Lincoln Chafee: "Everyone Was Silent"
The Only Republican Senator to Oppose Iraq War Authorization Speaks Out
In the fall of 2002, as the United States Senate was granting the White House authorization to go to war in Iraq, only one Republican member of that body opposed the course of action. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Rhode Island Republican, served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time that he expressed his skepticism. In his view, the administration had clearly failed to make its case to invade Iraq. Nor did he believe that the attacks on 9/11 were connected to Saddam Hussein. History, so far, has proved Chafee prescient.
In the summer of 2007, Chafee formally abandoned the Republican Party after loosing his re-election run to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
In this interview with The Huffington Post, he recounts how, at the time he opposed the initial war authorization, he felt like a sheep amidst the wolves.