It's two years today since Riverbend posted last on her blog. Riverbend is the intelligent and articulate young Iraqi woman living in Baghdad who posted her thoughts on the invasion of her country, thoughts at marked variance to the sanitised BS carefully fed to the embedded journalists who tried to maintain the illusion put about by the neocons that Iraqis welcomed the invasion. Riverbend was able to say that before the invasion that she lived in a secular country where people of different religions lived peaceably alongside each other. She was able to work, dress as she pleased, and drive a car unaccompanied. That all changed when Bush brought "freedom" to Iraq. She lost all the freedoms she previously enjoyed, and was ultimately forced, along with her family, to flee in fear of her life to Syria. Her blog is essential reading for anyone who professes some claim to humanity. Following are some extracts from Riverbend's blog:

"Most of the gangs, at least the ones in Baghdad, originate from slums on the outskirts of the city. ... Every alley is controlled by a different gang and weapons are sold in the streets ... they’ll even try out that machinegun you have your eye on, if you pay enough. Americans don’t bother raiding the houses in areas like that ... raids are exclusively for decent people who can’t shoot back or attack. Raids are for the poor people in Ramadi, Ba’aquba and Mosul" - from "Baghdad Burning" By Riverbend, Alia Mamdouh, James Ridgeway August 30, 2003

"It's amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, 'Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh.' Which means, 'If you see death, you settle for a fever.' We've given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water." - Riverbend January 22, 2005

"Nearly four years ago, I cringed every time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers, but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans to attack the country, I actually felt for them. Had I not chronicled those feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now. Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue. Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think so." - Riverbend, December 29, 2006.

"I remember Baghdad before the war - one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were - we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night" - Riverbend, April 26, 2007.

"Syria is a beautiful country - at least I think it is. I say "I think" because while I perceive it to be beautiful, I sometimes wonder if I mistake safety, security and normalcy for ‘beauty’. ... The first weeks here were something of a cultural shock. It has taken me these last three months to work away certain habits I’d acquired in Iraq after the war. It’s funny how you learn to act a certain way and don’t even know you’re doing strange things - like avoiding people’s eyes in the street or crazily murmuring prayers to yourself when stuck in traffic. It took me at least three weeks to teach myself to walk properly again - with head lifted, not constantly looking behind me. It is estimated that there are at least 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria today." - Riverbend, the last blog entry October 27, 2007

I fear Riverbend is dead. I can't think of any other reason why she would stop posting so suddenly. I hope I am wrong. In any case, Riverbend will always live on her blog, a permanent reminder of the sheer hypocrisy and brutal inhumanity of those who even now dare to try to justify their actions in the name of freedom. I don't know how they sleep at night. 

Vale, Riverbend. I won't forget you. 

Letters 18/02/03

February 18 2003

Remember 'domino theory'? Don't buy it again

During the Vietnam War, I - like many Australians of my generation - came to the conclusion that our involvement in war could be justified only if there was a clear threat to Australia's security. But as the war progressed I became convinced that no such threat existed, and that we should never have become involved in another country's civil war.

It was scant consolation that former US defence secretary Robert McNamara and former Australian army minister Malcolm Fraser belatedly came to the same conclusion. They could do no other - after all, we were supposed to be defending our countries from Communism because of the so-called "domino theory". We lost, and the domino theory was shown to be nonsense.

It seems to me, however, that the domino mentality is alive and well: John Howard believes that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, even though UN weapons inspectors have found no evidence of this; he believes that Saddam may give these weapons to terrorists, even though there is no evidence to support his belief; he believes that by getting tough with Saddam, we will show North Korea we mean business (well, maybe); and, most dangerous of all, he believes that by meekly going along with George W Bush, we can expect the US to come to our aid if ever we are attacked (that was the mentality that got us into the Vietnam War).

The reality is that we would be doing a far greater service to ourselves, and the people of the US, by daring to have a different opinion - and stating it. Instead, Howard and the other pro-war leaders, parroting the US, are saying that if we don't go to war against Saddam, then we are failing in our obligations to avert terrorism. They are saying that the hundreds of thousands of peace protesters at the weekend don't represent the will of the Australian people.

