A few individuals lying wouldn't fly if the general public didn't buy/turn a blind eye on it.
Apart from the few who still straight believed the bullshit while every other country involved publicly called it, I think many in the US just believed it would benefit them in the long run (cheaper oil) or just didn't care that much about war (the Gulf War didn't cause that much political trauma after all)
> A few individuals lying wouldn't fly if the general public didn't buy/turn a blind eye on it.
It wasn’t a blind eye for years. The public was more trusting of institutions back then and it took a while of failed answers and excuses and then finally investigations and leaks for people to finally believe that their government lied to them.
It was a lot easier to believe that either you didn’t have all the facts or that was a mistake had been made vs believing that the institutions were actively, maliciously, telling falsehoods
Apart from the few who still straight believed the bullshit while every other country involved publicly called it, I think many in the US just believed it would benefit them in the long run (cheaper oil) or just didn't care that much about war (the Gulf War didn't cause that much political trauma after all)