Bring Our Troops Home Podcast

The Iraq War didn’t just happen.
It was sold.

By late 2002, the decision to invade Iraq had already been made inside the Bush administration. What followed wasn’t a debate. It was a coordinated campaign to manufacture certainty, suppress doubt, and move the country toward war before Congress or the public could stop it.

Episode 5 tells the story of how that campaign worked.

At the center of it was Dick Cheney and the network he spent decades building. Intelligence was shaped to fit conclusions that had already been reached. Media leaks replaced evidence. Fear replaced facts. And when the case still wasn’t strong enough, Cheney used the most trusted man in American foreign policy to carry the message.

Colin Powell didn’t create the case for war. He was used to legitimize it.

This episode walks through how Powell’s credibility became the final tool on the road to Baghdad, how dissent inside the government was sidelined, and how Congress abandoned its constitutional responsibility at the moment it mattered most. Once Powell stood before the United Nations, the war was no longer just a policy choice. It became a matter of national pride and political momentum. There was no off-ramp after that.

But this story isn’t just about one speech or one man.

It’s about how a system designed to restrain war was bypassed. How authorizations replaced declarations. How the executive branch accumulated power Congress was never supposed to give away. And how the same machinery that sold the Iraq War still exists today, waiting for the next crisis.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led organization committed to ending America’s forever wars and restoring constitutional limits on when and how we send Americans into combat. Our work centers on passing Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to declare war before the National Guard can be deployed to foreign battlefields. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.

If this episode resonates with you, share it.
If you want to help stop this from happening again, visit DefendTheGuard.us and sign the petition.
And if you’re able, support our work at BringOurTroopsHome.us.

Understanding how the war was sold is the first step toward making sure it never happens this way again.

In the smoke and chaos of 9/11, America was grieving. People were still calling missing loved ones. Firefighters were still pulling bodies from the rubble. The country was united in shock.

But inside the rooms where real power lived, something else was already happening.

This episode reveals how Iraq entered the conversation before the fires at the Pentagon were even out. Not because of intelligence. Not because of evidence. But because the same men who had spent a decade demanding regime change saw their moment opening. The “new Pearl Harbor” they once wrote about had arrived, and they wasted no time.

Episode 4A exposes how Dick Cheney built a parallel presidency—a shadow government operating inside the White House—and how that machine seized control in the days after the attacks. While President Bush was airborne and cut off from communication, Cheney sat in the bunker with the operators he had handpicked for this exact moment.

David Addington wrote the secret memos.
Scooter Libby controlled the information pipeline.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz pushed Iraq before Afghanistan was even stabilized.
Douglas Feith built a backdoor intel shop to produce the answers the CIA refused to give.

This wasn’t analysis. It wasn’t caution. It wasn’t confusion.
It was intent.

You’ll hear how forged documents, fabricated defectors, and debunked rumors became “evidence” for war. How Curveball’s lies were elevated above seasoned analysts. How the Niger uranium papers survived every warning flag. How aluminum tubes that nuclear experts dismissed turned into “proof” of a nuclear program. And how Ahmed Chalabi fed the Pentagon a steady diet of stories tailor-made for the invasion he wanted.

Episode 4A shows that none of this was an intelligence failure. It was an intelligence operation.

By the end of 2002, the scaffolding was finished.
The legal restraints were ripped out.
The intel process was bent beyond recognition.
The narrative was baked.

All that remained was a trusted face to sell it.
That part begins in Episode 4B.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort to end endless war and restore the constitutional limits on when America fights. Our work centers on Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to declare war before the National Guard deploys overseas. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. If this one hits you, share it. America cannot afford another generation that thinks Iraq was an accident.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney — The Road to Baghdad (Part 1).

Episode 3: Betrayal in the Mountains

In the days after 9/11, America was unified. The mission in Afghanistan was the clearest U.S. war objective since World War II. We had been attacked. We knew who did it. We were going after them. For a moment, everything was simple.

But that simplicity didn't last. And it didn't disappear in the mountains of Afghanistan. It disappeared in Washington.

This episode explains how a righteous mission—backed by the full weight of public support—was quietly overshadowed by a second mission that had nothing to do with 9/11. While Americans were volunteering to enlist and families were preparing for deployments, the nation's political leadership was already pivoting toward Iraq. Not because of new intelligence. Not because of a link to the attacks. But because Iraq was the war they had wanted for years.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the neoconservative bench had spent a decade arguing for preemptive strikes, regime change, and the idea that American power could reshape the world. Iraq was central to that vision. 9/11 handed them the permission slip they needed. But they couldn't sell Iraq outright in 2001—the country was focused on Afghanistan. So Afghanistan became the cover for the war they truly wanted.

Even in the first hours after 9/11, Iraq was already on the table. Notes from high-level meetings show officials pressing to tie Saddam Hussein to the attack, even though every intelligence agency said the opposite. The Pentagon began planning for Iraq long before Afghanistan was stabilized. This wasn't a response to facts. It was a hunt for talking points.

Meanwhile, troops were fighting in terrain that had swallowed armies throughout history. Afghanistan required precision, patience, and total commitment. Instead, the chain of command was split. Missions launched with limited support. Equipment shortages made no sense. Supply delays piled up. Troops on the ground could feel the difference—even if they didn't know the politics behind it.

