John Hostettler was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2007. He served on the Armed Services Committee during his entire tenure and was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims from 2003 to 2007.
In October 2002, Congressman Hostettler was one of six Republican members of the House to vote against authorizing Pres. George W. Bush to invade Iraq at his discretion. During floor consideration of the resolution, Hostettler said the case supporting the claim that Iraq maintained weapons of mass destruction was “tenuous at best.”
In his recommendation for Hostettler’s book, Nothing for the Nation: Who Got What Out of Iraq, Dick Armey – GOP Majority Leader during the debate on the resolution – declared, “There are too many of us that know we were wrong on that fateful day we failed to protect the Constitution of the United States and ceded to the president what our founding fathers clearly saw to be a congressional responsibility never to be trusted to a president: the right and the responsibility to make war. Unfortunately, we labor under doubt and regret from not fully understanding why we were so wrong. Had we listened more carefully to John Hostettler at the time, we would live with fewer regrets today…If we listen to him now, we might save ourselves the pain, regret, and shame from doing it again. For years I have known I was wrong. Now I know why I was wrong.”
Hostettler is also author of Ordained and Established: A Statesman-Citizen’s Guide to the United States Constitution.
