The New Year Quote by Edward Kennedy

Kennedy isn’t arguing policy so much as putting the prosecution’s case on the table: not a tragic misread, not a fog-of-war blunder, but a premeditated political act. The opening clause, “There was no imminent threat,” does the blunt work of stripping away the moral permission slip that modern wars typically require. “Imminent” matters; it’s the legal and emotional trigger word that turns choice into necessity. Kennedy denies that trigger outright.

Then he pivots to process and place: “made up in Texas.” It’s a loaded geographic shorthand, meant to conjure an inner circle operating far from Washington’s deliberative rituals, in a state synonymous (at the time) with Bush-era power and oil-and-security muscle. He’s not merely saying intelligence was wrong; he’s implying it was manufactured, then sold.

“Announced in January to the Republican leadership” sharpens the accusation into timeline and audience: the decision preceded the public rationale, and the pitch was partisan. The most damning phrase is “good politically,” because it reframes war as a midterm strategy, not a national security response. Kennedy is signaling that the real constituency being protected wasn’t the country, but a coalition.

Calling it “a fraud” is intentional escalation. Fraud is not error. It’s not even deception in the abstract. It’s deception for gain, with victims. In the early 2000s context - post-9/11 fear, the run-up to Iraq, a dissenting press corps often playing catch-up - Kennedy’s language tries to break the spell of consensus by insisting that the scandal isn’t the battlefield; it’s the sales floor.