The Iraq War didn’t just happen.
It was sold.

By late 2002, the decision to invade Iraq had already been made inside the Bush administration. What followed wasn’t a debate. It was a coordinated campaign to manufacture certainty, suppress doubt, and move the country toward war before Congress or the public could stop it.

Episode 5 tells the story of how that campaign worked.

At the center of it was Dick Cheney and the network he spent decades building. Intelligence was shaped to fit conclusions that had already been reached. Media leaks replaced evidence. Fear replaced facts. And when the case still wasn’t strong enough, Cheney used the most trusted man in American foreign policy to carry the message.

Colin Powell didn’t create the case for war. He was used to legitimize it.

This episode walks through how Powell’s credibility became the final tool on the road to Baghdad, how dissent inside the government was sidelined, and how Congress abandoned its constitutional responsibility at the moment it mattered most. Once Powell stood before the United Nations, the war was no longer just a policy choice. It became a matter of national pride and political momentum. There was no off-ramp after that.

But this story isn’t just about one speech or one man.

It’s about how a system designed to restrain war was bypassed. How authorizations replaced declarations. How the executive branch accumulated power Congress was never supposed to give away. And how the same machinery that sold the Iraq War still exists today, waiting for the next crisis.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led organization committed to ending America’s forever wars and restoring constitutional limits on when and how we send Americans into combat. Our work centers on passing Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to declare war before the National Guard can be deployed to foreign battlefields. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.

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Understanding how the war was sold is the first step toward making sure it never happens this way again.