Immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I went to the floor of the House of Representatives and warned against the U.S. lashing out blindly in response to the devastating attacks which killed over 3,000 persons.  

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as recounted by Bob Woodward in his book, Plan of Attack, brought forward the idea that 9/11 should be used to further a broader agenda, aimed at ousting Saddam Hussein, and laying the groundwork for the Project for A New American Century, an ideological architecture for American world dominance, with the help of the military. 

A full-scale attack on Iraq and the Iraqi people commenced.  Rumsfeld, who had a long career in government, including four terms in the U.S. House from Illinois, was instrumental in convincing President Bush to launch a "shock and awe attack" on Iraq, and upon the Iraqi people, which ultimately resulted in 1,000,000 deaths that would have otherwise not occurred.

Our leaders chose to use the most advanced weaponry against a nation that had almost zero ability to defend itself, spending less than one percent of what the U.S. spent for military purposes. 

Keep in mind that all the while the attack was being planned, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.  It had nothing to do with Al Queda's role in 9/11. It had neither the intention and certainly not the capability to attack the United States.  It did not have the still undetected "Weapons of Mass Destruction," which became the pretext for a broad attack, licensed by the fear-mongering, driven by an unquestioning media establishment.

The Iraq War wasn't about 9/11. It was about empire. It was about controlling resources, ie, oil.  It was about the profit of war contractors.  The Watson Institute at Brown University has estimated the regime-change wars, post 9/11, cost over $8 trillion, much of it simply added to the U.S. national debt.  It cost the lives of nearly 5,000 American soldiers.  Iraqis paid dearly.  The nation, its cultural institutions, its infrastructure, its families, destroyed, based on the choices made by leaders who used 9/11 to advance a political agenda.