What is as close as we're going to get to a calling-to-account for the former Decider and his puppet Tony Blair for thousands of deaths in Iraq is unfolding, largely out of American media sight, before a panel of British nobles.
The Chilcot inquiry is hearing from such witnesses as the then-Ambassador to the UN that he threatened to quit in the runup to the Iraq invasion over bulldozing from the Bush-Cheney White House.
“The UK’s attempt to reconstitute a consensus," says Sir Jeremy Greenstock, "had only a slim prospect of success, made slimmer by the recognition by anyone else following events closely that the United States was not proactively supportive of the UK’s efforts and seemed to be preparing for conflict whatever the UK decided to do."
The ambassador's testimony follows that of British intelligence officials that right after 9/11 in 2001 they were asked to draw up an Iraq "options" paper, including regime change.
"We dismissed it at the time because it had no basis in law," says the then-head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office, noting that ""there was no increased appetite among UK ministers for military action in Iraq."
A former policy director at the Ministry of Defence adds that, in those days, the issue of regime change in Iraq was like "the dog that did not bark. It grizzled, but it did not bark."
But Bush's Neo-Con dogs of war, "hell bent" on the invasion, were barking loud enough to be heard on both sides of the Atlantic, and their call for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his non-existent WMDs was drowning out all dissenters.
The Chilcot hearings are big news in Britain but back here, what with Thanksgiving and the White House gate-crashers, the could-have-been-avoided deaths of more than 4000 Americans in Iraq may seem like yesterday's news.
George W. Bush is only figuratively in the dock, but a British investigator who campaigned for the inquiry calls it "a final opportunity to scrutinize the war...our last chance to get to the truth."
As we prepare to do more killing and dying in Afghanistan, it may be a truth we should be looking at very closely.
Showing posts with label Iraq invasion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq invasion. Show all posts
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Monday, December 01, 2008
Debriefing Bush
"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." That, in a nutshell, is George W. Bush's valedictory thought about invading Iraq, in interviews with Charlie Gibson on ABC this week.
"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is [sic] a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush added.
But the historical record shows that the "lot of people" consisted mainly of Dick Cheney and his henchman, relying on a swindling Ahmad Chalabi and torturing CIA intelligence into a false case against the Iraqi regime he was salivating to replace.
"We've really got to make the case" against Hussein, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, "and I want you to make it" at the UN.
A few days later, according to the Washington Post, Powell was "taken aback" by "a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations. The most extreme version of every charge the administration had made about Hussein, the document had been written, Powell concluded, under the tutelage of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who shared all of his boss's hard-line views and then some."
In blaming faulty intelligence for a misbegotten war, Bush is exposing himself to history's choice of branding him either a fool or a lethal liar.
He would have done much better by looking back to George Washington's farewell words as he left the presidency:
"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is [sic] a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush added.
But the historical record shows that the "lot of people" consisted mainly of Dick Cheney and his henchman, relying on a swindling Ahmad Chalabi and torturing CIA intelligence into a false case against the Iraqi regime he was salivating to replace.
"We've really got to make the case" against Hussein, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, "and I want you to make it" at the UN.
A few days later, according to the Washington Post, Powell was "taken aback" by "a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations. The most extreme version of every charge the administration had made about Hussein, the document had been written, Powell concluded, under the tutelage of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who shared all of his boss's hard-line views and then some."
In blaming faulty intelligence for a misbegotten war, Bush is exposing himself to history's choice of branding him either a fool or a lethal liar.
He would have done much better by looking back to George Washington's farewell words as he left the presidency:
"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
Monday, October 20, 2008
Colin Powell's Revenge
As political observers parse The Endorsement, the unspoken element is the payback of Colin Powell, no matter how much he denies it, for the humiliation he suffered at the hands of Dick Cheney's gang in being forced to act as UN point man in justifying the invasion of Iraq with cooked intelligence.
Yes, Powell gives Obama credibility as commander-in-chief and a leader who will be able to reach across party lines. No, contrary to Rush Limbaugh et al, the endorsement is not racially based.
But behind Powell's calm, rational demeanor in explaining his decision on Meet the Press yesterday, he would be less than human if his own treatment by the Bush Administration was not involved in his thinking and, more to the point, feeling.
Before Iraq, Powell was the one of the most admired men in America, who might have been nominated for President in 1996 if he agreed to run. Today he is remembered for that February 2003 speech that misled Americans into believing Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
Before making the speech, Powell had spent a week wrestling with the White House staff, discarding what Dick Cheney had called Scooter Libby’s stuff and other “garbage” from the likes of Ahmed Chalabi.
Earlier Cheney had made it clear he and Bush were using Powell’s credibility to sell the war. Poking him in the chest, the Vice President told Powell, "You've got high poll ratings, you can afford to lose a few points."
In the end, Powell made the speech and lost much more--his reputation as a man of honor after a lifetime of public service.
If revenge is a dish best served cold, Powell has put it on the table after five years for those he called the GOP "crazies" to eat at just the right time.
