Apparently some analyst recently tweeted that he still stands by his judgment that Bush lied to get us into war with Iraq in 2003, leading off with this argument:
In October 2002, Bush said that Saddam Hussein had a "massive stockpile" of biological weapons. But as CIA Director George Tenet noted in early 2004, the CIA had informed policymakers it had "no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons agent or stockpiles at Baghdad's disposal." The "massive stockpile" was just literally made up.
I followed that first link. Bush said:
In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions.
What Tenet said--even if the author accurately relayed the context of that quote--did not dispute what Bush said. Bush said they produced a massive stockpile. That is true.
Tenet said that we had no evidence that Saddam had that stockpile. That was also true.
It is also rather irrelevant because under the 1991 ceasefire terms Saddam had an obligation to prove he destroyed his WMD stocks, equipment, and raw materials. Not only did Saddam not do that he embarked on a new program of biological weapons that we found out about in 1995. And he did not demonstrate what happened to the production.
The ceasefire did not authorize a massive hide and seek game that required America to prove Saddam had WMD.
So the author, who I've seen in the past occasionally and dismiss as a serious analyst, completely took those two words out of context (literally making it up?). And that was his first so-called evidence. I didn't bother with the rest, but I assume it is safe to say that he was just as rigorous with his research and analysis.
For a thorough examination of the question (and other issues) I suggest Learning Curve's examination at his stand-alone site.
At this point, as I wrote, people who still claim Bush 43 lied us into the Iraq War are themselves lying--or have no excuse for still being completely wrong. I quoted Hans Blix from January 2003 extensively in that post. Do read it all.
Just as frustrating to me is that people think we lost the war. Iraq was enough of a victory that Obama boasted that we had left a sovereign, stable, and self reliant-Iraq, while Biden boasted that Iraq would be one of the administration's great achievements.
And note that Obama--to his credit despite his error of walking away--embarked on Iraq War 2.0 to retrieve the situation in Iraq after the ISIL onslaught in 2014.
Truly, I am amazed at how easily our victory is overlooked.
UPDATE: Thoughts on the Army study on the anniversary of the Iraq War. I don't see how an earlier publication would have helped with dealing with the ISIL caliphate which was a proto-state and not an insurgency.
I also contest the idea that a surge conducted earlier than 2007 would have worked since in the summer of 2006 we had two surges into Baghdad that failed miserably to suppress the escalating sectarian killings that took off after the bombing of the Samarra Golden Dome Mosque early in the year.
People forget that the vital partners of the surge of troops to secure the Baghdad region was both a COIN approach and the Awakening that led Sunni Arabs to switch sides to oppose al Qaeda rather than be a part of that insurgency.
And a rare defense of the war here. Although I dispute the idea that disbanding the Iraqi army was a mistake (or even actually done since it self-disbanded during the war). And I have other quibbles over the scale or impact of other mistakes noted. But yeah, the war was justified and we won it.
UPDATE: Eric has more on the pre-war intelligence (and other issues).