To those who hold this view, I make this challenge: please organise pro-war demonstrations so we can judge the will of the Australian people. Better still, instead of wasting $15 million on thinly disguised "Vote John Howard" fridge magnets, let's have a referendum on whether we should be at war with the people of Iraq.

After all, it's our lives we are talking about.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/when-will-dick-cheneys-to_b_210627.html

When Will Dick Cheney's Tower of Lies Finally Come Tumbling Down on Him?

Dick Cheney's statement to Greta van Susteren that "On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that" is being widely portrayed as an admission.

But it's less an admission than a PR move. Cheney has spent the better part of the last seven years doing everything in his power to convince the American people of the very connection he now says there was "never any evidence" of.

In 2004, even after the 9/11 commission found "no credible evidence" of Iraqi involvement in 9/11, Cheney was still claiming the evidence that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was "overwhelming."

When he was asked in '04 if Iraq was involved in 9/11, he said, "We don't know." Three years after the attack -- and he still didn't know? Even after they had tried every trick in the black book -- including torture -- to find a link?

And while Cheney's gotten more careful with his words over the years, he's never really stopped insinuating that there was a connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Indeed, as recently as two weeks ago in his big speech at the America Enterprise Institute, Cheney was still banging the drum about Saddam's "known ties to Mideast terrorists" as part of his rationale for invading Iraq and using torture.

Cheney's ongoing Forget Everything I Ever Told You Tour is historical revisionism at its most despicable.

And we are clearly watching a master manipulator at work. I've always felt that his best -- and by that I mean worst -- work was going on "Meet the Press" in 2002 to tell us about those ominous aluminum tubes and the "number of contacts over the years" between Al Qaeda and Iraq... or his repeated designed-to-terrify-voters warnings about nuclear attacks on US soil. But this ranks right up there.

In his interview with van Susteren, Cheney also backed away from his claim that the documents he wants the CIA to declassify would prove that torture was effective -- saying instead that they would offer a good summary of "what we learned" not just from waterboarding but the detainee interrogation program as a whole.

So, he gets all the media value and spin by originally making the claim that the intel documents would prove the value of torture - if only Obama would let the truth come out. Then he backs away from the claim, using weasel-words to give him sufficient wiggle room to say that what he really meant was that the overall interrogation program provided useful information -- not that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques did.

Perhaps it suddenly dawned on the former VP that he doesn't have the power to keep those documents classified any more -- and that he could be proven to be a liar (yet again) with the stroke of President Obama's pen. Hence the verbal tap-dancing.

But eventually the pile of lies may get so high that it will tumble down on him. For instance, it's not a very smart idea to go around saying that Richard Clarke missed the warning signs on bin Laden and 9/11 when there is email after email after email from the spring and summer of 2001 showing that it was actually Cheney and Bush who ignored the warning signs on bin Laden.

You know what they say about people living in glass houses? Well, people with a paper trail that proves they ignored the looming threat of al-Qaeda, sanctioned torture, and used lies and manipulated intelligence to get us into a war, shouldn't be so fast to throw stones either.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25179154-601,00.html

Bush shoe-thrower jailed for three years

BAGHDAD: AN Iraqi court has jailed for three years the journalist who shot to fame in the Arab world for throwing his shoes at former US president George W. Bush.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, a 30-year-old television journalist, had pleaded not guilty at the hearing in the Iraq Central Criminal Court to assaulting Bush during his farewell visit to Iraq last year.

"He was sentenced to three years in jail," defence lawyer Yahia Attabi told reporters outside the Baghdad court.

"We expected the decision because under the Iraqi criminal code he was charged with assaulting a foreign leader on an official visit," Attabi said, adding: "We will appeal this decision."

Zaidi, whose shoe-hurling gesture is considered a grave insult in the Arab and Muslim world, had risked up to 15 years in jail on the charge of aggression against a foreign head of state during an official visit.

The former US president, deeply unpopular in the Arab world for ordering the 2003 invasion of Iraq, had been at a globally-televised media conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki when Zaidi let rip with his shoes, zinging them at Bush, who managed to duck just in time.

When Judge Abdulamir Hassan al-Rubaie asked Zaidi if he was innocent, the journalist responded: "Yes, my reaction was natural, just like any Iraqi (would have done)."

After the verdict, his 25-strong defence team emerged to scenes of chaos outside the court, where several family members screamed: "It's an American court... sons of dogs."

