Mendacity rules

Eric Alterman came across a remarkable story in the Washington Times—yes, that Washington Times. Apparently Rev. Moon hates America too, now:

A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process that “limited the focus” for preparing for post-Saddam Hussein operations.

The report, prepared last month, said the search for weapons of mass destruction was planned so late in the game that it was impossible for U.S. Central Command to carry out the mission effectively. “Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission,” the classified briefing said.

(My emphasis.)

There are only two explanations for the short shrift given to securing the supposed target of the war by the same planning corps that found a way to conquer Iraq in under a month. One, the administration did not think there would be any weapons to find. Two, the administration thought the weapons would all be lying in the street with pink bows tied around their arming mechanisms.

Administration apologists are now banking on the David Kay report, crying to all and sundry that it will put these “questions” to rest. Not unless it’s delivered wrapped around bricks of weapons-grade plutonium with ‘property of S. Hussein’ stamped in the side, it won’t. So I expect BushCo to eventually come around to arguing for option 2, or the “we wuz fooled” option as I like to call it. They will lay the blame on Chalabi and the other defectors and exiles, somehow forgetting to mention that they set up their own intelligence bureau in the DoD because the CIA was insufficiently credulous of Chalabi’s self-interested WMD hawking. If they wuz fooled, they need not look far for the foolers.

The big lie of the Iraq war is that Bush ever wanted to ‘disarm’ Saddam Hussein. Bush wanted his war; weapons were never anything but a pretext.

Oops, did I say ‘the’ big lie? I meant, one of the many big lies. For example, Bush’s repeated-ad-nauseam claim that he had not decided on war, that war could be averted by Iraq complying with the inspectors or giving back that lawnmower they borrowed last year, or whatever. Because in fact the war plan was set almost exactly a year ago today:

The report also provides a classified timeline of events from September 11 leading to war. It says that on Aug. 29, 2002, Mr. Bush “approves Iraq goals, objectives and strategy.”

Oh, no, sorry, I blew it again. The number one, real, true, seriously-this-time big lie: Invading Iraq will make us safe. And they’re stilling telling that one.

Filed under: politics/war