The U.S. invaded Iraq ten years ago today. To, um, celebrate, I guess, or something, former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld blasted out the tweet above earlier. As you tell from the first few responses, it was not well received.
And it went on…
And on…
And on…
Speaking of the Iraq War, yesterday Wired published an essay by a former CIA agent named Nada Bakos titled, “I Tried to Make the Intelligence Behind the Iraq War Less Bogus.” It’s the detailing of another ingredient in the bullsh*t stew most of us allowed ourselves to be spoon-fed a decade ago.
The agency’s intelligence collection on Iraq’s relationship with al-Qaida was thin — Iraq’s connections to terrorist organizations were so minute it wasn’t a priority for us — so it was difficult to even construct a chart showing connections, as if we were mapping the Barksdale crew on The Wire. Saddam has a history of supporting small, anti-Israel terrorist groups; in early 2002, due to the war in Afghanistan, the terrorist leader Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi moved into Iraq on his own, with no direction or control by al-Qaida or Saddam; there were reports of varying reliability saying Iraq had discussions with al-Qaida about establishing a safe haven, dating from the early 1990s. The Zarqawi stuff would prove to be relevant, after the U.S. invasion. The rest of it didn’t add up to much. We concluded that, at most, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida was like two independent groups trying to exploit each other.
None of that stopped the invasion.
You should go read it when you have time. And never forget.