MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan forcefully confronts Lieberman over the Iraq War 'disaster' as he refuses to apologize

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, like Hillary Clinton, was among the Democrats in Congress who voted in favor of President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq and overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The centrist ex-Democrat defended that decision during a recent conversation with MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan, who forcefully condemned the invasion of Iraq as a foreign policy blunder that cost "thousands of lives."

There was no evidence whatsoever that Hussein had anything to do with 9/11, an attack carried out by the terrorist group al-Qaeda. In fact, Hussein and al-Qaeda were bitter enemies, and al-Qaeda — who favor strict Shariah law — despised Hussein for running a secular government.

Hasan told the 79-year-old Lieberman, "As recently as 2015, 2016, you were still saying you thought it was a good thing overall. It was a disaster. Are you willing to say tonight: it was a disaster, you were wrong, you regret it, you apologize?"

Lieberman responded, "I'm not. Look, I was in the majority of members of the Senate Democratic caucus who voted to authorize President Bush to go to war in Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein…. After Saddam went into hiding until we caught him, the Bush administration made some big mistakes."

The former Connecticut senator went on to say that when other Democrats "turned against" the war in Iraq, he wanted to stay until the U.S. could "stabilize" the country. But Hasan maintained that invading Iraq in the first place was a "disaster."

Hasan told Lieberman, "Thousands of Iraqis died — innocent men, women, children, civilians in U.S. airstrikes…. Does none of that bother you? Doesn't affect your conscience, doesn't keep you up at night? The sheer level of suffering that we caused in Iraq?"

Lieberman responded, "Of course it does. But the truth is that the people of Iraq were suffering terribly under Saddam Hussein, and so were the people of the region." Hasan's guest acknowledged, however, that "the cost of the war, both in lives and in money — American money — was way beyond what I ever anticipated."

Watch the full interview below:

Mehdi Challenges Joe Lieberman On Centrism, Manchin, and Iraq | The Mehdi Hasan Showyoutu.be