WATCH: Schatz says Trump knowingly dragging U.S. into another conflict

Hawai‘i Democrat U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz spoke out against President Donald Trump’s illegal incursion into Venezuela in remarks earlier this week on the Senate floor.

“The parallels to Iraq are alarmingly obvious,” said Schatz. “The Justice Department can dress this up in charges of narcoterrorism. Secretary Rubio can talk about the promise of a better life for Venezuelans as a secondary effect. But Trump is being very explicit about the main goal. It’s the oil.”

Schatz is ranking member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He reminded his Senate colleagues that it was almost 25 years ago when then-President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney “cooked up claims of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction” to justify going into Iraq.

“Last month, just 2 weeks before ordering the capture of [Venezuelan President] Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump designated fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,” Schatz said. “Fentanyl is terrible. It is not a weapon of mass destruction.”

Bush’s Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld falsely claimed there was “bulletproof” evidence linking Hussein to Al Qaeda.

“Marco Rubio has spent the past few months accusing Maduro of leading a cartel that even our own [Drug Enforcement Administration] doesn’t recognize,” Schatz continued.

He added that just like the Bush Administration insisted oil revenue — not American taxpayers — would cover the cost of reconstruction in Iraq, Trump hopes people buy into “the fantasy” that his incursion into Venezuela will be cost-free.

The difference between Iraq and Venezuela is that Bush didn’t keep the oil.

Trump, on the other hand, has been frank about his plans since after the Jan. 3 strike on Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, and U.S. taking of Maduro and his wife.

“‘We’re going to keep the oil.’ He couldn’t be any clearer,” Schatz said.

No regime change wars. He heard it from leftists. He heard it from right-wing people: “I heard it from Donald John Trump. No regime change wars. And yet, here we go again.”

“It turns out, Trump is basically George W. Bush, but with the corruption ratcheted up,” the Hawai‘i Democrat continued. “How else do you explain the administration talking to oil companies before the strikes, but not Congress? We know how this is likely to end, and it will not be good for us.”