Yes, Powell gives Obama credibility as commander-in-chief and a leader who will be able to reach across party lines. No, contrary to Rush Limbaugh et al, the endorsement is not racially based.
But behind Powell's calm, rational demeanor in explaining his decision on Meet the Press yesterday, he would be less than human if his own treatment by the Bush Administration was not involved in his thinking and, more to the point, feeling.
Before Iraq, Powell was the one of the most admired men in America, who might have been nominated for President in 1996 if he agreed to run. Today he is remembered for that February 2003 speech that misled Americans into believing Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
Before making the speech, Powell had spent a week wrestling with the White House staff, discarding what Dick Cheney had called Scooter Libby’s stuff and other “garbage” from the likes of Ahmed Chalabi.
Earlier Cheney had made it clear he and Bush were using Powell’s credibility to sell the war. Poking him in the chest, the Vice President told Powell, "You've got high poll ratings, you can afford to lose a few points."
In the end, Powell made the speech and lost much more--his reputation as a man of honor after a lifetime of public service.
If revenge is a dish best served cold, Powell has put it on the table after five years for those he called the GOP "crazies" to eat at just the right time.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Stupidity Plus
Gen. Tommy Franks was off the mark when he called Douglas Feith the dumbest effing guy on the planet. On 60 Minutes tonight, Feith showed that stupidity alone is not enough to describe a clueless academic intoxicated by power and willing to stoop to intellectual dishonesty that would shame any used-car salesman
"What we did after 9/11," he told Steve Kroft, "was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."
"So you're saying," an incredulous Kroft followed up by asking, "you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it--more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"
Feith, who helped cook the intelligence to justify the invasion, was pimping his doorstop book that blames everyone else, especially L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraq occupation for the first two years, for the ensuing fiasco.
If he had had his way, Feith claims, he would have turned the country over to con man Ahmad Chalabi, who fed him and his Neo-Con rubes $33 million of false information to lie us into the war.
Dumb isn't enough. Try shameless, arrogant and deceitful. There is at least one like him on most campuses. Just our luck that this specimen ended up in Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
"What we did after 9/11," he told Steve Kroft, "was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."
"So you're saying," an incredulous Kroft followed up by asking, "you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it--more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"
Feith, who helped cook the intelligence to justify the invasion, was pimping his doorstop book that blames everyone else, especially L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraq occupation for the first two years, for the ensuing fiasco.
If he had had his way, Feith claims, he would have turned the country over to con man Ahmad Chalabi, who fed him and his Neo-Con rubes $33 million of false information to lie us into the war.
Dumb isn't enough. Try shameless, arrogant and deceitful. There is at least one like him on most campuses. Just our luck that this specimen ended up in Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Dumb and Dumber in Iraq
It took two kinds of stupidity to get us into the war--the Bush-Cheney Neo-Con brand and Saddam Hussein's. We get a closer look at the latter this weekend from the FBI agent who interrogated him after his capture.
Shrewd Saddam was so sure the US wouldn't invade, he told George Piro, that he refused to let inspectors verify that he had no WMD in order to fake out Iran.
"For him," Piro discloses on Sixty Minutes, "it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam" to "prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq."
During the run-up to the war, it was hard enough to reconcile George Bush's picture of the murderous dictator planning to send us a mushroom cloud with the buffoon on a balcony firing a rifle into the Baghdad air.
Even more baffling was our certainty that the invasion would be a "cakewalk" and our eagerness to send American troops into battle against nuclear and chemical weapons that could cause massive casualties.
As a reward for his bluffing and our being wrong about his WMD, Saddam ended up at the end of a rope, and we ended up with an endless occupation.
Shrewd Saddam was so sure the US wouldn't invade, he told George Piro, that he refused to let inspectors verify that he had no WMD in order to fake out Iran.
"For him," Piro discloses on Sixty Minutes, "it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam" to "prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq."
During the run-up to the war, it was hard enough to reconcile George Bush's picture of the murderous dictator planning to send us a mushroom cloud with the buffoon on a balcony firing a rifle into the Baghdad air.
Even more baffling was our certainty that the invasion would be a "cakewalk" and our eagerness to send American troops into battle against nuclear and chemical weapons that could cause massive casualties.
As a reward for his bluffing and our being wrong about his WMD, Saddam ended up at the end of a rope, and we ended up with an endless occupation.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Insanity Over Iran
We're in recurring nightmare territory here. Today's Zogby poll shows more than half of voters would support a military strike to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon and believe it likely the U.S. will do so before next year's election.
On PBS' News Hour, normally an oasis of rationality in the TV news desert, we have a solemn debate about attacking Iran between Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and Norman Podhoretz, the Neo-Con relic Rudy Giuliani is propping up to prove he is a true conservative.
When Zakaria points out we have used deterrence and containment against nuclear threats from China, the Soviet Union and North Korea, Podhoretz accuses him of "an irresponsible complacency...comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough."
If Zakaria's informed rationality and Podhoretz's apocalyptic drool are given equal weight as two sides of the argument, we may be headed for another Iraq, propelled by the same political and media cowardice of five years ago.
