Blaze Media
© 2026 Blaze Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Video: Dem. Lawmaker Botches One Tiny Detail About the Iraq War While Railing Against Benghazi Outrage
House Oversight Committee member, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., left, with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., disagrees with the Republican-controlled committee during calls for former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner to be found in contempt of Congress for her previous refusal to answer questions at two hearings probing whether tea party and conservative political groups had been targeted for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, Thursday, April 10, 2014, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Lerner, who retired last year, was head of the IRS unit that decides whether to grant tax-exempt status to groups. On Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to refer former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution in the agency's tea party controversy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Video: Dem. Lawmaker Botches One Tiny Detail About the Iraq War While Railing Against Benghazi Outrage

"We went in headfirst."

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) on Thursday praised the Obama administration's cautious approach to Libya and its attempts to avoid a repeat of the Iraq War, the “most catastrophic war” of the 20th century.

Her remarks were made during a House Oversight Committee hearing on the White House’s handling of the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi that claimed the lives of four Americans.

“It’s interesting to note,” she said in reference to the Obama administration’s handling of the volatile situation in Libya, “when we intervened in Iraq, where the consequences were … where we could have prevented by simply letting the monitors on the ground continue to look for weapons of mass destructions, we just went in willy-nilly.”

“We didn’t have anything like that in Libya,” she added. “And of course in Iraq … we went in headfirst. Perhaps the most catastrophic war of the 20th century; invasion by the United States of America.”

The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, three years after the start of the 21st century.

Holmes Norton is only a delegate and is therefore a non-voting member of Congress.

—

Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

—

Programming note: See TheBlaze's exclusive reporting on Benghazi in the season finale episode of TheBlaze TV's For the Record, "Zero Footprint," now available on demand.

Want to leave a tip?

We answer to you. Help keep our content free of advertisers and big tech censorship by leaving a tip today.
Want to join the conversation?
Already a subscriber?
Becket Adams

Becket Adams

more stories