Wearing a light-brown suit, brown sweatshirt and thin-framed glasses, Zaidi had been brought into the packed courtroom under a heavy police escort.

Chief defence lawyer Ehiya al-Sadi had argued that his client's motives were "honourable".

"He was only expressing his feelings. What he could see was the blood of Iraqis at his feet when he watched the US president speaking about his achievements in Iraq."

He also argued that although Iraqi law considered it an attack on a visiting head of state, "his throwing of the shoe did not cause any injury or damage.

"The president did not lose a leg or hand or finger. It was not an attempt to murder but an attempted assault.

"But it was not a real assault because he wanted to insult the president. The way he did it was buy throwing a shoe not a mortar or bomb.

"His goal was to insult Bush for the the pain Iraqis have suffered.

He asked for the court to consider Zaidi innocent and take note of the fact that he had already been in jail for three months.

The trial first opened on February 19 but was adjourned to determine the nature of Bush's December 14 visit. The judge told the court that government ministers had declared it official.

There was standing room only at the courtroom on the edge of Baghdad's high security Green Zone as some 200 family members, reporters and lawyers crowded in.

One of Zaidi's brothers, Uday, said he expected Muntazer to be found guilty, describing the trial as a "farce."

The Baghdadia television reporter told the court in February that he had been outraged and was unable to control his emotions when Bush started speaking at the December media conference.

"I had the feeling that the blood of innocent people was dropping on my feet during the time that he was smiling and coming to say bye-bye to Iraq with a dinner.

"So I took the first shoe and threw it but it did not hit him. Then spontaneously I took the second shoe but it did not hit him either. I was not trying to kill the commander of the occupation forces of Iraq."

As well as throwing the shoe, Zaidi also insulted Bush verbally, shouting: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," before security forces wrestled him to the ground.

Zaidi said he had been beaten and tortured while in custody.

His brothers said they wanted to bring torture charges against Bush, Maliki and his bodyguards at a human rights court in either Belgium or Spain.

A Syrian lawyer said she was preparing to file a complaint.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/world/middleeast/23widows.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

With Need Dire and Aid Scant, Iraq’s Widows Struggle

“If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and they don’t know about budgeting,” he said. “But if we find her a husband, there will be a person in charge of her and her children for the rest of their lives. This is according to our tradition and our laws.”

Abdulalah F. Alafar, who runs the Maryam Establishment for Children charity in Baghdad, said he had become so frustrated by the lack of government support that he had begun to turn away war widows. He said he planned to close his organization entirely this month.

“If the situation progresses, we will be just like India,” he said. Questioning the government’s priorities, he added, “They are busy building public fountains when we don’t have water in the sink.”

The trailer park, in Baghdad’s Al Shaab district, opened four months ago. Its 150 identical aluminum trailers sit in neat rows amid a vast field of puddles, their white exteriors already stained tan by blowing sand.

A short walk down a muddy path from Ms. Kadim’s trailer, Ahmed Hassan Sharmal, 58, and his extended family of 30 are moving into trailer numbers 39 and 40. Three of his daughters-in-law are widows. Fatherless children seem to fill every bit of the trailers’ available space, playing and giggling while their mothers wonder where everyone will sleep.

Mr. Sharmal, a Shiite, lost three sons to sectarian violence in Diyala Province, which was a center of the Sunni insurgency, during a 10-month period in 2006.

One son, a doctor, was killed in a parking garage as he walked to his car. A second died after gunmen sprayed bullets across a field of soccer players. The third, a police officer, was shot in the back of the head while on his way to work.

Jinan, 25, had been married to the doctor. She has no money and little freedom. One of her brothers-in-law, an unemployed former police officer, said he planned to marry her, a match arranged by her in-laws. As he spoke, her 4-year-old son squirmed in her mother-in-law’s lap.