Afghanistan didn't go sideways because the troops failed. It went sideways because the political class walked away before the mission was finished.

This episode shows how the administration blurred the two wars for the public. Words like "war on terror," "rogue states," and "WMDs" merged Afghanistan and Iraq into a single emotional storyline. Many Americans never realized the shift was happening. They believed Afghanistan was the main focus for years after Washington had already deprioritized it.

For those serving there, this disconnect felt like abandonment.

The betrayal in the title isn't about soldiers or commanders. It's about the strategic decision to treat Afghanistan as a stepping stone instead of a war that mattered. That decision doomed the mission, set the stage for two decades of frustration and loss, and laid the groundwork for a withdrawal that felt like a national gut-punch—not because troops failed, but because their leaders never gave them a complete mission to finish.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort to end endless war and restore constitutional limits on when America fights. Our work centers on Defend the Guard legislation—requiring Congress to declare war before the National Guard deploys to foreign battlefields. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Share this if it hits you. America cannot afford another generation that doesn't understand how quickly a righteous war can justify a reckless one.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney - Betrayal In The Mountains.

Episode 2 of The Truth About Dick Cheney is called The War Profit Pipeline, and it digs into the part of Cheney’s story most people never learned. Before the Iraq War, before 9/11, Cheney spent years helping shape an ideology that believed American power should be used to reorder the world. This chapter looks at the rise of the neoconservative movement, the Project for a New American Century, and the blueprint they drafted for a more aggressive, preemptive foreign policy.

We walk through how Cheney placed himself inside that world, how he pulled its key figures into the Bush administration, and how their shared vision depended on giving the executive branch near-total control over war. You’ll see how the doctrine came together long before the public ever heard the arguments for invading Iraq.

We also follow Cheney into Halliburton, where he ran one of the most powerful military contractors on earth. Billions in no-bid contracts. Global operations tied directly to U.S. deployments. A business model built around conflict. When he returned to Washington as vice president, the company he had led stood ready to profit from the wars he helped push. That overlap is not a footnote. It’s central to the story this episode tells.

The War Profit Pipeline explains how ideology, influence, and industry merged in one man, then reshaped American foreign policy for a generation. If you want to understand how America ended up in two decades of war, this is the chapter you can’t skip.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort working to end America’s forever wars and restore the constitutional limits on when and how we send our sons and daughters into combat. Our mission centers on passing Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to follow the Constitution before the National Guard can be deployed to foreign warzones. To learn more, visit BringOurTroopsHome.US.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. After this six-part deep dive, we continue weekly with episodes on war powers, foreign policy, National Guard deployments, state legislation, veteran issues, and the fight to bring military decisions back under constitutional control.

If this episode resonates with you, share it. America can’t afford another generation that forgets how we got here.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney.
Here’s Part 2: The War Profit Pipeline.

The Truth About Dick Cheney: Who He Really Was kicks off a six-part series that cuts through the mythology and examines one of the most powerful and controversial figures in modern American politics. This episode looks at Cheney’s rise from a little-known congressional staffer to a dominant force in Washington, shaping wars, executive power, and the lives of countless American service members. If you’ve ever wondered how the United States ended up trapped in the cycle of endless war, you have to start with the people who built the machine. And no one shaped it more than Dick Cheney.

This series takes an honest look at his early career, the political instincts that carried him into the highest levels of government, and the decisions that set the stage for the foreign policy disasters that followed. You’ll hear the history, the context, the anecdotes, and the moments that revealed who Cheney really was long before he became Vice President. Part 1 lays the foundation for everything that came later: the doctrine he believed in, the power he accumulated, and the wars he pushed America into.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort committed to ending America’s forever wars and restoring the constitutional limits on how and when we send our sons and daughters into combat. Our work focuses on passing Defend the Guard, a state-level law that requires Congress to follow the Constitution before the National Guard can be deployed to foreign conflict zones.

If you support a strong national defense that respects the Constitution, if you believe Congress—not the executive branch—should decide when we go to war, or if you’re just tired of watching Washington send Americans into danger without accountability, you’re in the right place.

This episode is part history, part investigation, and part warning. Understanding Dick Cheney isn’t about re-litigating the past. It’s about understanding the forces still shaping American foreign policy today. The same ideas. The same networks. The same people. And most importantly, the same unchecked power that continues to cost American lives.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.
This six-part deep dive will be followed by ongoing weekly episodes covering war powers, foreign policy, National Guard deployments, state legislation, veteran issues, and the fight to bring service members back under constitutional authority.

If you want to support the mission or learn more about the Defend the Guard movement, visit:
BringOurTroopsHome.US
DefendTheGuard.US

Follow us on social media for updates, new content, and action alerts:
@TroopsHomeUS on X, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

If this episode resonates with you, share it with others. The only way we change the direction of this country is by reminding Americans that defending the Constitution starts with taking back Congress’s authority over war. This podcast is for veterans, active-duty service members, Guard families, constitutional conservatives, independents, libertarians, and anyone who believes that America fights only when it must—not when Washington feels like it.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney series. Here’s Part 1: Who He Really Was.