Downing Street Memo - commentary by David Michael Green

[Martin Eden]

This is just about the best commentary I've read so far:
----snip----
McClellan insisted the process leading up to the decision to go to war was "very public" - and that the decision to invade in March 2003 was taken only after Iraq refused to comply with its "international obligations."

"The president of the United States, in a very public way, reached out to people across the world, went to the United Nations and tried to resolve this in a diplomatic manner," McClellan said.

"Saddam Hussein was the one, in the end, who chose continued defiance. And only then was the decision made, as a last resort, to go into Iraq."

Of course, this is an utter and complete distortion of the historical record. It was the Bush administration which rushed to war, yanking the inspectors out before they could finish their job - no doubt precisely so they couldn't finish their job and reveal an absence of WMD. It was also Bush himself who, according to Bob Woodward, had popped into a White House meeting in March of 2002, a full year before the war (not to mention also before the congressional vote, the inspectors, the Security Council vote and second non-vote, etc.), to exclaim "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."

The Bush administration likes to pretend that they sought at all costs to avoid the war, but that a recalcitrant and menacing Iraq forced the hand of reluctant Sheriff America, which sought only to protect its national security. Notwithstanding that Saddam was no picnic (but which fact somehow only bothered us when it bothered us), everything about this scenario is patently false. Bush rushed to war in Iraq as fast as he could get there, even letting bin Laden slide to do it.
----snip----
Read More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0519-30.htm

[rodeodance]

1. what a HOOT--this guy is a good story teller

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. A good summary, with excellent style

I particularly liked this:

"Much of the WMD evidence used to justify the war, for example, came from a single source, code-named 'Curveball', whose German handlers described as "crazy" and a drunkard, and whose friends called a "congenital liar". Of course, in the Bush administration, drunken crazy liars can grow up to be president some day, so I suppose nobody particularly flinched at Curveball's resume."