viet Nam. A second reason was that I had learned in the nine months of the Bush/Cheney th administration prior to September 11 , not to trust them at their word. As a candidate, Governor Bush had said many things that were for the campaign only- governing would be a lot different. For example a campaign staple was, “I am a uniter, not a divider”. He said very clearly that his foreign policy would be humble, not arrogant. And he promised to regulate carbon dioxide, a climate change pollutant. These promises were all broken in the very first days of his presidency. Sadly, the lies never stopped. This was an administration not to be trusted. My third reason for voting against the war was based on a similar revulsion to mendacity. Many of the cheerleaders for the Iraq war in the Bush administration had been writing about regime change in Iraq and American unilateralism for years. They wrote about it in the 1992 Defense Planning Guide, in the 1996 Report to Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the 1997 Project for a New American Century and in the 1998 letter to President Clinton. A little over a month before the vote on the war I read an article in the Guardian by Brian Whitaker. Listen to this: QUOTE: “In a televised speech last week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicted devastating consequences for the Middle East if Iraq is attacked. “We fear a state of disorder and chaos may prevail in the region”, he said. Mr. Mubarak is an old-fashioned kind of Arab leader and, in the brave new post- September-11 world, he doesn’t quite get the point. What on earth did he expect the Pentagon’s hawks to do when they heard his words of warning? Throw up their hands in dismay? – “Gee, thanks, Hosni. We never thought of that. Better call the whole thing off right away.” They are probably still splitting their sides with laughter in the Pentagon. But Mr. Mubarak and the hawks do agree on one thing: War with Iraq could spell disaster for several regimes in the Middle East. 2