Soon, Jinan will no longer be a widow, but she refuses to look at the man chosen to be her husband. As she hangs her head as if to cry, the conversation continues without her.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article21921.htm

Christian Support for Killing Iraqis By Jacob G. Hornberger February 07, 2009 "fff" - --- Among the things about the Iraq War that I have never been able to understand is how American Christians have been able, in good conscience, to support this war. After all, no one can deny that neither Iraq nor the Iraqi people ever attacked the United States. That makes the United States the aggressor — the attacker — in this particular conflict. How could American Christians support the killing of Iraqis in such a war of aggression? How could they reconcile this with God’s sacred commandment, Thou shalt not murder. One possibility is that Americans initially viewed the Iraq War as one of self-defense. Placing their trust in their president and vice-president, they came to the conclusion that Iraq was about to unleash WMDs on American cities. Therefore, they concluded, America had the right to defend itself from this imminent attack, much as an individual has the moral right to use deadly force to defend his life from someone who is trying to murder him. But once the WMDs failed to materialize, American Christians did not seem to engage in any remorse or regret over all the Iraqis who had been killed in the invasion. It was all marked up as simply an honest mistake. At the same time, hardly anyone called for a formal investigation into whether the president and the vice president had intentionally misled Americans into supporting the war based on bogus exaggerations of the WMD threat. After the WMDs failed to materialize, American Christians had an option: They could have called for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops. Instead, they did the exact opposite. They supported the continued occupation of Iraq, with full knowledge that U.S. troops would have to continue killing Iraqis in order to solidify the occupation. That’s when Christians began supporting a new rationale for killing Iraqis: that any Iraqi who resisted the U.S. invasion or occupation was a terrorist and, therefore, okay to kill. Since terrorists were bad people, the argument went, it was okay to support the killing of Iraqis who were resisting the invasion and occupation of their country. Yet, rarely would any Christian ask himself the important, soul-searching questions: Why didn’t Iraqis have the moral right to resist the invasion and occupation of their country, especially if that invasion and occupation had been based on a bogus principle (i.e., the WMD threat)? Why did their resistance convert them into terrorists? Why did U.S. troops have the moral and religious right to kill people who were defending their country from invasion and occupation? Instead, people in Christian churches all across the land simply just kept “supporting the troops.” I suspect part of the reasoning has to do with the mindset that is inculcated in public schools all across the land — that in war, it’s “our team” vs. “their team,” and that Americans have a moral duty to support “our team,” regardless of the facts. Among the most fascinating rationales for supporting the killing of Iraqis that American Christians have relied upon has been the mathematical argument. It goes like this: Saddam Hussein would have killed a larger number of Iraqis than the U.S. government has killed in the invasion and occupation. Therefore, the argument goes, it’s okay to support the invasion and occupation, which have killed countless Iraqis. But under Christian doctrine, does God really provide for a mathematical exception to his commandment against killing? Let’s see how such reasoning would be applied here at home. Let’s assume that the D.C. area is besieged by two snipers, who are killing people indiscriminately. Let’s assume that they’re killing people at the rate of 5 per month. That would mean that at the end of the year, they would have killed 60 people. One day, the cops learn that the two snipers are parked in a highway rest area. There are also 25 other people there, all Americans, men, women, and children, and all innocent. The Pentagon offers to drop a bomb on the parking lot, which would definitely snuff out the lives of the snipers. The problem is that it would also snuff out the lives of the other 25 people. Under Christian principles, would it be okay to drop the bomb? I would hope that most Christians would say, No! As Christians, we cannot kill innocent people even if by doing so, we rid the world of those snipers. If we cannot catch the snipers except by dropping the bomb, then we simply have to let them get away. God does not provide a mathematical justification for killing innocent people. Yet, isn’t that precisely the mathematical analysis that has been used by Christians to justify their support for the killing of Iraqis. What’s the difference? In their blind support for “our team” and for “supporting the troops” in Iraq, American Christians seem to have forgotten an important point about government and God: When the laws or actions of one’s government’s contradict the laws of God, the Christian has but one proper course of action — to leave behind the laws of man and to follow the laws of God.

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http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/123818/the_astounding_costs_of_the_iraq_occupation%3A_about_1_million_killed%2C_4.5_million_displaced%2C_1-2_million_widows%2C_5_million_orphans/

Iraq's Shocking Human Toll: About 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans

By John Tirman, The Nation. Posted February 2, 2009.

We are now able to estimate the number of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration. Looking at the empirical evidence of Bush's war legacy will put his claims of victory in perspective. Of course, even by his standards -- "stability" -- the jury is out. Most independent analysts would say it's too soon to judge the political outcome. Nearly six years after the invasion, the country remains riven by sectarian politics and major unresolved issues, like the status of Kirkuk.

