If you examine these [erroneous claims] and other pillars of the administration's case for invading Iraq, a clear pattern emerges. Bush officials first put clear pressure on the intelligence community to support their assumptions that Saddam was developing WMD and cooperating with al-Qaida. Nonetheless, significant contrary evidence emerged. Bush hawks then overlooked, suppressed, or willfully ignored whatever cut against their views. In public, they depicted unsettled questions as dead certainties. Then, when they were caught out and proven wrong, they resisted the obvious and refused to correct the record. Finally, when their positions became utterly untenable, they claimed that they were misinformed or not told. Call this behavior what you will, but you can't describe it as either "honest" or "truthful."It's nice that Weisberg shows the administration the courtesy of not calling them liars, but let's be honest, the Administration presented Saddam as a clear and present danger to the United States. It simply wasn't true. Images of mushroom clouds and smoking guns were bandied about without any tangible evidence. Several years later not a single shred of evidence has emerged revealing that we were in any danger. Yes, even this writer thought that Iraq probably had WMDs, but he was skeptical about whether those weapons were a threat to us. Clearly, they were not. They lied.
The worst consequence of our actions is that they've given the radicals in the Middle East what they always wanted- a legitimate reason to hate us. They no longer have to hate us because of our support for Israel. They don't have to mention the sanctions we placed on Iraq which harmed so many children. Now they can just show pictures of the many thousands who have been killed since this war began.
We invaded a country that was no threat to us and may have spawned a civil war that could become a pan-Arab war. Way to go, President Bush.
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1 comment:
This is treason. Stay the course.
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