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The Crumbling Case for War
It is a little frustrating to write that the main hope is that the American people will be more vigilant the next time a president and his administration put on a full court press on behalf of a dubious war. At this time, however, it is probably the best we can hope for. It is fine to entertain the distant hope that various scandals and evidence of untruths will lead to the downfall or even the widespread discrediting of the Bush administration and its decision to invade Iraq. It is more likely, however, that the effect will be more subtle and cumulative – and it might not happen at all.

Nonetheless, critics of the war on Iraq can be fairly comfortable in the knowledge that most of the criticisms of the decision-making processes leading up to the invasion of Iraq were seriously flawed and that the war was unjustified. Who says so? Most members of the administration now admit it, and a former member has come out (perhaps naively believing that his wealth will shield him from damage) with criticisms blazing. A new study published by the Army War College even concludes that the war in Iraq "was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al Qaida."

THE VERDICT

The verdict is in. Weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq. No clear (though perhaps a fuzzy and ambivalent) connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida – before 9/11 – has been discovered. Evidence from inside the National Security Council has emerged that top Bush administration officials were determined to wage war on Iraq even before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. ...

...On Sunday, of course, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill made his splash, as the chief on-the-record source for a new book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty. "From the very beginning [of the administration, in January 2001, well before the terrorist attacks] there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," Mr. O'Neill told "Sixty Minutes."

Specifically, Mr. O'Neill, who as Treasury Secretary was a permanent member of the national security Council, says that the topic of Saddam came up at the first NSC meeting he attended. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it," said O'Neill. "The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.' For me the notion of pre-emption [a misnomer, I would argue], that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."...