"Bush merely sent a bunch of troops to Iraq without asking Congress for permission."

Is this statement a joke? Is it the result of blind partisanship? Is it pure ignorance?

The US Congress authorized the ouster of the Hussein government around February of 2003. The 2001 authorization for a War on Terrorism would have been enough, according to many legal experts, but President George W. Bush made sure he had very specific approval for this action. George H. W. Bush was just as careful in 1991 when he sought and received a UN mandate to evict Hussein's army from Kuwait.

The 2003 eviction of Hussein's government received near unanimous approval in the Senate. The Senate vote for the War on Terrorism was unanimous.

We also have a UN mandate for the current Iraqi conflict, and the Afghanistan action is under NATO, not the US government.