My Iraq mistake-Matt Miller

[nmbluesky]

My fellow Americans: I'm a pundit, not a president, but since it's a moment for taking stock of America's role in Iraq, I want to remind you that I blew it.

THIS STORY
What's on Obama's next page?
My Iraq mistake
I supported the war in 2003 because I thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Along with Ken Pollack, the former Clinton national security council staffer, whose 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq," was influential at the time, I believed a nuclear-armed Hussein was both inevitable and intolerable.

A lot of people -- from Bill Clinton to the German and Israeli intelligence services -- believed the same thing. But I'm skeptical of what people claim to "know" in many other areas of public life. I wasn't skeptical enough about this. I argued back then about the risks of inaction outweighing the risks of action. When I look over those columns today, from the distance of nearly eight years, they seem reasonable and serious.

Except, of course, that their premise was utterly wrong. If I'd known beforehand that Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, I would not have supported the war. I don't believe President Bush misled the country about these facts, because many other sources held the same view of Hussein's capabilities. (I don't believe Colin Powell was intentionally misleading anyone at the United Nations either, but it turned out not to be his finest hour.)
Read More:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090102866.html

[dennis4868]

1. Matt Miller

he is full of shit....he says that Bush did not mislead on Iraq....to believe this you have to be a neocon with blinders on.....what a waste for a human being.....

[Wickerman]

2. However, tons of folk out there on the interwebs knew he didn't

and had documents that showed it. You and your colleagues, who get paid varying sums of large money to be informed, chose not to be.

Too bad, tens of thousands died needlessly, the treasury was looted both there and here and we've only increased the number of folks who hate the U.S. by, oh, what, 10 million to throw out a guess?

But, hey, you feel better for the confession. Sweet.

For fucksake, got get a job physically shoveling shit instead of peddling it in the papers. You'd be a fuck of a lot more useful.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. *Ugh* What a mea culpa

:eyes:
For somebody acknowledging a mistake in supporting the invasion of Iraq, he seems to still be making a lot excuses. I can't believe that he still doesn't think that Bush, Powell, et. al mislead anybody, particularly since Powell has long since disavowed his *presentation* at the UN. If Bush/Cheney were genuinely concerned about NOT having to invade Iraq, they would've let the UN Weapon Inspectors finish their job and report back. The fact that they routinely criticized and/or dismissed the findings of the UN Weapons Inspectors should've been a red flag that they were going to invade NO MATTER WHAT.
There were certainly a lot of people (and I was one of them) that believed that Saddam Hussein might still have some biological and/or chemical weapons left in his arsenal because, well, Reagan sold him so many of them back in the 1980's and inspectors hadn't been in the country since 1998 to verify the destruction/elimination of all of them. However, him possibly having some antiquated and, likely, useless biological and/or chemical weapons and no obvious signs of a nuclear weapon (that would've been VERY difficult to conceal), didn't terrify me as much as it apparently terrified people like Mr. Miller and all of those "tough on national security" Republicans and was certainly NOT enough for me to support an invasion/occupation of the country.
I don't know how we could have ever worried about Iraq as much as we probably should've been worrying about, say, North Korea, which DOES have nuclear weapons, a large and well-trained military force, and an aggressive and delusional leader (even more so than Saddam Hussein and his nutty sons).

[dennis4868]

4. right....

the NIE said NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS in Iraq.....that there may be some leftover WMD which may be no good anymore because they are so old.....that was the real evidence and Bush and his thugs are talking MUSHROOM CLOUDS and people like Miller go along with it because that is what Bush told him. No one from the Clinton team ever said that Sadaam had a nuclear weapon...Miller is an asshole and as far as I am concerned he has blood on his hands!