But it was understandable- the war started in the middle of coalition negotiations that would've ended directly if Labour had opposed the war. This was the reason they supported it, they didn't like the war or thought there'd be WMD. This is another reason why many left-wing voters currently reside with the smaller left-wing parties in the polls.
Bos also didn't really want to govern- he wanted time to 'purge' the party of 'bad' member before he wanted to enter government. But then he scored a homerun on election eve. So not entering government might've been the best for Labour (though not for the country)
For the story from his side, as stated on March 19th 2003, see here (in Dutch).
