Friday, February 09, 2007

"Intelligence Failures"?

NPR was reporting that there is new information on the "intelligence failures" that led to the war in Iraq.

I'm sorry. There was no bloody intelligence "failure." A thousand bishops could have sworn on stacks of Bibles to Dubya that Iraq had no WMD, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

The only "intelligence" failure wasn't "intelligence" in the classic sense: it was a failure of Dubya's intelligence, for being brain dead and wanting to fight the war; and a failure of the intelligence of the American people and a compliant press who allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into a war and who bought Cheney's connection between Iraq and Al Qaida.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was agreement at the time that Iraq had WMD by the UN, and dozens of nations spoke out in agreement as well. Saddam even acted as though he had WMD - so to pretend now that it was only Bush who thought so is a bit child-like in a revisionist sort of way.

But there are a lot of politicians who certainly appreciate these revisions now!

Dean P said...

The UN certainly did not "agree" that Iraq had WMD. At least, not till Colin Powell swore chapter and verse that they did. But el-Baradei himself said that they needed more time and that Iraq wasn't close to having WMDs.

So, fine, it was also the intelligence of the leaders of Bush's lapdogs.

Chretien wasn't hoodwinked--we all know his "a proof is a proof when it's proven, and then it's a proof" line.