Planned incompetence

By Libby

I think we've been giving the Commander Guy a bad rap. He's not as clueless or incompetent as we thought he was. He did have a plan. He clearly wanted a war that would haunt America for generations and his plan is working perfectly -- well except for the part where he's being exposed as a pathological liar. I'd guess he never counted on having to account for why he ignored these reports.

WASHINGTON — Two months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies twice warned the Bush administration that establishing a democracy there would prove difficult and that Al Qaeda would use political instability to increase its operations, according to a Senate report released Friday.

The report, issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee, brought to light once-classified warnings that accurately forecasted many of the military and political problems the Bush administration and Iraqi officials have faced since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

These warnings were distributed to senior officials with daily access to President Bush and others at the very top of the administration, the report states.

If you read the list of bullet points at the link, every one of those warnings came true. So why would the Great Decider deliberately ignore and fail to disclose these salient points to the Congress and the people in his selling of the war? One can only conclude it's because that is the exactly the result he intended from the beginning. Not that he isn't trying to cover up by playing the incompetency card.

President Bush said at a news conference Thursday that his administration was "warned about a lot of things, some of which happened, some of which didn't happen."

But, he added, "The world's better off without Saddam Hussein in power. I know the Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein in power. I think America is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. As to al-Qaida in Iraq, al-Qaida's going to fight us wherever we are."

The only predictions that didn't come true were his and Cheney and Rumsfeld's rosy predictions of a fast clean war with a quick getaway. Of course, the public wouldn't have bought into the invasion in the first place if he had shared the damaging intelligence and his real plan, instead of the discredited reports he chose to selectively leak.

This report is long in coming and almost five years too late.
Steve Benen posting at TPM has a timeline on the delay and ultimate refusal to complete this report under the GOP rubberstamp Congress who preferred to keep Americans in the dark about the President's wilful incompetence in order to protect their electoral interests in 04.

Steve also raises an interesting question.

In January 2007, after the Senate changed hands, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) agreed that it was finally time to take this investigation seriously.

As for why Rockefeller and committee Dems decided to release the report on a Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend ... well, I can't figure that one out.

I'm afraid the answer to that is the Democrats have no real interest in ending the occupation either. They appear to prefer to make political hay with its continued failures while pretending to be against it, than actually act in the best interests of the country and bring this debacle to a long overdue close.