Posted on 07/06/2021 4:59:28 AM PDT by RandFan
... But when it comes to the Iraq War, it must be said that Rumsfeld made a host of bad decisions. Instead of planning for the worst, he almost seemed to plan for the best — a quick war with as few troops as possible.
The worst decision — the one that gave rise to others — was to go to war in the first place, though he was just one of several people atop the George W. Bush administration and in its orbit, starting with the president, who made that blunder.
The decision was based on the assumption — and that’s all it was — that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s president, wanted the world — and those who threatened his power internally — to believe that he possessed them, when he did not. He fooled us all.
In retrospect, it is stunning that it happened. We see now that the emperor had no clothes. Why did we not see it then?
We — and I mean, first off, we in the press — were blinded by post-9/11 anger and groupthink. We were awed by the gravitas of those making the false claims. Every Western intelligence agency says it’s true, so it must be, right?
The claims might not have been lies, in those cases when those who uttered them believed them to be true. But top U.S. officials, including Rumsfeld, knew that the evidence they touted as certain was really just an educated guess.
For example, a 2002 report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Rumsfeld read but never shared outside the Pentagon said of Iraq’s WMD: “We’ve struggled to estimate the unknowns... We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program.”
(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...
Getting the two bad leaders was a good thing. It would have been better to use spies or targeted moves. To consider “nation-building” was dumb, but now we should know that for the future. You can’t expect more from a people who are not willing to fight for it for themselves.
That part, and the years around it, was stupid. I would have gotten their oil and given a share back until our costs were all recovered.
He had the weapons. He used them on his own people, buried military fighters in the sand and no doubt many other weapons and shipped weapons to Iran.
He did not fool anyone.
Romney???
Not sure how I made that mistake! LOL
Rumsfeld was meant.
Romney, yuck.
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