Answer 1
Ask them to determine whether the government doctored the evidence or made honest mistakes in emphasizing the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Students should also analyze the role of Congress in the decision to go to war. Congress gave the president nearly unlimited power to prosecute the conflict. Were Congressmen fooled or did they simply not interpret the evidence correctly? Moreover, did Congress give up too much authority to the president? Ask students to compare the Congressional endorsement of going to war in Iraq with the War Powers Act and determine whether Congress gave up too much of its oversight role.
Answer 2
Like his father ten years earlier, President Bush sought global support for American antiterrorism efforts. For the first time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5, which stated that an attack on the United States was an attack against all members of the alliance. Negotiations then commenced with other nations to allow the U.S. military to use or fly over their territories to strike against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, whom Bush and the government charged as responsible for perpetrating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On October 7, the United States and Britain launched bombing and missile attacks on selected targets in Afghanistan with broad support from countries around the world. Months later, after driving the Taliban from power, Bush expanded the war on terrorism to include sending advisers to assist the Philippines in fighting a group of Islamic terrorists. Good students will also point to the passage of the USA Patriot Act and discuss how that legislation gives the government new and broad powers to fight the war against terrorism at home.
African bush (savanna) elephant in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
Button Bush
This engraving by William Russell Birch shows Congress Hall (left), which was occupied by Congress f
Andrew Jackson as president.
President-elect Barack Obama, his daughters, and wife, Michelle, celebrate his victory in November 2
George Green. …marooned in dreaming: a path of song and mind, in progress