There’s little doubt the Bushies hyped the weapons of mass destruction. Now the Kay Report likely will show it was all smoke and mirrors. I agree with the StarTribune that we can’t let them “weasel out of this one.” It’s just part of their pattern.
It also shows a drastic intelligence failure or shortcoming. As the NY Times points out, this failure
shows why pre-emptive war, the Bush administration’s strategy since 9/11, is so ill conceived as a foundation for security policy. If intelligence and risk assessment are sketchy — and when are they not? — using them as the basis for pre-emptive war poses enormous dangers.
That makes a revelation in Wesley Clark’s forthcoming book even that much more frightening if true. Clark claims that in November 2001 senior military staff at the Pentagon told him Iraq would be the start of a five-year campaign plan, against seven countries, following Iraq with Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.
Hopefully, our little Iraq adventure has derailed any such idiotic plan and not simply delayed it.