The Senate passes the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment designating the Iranian Revolution Guard as a terrorist organization by a vote of 76 to 22, with Hillary Clinton, among other Democrats, failing to see that the Bush-Cheney Administration will surely use it to justify an attack on Iran without seeking Congressional approval.
Such willful blindness now leads to apparent public approval of what would surely be another act of national insanity, putting American troops in harm's way in three Muslim countries based on no compelling national interest beyond the loopy theories of a gaggle of armchair warriors in a discredited lame-duck Administration.
To top it all off, we have Rudy Giuliani war-mongering for votes in New Hampshire by accusing Clinton and Obama of wanting to negotiate with bad people and debating whether to invite Ahmadinejad and Osama to "the inauguration or the inaugural ball."
Why aren't more politicians and media people speaking out about this recurrence of madness?
On PBS' News Hour, normally an oasis of rationality in the TV news desert, we have a solemn debate about attacking Iran between Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and Norman Podhoretz, the Neo-Con relic Rudy Giuliani is propping up to prove he is a true conservative.
When Zakaria points out we have used deterrence and containment against nuclear threats from China, the Soviet Union and North Korea, Podhoretz accuses him of "an irresponsible complacency...comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough."
If Zakaria's informed rationality and Podhoretz's apocalyptic drool are given equal weight as two sides of the argument, we may be headed for another Iraq, propelled by the same political and media cowardice of five years ago.
The Senate passes the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment designating the Iranian Revolution Guard as a terrorist organization by a vote of 76 to 22, with Hillary Clinton, among other Democrats, failing to see that the Bush-Cheney Administration will surely use it to justify an attack on Iran without seeking Congressional approval.
Such willful blindness now leads to apparent public approval of what would surely be another act of national insanity, putting American troops in harm's way in three Muslim countries based on no compelling national interest beyond the loopy theories of a gaggle of armchair warriors in a discredited lame-duck Administration.
To top it all off, we have Rudy Giuliani war-mongering for votes in New Hampshire by accusing Clinton and Obama of wanting to negotiate with bad people and debating whether to invite Ahmadinejad and Osama to "the inauguration or the inaugural ball."
Why aren't more politicians and media people speaking out about this recurrence of madness?
Monday, September 17, 2007
Greenspan's Oily Explanation
The exalted former Fed Chairman is sounding like a Mafia don these days explaining whether or not he ordered a hit on Saddam Hussein.
After writing in his memoirs that "the Iraq War is largely about oil," he is backpedaling. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."
Greenspan is maintaining his deniability by explaining that he never discussed the subject with Bush or Cheney but talked to White House officials, one of whom responded, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil."
To think that Greenspan would have had to spell out his position to two former Texas oil men with a Soprano-like “I want him dead” stretches the imagination, but it’s good to know that the code of omerta is still being observed at the highest levels.
After writing in his memoirs that "the Iraq War is largely about oil," he is backpedaling. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."
Greenspan is maintaining his deniability by explaining that he never discussed the subject with Bush or Cheney but talked to White House officials, one of whom responded, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil."
To think that Greenspan would have had to spell out his position to two former Texas oil men with a Soprano-like “I want him dead” stretches the imagination, but it’s good to know that the code of omerta is still being observed at the highest levels.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Smart People, Dumb Choices
As an antidote to Bush fatuity, we now have the thinking man’s explanation for supporting the war and getting it totally wrong.
A former Harvard professor now a member of the Canadian parliament, Michael Ignatieff writes in the New York Times Magazine today:
“The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us...What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror...
“I went to northern Iraq in 1992. I saw what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds...I let emotion carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror? I should have known that emotions in politics, as in life, tend to be self-justifying...”
Ignatieff is more than a bit glib, but shrewd on the differences between academics and politicians: “Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.”
But Ignatieff is too easy on himself. Going back to David Halberstam’s dissection of the intellectuals who misled JFK into Vietnam, the ironically titled “The Best and the Brightest,” it has become fashionable to dismiss thinking in favor of instinct in matters of war and peace, life and death. We need both, and we need them in people who admit human fallibility and still have the courage to make the best decisions they can.
Informed emotion may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s our best hope.
A former Harvard professor now a member of the Canadian parliament, Michael Ignatieff writes in the New York Times Magazine today:
“The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us...What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror...
“I went to northern Iraq in 1992. I saw what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds...I let emotion carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror? I should have known that emotions in politics, as in life, tend to be self-justifying...”
Ignatieff is more than a bit glib, but shrewd on the differences between academics and politicians: “Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.”
But Ignatieff is too easy on himself. Going back to David Halberstam’s dissection of the intellectuals who misled JFK into Vietnam, the ironically titled “The Best and the Brightest,” it has become fashionable to dismiss thinking in favor of instinct in matters of war and peace, life and death. We need both, and we need them in people who admit human fallibility and still have the courage to make the best decisions they can.
Informed emotion may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s our best hope.
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