We have a better grasp of the human costs of the war. For example, the United Nations estimates that there are about 4.5 million displaced Iraqis -- more than half of them refugees -- or about one in every six citizens. Only 5 percent have chosen to return to their homes over the past year, a period of reduced violence from the high levels of 2005-07. The availability of healthcare, clean water, functioning schools, jobs and so forth remains elusive. According to Unicef, many provinces report that less than 40 percent of households have access to clean water. More than 40 percent of children in Basra, and more than 70 percent in Baghdad, cannot attend school.

The mortality caused by the war is also high. Several household surveys were conducted between 2004 and 2007. While there are differences among them, the range suggests a congruence of estimates. But none have been conducted for eighteen months, and the two most reliable surveys were completed in mid-2006. The higher of those found 650,000 "excess deaths" (mortality attributable to war); the other yielded 400,000. The war remained ferocious for twelve to fifteen months after those surveys were finished and then began to subside. Iraq Body Count, a London NGO that uses English-language press reports from Iraq to count civilian deaths, provides a means to update the 2006 estimates. While it is known to be an undercount, because press reports are incomplete and Baghdad-centric, IBC nonetheless provides useful trends, which are striking. Its estimates are nearing 100,000, more than double its June 2006 figure of 45,000. (It does not count nonviolent excess deaths -- from health emergencies, for example -- or insurgent deaths.) If this is an acceptable marker, a plausible estimate of total deaths can be calculated by doubling the totals of the 2006 household surveys, which used a much more reliable and sophisticated method for estimates that draws on long experience in epidemiology. So we have, at present, between 800,000 and 1.3 million "excess deaths" as we approach the six-year anniversary of this war.

This gruesome figure makes sense when reading of claims by Iraqi officials that there are 1-2 million war widows and 5 million orphans. This constitutes direct empirical evidence of total excess mortality and indirect, though confirming, evidence of the displaced and the bereaved and of general insecurity. The overall figures are stunning: 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows, 5 million orphans, about 1 million dead -- in one way or another, affecting nearly one in two Iraqis.

By any sensible measure, it would be difficult to describe this as a victory of any kind. It speaks volumes about the repair work we must do for Iraqis, and it should caution us against the savage wars we are prone to. Now that Bush is gone, perhaps the United States can honestly face the damage we have wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319

.......

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50

Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069

Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on information from a single defector: 100

Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents: 0

Date on which Bush said of Osama bin Laden, “I truly am not that concerned about him”: 3/13/02

Days after the U.S. invaded Iraq that Sony trademarked “Shock & Awe” for video games: 1

Days later that the company gave up the trademark, citing “regrettable bad judgment”: 25

Number of books by Henry Kissinger found in Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz’s mansion: 2

Number by then–New York Times reporter Judith Miller: 1

Factor by which an Iraqi in 2006 was more likely to die than in the last year of the Saddam regime: 3.6

Factor by which the cause of death was more likely to be violence: 120

Chance that an Iraqi has fled his or her home since the beginning of the war: 1 in 6

Portion of Baghdad residents in 2007 who had a family member or friend wounded or killed since 2003: 3/4

Percentage of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have filed for disability with the VA: 35

Chance that an Iraq war veteran who has served two or more tours now has post-traumatic stress disorder: 1 in 4

Number of all U.S. war veterans who have been denied Veterans Administration health care since 2003: 452,677

Number of eligibility restrictions for admission into the Army that have been loosened since 2003: 9

Percentage change from 2004 to 2007 in the number of Army recruits admitted despite having been charged with a felony: +295

Date on which the White House announced it had stopped looking for WMDs in Iraq: 1/12/05

.......

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/installed+Iraqi+says+Bush+utter+failure/1138511/story.html

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/111104/

Bush Tries to Whitewash History; Portrays Himself as a Victim

By Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect. Posted December 17, 2008.

It's tiresome to need to point this out at this late date but, yes, George W. Bush and his administration misled the country while making the case for war with Iraq and, remarkably, are still trying to mislead people about it. In a Dec. 1 interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson, Bush said that "the biggest regret" of his presidency was "the intelligence failure in Iraq."

