Yeah, didn't it come out in the last decade or so that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was (almost?) entirely made up, and this was known at the highest levels and pushed anyway as an excuse to get further involved in Vietnam? Not even plausible deniability anymore. Nothing happened.

Same thing with the WMD lie in Iraq, although I don't know exactly where we are on the path to "this was completely made up and everyone involved knew it."