And there’s Bush leaning on Clarke on 9/12/01 to come up with a connection between Iraq and the events of the previous day (Iraq? why Iraq at all, then?), there’s the creation of alternative shops (such as the Office of Special Plans) to massage the intel differently from the CIA, there’s the Administration insistence that the sources provided by Chalabi were good, when the CIA was dubious.
No pressure. None.
Was Woodward an eyewitness to this encounter? If not, who were his sources? Woodward’s become a bit of a shill in recent years, and while I’m sure he retains his two-source rule, this sort of statement is so contrary to everything we know of what Bush might say - the same Bush who, for instance, goes on and on to the American people about Saddam being a madman, without any supporting evidence whatsoever - that I’ve got to wonder who Bob’s sources were, and what their agenda was.
And even if it happened as stated, Bush was certainly easily satisfied: “I need more evidence.” “Sir, it’s a slam-dunk, I tell ya!” “OK, good enough for me. Evidence, schmevidence.”
True - but more honest Presidents state the counterarguments and rebut them, rather than fail to acknowledge their existence. That’s still salesmanship, but it’s honest salesmanship.
Maybe it might have been reasonable, if they’d had a genuine plan for what happened after Saddam’s statue got toppled - one that dealt with risk. Like: what are the risks? What are the likelihoods and potential impacts of the risk events? And what our our contingency plans to reduce the likelihood and impact of the risk events?
GWB says he’s the CEO President. This is standard risk-management stuff that you’d learn in a one-day seminar, without having to get an MBA - which GWB has, not that he’s showing much sign of having learned any lessons from it.
Without such a plan, there’s no viable debate. The invasion was a knuckleheaded, disastrous (for both Iraq and the US) mistake, period. And hope is not a plan.
With such a plan, there’s a debate, but not much of one. There were all sorts of disagreements about whether the intel was any good - on each and every point of the intel, it seems: on Saddam’s nuclear program (was there much of one? What about the yellowcake from Africa? How about the aluminum tubes?), Saddam’s biological weapons, the al-Qaeda connection, even the humanitarian stuff. Even looking at Iraq in isolation, as if it were the only threat in the world, the case is shot through with holes. And especially after we told the inspectors where to look for WMDs, and they came up empty, you’d think we’d have realized: there’s nothing there. (And maybe we did. My personal belief, my WAG, is that the Bushies went to war when they did because if they didn’t, it would soon become apparent that the threat didn’t exist.)
But when you look at Iraq side by side with other world threats, what do you see? Nuclear weapons? Sure - in Pakistan, probably in NK, and soon in Iran. But not anytime soon in Iraq, much as Saddam would like them. Al-Qaeda connections? Sure - in Pakistan and Iran, but not in Iraq. Humanitarian abuses? Sure, in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma, but to a much lesser extent in places like Iran and Iraq. Hostile towards us? Iran, Iraq, North Korea. Recently attacked us, or actively trying to have the means to do so? Iran, North Korea. Might nuke somebody if we attacked them? (IOW, we’d better not!) NK, Pakistan. Someone we can hand power over to, for an easy out when we’re done? Sure, in Iran and Burma. But not in Iraq or NK.
Once you start doing that sort of comparison, who do you invade first, if invade you must? Iran, hands down. Maybe the Bushies just made a typo and never fixed it.
