From the NY Times: "... Tonight, PBS's "Frontline" examines the Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq war ... "Truth, War and Consequences" explores the disillusionment of the war's most fervent supporters before backtracking to how the Bush White House brought it all about. But White House deception is the real focus of the program, which draws two main conclusions, both linked to hubris: that the administration twisted the facts to paint Mr. Hussein as an imminent threat to the security of the United States, and that it ignored its own experts' warnings about the risks and cost of postwar reconstruction. ..." FYI Full NYT article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/a...l=1&adxnnlx=1065734399-D1c/te1K7hyDxd6D3C+Z6Q
I have a class tonight so I expect a synopsis of the episode and ferverent discussion regarding this in the morning.
I just watched the show. Basically what it has come down to is that this Iraq war was based on lies, lies that were from some of Iraqi exiles especially Chalabi. (this guy should be fired from the Governing Counsel as soon as possible) And then key members of the Bush admin including Bush himself started to tell American people that Iraqis was ready for a nuclear missile that can be fired this way in 45 minutes. "Mushroom clouds...smoking guns...key components of several nuclear bombs..." then... we had a war as we know it today.
How ironic that the man (Chalabi) who fed the Bush administration all the lies they needed to go to war is now in bed with the French.
Sorry. I fell asleep in the middle and my wife took the opportunity to change the channel on me. Snooze, lose, etc.
It was a step-by-step account of how the Bushies fabricated evidence of WMDs and connections to Al Qaeda. While the CIA, State Department, and Defense Intelligence Agency were saying there was no such evidence, Wolfowitz creates this "Office of Special Plans" which starts churning out "proof." Of course, this office was housed in a couple of little rooms and had no agents. It's merely where the goofy Chilabi presented his half-baked hearsay evidence- which went against the collective opinion of the three largest intelligence agencies in the world.
I think that this Chalabi guy is a crook. He used Bush to realize his political dream. And of course Bush used him to realize his political dream too. The sad result - American people are duped.
Not ironic, naive. Chalabi joined up with the US because he knew that was the country most able and likely to remove Saddam from power. Now the French are pushing for the US to leave and leave Iraq to the Iraqis. Step one, get Saddam out, step two, fill power vacuum. If a Democratic administration had been played so easily, Republicans would be yelling at them for being naive starry eyed internationalists with no understanding of the real world.