In other words, his biggest regret wasn't regret over anything he did but rather regret over something that was done to him, a vague "intelligence failure" rather than a misguided decision to invade another country. Bush explained that "a lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence."

This is, even by Bush standards, a pretty breathtaking revision of history. In fact, very few members of Congress looked at the intelligence -- Thomas Ricks reports in his book Fiasco that just five read the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities. But had more members taken the time, they would have found what Spencer Ackerman and John Judis reported back in June of 2003 -- that the Bush administration removed a number of caveats and contrary pieces of evidence from the classified version of the estimate when producing a shorter, unclassified version for public consumption. More curious investigators might have been further interested in the fact, reported in the same piece, that even the more accurate classified version represented a dramatic change in the intelligence community's assessment of the Iraq situation. As Judis and Ackerman observe, when George Tenet offered his January 2002 review of nuclear proliferation issues "he did not even mention a nuclear threat from Iraq."

The main thing that changed over the course of 2002 wasn't anything about the intelligence, it was the fact that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq. Consequently, a new, more alarmist intelligence estimate was written up. Then a more alarmist redacted version was released to the public. And the administration's public statements were more alarming still. There were real intelligence failures here, but they were and are dwarfed by the policy failure. This failure was driven by administration hawks such as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith who appear to have embraced the deluded conspiracy theories of American Enterprise Institute adjunct fellow Laurie Mylroie (who thanks Wolfowitz in the introduction to her conspiracy-mongering book) and Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes (who followed up his entry into the genre with an authorized biography of Dick Cheney) who placed Saddam Hussein at the center of anti-American terrorism around the globe.

This policy failure persisted, of course, up until the very moment at which the decision to go to war was made. By that moment, though few in the United States ever seem inclined to remember it, whatever intelligence failures may or may not have occurred were irrelevant. Inspectors from
the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. were on the ground in Iraq, chasing down leads and searching for illicit weapons of mass destruction programs. They found some missiles whose ranges slightly exceeded what Iraq was permitted to have, and the missiles were duly dismantled. And before the invasion began, Mohammed El Barradei of the IAEA and Hans Blix, then a chief weapons inspector for the U.N., were both telling the world that they'd found no evidence of active weapons of mass destruction programs. Both told the administration that if it had additional intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, it ought to hand that information over to the inspectors so they could check it out.

Instead, Bush decided to invade.

The result has been the death of more Americans than were killed on September 11 and serious injuries to thousands more Americans. An unknown number of Iraqis -- perhaps hundreds of thousands -- have died in the resulting chaos, and millions have been displaced from their homes. Important American strategic objectives were left unfulfilled in Afghanistan, the once-promising prospects for a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran were scuttled, and North Korea accelerated its own proliferation activities. And all this at a fiscal cost in excess of $100 billion a year for a conflict that will be longer than the Civil War or World War II when it's done. That -- not bad intelligence -- is something to regret.

Meanwhile, one might wonder how Bush is able to get away with such bald-faced deceptions. The answer, unfortunately, goes beyond the fecklessness of the media. As Greg Sargent at the blog Talking Points Memo observes, "many supporters of the war -- Dems and liberal hawks included -- also have a vested interest in pretending that the good intel never existed and those inspectors never said what they said." There were some, of course, like former Sen. Bob Graham and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both former chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who did the work, read the reports, and refused to back the war. But many, such as key Democratic Party leaders including incoming Vice President Joe Biden and incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, did otherwise.

In the interests of party unity and moving forward with as strong a team as possible, President-elect Barack Obama has followed up a successful primary campaign based largely on a critique of these Democratic hawks' poor judgment with a spirit of reconciliation rather than an attempted purge. That's probably the right move, but it, combined with many Democratic leaders' bad record on this issue, means that there's no vigorous opposition to Bush's efforts to rewrite history. And that, in turn, is something we may have occasion to regret someday. Perhaps some future president will decide to repeat Bush's mistakes. Then one must fear that future legislators will repeat those of the members of Congress who failed to seriously challenge the president's distortions around Iraq and suffered so little for it personally, while the country and the world suffered so much.

Reprinted with permission from Matthew Yglesias. "Bush's Pity Party," The American Prospect Online: December 4, 2008. www.prospect.org. The American Prospect, 1710 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC, 20036. All rights reserved.