Trump could return Iraq war boosters to power

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

POLITICS | Tue Nov 15, 2016 | 3:42pm EST

Trump could return Iraq war boosters to power

(Corrects this Nov. 14 to clarify details of Bolton's recess appointment, paragraph 8.)

By Warren Strobel and John Walcott

Despite his professed opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, President-elect Donald Trump is considering several of the major advocates of that war for top national security posts in his administration, according to Republican officials.

Among those who could find places on Trump's team are former top State Department official John Bolton and ex-CIA Director James Woolsey. Both men championed the Iraq invasion, which many analysts have called one of the major U.S. foreign policy debacles of modern times.

Also involved in transition planning for Trump's presidency is Frederick Fleitz, a top aide to Bolton who earlier worked at the CIA unit that validated much of the flawed intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

Although it is impossible to predict how a Trump foreign policy might evolve, one U.S. official who has served in Iraq said advocates of the 2003 invasion might be more inclined to commit additional U.S. forces to the fight against Islamic State there, despite the absence of a status of forces agreement that protects Americans from Iraqi legal action.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-iraq-idUSKBN13A01D

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Is he going to drag Dick Cheney out of his crypt, too?

[No Vested Interest]

2. I understand that Cheney's daughter won election as a Congressperson

from their home state (Wyoming?).
So old Dick will have a place to hang out and act as advisor (and troublemaker) right there in D.C.